Because Microsoft has a vastly larger marketshare. Apple has, what, 10% of the general computer market?
3.5%. The recent poll showing nearly 100 million installs included iPhones and iPod Touches.
However, yesterday on NPR's morning addition, in regards to the Intel ruling in the EU, I heard the chief official who led the effort to fine Intel say that they don't care about market share, that any company following the same practices as one of the companies they fine would be targeted. I laughed. You can, too.
but that dosnt mean 6/10 wont deploy it. I imagine plenty of those are just waiting to see how well or not it plays out for other companies. If 7 Manages everything it promises, im sure plenty will turn to 7 in the end
The IT people at by 50000+ person company say there's no plan for 7 yet, but also expect us to all be using it by the end of next year.
Try adding "in my basement" to the end of each of the GP's sentences and you can understand his perspective a bit more.
... for software that really isn't needed these days in my basement. Other than a one-off printed letter, what place does a word processing document have in today's world of Wikis and such in my basement? Same with spreadsheets in my basement. Great for high school and college labs, and quick what-if stuff, but outside of that, should they really be used in my basement (don't get me started on the number of spreadsheet 'databases' or printable tables are out there in my basement).
MS would perish were their OS and Office sales to plummet. If the stars lined up for them, Google (or more likely someone else) do this with a competing product over many years.
Google would perish were a large proportion of internet users to get savvy and block all their ads. I wonder whether MS could get away with adding adblocking to Windows that would eliminate all Google Ad revenue from MS-based products. That would probably get them in hot water, but easy access to addons for IE (assuming good adblockers exist for IE) with a suggestion to install the adblocker would maybe be a bit more feasible. To get away with it they'd have to sacrifice their own ad revenue as well, but unlike Google, they don't need it. Imagine MS killing the ad-funded web. How would web content change?
I think you didn't notice that the reason Anand's writeup is so useful is that he exposed the major performance degradation present in every SSD as it gets filled with data and begins to need to overwrite old data that was marked as deleted. I may be misunderstanding you, though, since your writing is incoherent.
Also, I've read Anandtech since 1997, so I'm pretty sure you didn't, as you say (with incorrect spelling, which is surprising from a journalist such as yourself) write these reviews "FAR IN ADVANCE OF ANANDTECH POSSIBLY EVEN BEING IN EXISTENCE."
"Everything published here isn't new, and has been known for a long time" - by blahplusplus (757119) on Saturday July 11, @09:23PM (#28664715)
And, I wrote about the effectiveness of Ramdisks in general + their potential for performance gain (software based ones @ FIRST), way, Way, WAY back, & in a respected publication no less, in Windows NT Magazine (now Windows IT Pro) April 1997 "BACK OFFICE PERFORMANCE" issue, page 61...
(& when it was applied practically? It took that same tech & company (EEC Systems/SuperSpeed.com) to Ms-Tech Ed 2 yrs. in a row, in its hardest category, SQLServer Performance Enhancement, 2 yrs. in a ROW as a finalist no less)
"and has been written about better by anand." - by blahplusplus (757119) on Saturday July 11, @09:23PM (#28664715)
Then, I will say the same as YOU have, in regards to ANAND La Shimpi: He only "bit off my style", in doing HIS write ups... how's that? Don't LIKE IT?? See the above, write the sources noted even (CENATEK or EEC Systems/SuperSpeed.com, to verify my statements).
APK
P.S.=> On the "mod-down"? Hey - That's ok too, as I have my share of troll stalkers here, (sort of an online psycho fanclub, lol)) that "gets off" on trying to put me down any chance they get & I know who they are even... & on said reviews? They were done, on MY part, FAR before Anandtech EVER did them, so as you said? Don't think TOO HIGHLY of anandtech's work... it was proceeded by myself FAR IN ADVANCE OF ANANDTECH POSSIBLY EVEN BEING IN EXISTENCE... apk
After reading that article, I'm much less excited than I was. I had assumed it was something similar to Google Chrome OS, but it's not even something that seems like it turned out very well for Microsoft, or something that can have yet undiscovered major issues on the horizon. The idea seems to have turned out overly complex to work around the limitations with the approach, and all that in a resource hungry.NET application. It says they're hopeful to get the per-tab RAM usage down from 16 MB, but I have to wonder by how much? This approach doesn't seem much better than running a process-separated browser written in Java. Ugh.
