I would mod this up if I could. It almost defeats the purpose of having a pocketable Mp3 player if you keep having to pull it out of your pocket and stare at it to do trivial things like adjust volume. I have an older car with a tape deck which I hook up to my mp3 player via a tape adapter. My MP3 player had hard buttons for volume and track skipping, which I am thankful for when traveling 75mph. I recently lost this MP3 player and was contemplating a 2nd gen nano, but upon hearing it lacks volume controls, I'm pretty turned off to it.
I also read in the full article that Jobs' button-jihad was responsible for those wretched single-button apple mouses I hated using in high school. I think its this form over function sense I consistently get from Apple that makes it so hard for me to warm up to their products.
I wholeheartedly agree. This strikes me as an egregious example of 'form over function'. The same thing is happening in the world of digital photography (a casual hobby of mine), menu-driven interfaces are replacing dedicated buttons for many frequently changed parameters in an attempt to make the devices more clean-looking, or leave room for increasingly larger screens (I think there's some cost-savings at work too...). The downside to this is digging through menus can not be done by touch, and takes longer than pressing a few buttons, the delay often being the difference between missing a picture and getting it.
No matter how slick an interface is, for almost all my electronics, I'd rather have a button for primary functions.
I believe the full article said it's designed to be unmanned, regardless, reconnaissance aircraft are the best candidates for going unmanned, the missions tend to be simple, tedious, often dangerous, and requiring little extemporaneous thinking.
Actually I found some even better information on their site: http://www.verticalfarm.com/plans-2k5.htm
I read the whole thing, it's a really fascinating study about the requirements of building a vertical farm capable of feeding 50k people while remaining off the grid.
A pdf on the site, besides containing many interesting sketches and models, also makes the claim that cleverly integrated wind power generators allow the building to be 'off the grid' http://www.verticalfarm.com/images/design/ip/Waimo nd_Ip.pdf I'm suspicious, but it sounds like they're making the attempt.
As you state, DSLRs already have fairly decent sensitivity, so this is not likely to be a good compromise for them.
Modern 'compact' digital cameras, however, which stuff 7-12 megapixels on 1/1.8" and 1/2.5" sensors (smaller than your fingernail) could benifit enormously from this. These sensors are already past the diffraction limit of most of the lenses, so a drop in color resolution may not be too damaging (the eye being less sensitive to color resolution, than luminance anyway). Kodak is claiming a 1-2 stop increase in sensitivity, which would be a great benefit to anyone using a compact inside, or in other poor light. (I have yet to own a camera that performs well above ISO 200)
As with all such tech announcements the proof is in the pudding, and until we can compare full size samples to conventional bayer sensors, its hard to tell if this is the next big thing or not.
That part is indeed troubling,
where is the line drawn with respect to "impersonating a police officer". I'd estimate well in excess of 40% of the people they'd run into would believe they were cops, and probably twice that number wouldn't be certain enough to argue with them.
If you hadn't heard of the RIAA would you see one of these guys and think "oh that's not a real cop, nothing to see here..."
System Shock was absolutely my favorite game from my childhood (ish).
Believe it or not, my sister and I used to play coop multiplayer on easy difficulty.
If you're thinking "but wait, SS1 didnt have that feature" you'd be right, she controlled the guns and torso, and I handled movement, navigation and some non-weapon equipment. We were pretty young, and playing it solo seemed too daunting (also this was a lot of fun).
SS2 was pretty awesome too, if you snuck up behind me in the dark and moaned "Killl meee" and hit me with a cardboard tube, I'd still jump...
From the full article:
"Get involved with the cost analysis
I'm interested in what both Windows and Mac people have to say about comparing the value of these two types of computers. There are a lot of ways to look at this. I just want to ask the people who heavily disagree with me to do these two things: 1) Read what I've written carefully, and 2) do your own homework. Don't make assumptions about pricing without doing a tech spec comparison of directly comparable Apple and PC equipment."
That's really all there is to it, crunch the numbers, and in doing so, avoid making mistakes.
Of course there's more than just the raw specs (and i think the author places a little too much emphasis on.1 or.2 GHz difference in CPU speed), but even a simple spec/cost comparison goes along way towards an informed decision
In six months when you're looking to upgrade your low end mac's hardware, do not call me...
Realisticly, I think Macs are a much better mainstream prospect than they used to be, but the overall cost of ownership is not one of their big selling points, especially towards the low end.
Seems impractical for transportation, from the paper linked from TFA, peak production rate is.44mmol/(L*h), so you're looking at milligrams of H2 per liter of reactant per HOUR (if i'm not blowing anything from highschool chem), so the only way to make this work for cars is to have the reaction going 24/7 and storing it on the car, and then it's right back to the old storage problems.
This isn't about the price of food in the first world, its about the stress this will inevitably place on the third world. People will starve and die because of a flawed concept being forced down our throats by politics and greed.
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I would mod this up if I could. It almost defeats the purpose of having a pocketable Mp3 player if you keep having to pull it out of your pocket and stare at it to do trivial things like adjust volume. I have an older car with a tape deck which I hook up to my mp3 player via a tape adapter. My MP3 player had hard buttons for volume and track skipping, which I am thankful for when traveling 75mph. I recently lost this MP3 player and was contemplating a 2nd gen nano, but upon hearing it lacks volume controls, I'm pretty turned off to it.
