I wish I could have a mass following behind me that I could use to blackmail evil corporations.... Instead, here I am just clicking away at every Microsoft ad I see hoping that it'll eventually rack up some respectable cost to them.
Looking back at the 6-month summary and seeing how drastic the difference is, I think that's all that's worth it, isn't it? Summer is when we run our air conditions (sigh) most and therefore, is typically the season when power grids are under their greatest stress. So even if the price goes up a great deal in the winter (and still considerably less than without the panels), I would think that this is still a great resolution to the problem.
Now the issue is just getting out the $$$ to pay for it up front and waiting for the investment to come back. You're not earning interest on that money....
It's so true. If it weren't for the internet, I couldn't go onto Wikipedia to find out what all the fuss is about his Fahrenheit 451 book. He should be ever-grateful that we have the internet as such an amazing source of literature!
Big internet a holic, but there's always something about halls of books.
Have to agree on this. Yes, information is much easier to find on the internet, and there is a lot more information on the internet than you can ever find in a single library (I've looked through all the libraries in my area for a physics GRE prep book and came up dry, but found information easily through Google). Yet nevertheless, reading a book is just much easier - having something physical, tangible, can be taken anywhere somehow just makes reading much much easier. I suppose that this is only true in some respects (there's no easy Find function in a book), but as a whole, I find reading books far more pleasurable than reading off a screen.
So I guess this was the case, back in the day. I remember those days, even though I was a wee one. But after installing a new system from scratch, customizing Firefox is one of the many arduous tasks that must be done (sure, it's as easy as just copying your ~/, but it still has to be done).
So I said forget it and just went along my way without doing it once and a couple months later, I still haven't installed it. Times have changed - now the only ads that I see are nothing like the ones of old. And you know what? I like it this way cause you know, if I see the ad of a company that I don't like (hint: it rhymes with Shmicrosoft), I click it knowing that said company will lose a couple fractions of a cent. And all feels good in the world.
Unfortunately, the correspondence cannot prove or disprove string theory, although it is a positive step.
That is to say, if you view that the proving of string theory to be true a positive step.
Pardon me for the semantics, but no science/scientific theory can be "proven" - even the theory of gravity can't be proven. If I take a rock and drop it on my desk a million times, that doesn't prove that it'll fall there again on the 1e6+1th time. The same goes with the theory of evolution: nothing can prove evolution, but we just have a lot of evidence (fossils, experiments, etc.) that support it. A theory is supposed to make robust predictions, not sense. You can't understand science, you can only apply it. Classical mechanics can't make sense of blackbody radiation or the photoelectric effect, but that doesn't mean that it's wrong, just that it's not useful on a quantum scale. String theory itself probably only has some realm of physics/dynamics that only it can explain that just doesn't make sense/isn't useful in the realm that we try to understand it in now.
That's all science ever is. Nobody knows what a wavefunction is supposed to be, but it's the core element of quantum mechanics and it's incredibly useful. Nobody really understand what entropy is either, or how you're supposed to understand things like enthalpy or Gibbs/Helmholtz free energy, but they're still essential for determining equilibrium systems/structures via thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. The value of a theory is based on how much it explains and whether it makes any useful, verifiable and applicable predictions. So yes, in essence, you're right but your misunderstanding is more of what science is as opposed to string theory.
Everybody gives string theory a hard time because it hasn't made any predictions, and because it can't be tested. Give it some damn time. It took ages before anyone could make useful predictions with quantum mechanics, and it was shunned for a while too (even by Einstein) and now it's an essential part of our scientific understanding. We shouldn't be so quick to cast out string theory either. Some time, eventually, maybe very far down the road (and if it turns out to be right), it too could be as useful as quantum mechanics has become. I wish scientists would just open their damn minds for once.
Another trick that universities use to inflate their rankings is to give free applications to students that will never get in. Artificially increase the number of applications, then easily reject all of them to lower your admission rate.
I agree that the browser wars are dead, and that there are much worse things with MS than their practices with IE. What boils my blood most is how the price of XP dropped off the market for no particular reason once we started seeing OEMs put Linux on netbooks. Why was XP still $100 about 5 years after and all of a sudden it's down to $30? Isn't this far more abusive as a monopoly? It's not even just one corner aspect of the OS, it's the entire thing that they're using to lock you in. I just don't get it.
I would hope that all desktop OS's are used by enthusiasts. People who run Ubuntu should do so because that's what they like. People who run Mac OS X should do so because that's what they like. People who run Windows should do so because that's what they like. If people are running an OS for some other reason, then we have problems...
Oh, SURE. It has nothing to do with what's installed by default by the OEM. At least 90% of people that use computers use it because it does what they ask it to, NOT because it's what they chose or because they like it in particular. Any of the major 3 OS's do that for most people, but they just don't want to go through the hassle/risk of writing over their whole hard drive and possibly ending up in a worse situation than before, or because they just don't have the time/will/expertise to do it, no matter how easy it is to install something else. Now I, as a Linux fanboy, am going to go eat my heart out if you'll excuse me.
have a CPU thermal design power that is less than or equal to 15 W, not including the graphics and chipset.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Intel Atom has 2 cores, no? I'd be surprised that Microsoft would restrict Win7S from running on this quintessential netbook processor.