I have a hard time understanding the decision to use.NET, but perhaps it was a security decision? Anyway, it doesn't sound like the optimal choice, when the project all revolves around low-level features like isolating the tabs even further.
Read the article a bit more and you'll discover that the purpose of this project was to find the limitations of taking the separate process model to an extreme, with every element on a single page living in its own process. This was low level research, not an attempt to spark a new product.
If your flying "general aviation" (private flying, non-commercial), then the answer is no. Once your in the air, the ATC doesn't talk with you. General Aviation does its own thing once their airborne. General Aviation pilots just have to stay out of restricted airspace that is used for commerical, controlled-by-ATC flights. As to filing a flight path, I'm not sure whether General Aviation has to do that or not, but I am pretty sure the FAA wouldn't give them a warning based on what they filed. It's up to the pilots to make sure the area they are going to be flying in is safe, not anyone else.
Most of the pilots I knew who follow your description and didn't get flight following for their private flights have crashed their own planes. Usually they didn't die to traffic, but it was part of a pattern of carelessness (landing with no lights at night is common among this same group).
You're correct that private pilots aren't required to file flight plans, but when flying away from population centers most do anyway. It's true that it's up to the pilots to ensure their own safety and there are plenty of ways to do it. A combination of a well planned route and a review of the current weather before take off will do the trick. Unfortunately, a lot of pilots don't like to do either.
Sharing a video tape, a book, a CD or whatever else it has to produce, does take away from their business (though there is discussion that sharing leads to future purchases in the same way giving out free food at the grocery is an advertising expense).
What a bizarre assumption. You acknowledge that sharing may lead to future sales, but you ignore the (likely much much larger) factor - sharing only takes away from their business if the recipient would have otherwise purchased the material. I haven't met someone for whom that's the case.
when Joe the consumer goes to the local big box store and wants to buy software... its going to magically work on Chrome?
If this gets much acceptance beyond installed machines it will surprise me. Unless it can magically run software that J.T.C. finds in his local store who is going to want this?
I can see a new wave of internet appliances - as in email/surf only. Not a threat to Windows at all, maybe versus new applications where the game console is being used for internet/mail.
It's not a threat in the same way that the Wii isn't a threat to the PS3 or 360 or PCs. It can't do the same things, but it gets people to spend entertainment money on it instead of the systems you might think won't be affected.
It's a linux kernel, not necessarily a distribution in any meaningful sense. They could simplify it to the linux kernel, loader, some libraries, and chrome executable. I suppose they would need a shell, scripts, and helper apps for network config and dhcp, but For a browser-based internet device, 99% of a standard linux distro is irrelevant.
According to Anandtech, which may be mostly speculating, ChromeOS is just enough Linux to run Chrome. All functionality will come from web apps. It's the thinnest of thin clients.
Like it or not, Windows 7 is just Vista with a new Taskbar, a major video display bugfix, a few new control panel applets (at least one of which (ClearType Tuner) used to be a Windows XP PowerToy), some new fonts and the first upgrade to the Font Control Panel Applet in 15 years, and some other misc bugfixes.
Seriously, you're still using the same Vista you all decided to hate on before; you've just fallen victim to the marketing hype.
The only problem with Vista was based on falling for derogatory marketing hype. 7 has a few nice UI features that could mostly be added to Vista with 3rd party programs, and for people with 2 or more GB of RAM, the smaller memory footprint doesn't bring much either. Vista failed solely on marketing, so I think it was the right decision to focus on the presentation of 7.
Never, and I repeat, NEVER agree to pay for GPS "service." You already have in your federal taxes. These ***hole cellphone companies that charge you for GPS are full of themselves. I will never use a phone-based GPS if it costs me a penny extra. Vote with your wallet.
You're buying the maps and engine when you pay for an application. I agree that a monthly cost for GPS use is absurd. You can put Tom Tom, Garmin, or iGuidance on most GPS-equipped phones and not have to worry about that. I use iGuidance and have actually replaced my sirf III based GPS unit with my diamond.
