I used Verizon's little usb dongle thing for a few months. It worked fine- almost fast enough to play online games, streaming video would pause every now and then. And then sometimes I would inexplicably get 600kb/s downloads.
If you visit the states (or wherever verizon sells stuff) for less than a month, you can return the device for a refund and pay only for that month's service. That's what I did.
>>Fortunately, Moore's Law should put those kinds of sensors in cell phones within a decade
I hate to sound nitpicky, but unless the laws of physics also change, you will never see those nice images from a lens the size of a split pea or smaller.
just thought I'd mention that with our space technology, the U-2, and UAVs filling the gaps, we don't especially need hypersonic aircraft. there is absolutely no need for them when our sats can capture better images than the first iterations of the sr-71 could obtain. Our weapons, however, DO remain hypersonic, but I don't think that's what you were referring to.
Damnit! That system is a word-for-word description of my old idea for detecting stealth/stealthy aircraft- I came up with it in low-observables/composites class a few years back.
This is not the first time this has happened. I don't know what's more disappointing: Thinking that my idea would never be used, or finding out that it wasn't even my idea...
No, in addition to it. I'm an atheist and I can proclaim both religions to be awful if I want to.
Let's please not turn this into something like the American two-party system where instead of the opposite of X being !X, the opposite becomes Y or whatever authority would like you to believe.
The opposite of muslim is !muslim (not muslim). The opposite of peaceful is not islam, it is !peaceful. I know not everyone on/. is old enough to have taken at least 1000-level logic, but sheesh.
Crap, I forgot one of my other points in the last comment.
Anyone remember Pulp Fiction? Remember Sam Jackson quoting the bible before he killed someone? We should pull that movie because it offends me and if you don't I'll go find a danish embassy and burn it down.
I'll bet if you looked in Sony Pictures' repertoire, you'd find all sorts of things that would have gotten the actors, the producers, the directors, and the viewers all burned at the stake 400 years ago.
Why would someone quoting the words that you ostensibly live your life by be offensive to you? I'm not just talking about muslims here. A person decides that some holy scripture is worth changing their life over (little things, like going to church or not drinking, or big things...) and furthermore almost every religion includes some element of proselytizing in its dogma.
So why would it bug you to have other people hear the words you live your life by?
Ok, maybe you think it's blasphemous. Muslims think eating pork is blasphemous- should everyone stop eating pork? Should everyone stop eating beef? Should we begin stoning our daughters to death for being impertinent?
Excellent post, my friend. I couldn't have said it better (unless I used more paragraph breaks;)
Anyways, the only change I would make is that-
>>Science is all about the truth.
should say-
"Science is all about tangible evidence"
When rational minds get a little too hard-edged and use words like 'truth' and 'proof' outside of mathematics, our opponents can use one tiny exception to destroy our case. It is difficult to make the average person understand that the world of science consists of constantly-updated evidence and changing explanations instead of 'cold hard facts', but the alternative is to have people say, "Aha! last year you said X but now you're saying Y! Obviously science isn't worth the letters its spelled with!"
This process begins in the classroom, but those of us who aren't teachers should stress to people that the beauty of science is its flexibility in the face of new and fascinating evidence. If science were as black and white as most people think it is, we'd still be in the stone age. We take baby steps to be able to make our grand proclamations.
Study up on the history of one single vein of scientific though: plate tectonics; discovery of one element or another; basic understanding of electricity; etc. This 3-minute (condensed) conversation can do wonders to show people what science is: A steady succession of improvements of our understanding based on incremental advances in our ability to gather evidence.
>>there are more stupid things that you can do while driving that are more distracting than a cell phone: changing the radio, eating, drinking, looking for something, reading directions.
However, it is probably rare that someone gets into the car, starts looking for something in the glove box, turns on the car while continuing to search for something, takes an onramp to the freeway, drives 20 miles, and parks the car all while searching the glove box or changing the radio station.
Doug Stanhope does a bit where he proposes drunk drivers licenses: If you can pass the driving test with a BAL of.08, then you get issues a.08 license and you can drive up to that BAL. If the driving test is so easy that a drunk guy can pass it, then what good is it?
