Also, just because it runs Windows, Linux or OS X doesn't mean that it's a PC either. =) A server usually isn't considered a personal computer for instance, and there are lots of servers running Windows, Linux or OS X.
One thing to consider about any weapon-grade laser is that, apart from deforming or vaporizing the target, it will probably also blind any military personnel, civilian or animal not wearing protective goggles in a rather wide area. Thus, I personally think that laser weapons (including defensive laser weapons) should be banned internationally with severe actions against any nation who use them. They should be treated the same way as biological and chemical weapons.
If people actually didn't buy games that couldn't be sold second hand, game studios that only produces such games would loose income. Most would be forced to either go out of business or change their business method into something that works.
If selling games with one-time use codes works and even leads to increased income so that all game studios change all their games into this type, that's the fault of the consumer, not of the producer.
Sorry, didn't mean to sound snide, but sometimes it seems like lots of drivers look at speed limits as the lowest speed that they can be expected to keep. It is problematic when traffic lights are configured in a way that makes accidents more likely than they have to. Where I come from, this is even more problematic, since there was a change in the traffic rules a few years back that made it illegal to pass a yellow light. When the lights switch from green to yellow, you are supposed to stop. Don't understand why they even bother to still have the yellow light any more since yellow == red. Really idiotic rule.
Regarding driving experience, I have actually worked both as a truck driver and as a drive tester for a mobile operator before going into IT, so I've spent a fair share of hours behind the wheel. Never the less, I feel that rather often it seems like the people who should be the most experienced, best and safest drivers around, like truck drivers, bus drivers, taxi drivers and others who spend their entire days driving, instead drive like drunk monkeys who's stumbled into a motor vehicle by accident. Especially taxi and bus drivers often fall into this category, but I've seen truck drivers do some really retarded stuff too...
The speed limit is the maximum allowed speed, but if the vehicle or external factors make that speed dangerous, you really shouldn't be driving that fast when, for instance, approaching an intersection.
Hehe... Used to both go to and organize Demo-parties, before they all became game-centric and started to be called LAN-parties. One of the biggest I was involved with that actually had a LAN hosted over 500 computers networked in a 10Mbps 10Base-2 coaxial cable network. I was, amongst other things, doing network-tech duty and keeping such a network free from too long segments, loops, broken cables and all sorts of strange connection, like someone cascading lots of BNC-t's in order to connect several computers, is no easy task. Especially since people brought their own coaxial cables of random length and quality and constantly during the 3 or 4 days reconnected the network in random ways...:)
When you install an application in Android, you get told what resources this application will have access to and then you can choose if you want to install it or not. Many, maybe even most people, will gladly install, say, a card-game that requires access to your location, modem, call-log, pictures and what-not...
Just like how people are willing to enter their password and/or simply click "yes", "allow" or "next" on any requester that pops up while installing a random stuff off the Internet in their Windows, OS X or Linux installation, people will keep installing software that request access to their filesystem straight through any sandbox.
Security that relies on the user to make smart and informed choices is no security at all in lots of cases. Mostly because many do not understand, or can't be bothered to learn how to understand what it is that they are being asked. If a sandbox where you can grant an application access to local resources are to be safe, it has to be complicated enough to grant such access that people who do not understand the dangers don't understand how to grant the access. A simple requester saying "Do you want to give criminals access to all your files? Yes / No" is not enough if people press Yes without reading the requester.
Actually, if it is cold and snowy up in the mountains, the glaciers will move faster. And more bits will fall off the end of the glacier, more rapidly.
As long as the temperature isn't too high, a higher temperature should result in more snow since there will be more water vapour in the air. This, of course, is under the assumption that the temperature is still well below 0C.