We've made a quantum optical transistor out of a single molecule!
The bad news is that the single molecule masses about 2.4 tonnes. Yeah, it's a pretty big molecule. And don't scuff it, either. We don't want to brush any carbon atoms off the surface.
That's quite possible, you know. Bowling balls are single molecules. Almost any macromolecule can be made arbitrarily large with cross linking.
Re:Media player classic + codec packs VLC
on
VLC 1.0.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
VLC has shitty subtitle support, why VLC gets accolades is beyond me when there are so many bugs compared to just downloading one of the many great community made codec packs and media player classic.
VLC is jack of all trades master of none, with weird bugs when you want to play subtitled files.
VLC has shitty subtitle support, why VLC gets accolades is beyond me when there are so many bugs compared to just downloading one of the many great community made codec packs and media player classic.
VLC is jack of all trades master of none, with weird bugs when you want to play subtitled files.
I think it's more convenient to download codecs as you need them, not in a pack, because every time I use a pack I find that it breaks something that worked before. Installing xvid covers most of my needs, and in the rare case that I need something else, I go get it. I like the full screen UI a lot better on WMP or MPC, but VLC's is no longer terrible and I know the keyboard shortcuts too.
That said, I use VLC a lot. For a long time it was my backup player for things that wouldn't let me skip properly in MPC, or took too long to start the video moving again after a skip. Recently I switched over to using VLC by default because a lot of TV episodes have the skip problem.
Don't tell me. It'll be ready for mass production in 3 to 5 years. Somehow, I seem to remember stories like this from more than five years ago, and still, nothing happens and the solar cells are more or less the same as always.
Don't be a universal cynic, inform yourself instead. Look up Nanosolar and First Solar on Wikipedia, and you'll see that they have been already mass-producing panels at one-third of the price of crystalline silicon panels for a year or two.
"Nothing happens" is only true if you close your eyes to all the things that actually do happen.
You accurately answered half of the posts about this story with this comment. It's true - we can go buy this stuff (which was 3-5 years away 3-5 years ago) right now.
"So the 24-year-old coming out of Stanford will have a view of technology that the 29-year-old â" who was 24 just five years ago â" would never think of," say Andreessen. "We love that kind of thing."
Great. More age discrimination in software development hiring practices.
I'm obsolete at 36.
I know a lot of 20-25 year old people in universities. My 60+ year old dad keeps up with technology, especially internet technology, better than any of them. Andreeson's delusional thinking shouldn't be trusted.
Ignoring the robots-turning-evil angle on this, let's consider a more likely scenario. Probably any self replicating nano-things would be bacteria, or possibly very small machines that act like bacteria. I see two very likely scenarios that don't require any sort of thought, agency, or evil on their part:
1) Being designed to convert CO2 to O2, some of these things get carried back to earth (inside of human lungs, perhaps) and radically alter earth's atmosphere, or
2) They mutate and start metabolizing other things, like rocks or people.
From just poking around the web with gecko and webkit browsers I found a bunch of pages that looked fine rendered by gecko, but had elements in the wrong place or other visual problems rendered with webkit. The majority of sites render fine in both, but not all and other then acid tests I haven't visited any that rendered better in webkit.
I'd rather have the page look good than be super fast, so I'll stick with firefox until sites render as well in webkit or firefox becomes unusable slow.
Yes, but the Acid3 scores and JS benchmarks show that webkit is better. Now just stop using the internet and switch to using Acid3 and JS benchmarks for all your computer needs and you'll be fixed.
See, the people will revolt if we suddenly double or triple the gas tax, which is 18.5 cents a gallon.
But, since we're going to mandate that all cars get 35 miles per gallon, and then we charge 1 to 2 cents (and it'll be two cents, if not four by the time it gets passed), then that means we've effectively upped the gas tax to between 35 and 70 cents a gallon (or $1.40 by four cents a mile). And the great part is that, just like income tax, they won't see the per gallon increase, they just get a bill at the end of the month that they have to pay.