The most interesting result will be if manufacturers take the opportunity to release higher specced netbooks with Linux than Microsoft will allow for Windows. I find it hard to believe Microsoft would shoot themselves in the foot like that, given netbooks are the currently the fastest growing computer segment. I'm fairly sure the RAM limitation at least will be dropped before these things hit the market.
This probably won't stop them. OEMs bundle the Windows jig with all sorts of craptrialware that somewhat lowers the cost of the license. Many netbooks seem to be running up to ~$400 now so maybe it's still profitable to run one of the more privileged Win7 versions (I'm sure that they have specific names but it's so hard to keep track)
A better example is giving a 10-year-old a new Honda Fit and telling him to go to the store. Relatively cheap car, probably going to get banged up, but dispensable. The alternative extreme is giving him a Porsche 911, considerably more expensive, and telling him to go to the store without turning it (and himself) into a flaming heap.
I actually had to go to their website to find out what they offer, and from what I see, it's nothing compared to Yahoo! or Google. They can't compete; cut the dead weight.
> Perhaps AOL would have regained some speed and become the prominent household name it
> once was, instead of being that company who sent us all the free coasters.
Was it ever anything else? (I didn't actually get very many, though.)
I think a better reason for failure is that, quite simply, it was a bad idea which served its purpose only for a while until everyone realized that something else was far better. Yeah, the people behind it hate seeing it that way though.
This information is irrelevant to many of us; for a frame of reference, how does HD performance on 7 compare with XP?
Even more importantly, in the particular frame of reference, where XP is moving at a velocity of 38.5% c relative to Windows 7, with a time of passing of 92.3% relative to XP, do these calculations add up?
I, too, enjoy forming an extremely strong opinion about some person/company from entirely one source. Above all, from a webcomic with no references and no legitimate claim against the group in question. Besides, this is Wal-Mart - I was brought up being taught that they're well, not the best guys around... dunno whether I really believe it though, nor do I care as I never shop there.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok! Ok! I must have, I must have put a decimal point in the wrong place or something. Shit. I always do that. I always mess up some mundane detail.
I wish I could have a mass following behind me that I could use to blackmail evil corporations.... Instead, here I am just clicking away at every Microsoft ad I see hoping that it'll eventually rack up some respectable cost to them.
-bitterness, sad face-
Looking back at the 6-month summary and seeing how drastic the difference is, I think that's all that's worth it, isn't it? Summer is when we run our air conditions (sigh) most and therefore, is typically the season when power grids are under their greatest stress. So even if the price goes up a great deal in the winter (and still considerably less than without the panels), I would think that this is still a great resolution to the problem.
Now the issue is just getting out the $$$ to pay for it up front and waiting for the investment to come back. You're not earning interest on that money....
It's so true. If it weren't for the internet, I couldn't go onto Wikipedia to find out what all the fuss is about his Fahrenheit 451 book. He should be ever-grateful that we have the internet as such an amazing source of literature!
Big internet a holic, but there's always something about halls of books.
Have to agree on this. Yes, information is much easier to find on the internet, and there is a lot more information on the internet than you can ever find in a single library (I've looked through all the libraries in my area for a physics GRE prep book and came up dry, but found information easily through Google). Yet nevertheless, reading a book is just much easier - having something physical, tangible, can be taken anywhere somehow just makes reading much much easier. I suppose that this is only true in some respects (there's no easy Find function in a book), but as a whole, I find reading books far more pleasurable than reading off a screen.
And why don't they open their source while they're at it too??
Of course. Also, this is how they plan to catch the perpetrators of the Conficker virus/worm/whatever. Canada will soon be a global hero!
(More sarcasm)
Hey, if anyone wanted to write a malicious script for Linux, where else would they go?
Damn, we should feel so proud of ourselves.
So I guess this was the case, back in the day. I remember those days, even though I was a wee one. But after installing a new system from scratch, customizing Firefox is one of the many arduous tasks that must be done (sure, it's as easy as just copying your ~/, but it still has to be done).
So I said forget it and just went along my way without doing it once and a couple months later, I still haven't installed it. Times have changed - now the only ads that I see are nothing like the ones of old. And you know what? I like it this way cause you know, if I see the ad of a company that I don't like (hint: it rhymes with Shmicrosoft), I click it knowing that said company will lose a couple fractions of a cent. And all feels good in the world.
That is to say, if you view that the proving of string theory to be true a positive step.