I know for a fact that my speedometer, like most, shows a bit to much. In my case, rather exactly 10% too much. (Checked with multiple GPS-navigators) So if I keep the speed limit with regards to my own meter, I can vary upwards with 12 - 15 km/h if the posted speed is 90 (where I live, speed cameras have a 5 - 10 km/h leeway), thus I don't have to be anxious. It's rather easy to not go 15 km/h too fast if I'm the least bit active while driving.
The biggest safety advantage of people following the traffic rules instead of disregarding them, for instance keeping the posted speed limit where it feels safe to go faster, is predictability. If I can expect that the drivers around me follow rules like speed limit, traffic lights, stop signs, etc, no matter if they are "sensible" or not, then I can predict what they will do, where they will be in a few seconds and how they will react to what I do. If someone feels that "I can safely go 20 km/h faster than everybody else." or "I'm in a hurry, so I'll run this red light and then overtake that car on the inside." or simply change lanes without using their blinkers, they are unpredictable and thus also dangerous.
Also, even though there are places where it feels like the speed limit is ridiculously low, there are also places where the reason behind the limit isn't obviously visible. Keeping the 30 km/h limit makes sense if there's a hidden elementary school behind the houses closest to the street, and I can't count how many times I've seen idiots drive heavy vehicles at 80 km/h through small towns where it is utter idiocy to keep such speeds due to there being residential areas close to the road.
The "sync" system in Itunes has always been one of my biggest issues with having an Iphone. Since I really loathe Itunes, I rarely use it and thus usually have never synced the phone with my current computer. Once in a while I do connect it to make backups, transfer photos, update the OS or add some new music to the device, though I usually listen to internet-radio due to Itunes being a requirement to add music. I usually don't activate any synchronisation due to the exact issue you had.
I never want to replace the data in the phone with the data on the computer, since the phone always have more current data that the computer. Apple always want me to replace the data on the phone with the data on the computer.
Yesterday, I did the same dance in order to activate sync for the first time without loosing any data, though, since this is a requirement to update to IOS5 without loosing data. *sigh* Nerve wrecking is describing it mildly. =/
The persons who did the software design choices in the development of Itunes should be prohibited from working with any kind of software design ever again.
But if I, as a foreigner who's not really up to speed on the law or the legal system in the USA, has got this right, this particular law is not secret as such... As I understand it, this is a law that mainly regulate how the government is allowed to act against the USA citizens. The problem is that the USA government doesn't let the USA citizens know what it is or isn't allowed to do, so the citizens have no way of knowing if their government is breaking the law or not. If the NY Times loose this lawsuit, it is even upheld in court that it is illegal for a USA citizen to know what its government is allowed to do.
Really strange situation.
It really ought to be illegal for any government to keep any secrets from it's citizens. I mean, the government work for the citizens, not the other way around.
Never shop there again, try go get everyone you know, work with or have other connections with to stop shopping there. If lots of people do that, this is a self-solving problem. A company in a non-monopoly environment and whose business it is to sell stuff can not afford to have customer-hostile policies, unless the customers allow it.
It probably works better if you also make sure that the management of the place knows what you are doing and why... Of course, in the UK you probably can get sued for defamation if you do this... =/ A statement being true isn't always protection against this, since the accused have the burden of proving his/her statement to be true rather than the accuser having to prove that it's not.
Even then, how could she be sure that it isn't a humanoid robot stuck in a spacesuit waving back, or a video projected onto the surface of the moon from hidden projectors. =-P
Same problem as when discussing religion and semi-religious stuff like "intelligent design"-crap with people who actually believes in it.
Personally, I think that each and every kill in a war should be personal in order to make the killer accountable if the killing turns out to be the murder of a civilian. If robots/drones are used to kill in a war, the person who authorized their use should face one murder-trial for every single civilian murder that happens during the war.
Actually, Microsoft had their own ISO-mount software for quite some time (10 years or so), so you didn't even need third party software until recently. It's just that it wasn't installed as standard, you needed to go to Microsofts website and download it yourself. Unfortunately, it apparently violated GPL so MS had to take it down a while ago.