Way to double, triple, or more the gas tax without looking like it.
Also, by the law of unintended consequences, by removing the tax from the gas, it makes it more cost effective to buy an older, cheaper gas guzzler, than a new, expensive, hybrid car. Thanks for destroying the environment, morons.
Destroying the environment AND shifting massive wealth to oil producing nations...
With a lower gas tax and the associated increase in gas guzzler mileage, oil consumption will go up while the government cut of it (that is, the proportion that gets spent to pay wages in this country to do things like repair roads) will instead go to the nations producing the oil. On the other hand, if the gas tax were increased to $5/gallon, oil consumption would go down and the wealth currently going to oil producers would instead go to the US government. This increased instance could, for instance, be used to reduce income taxes so that the net tax cost for US citizens remained constant but a larger proportion of consumer transportation spending would stay in the US. This is what much of Europe does.
That's what some states have been doing. The problem though is that we've got a mix of cars from hybrids and electrics up to gas guzzlers. Mileage taxes are an effort to normalize that a bit. This wouldn't replace gas taxes in total, most likely they'd offset it a bit.
Gas guzzlers are usually heavier, resulting in more damage to the road. Electricity taxes already cover electric cars. This gas-tax elimination sounds to me like the work of SUV lobbyists. The pro-SUV position died after the lobbying was done, though, so this anti-efficiency idea may go away.
Slashdot Mirror
is Google Chrome...
Nope:
http://chromekb.com/vulnerabilities/
The attitude that some platforms are simply immune to attacks is foolish and counterproductive.
Because Microsoft has a vastly larger marketshare. Apple has, what, 10% of the general computer market?
3.5%. The recent poll showing nearly 100 million installs included iPhones and iPod Touches.
However, yesterday on NPR's morning addition, in regards to the Intel ruling in the EU, I heard the chief official who led the effort to fine Intel say that they don't care about market share, that any company following the same practices as one of the companies they fine would be targeted. I laughed. You can, too.
I love vista. There's a lot more hacking to do. What should be a quick fix is now a marathon hack session.
adding a line to the hosts file:
linux: 1 second
vista: 5 minutes of wondering what the UAC will allow you to do and figuring out how to bypass it.
I think it's obvious which OS is the best .
Or, you know, just add your line and click Allow, where in Linux you'd add the line and type your password, which takes longer.
Source isn't really that good. Or rather, it's Graphics aren't that good... and that won't make for a lovely 'next gen' video
HL2 with the FakeFactory Cinematic Mod is a lot better looking than most of the things in TFA, I think.
but that dosnt mean 6/10 wont deploy it. I imagine plenty of those are just waiting to see how well or not it plays out for other companies. If 7 Manages everything it promises, im sure plenty will turn to 7 in the end
The IT people at by 50000+ person company say there's no plan for 7 yet, but also expect us to all be using it by the end of next year.
Mod parent -1 incredibly naive
Try adding "in my basement" to the end of each of the GP's sentences and you can understand his perspective a bit more.
... for software that really isn't needed these days in my basement. Other than a one-off printed letter, what place does a word processing document have in today's world of Wikis and such in my basement? Same with spreadsheets in my basement. Great for high school and college labs, and quick what-if stuff, but outside of that, should they really be used in my basement (don't get me started on the number of spreadsheet 'databases' or printable tables are out there in my basement).
MS would perish were their OS and Office sales to plummet. If the stars lined up for them, Google (or more likely someone else) do this with a competing product over many years.
Google would perish were a large proportion of internet users to get savvy and block all their ads. I wonder whether MS could get away with adding adblocking to Windows that would eliminate all Google Ad revenue from MS-based products. That would probably get them in hot water, but easy access to addons for IE (assuming good adblockers exist for IE) with a suggestion to install the adblocker would maybe be a bit more feasible. To get away with it they'd have to sacrifice their own ad revenue as well, but unlike Google, they don't need it. Imagine MS killing the ad-funded web. How would web content change?
Sounds to me like the first move in a series of negotiations.
"Give us more money, or we drop it in the ocean".
This is not the last article on the subject that we will see...