Anyways, how about a cell phone endorsement on the driver's license? Take the driving test while another scoring official calls you and asks how your day went for half an hour.
Oh and one more thing: police and truck drivers have been using radios while driving for decades. Any stats on the radio-related accidents?
Perhaps I botched the explanation, but my point to people was that out of the options (machining, forging, stamping, die casting), machining a part out of billet will offer the highest per-unit cost over time and the lowest introduced strength. I doubt Apple has found a way to make this technique easier or cheaper or lest wasteful.
They did the math and found that the increased per-unit cost was offset by the high initial cost of tool and die making for a cast or forged case considering how many MBP's they expect to sell. The only reason we're even hearing about this is that the marketing dept got wind of it and thought it sounded cool. And apparently so do most people, so kudos to them. I kind of wish I hadn't sold all my AAPL stock last year.
>>a 3mm dent in the lid will probably shatter the cover glass.
Just the other day I noticed that I see more iphones get dropped than anything else I can recall. I think it is the shape and the fact that you have to handle it gingerly to keep your fingers off the screen (causing inadvertent inputs).
Anyways, your post got me to thinking that despite all the abuse, I've never seen an iphone actually break from being dropped. razrs and the like, on the other hand... I wouldn't worry too much about the glass breaking on these new mbp's. Glass that thin has quite a bit of give to it.
There has to be more to the story wrt cost. Everybody knows that billet-machined parts are weaker than pretty much any other process (die casting, forging, pressing, etc.)
The other processes add strength in the contour of the finished shape, while a machined part's strength follows the original billet's grain.
Imagine the metal as a big block of laminated wood- imagine machining a part out of the block vs bending the laminate to the finished specs. Notice how much stronger the bent parts will be (if stress-relieved).
>>I do wish my MBP had heat sensors on the graphics system
That's funny, because my MBP has a few GPU heat sensors- one called gpu diode and one called gpu heatsink. And it's been a while, but I believe there is a heat pipe from the gpu to a larger heatsink situated under the fans.
2- Physics isn't going away just because you say so. Getting a volume of steam requires a certain amount of fuel, and that conversion is less effective than the simple fuel->burned by-products.
3- Before, you were talking about efficiency. Now you are talking about carbon buildup. The only carbon buildup you should see on modern fuel injected cars is on the brake pads.
4- If your idea worked, then cars in the deep, hot, humid south would run longer and more efficiently than cars in the utterly dry midwest. I would need to see concrete evidence of this. This of course discounts rust from road salt and the associated rigors of surviving winters.
5- I live in the above-mentioned midwest where already we have had a few deep frosts. Water injection in the form you propose would be unworkable. Water injection in the form most people have studied (50% water, 50% methanol) would work but it would be pointless. My car almost never operates in the power band or compression that benefits from water injection.
And we could have a banner showing what you were listening to, and the paint job could be lavender text over black, and you could write long, self-pitying diatribes about how no one knows how dark you are. And poetry! You could have poetry by the license plates, as long as it is really bad.
I noticed the same thing, too, except that I went from a green corolla to a white sedan with a front grill and profile that is similar to our local police cruisers. It took a long time for me to figure out why people would slow down enough to let me pass (or almost pass) and then shoot ahead back to their usual speed.
It's frustrating as hell when both lanes are slowing down because they think there is a cop behind them.
Slashdot Mirror
I used Verizon's little usb dongle thing for a few months. It worked fine- almost fast enough to play online games, streaming video would pause every now and then. And then sometimes I would inexplicably get 600kb/s downloads.
If you visit the states (or wherever verizon sells stuff) for less than a month, you can return the device for a refund and pay only for that month's service. That's what I did.
-b
Move to another country to get a better cell phone plan? +4 Insightful?
Must be the post-weekend rush of soon-to-expire mod points.
That, or I had no idea how much people cared about cell phone plans.
-b
>>Fortunately, Moore's Law should put those kinds of sensors in cell phones within a decade
I hate to sound nitpicky, but unless the laws of physics also change, you will never see those nice images from a lens the size of a split pea or smaller.
Just saying.