Not to mention that a government has no business keeping secrets from its citizens. In fact, there should be international laws against governments keeping secrets from its citizens.
If people in my government don't like me knowing what they do, they shouldn't be doing it!
Since most created for cinema media is in a wider aspect than 16:9, you still get the black strips while watching movies, unless you employ the old 4:3 trick of croping the sides.
Yes, a ground-effect train would require more energy to propel at a certain speed than a mag-lev train of similar mass and size, but there are other areas where both energy and cost savings are made. It would require a lot of energy and cost a lot both to produce the materials needed and during the construction of a mag-lev rail network. A ground-effect "rail" is basically a concrete culvert. Takes much less energy, resources and money to build and maintain. Then we have the energy needed to, as you mentioned, cool the electromagnets and the energy needed to lift the train, since without power to the magnets, it will sit on the track, unless the lift is created by using permanent magnets...
The biggest problems that I can see with ground-effect trains is that they'll have to bring the energy needed, just like a air plane.. A mag-lev train can be powered by the track itself. Also, a ground-effect train can not run slow, for instance while going through urban areas or for other reasons. Well, it can, but then it's running on wheels and will probably use more energy than a regular train. A mag-lev is still energy-efficient at 30 km/h. There is also the issues with how well it handles snowstorms, or even regular storms.
If you exchange documents and files with other users, having anti-virus and anti-malware software or not is not only an issue for your own protection. Even if you run on a system that you believe to be safe from those kinds of infections, you might spread it to other users if you ever pass on files that you get from others. This might not be of any importance to you personally, but in a large organization it might be of vital importance that malicious software can't "hide" in unprotected systems of other flavours that it was designed for.
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Also, just because it runs Windows, Linux or OS X doesn't mean that it's a PC either. =)
A server usually isn't considered a personal computer for instance, and there are lots of servers running Windows, Linux or OS X.
One thing to consider about any weapon-grade laser is that, apart from deforming or vaporizing the target, it will probably also blind any military personnel, civilian or animal not wearing protective goggles in a rather wide area.
Thus, I personally think that laser weapons (including defensive laser weapons) should be banned internationally with severe actions against any nation who use them.
They should be treated the same way as biological and chemical weapons.
If you want to do something criminal or unethical, do it somewhere where it's not...
If people actually didn't buy games that couldn't be sold second hand, game studios that only produces such games would loose income.
Most would be forced to either go out of business or change their business method into something that works.
If selling games with one-time use codes works and even leads to increased income so that all game studios change all their games into this type, that's the fault of the consumer, not of the producer.
Religious people are scary...
Sorry, didn't mean to sound snide, but sometimes it seems like lots of drivers look at speed limits as the lowest speed that they can be expected to keep.
It is problematic when traffic lights are configured in a way that makes accidents more likely than they have to. Where I come from, this is even more problematic, since there was a change in the traffic rules a few years back that made it illegal to pass a yellow light. When the lights switch from green to yellow, you are supposed to stop. Don't understand why they even bother to still have the yellow light any more since yellow == red. Really idiotic rule.
Regarding driving experience, I have actually worked both as a truck driver and as a drive tester for a mobile operator before going into IT, so I've spent a fair share of hours behind the wheel. Never the less, I feel that rather often it seems like the people who should be the most experienced, best and safest drivers around, like truck drivers, bus drivers, taxi drivers and others who spend their entire days driving, instead drive like drunk monkeys who's stumbled into a motor vehicle by accident. Especially taxi and bus drivers often fall into this category, but I've seen truck drivers do some really retarded stuff too...
The speed limit is the maximum allowed speed, but if the vehicle or external factors make that speed dangerous, you really shouldn't be driving that fast when, for instance, approaching an intersection.
Hehe... Used to both go to and organize Demo-parties, before they all became game-centric and started to be called LAN-parties. :)
One of the biggest I was involved with that actually had a LAN hosted over 500 computers networked in a 10Mbps 10Base-2 coaxial cable network.