It's not exactly the first move, since this has been the publicly available schedule since before construction on the ISS even began.
I think you didn't notice that the reason Anand's writeup is so useful is that he exposed the major performance degradation present in every SSD as it gets filled with data and begins to need to overwrite old data that was marked as deleted. I may be misunderstanding you, though, since your writing is incoherent.
Also, I've read Anandtech since 1997, so I'm pretty sure you didn't, as you say (with incorrect spelling, which is surprising from a journalist such as yourself) write these reviews "FAR IN ADVANCE OF ANANDTECH POSSIBLY EVEN BEING IN EXISTENCE."
"Everything published here isn't new, and has been known for a long time" - by blahplusplus (757119) on Saturday July 11, @09:23PM (#28664715)
And, I wrote about the effectiveness of Ramdisks in general + their potential for performance gain (software based ones @ FIRST), way, Way, WAY back, & in a respected publication no less, in Windows NT Magazine (now Windows IT Pro) April 1997 "BACK OFFICE PERFORMANCE" issue, page 61...
(& when it was applied practically? It took that same tech & company (EEC Systems/SuperSpeed.com) to Ms-Tech Ed 2 yrs. in a row, in its hardest category, SQLServer Performance Enhancement, 2 yrs. in a ROW as a finalist no less)
Later on, circa 2002-2003, for SSD's?
I did a review that was featured on the FRONT PAGE of CENATEK's website with analysis much like the ones I did here (& was ODDLY "modded down for" here -> http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1299731&cid=28664527 )
"and has been written about better by anand." - by blahplusplus (757119) on Saturday July 11, @09:23PM (#28664715)
Then, I will say the same as YOU have, in regards to ANAND La Shimpi: He only "bit off my style", in doing HIS write ups... how's that? Don't LIKE IT?? See the above, write the sources noted even (CENATEK or EEC Systems/SuperSpeed.com, to verify my statements).
APK
P.S.=> On the "mod-down"? Hey - That's ok too, as I have my share of troll stalkers here, (sort of an online psycho fanclub, lol)) that "gets off" on trying to put me down any chance they get & I know who they are even... & on said reviews? They were done, on MY part, FAR before Anandtech EVER did them, so as you said? Don't think TOO HIGHLY of anandtech's work... it was proceeded by myself FAR IN ADVANCE OF ANANDTECH POSSIBLY EVEN BEING IN EXISTENCE... apk
After reading that article, I'm much less excited than I was. I had assumed it was something similar to Google Chrome OS, but it's not even something that seems like it turned out very well for Microsoft, or something that can have yet undiscovered major issues on the horizon. The idea seems to have turned out overly complex to work around the limitations with the approach, and all that in a resource hungry .NET application. It says they're hopeful to get the per-tab RAM usage down from 16 MB, but I have to wonder by how much? This approach doesn't seem much better than running a process-separated browser written in Java. Ugh.
I have a hard time understanding the decision to use .NET, but perhaps it was a security decision? Anyway, it doesn't sound like the optimal choice, when the project all revolves around low-level features like isolating the tabs even further.
Read the article a bit more and you'll discover that the purpose of this project was to find the limitations of taking the separate process model to an extreme, with every element on a single page living in its own process. This was low level research, not an attempt to spark a new product.
If your flying "general aviation" (private flying, non-commercial), then the answer is no. Once your in the air, the ATC doesn't talk with you. General Aviation does its own thing once their airborne. General Aviation pilots just have to stay out of restricted airspace that is used for commerical, controlled-by-ATC flights. As to filing a flight path, I'm not sure whether General Aviation has to do that or not, but I am pretty sure the FAA wouldn't give them a warning based on what they filed. It's up to the pilots to make sure the area they are going to be flying in is safe, not anyone else.
Most of the pilots I knew who follow your description and didn't get flight following for their private flights have crashed their own planes. Usually they didn't die to traffic, but it was part of a pattern of carelessness (landing with no lights at night is common among this same group).
You're correct that private pilots aren't required to file flight plans, but when flying away from population centers most do anyway. It's true that it's up to the pilots to ensure their own safety and there are plenty of ways to do it. A combination of a well planned route and a review of the current weather before take off will do the trick. Unfortunately, a lot of pilots don't like to do either.