-b
just thought I'd mention that with our space technology, the U-2, and UAVs filling the gaps, we don't especially need hypersonic aircraft. there is absolutely no need for them when our sats can capture better images than the first iterations of the sr-71 could obtain. Our weapons, however, DO remain hypersonic, but I don't think that's what you were referring to.
carry on...
-b
Damnit! That system is a word-for-word description of my old idea for detecting stealth/stealthy aircraft- I came up with it in low-observables/composites class a few years back.
This is not the first time this has happened. I don't know what's more disappointing: Thinking that my idea would never be used, or finding out that it wasn't even my idea...
-b
Aww, you should have said,
LOL! they cannot escape! Make your time! HA HA HA HA!
Take off every Ziggurat!
-b
>>As opposed to the Bible?
No, in addition to it. I'm an atheist and I can proclaim both religions to be awful if I want to.
Let's please not turn this into something like the American two-party system where instead of the opposite of X being !X, the opposite becomes Y or whatever authority would like you to believe.
The opposite of muslim is !muslim (not muslim). The opposite of peaceful is not islam, it is !peaceful. I know not everyone on /. is old enough to have taken at least 1000-level logic, but sheesh.
-b
Crap, I forgot one of my other points in the last comment.
Anyone remember Pulp Fiction? Remember Sam Jackson quoting the bible before he killed someone? We should pull that movie because it offends me and if you don't I'll go find a danish embassy and burn it down.
I'll bet if you looked in Sony Pictures' repertoire, you'd find all sorts of things that would have gotten the actors, the producers, the directors, and the viewers all burned at the stake 400 years ago.
Just saying.
-b
Why would someone quoting the words that you ostensibly live your life by be offensive to you? I'm not just talking about muslims here. A person decides that some holy scripture is worth changing their life over (little things, like going to church or not drinking, or big things...) and furthermore almost every religion includes some element of proselytizing in its dogma.
So why would it bug you to have other people hear the words you live your life by?
Ok, maybe you think it's blasphemous. Muslims think eating pork is blasphemous- should everyone stop eating pork? Should everyone stop eating beef? Should we begin stoning our daughters to death for being impertinent?
I don't know...
-b
"How do you kill that which has no life?"
-b
Excellent post, my friend. I couldn't have said it better (unless I used more paragraph breaks ;)
Anyways, the only change I would make is that-
>>Science is all about the truth.
should say-
"Science is all about tangible evidence"
When rational minds get a little too hard-edged and use words like 'truth' and 'proof' outside of mathematics, our opponents can use one tiny exception to destroy our case. It is difficult to make the average person understand that the world of science consists of constantly-updated evidence and changing explanations instead of 'cold hard facts', but the alternative is to have people say, "Aha! last year you said X but now you're saying Y! Obviously science isn't worth the letters its spelled with!"
This process begins in the classroom, but those of us who aren't teachers should stress to people that the beauty of science is its flexibility in the face of new and fascinating evidence. If science were as black and white as most people think it is, we'd still be in the stone age. We take baby steps to be able to make our grand proclamations.
Study up on the history of one single vein of scientific though: plate tectonics; discovery of one element or another; basic understanding of electricity; etc. This 3-minute (condensed) conversation can do wonders to show people what science is: A steady succession of improvements of our understanding based on incremental advances in our ability to gather evidence.
Good luck, anyways.
-b
In the future, every time I ever see an Airbus, all I will think is, "...Flying like a french ferret up your trouser-leg."
So thank you for that.
-b
>>there are more stupid things that you can do while driving that are more distracting than a cell phone: changing the radio, eating, drinking, looking for something, reading directions.
However, it is probably rare that someone gets into the car, starts looking for something in the glove box, turns on the car while continuing to search for something, takes an onramp to the freeway, drives 20 miles, and parks the car all while searching the glove box or changing the radio station.
I'm just saying.
-b
Doug Stanhope does a bit where he proposes drunk drivers licenses: If you can pass the driving test with a BAL of .08, then you get issues a .08 license and you can drive up to that BAL. If the driving test is so easy that a drunk guy can pass it, then what good is it?
Anyways, how about a cell phone endorsement on the driver's license? Take the driving test while another scoring official calls you and asks how your day went for half an hour.