I was, amongst other things, doing network-tech duty and keeping such a network free from too long segments, loops, broken cables and all sorts of strange connection, like someone cascading lots of BNC-t's in order to connect several computers, is no easy task.
Especially since people brought their own coaxial cables of random length and quality and constantly during the 3 or 4 days reconnected the network in random ways...
When you install an application in Android, you get told what resources this application will have access to and then you can choose if you want to install it or not.
Many, maybe even most people, will gladly install, say, a card-game that requires access to your location, modem, call-log, pictures and what-not...
Just like how people are willing to enter their password and/or simply click "yes", "allow" or "next" on any requester that pops up while installing a random stuff off the Internet in their Windows, OS X or Linux installation, people will keep installing software that request access to their filesystem straight through any sandbox.
Security that relies on the user to make smart and informed choices is no security at all in lots of cases.
Mostly because many do not understand, or can't be bothered to learn how to understand what it is that they are being asked.
If a sandbox where you can grant an application access to local resources are to be safe, it has to be complicated enough to grant such access that people who do not understand the dangers don't understand how to grant the access.
A simple requester saying "Do you want to give criminals access to all your files? Yes / No" is not enough if people press Yes without reading the requester.
Actually, if it is cold and snowy up in the mountains, the glaciers will move faster. And more bits will fall off the end of the glacier, more rapidly.
As long as the temperature isn't too high, a higher temperature should result in more snow since there will be more water vapour in the air.
This, of course, is under the assumption that the temperature is still well below 0C.
I know for a fact that my speedometer, like most, shows a bit to much. In my case, rather exactly 10% too much. (Checked with multiple GPS-navigators)
So if I keep the speed limit with regards to my own meter, I can vary upwards with 12 - 15 km/h if the posted speed is 90 (where I live, speed cameras have a 5 - 10 km/h leeway), thus I don't have to be anxious.
It's rather easy to not go 15 km/h too fast if I'm the least bit active while driving.
The biggest safety advantage of people following the traffic rules instead of disregarding them, for instance keeping the posted speed limit where it feels safe to go faster, is predictability.
If I can expect that the drivers around me follow rules like speed limit, traffic lights, stop signs, etc, no matter if they are "sensible" or not, then I can predict what they will do, where they will be in a few seconds and how they will react to what I do.
If someone feels that "I can safely go 20 km/h faster than everybody else." or "I'm in a hurry, so I'll run this red light and then overtake that car on the inside." or simply change lanes without using their blinkers, they are unpredictable and thus also dangerous.
Also, even though there are places where it feels like the speed limit is ridiculously low, there are also places where the reason behind the limit isn't obviously visible.
Keeping the 30 km/h limit makes sense if there's a hidden elementary school behind the houses closest to the street, and I can't count how many times I've seen idiots drive heavy vehicles at 80 km/h through small towns where it is utter idiocy to keep such speeds due to there being residential areas close to the road.
The "sync" system in Itunes has always been one of my biggest issues with having an Iphone.
Since I really loathe Itunes, I rarely use it and thus usually have never synced the phone with my current computer.
Once in a while I do connect it to make backups, transfer photos, update the OS or add some new music to the device, though I usually listen to internet-radio due to Itunes being a requirement to add music.
I usually don't activate any synchronisation due to the exact issue you had.
I never want to replace the data in the phone with the data on the computer, since the phone always have more current data that the computer.
Apple always want me to replace the data on the phone with the data on the computer.
Yesterday, I did the same dance in order to activate sync for the first time without loosing any data, though, since this is a requirement to update to IOS5 without loosing data. *sigh*
Nerve wrecking is describing it mildly. =/
The persons who did the software design choices in the development of Itunes should be prohibited from working with any kind of software design ever again.