Sharing a video tape, a book, a CD or whatever else it has to produce, does take away from their business (though there is discussion that sharing leads to future purchases in the same way giving out free food at the grocery is an advertising expense).
What a bizarre assumption. You acknowledge that sharing may lead to future sales, but you ignore the (likely much much larger) factor - sharing only takes away from their business if the recipient would have otherwise purchased the material. I haven't met someone for whom that's the case.
when Joe the consumer goes to the local big box store and wants to buy software... its going to magically work on Chrome?
If this gets much acceptance beyond installed machines it will surprise me. Unless it can magically run software that J.T.C. finds in his local store who is going to want this?
I can see a new wave of internet appliances - as in email/surf only. Not a threat to Windows at all, maybe versus new applications where the game console is being used for internet/mail.
It's not a threat in the same way that the Wii isn't a threat to the PS3 or 360 or PCs. It can't do the same things, but it gets people to spend entertainment money on it instead of the systems you might think won't be affected.
It's a linux kernel, not necessarily a distribution in any meaningful sense. They could simplify it to the linux kernel, loader, some libraries, and chrome executable. I suppose they would need a shell, scripts, and helper apps for network config and dhcp, but For a browser-based internet device, 99% of a standard linux distro is irrelevant.
According to Anandtech, which may be mostly speculating, ChromeOS is just enough Linux to run Chrome. All functionality will come from web apps. It's the thinnest of thin clients.
Like it or not, Windows 7 is just Vista with a new Taskbar, a major video display bugfix, a few new control panel applets (at least one of which (ClearType Tuner) used to be a Windows XP PowerToy), some new fonts and the first upgrade to the Font Control Panel Applet in 15 years, and some other misc bugfixes.
Seriously, you're still using the same Vista you all decided to hate on before; you've just fallen victim to the marketing hype.
The only problem with Vista was based on falling for derogatory marketing hype. 7 has a few nice UI features that could mostly be added to Vista with 3rd party programs, and for people with 2 or more GB of RAM, the smaller memory footprint doesn't bring much either. Vista failed solely on marketing, so I think it was the right decision to focus on the presentation of 7.
Never, and I repeat, NEVER agree to pay for GPS "service." You already have in your federal taxes. These ***hole cellphone companies that charge you for GPS are full of themselves. I will never use a phone-based GPS if it costs me a penny extra. Vote with your wallet.
You're buying the maps and engine when you pay for an application. I agree that a monthly cost for GPS use is absurd. You can put Tom Tom, Garmin, or iGuidance on most GPS-equipped phones and not have to worry about that. I use iGuidance and have actually replaced my sirf III based GPS unit with my diamond.
Bowling Balls are not single molecules. They are constructed with a weighted core surrounded by a polymer resin.
However, pure crystals are technically very large molecules. And they can get very large.
Okay, I was thinking of old rubber balls. Still, in more modern balls the resin is a single molecule.
We've made a quantum optical transistor out of a single molecule!
The bad news is that the single molecule masses about 2.4 tonnes. Yeah, it's a pretty big molecule. And don't scuff it, either. We don't want to brush any carbon atoms off the surface.
That's quite possible, you know. Bowling balls are single molecules. Almost any macromolecule can be made arbitrarily large with cross linking.
VLC has shitty subtitle support, why VLC gets accolades is beyond me when there are so many bugs compared to just downloading one of the many great community made codec packs and media player classic.
VLC is jack of all trades master of none, with weird bugs when you want to play subtitled files.
VLC has shitty subtitle support, why VLC gets accolades is beyond me when there are so many bugs compared to just downloading one of the many great community made codec packs and media player classic.
VLC is jack of all trades master of none, with weird bugs when you want to play subtitled files.
I think it's more convenient to download codecs as you need them, not in a pack, because every time I use a pack I find that it breaks something that worked before. Installing xvid covers most of my needs, and in the rare case that I need something else, I go get it. I like the full screen UI a lot better on WMP or MPC, but VLC's is no longer terrible and I know the keyboard shortcuts too.