Oh and one more thing: police and truck drivers have been using radios while driving for decades. Any stats on the radio-related accidents?
-b
Perhaps I botched the explanation, but my point to people was that out of the options (machining, forging, stamping, die casting), machining a part out of billet will offer the highest per-unit cost over time and the lowest introduced strength. I doubt Apple has found a way to make this technique easier or cheaper or lest wasteful.
They did the math and found that the increased per-unit cost was offset by the high initial cost of tool and die making for a cast or forged case considering how many MBP's they expect to sell. The only reason we're even hearing about this is that the marketing dept got wind of it and thought it sounded cool. And apparently so do most people, so kudos to them. I kind of wish I hadn't sold all my AAPL stock last year.
-b
>>a 3mm dent in the lid will probably shatter the cover glass.
Just the other day I noticed that I see more iphones get dropped than anything else I can recall. I think it is the shape and the fact that you have to handle it gingerly to keep your fingers off the screen (causing inadvertent inputs).
Anyways, your post got me to thinking that despite all the abuse, I've never seen an iphone actually break from being dropped. razrs and the like, on the other hand... I wouldn't worry too much about the glass breaking on these new mbp's. Glass that thin has quite a bit of give to it.
-b
There has to be more to the story wrt cost. Everybody knows that billet-machined parts are weaker than pretty much any other process (die casting, forging, pressing, etc.)
The other processes add strength in the contour of the finished shape, while a machined part's strength follows the original billet's grain.
Imagine the metal as a big block of laminated wood- imagine machining a part out of the block vs bending the laminate to the finished specs. Notice how much stronger the bent parts will be (if stress-relieved).
Coffee, I need coffee.
>>I do wish my MBP had heat sensors on the graphics system
That's funny, because my MBP has a few GPU heat sensors- one called gpu diode and one called gpu heatsink. And it's been a while, but I believe there is a heat pipe from the gpu to a larger heatsink situated under the fans.
How old is your mbp? My model is macbookpro 3,1
-b
You don't know the half of it. Check out his homepage.
-b
Ok kiddo.
1- I don't buy cars from detroit. Never will.
2- Physics isn't going away just because you say so. Getting a volume of steam requires a certain amount of fuel, and that conversion is less effective than the simple fuel->burned by-products.
3- Before, you were talking about efficiency. Now you are talking about carbon buildup. The only carbon buildup you should see on modern fuel injected cars is on the brake pads.
4- If your idea worked, then cars in the deep, hot, humid south would run longer and more efficiently than cars in the utterly dry midwest. I would need to see concrete evidence of this. This of course discounts rust from road salt and the associated rigors of surviving winters.
5- I live in the above-mentioned midwest where already we have had a few deep frosts. Water injection in the form you propose would be unworkable. Water injection in the form most people have studied (50% water, 50% methanol) would work but it would be pointless. My car almost never operates in the power band or compression that benefits from water injection.
So there. Have you updated timecube lately?
-b
>>If I ask a bot, "what is love", I'd expect to get back an answer not dissimilar to what's on wikipedia
For the answer to that question, you'll need to speak with Haddaway-bot.
-b
And we could have a banner showing what you were listening to, and the paint job could be lavender text over black, and you could write long, self-pitying diatribes about how no one knows how dark you are. And poetry! You could have poetry by the license plates, as long as it is really bad.
Finally, a livejournal car for the masses!
-b
Well, my geo prizm that cost $3000 used has cost only fuel and oil changes in the last 4 years that I've owned it (about 70K miles).
Well, I've bought tires and windshield wipers, but that was only because they were slashed and stolen, respectively.
My first car cost me about $1000 in parts, but then again it was an '86 (and this was in 2001).
-b
I noticed the same thing, too, except that I went from a green corolla to a white sedan with a front grill and profile that is similar to our local police cruisers. It took a long time for me to figure out why people would slow down enough to let me pass (or almost pass) and then shoot ahead back to their usual speed.
It's frustrating as hell when both lanes are slowing down because they think there is a cop behind them.
-b
Silly goose. Water injection improves performance, not efficiency.
-b