But if I, as a foreigner who's not really up to speed on the law or the legal system in the USA, has got this right, this particular law is not secret as such...
As I understand it, this is a law that mainly regulate how the government is allowed to act against the USA citizens.
The problem is that the USA government doesn't let the USA citizens know what it is or isn't allowed to do, so the citizens have no way of knowing if their government is breaking the law or not.
If the NY Times loose this lawsuit, it is even upheld in court that it is illegal for a USA citizen to know what its government is allowed to do.
Really strange situation.
It really ought to be illegal for any government to keep any secrets from it's citizens.
I mean, the government work for the citizens, not the other way around.
Never shop there again, try go get everyone you know, work with or have other connections with to stop shopping there.
If lots of people do that, this is a self-solving problem.
A company in a non-monopoly environment and whose business it is to sell stuff can not afford to have customer-hostile policies, unless the customers allow it.
It probably works better if you also make sure that the management of the place knows what you are doing and why... Of course, in the UK you probably can get sued for defamation if you do this... =/
A statement being true isn't always protection against this, since the accused have the burden of proving his/her statement to be true rather than the accuser having to prove that it's not.
Even then, how could she be sure that it isn't a humanoid robot stuck in a spacesuit waving back, or a video projected onto the surface of the moon from hidden projectors. =-P
Same problem as when discussing religion and semi-religious stuff like "intelligent design"-crap with people who actually believes in it.
Personally, I think that each and every kill in a war should be personal in order to make the killer accountable if the killing turns out to be the murder of a civilian.
If robots/drones are used to kill in a war, the person who authorized their use should face one murder-trial for every single civilian murder that happens during the war.
Hehe. They should have called it "A4" and have a A4-sized screen.
Would be perfect for reviewing reports and stuff where the intended size is A4.
On the other hand, a A1-sized tablet would be a fearsome beast indeed. =)
Actually, Microsoft had their own ISO-mount software for quite some time (10 years or so), so you didn't even need third party software until recently.
It's just that it wasn't installed as standard, you needed to go to Microsofts website and download it yourself.
Unfortunately, it apparently violated GPL so MS had to take it down a while ago.
Not to mention that a government has no business keeping secrets from its citizens.
In fact, there should be international laws against governments keeping secrets from its citizens.
If people in my government don't like me knowing what they do, they shouldn't be doing it!
Since most created for cinema media is in a wider aspect than 16:9, you still get the black strips while watching movies, unless you employ the old 4:3 trick of croping the sides.
Or you can use 1280x720 without scaling on the 1366x768 screen. Better quality but a little bit smaller picture...
Pay for function, not form.
Yes, a ground-effect train would require more energy to propel at a certain speed than a mag-lev train of similar mass and size, but there are other areas where both energy and cost savings are made.
It would require a lot of energy and cost a lot both to produce the materials needed and during the construction of a mag-lev rail network. A ground-effect "rail" is basically a concrete culvert. Takes much less energy, resources and money to build and maintain.
Then we have the energy needed to, as you mentioned, cool the electromagnets and the energy needed to lift the train, since without power to the magnets, it will sit on the track, unless the lift is created by using permanent magnets...
The biggest problems that I can see with ground-effect trains is that they'll have to bring the energy needed, just like a air plane.. A mag-lev train can be powered by the track itself.
Also, a ground-effect train can not run slow, for instance while going through urban areas or for other reasons. Well, it can, but then it's running on wheels and will probably use more energy than a regular train. A mag-lev is still energy-efficient at 30 km/h.
There is also the issues with how well it handles snowstorms, or even regular storms.
If you exchange documents and files with other users, having anti-virus and anti-malware software or not is not only an issue for your own protection.
Even if you run on a system that you believe to be safe from those kinds of infections, you might spread it to other users if you ever pass on files that you get from others.
This might not be of any importance to you personally, but in a large organization it might be of vital importance that malicious software can't "hide" in unprotected systems of other flavours that it was designed for.