That said, I use VLC a lot. For a long time it was my backup player for things that wouldn't let me skip properly in MPC, or took too long to start the video moving again after a skip. Recently I switched over to using VLC by default because a lot of TV episodes have the skip problem.
Don't tell me. It'll be ready for mass production in 3 to 5 years. Somehow, I seem to remember stories like this from more than five years ago, and still, nothing happens and the solar cells are more or less the same as always.
Don't be a universal cynic, inform yourself instead. Look up Nanosolar and First Solar on Wikipedia, and you'll see that they have been already mass-producing panels at one-third of the price of crystalline silicon panels for a year or two.
"Nothing happens" is only true if you close your eyes to all the things that actually do happen.
You accurately answered half of the posts about this story with this comment. It's true - we can go buy this stuff (which was 3-5 years away 3-5 years ago) right now.
"So the 24-year-old coming out of Stanford will have a view of technology that the 29-year-old â" who was 24 just five years ago â" would never think of," say Andreessen. "We love that kind of thing."
Great. More age discrimination in software development hiring practices.
I'm obsolete at 36.
I know a lot of 20-25 year old people in universities. My 60+ year old dad keeps up with technology, especially internet technology, better than any of them. Andreeson's delusional thinking shouldn't be trusted.
Ignoring the robots-turning-evil angle on this, let's consider a more likely scenario. Probably any self replicating nano-things would be bacteria, or possibly very small machines that act like bacteria. I see two very likely scenarios that don't require any sort of thought, agency, or evil on their part:
1) Being designed to convert CO2 to O2, some of these things get carried back to earth (inside of human lungs, perhaps) and radically alter earth's atmosphere, or
2) They mutate and start metabolizing other things, like rocks or people.
From just poking around the web with gecko and webkit browsers I found a bunch of pages that looked fine rendered by gecko, but had elements in the wrong place or other visual problems rendered with webkit. The majority of sites render fine in both, but not all and other then acid tests I haven't visited any that rendered better in webkit.
I'd rather have the page look good than be super fast, so I'll stick with firefox until sites render as well in webkit or firefox becomes unusable slow.
Yes, but the Acid3 scores and JS benchmarks show that webkit is better. Now just stop using the internet and switch to using Acid3 and JS benchmarks for all your computer needs and you'll be fixed.
See, the people will revolt if we suddenly double or triple the gas tax, which is 18.5 cents a gallon.
But, since we're going to mandate that all cars get 35 miles per gallon, and then we charge 1 to 2 cents (and it'll be two cents, if not four by the time it gets passed), then that means we've effectively upped the gas tax to between 35 and 70 cents a gallon (or $1.40 by four cents a mile). And the great part is that, just like income tax, they won't see the per gallon increase, they just get a bill at the end of the month that they have to pay.
Way to double, triple, or more the gas tax without looking like it.
Also, by the law of unintended consequences, by removing the tax from the gas, it makes it more cost effective to buy an older, cheaper gas guzzler, than a new, expensive, hybrid car. Thanks for destroying the environment, morons.
Destroying the environment AND shifting massive wealth to oil producing nations...
With a lower gas tax and the associated increase in gas guzzler mileage, oil consumption will go up while the government cut of it (that is, the proportion that gets spent to pay wages in this country to do things like repair roads) will instead go to the nations producing the oil. On the other hand, if the gas tax were increased to $5/gallon, oil consumption would go down and the wealth currently going to oil producers would instead go to the US government. This increased instance could, for instance, be used to reduce income taxes so that the net tax cost for US citizens remained constant but a larger proportion of consumer transportation spending would stay in the US. This is what much of Europe does.
That's what some states have been doing. The problem though is that we've got a mix of cars from hybrids and electrics up to gas guzzlers. Mileage taxes are an effort to normalize that a bit. This wouldn't replace gas taxes in total, most likely they'd offset it a bit.
Gas guzzlers are usually heavier, resulting in more damage to the road. Electricity taxes already cover electric cars. This gas-tax elimination sounds to me like the work of SUV lobbyists. The pro-SUV position died after the lobbying was done, though, so this anti-efficiency idea may go away.