I also read in the full article that Jobs' button-jihad was responsible for those wretched single-button apple mouses I hated using in high school. I think its this form over function sense I consistently get from Apple that makes it so hard for me to warm up to their products.
I wholeheartedly agree. This strikes me as an egregious example of 'form over function'. The same thing is happening in the world of digital photography (a casual hobby of mine), menu-driven interfaces are replacing dedicated buttons for many frequently changed parameters in an attempt to make the devices more clean-looking, or leave room for increasingly larger screens (I think there's some cost-savings at work too...). The downside to this is digging through menus can not be done by touch, and takes longer than pressing a few buttons, the delay often being the difference between missing a picture and getting it.
No matter how slick an interface is, for almost all my electronics, I'd rather have a button for primary functions.
Windows has lunched critical startup files on me twice in the last two weeks, pretty sad for a 1.8yr old device.
Whats the energy in/out on this one? Worth it?
Even if the process uses a lot of energy it seems to me it beats landfilling.
What a huge distraction, I just went on a 30 min youtube binge watching destructive testing of aircraft parts... Back to work!
I believe the full article said it's designed to be unmanned, regardless, reconnaissance aircraft are the best candidates for going unmanned, the missions tend to be simple, tedious, often dangerous, and requiring little extemporaneous thinking.
Actually I found some even better information on their site: http://www.verticalfarm.com/plans-2k5.htm I read the whole thing, it's a really fascinating study about the requirements of building a vertical farm capable of feeding 50k people while remaining off the grid.
A pdf on the site, besides containing many interesting sketches and models, also makes the claim that cleverly integrated wind power generators allow the building to be 'off the grid' http://www.verticalfarm.com/images/design/ip/Waimo nd_Ip.pdf I'm suspicious, but it sounds like they're making the attempt.
They posted a full press release with images and sensor layout diagrams, additionally there is an excellent discussion in their news forum with a lot of good information. http://www.dpreview.com/news/0706/07061401kodakhig hsens.asp
As you state, DSLRs already have fairly decent sensitivity, so this is not likely to be a good compromise for them.
Modern 'compact' digital cameras, however, which stuff 7-12 megapixels on 1/1.8" and 1/2.5" sensors (smaller than your fingernail) could benifit enormously from this. These sensors are already past the diffraction limit of most of the lenses, so a drop in color resolution may not be too damaging (the eye being less sensitive to color resolution, than luminance anyway). Kodak is claiming a 1-2 stop increase in sensitivity, which would be a great benefit to anyone using a compact inside, or in other poor light. (I have yet to own a camera that performs well above ISO 200)
As with all such tech announcements the proof is in the pudding, and until we can compare full size samples to conventional bayer sensors, its hard to tell if this is the next big thing or not.
That part is indeed troubling, where is the line drawn with respect to "impersonating a police officer". I'd estimate well in excess of 40% of the people they'd run into would believe they were cops, and probably twice that number wouldn't be certain enough to argue with them. If you hadn't heard of the RIAA would you see one of these guys and think "oh that's not a real cop, nothing to see here..."
Mod parent up to +5 Cynical
but I tend to agree, google scoring the worst possible score doesn't quite mesh with my sense of reality but I could be wrong
System Shock was absolutely my favorite game from my childhood (ish).
Believe it or not, my sister and I used to play coop multiplayer on easy difficulty.
If you're thinking "but wait, SS1 didnt have that feature" you'd be right, she controlled the guns and torso, and I handled movement, navigation and some non-weapon equipment. We were pretty young, and playing it solo seemed too daunting (also this was a lot of fun).
SS2 was pretty awesome too, if you snuck up behind me in the dark and moaned "Killl meee" and hit me with a cardboard tube, I'd still jump...
From the full article: "Get involved with the cost analysis I'm interested in what both Windows and Mac people have to say about comparing the value of these two types of computers. There are a lot of ways to look at this. I just want to ask the people who heavily disagree with me to do these two things: 1) Read what I've written carefully, and 2) do your own homework. Don't make assumptions about pricing without doing a tech spec comparison of directly comparable Apple and PC equipment." That's really all there is to it, crunch the numbers, and in doing so, avoid making mistakes. Of course there's more than just the raw specs (and i think the author places a little too much emphasis on .1 or .2 GHz difference in CPU speed), but even a simple spec/cost comparison goes along way towards an informed decision
In six months when you're looking to upgrade your low end mac's hardware, do not call me... Realisticly, I think Macs are a much better mainstream prospect than they used to be, but the overall cost of ownership is not one of their big selling points, especially towards the low end.
I believe its an article in an upcoming publication, not available online now (ever?)
I disagree, I found the narrative and lore in morrowind very compelling, Oblivion less so unfortunately...
I've never played fallout so I can't comment, although in light of the excitement over 3, 1 and 2 might be a good cheap buy
but how many Libraries of Congress is 2048GB?
I see your scandal, and raise you a CONSPIRACY! One of my friends tried to get me into this game, so glad I didn't end up playing...
Seems impractical for transportation, from the paper linked from TFA, peak production rate is .44mmol/(L*h), so you're looking at milligrams of H2 per liter of reactant per HOUR (if i'm not blowing anything from highschool chem), so the only way to make this work for cars is to have the reaction going 24/7 and storing it on the car, and then it's right back to the old storage problems.
I think someone snoozed through his high school lecture on significant digits...
This isn't about the price of food in the first world, its about the stress this will inevitably place on the third world. People will starve and die because of a flawed concept being forced down our throats by politics and greed.