Pardon me for the semantics, but no science/scientific theory can be "proven" - even the theory of gravity can't be proven. If I take a rock and drop it on my desk a million times, that doesn't prove that it'll fall there again on the 1e6+1th time. The same goes with the theory of evolution: nothing can prove evolution, but we just have a lot of evidence (fossils, experiments, etc.) that support it. A theory is supposed to make robust predictions, not sense. You can't understand science, you can only apply it. Classical mechanics can't make sense of blackbody radiation or the photoelectric effect, but that doesn't mean that it's wrong, just that it's not useful on a quantum scale. String theory itself probably only has some realm of physics/dynamics that only it can explain that just doesn't make sense/isn't useful in the realm that we try to understand it in now.
That's all science ever is. Nobody knows what a wavefunction is supposed to be, but it's the core element of quantum mechanics and it's incredibly useful. Nobody really understand what entropy is either, or how you're supposed to understand things like enthalpy or Gibbs/Helmholtz free energy, but they're still essential for determining equilibrium systems/structures via thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. The value of a theory is based on how much it explains and whether it makes any useful, verifiable and applicable predictions. So yes, in essence, you're right but your misunderstanding is more of what science is as opposed to string theory.
Everybody gives string theory a hard time because it hasn't made any predictions, and because it can't be tested. Give it some damn time. It took ages before anyone could make useful predictions with quantum mechanics, and it was shunned for a while too (even by Einstein) and now it's an essential part of our scientific understanding. We shouldn't be so quick to cast out string theory either. Some time, eventually, maybe very far down the road (and if it turns out to be right), it too could be as useful as quantum mechanics has become. I wish scientists would just open their damn minds for once.
Another trick that universities use to inflate their rankings is to give free applications to students that will never get in. Artificially increase the number of applications, then easily reject all of them to lower your admission rate.
You can try running it from a flash drive. Sometimes you need admin access for that too though.
I agree that the browser wars are dead, and that there are much worse things with MS than their practices with IE. What boils my blood most is how the price of XP dropped off the market for no particular reason once we started seeing OEMs put Linux on netbooks. Why was XP still $100 about 5 years after and all of a sudden it's down to $30? Isn't this far more abusive as a monopoly? It's not even just one corner aspect of the OS, it's the entire thing that they're using to lock you in. I just don't get it.
I would hope that all desktop OS's are used by enthusiasts. People who run Ubuntu should do so because that's what they like. People who run Mac OS X should do so because that's what they like. People who run Windows should do so because that's what they like. If people are running an OS for some other reason, then we have problems...
Oh, SURE. It has nothing to do with what's installed by default by the OEM. At least 90% of people that use computers use it because it does what they ask it to, NOT because it's what they chose or because they like it in particular. Any of the major 3 OS's do that for most people, but they just don't want to go through the hassle/risk of writing over their whole hard drive and possibly ending up in a worse situation than before, or because they just don't have the time/will/expertise to do it, no matter how easy it is to install something else. Now I, as a Linux fanboy, am going to go eat my heart out if you'll excuse me.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Intel Atom has 2 cores, no? I'd be surprised that Microsoft would restrict Win7S from running on this quintessential netbook processor.
The most interesting result will be if manufacturers take the opportunity to release higher specced netbooks with Linux than Microsoft will allow for Windows. I find it hard to believe Microsoft would shoot themselves in the foot like that, given netbooks are the currently the fastest growing computer segment. I'm fairly sure the RAM limitation at least will be dropped before these things hit the market.
This probably won't stop them. OEMs bundle the Windows jig with all sorts of craptrialware that somewhat lowers the cost of the license. Many netbooks seem to be running up to ~$400 now so maybe it's still profitable to run one of the more privileged Win7 versions (I'm sure that they have specific names but it's so hard to keep track)
A better example is giving a 10-year-old a new Honda Fit and telling him to go to the store. Relatively cheap car, probably going to get banged up, but dispensable. The alternative extreme is giving him a Porsche 911, considerably more expensive, and telling him to go to the store without turning it (and himself) into a flaming heap.
Wait, I forget what we were talking about
I actually had to go to their website to find out what they offer, and from what I see, it's nothing compared to Yahoo! or Google. They can't compete; cut the dead weight.
> Perhaps AOL would have regained some speed and become the prominent household name it > once was, instead of being that company who sent us all the free coasters.
Was it ever anything else? (I didn't actually get very many, though.)
I think a better reason for failure is that, quite simply, it was a bad idea which served its purpose only for a while until everyone realized that something else was far better. Yeah, the people behind it hate seeing it that way though.
This information is irrelevant to many of us; for a frame of reference, how does HD performance on 7 compare with XP?
Even more importantly, in the particular frame of reference, where XP is moving at a velocity of 38.5% c relative to Windows 7, with a time of passing of 92.3% relative to XP, do these calculations add up?
An awe-inspiring exemplification of the term 'lock-in.'
Apparently our fighting machines are still just in beta.
I, too, enjoy forming an extremely strong opinion about some person/company from entirely one source. Above all, from a webcomic with no references and no legitimate claim against the group in question. Besides, this is Wal-Mart - I was brought up being taught that they're well, not the best guys around... dunno whether I really believe it though, nor do I care as I never shop there.
We'll forever remember your contribution(s) to the scientific community.