Actually, Verizon FiOS is one of the few ISPs where even consumer lines are not oversold, at least not in reality. Technically, if everyone in your neighborhood signed up for the very fastest service (50Mbps or higher download), then there would be some contention. But, as long as a few people in the neighborhood aren't FiOS customers (or sign up for slower service), you're OK.
The real advantages to business FiOS are the ability to run any server and a decent SLA.
Most ISP's in the US already have a (high) data cap.
For very small values of "high".
When a legal movie download can be anywhere from 500MB to 3GB, a monthly cap that can be as low as 5GB isn't "high". Even 50GB is can easily be reached by completely legal means for a moderately technically savvy family.
Her character was pretty interesting, too, as it was obvious she wasn't doing 'Terminator' things
And then, when her character did do "Terminator things" (like emotionlessly killing dozens of people), it made the character even more interesting.
The key to a Terminator TV series is that movies don't give you time to show that the machines really do have a long-term plan...the movies imply their only long-term plan is "kill all humans". So, in that regard, the TV series was excellent. Overall, it was quite good, and definitely had what I consider to be the most unexpected scene in all of TV (in the episode "Adam Raised a Cain").
Also the bandwidth of the data signal will be much less than a TV signal, so it won't require nearly as much power.
You canna change the laws of physics. You still will need enough power in the transmission to allow it to propagate to the receiving antenna, and the power required to do that is almost completely controlled by the carrier frequency and the distance between transmitter and receiver, with little regard to the frequency width of the transmission (as long as that width is anywhere near reasonable).
That said, it's still not going to be a very useful service, because although I haven't checked recently, I seem to recall that Australia uses around 7-8MHz per TV channel. Using incredibly complex (and fragile) encoding, you can fit about 30Mbps in an 8MHz over-the-air transmission. Even at 256Kbps per user, that's just 120 users per TV channel. Since there are less than 100 analog TV channels being shut down, that means this scheme would give fewer than 10,000 users speeds that even the worst DSL can usually match.
It doesn't matter how good or bad the items being advertised are, I don't want my attention distracted from the story the film is telling.
Basically, as long as the characters don't "advertise", I think the public is fine with it.
For example, if Q says to Bond, "now, let me tell you about the 'additions' to the BMW Z3...", and that's the only mention of the make or model of the car in the movie, it's probably OK. But if Bond were constantly asking people if they "want a ride in my BMW", it'd be too much (like the mentioned Omega watch example).
I'd have to admit that I haven't tried XP x64 recently with newer hardware and good x64 drivers/software.
I've had good luck with 64-bit Vista drivers on XP x64, especially for printers. Also, anything for 64-bit Win2K3 will work.
Want my copy of XP x64?;)
I only needed the one 64-bit OS, since I need to run several VMs all the time that have drag and drop with my main OS. Otherwise, 4GB really is more than enough for most users (e.g., no serious video or photo editing).
That math seems so wrong, since 5 grams is less than 1/5 (specifically, 0.176) of a ounce. I can't believe that a singe ounce of sugar is 6.8 tsp, or more than 2 tablespoons.
However, I've been wrong before...
Because I was curious, I measured, and 1 tablespoon of ordinary sugar weighs about 12 grams.
Um, there are a lot of quite successful selling breakfast cereals that are just fine as far as "healthy" goes. For example, Wheat Chex.
Sure, it's not uber-whole-grain-all-natural-extra-fiber, but there's nothing wrong with it. And, you can get store-brand equivalents that are cheaper and pretty much exactly the same.
First, if you want a high def copy of the show, you're going to wait an average of 24 hours.
I'm not sure if you are saying "this is the way the networks should do it" or "that's how long it takes for an HD copy to appear on file-sharing sites".
If the latter, that's flat-out wrong, as I have recently seen shows up as fast as 38 minutes after the end of the first broadcast. My DVR screwed up on "No Ordinary Family", and I noticed the upload time of the torrent showed that.
Copy what HBO is doing -- make good programming, with good scripts and not pandering to the "prime time" audience or worrying about adult-themed content.
You could also substitute "BBC" for "HBO" in that sentence.
Like every media production company, they both have lots of misses, but their best is generally better than other sources. Sometimes, though, I think that some HBO shows succeed merely because they show naked people. Finding a middle ground where you don't have to worry about every little word in the script, or a little too much violence, or a few sexual situations, and you can produce some very good shows, indeed.
Unfortunately for scifi fans, none of the premium networks, despite plenty of non-mainstream series, have been particularly big on scifi series of any kind so far.
I think they have been as active in sci-fi as any other network. Remember that "Stargate; SG-1" started on Showtime and "Odyssey 5" was also a Showtime series.
Although SG ran 5 years on Showtime, it has had a very long life afterwards on other networks. "Odyssey 5" was supposed to do the same 5 year run, but was canned after one year.
So, it really doesn't matter if it's a premium channel, cable network, or broadcast network...they all want to have a show with huge ratings (for that channel) in the timeslot, and good sci-fi, because it requires you to think a bit, tends to get average ratings at best.
They'd all be better off to plot the overall story in advance, so they can see their destination and work towards it.
Right, and by "plot" they should know it means something like "Joe is really a bad guy", but it doesn't require them to decide exactly how the rest of the characters figure that out. Instead, they feel that "deciding things in advance constrains us". Or worse, "the viewers wanted...."
But, knowing that Joe is a bad guy would give the writers a chance to write details into episodes that will later make sense once the truth is revealed. Instead, we get shows where after 40+ episodes where Joe is obviously a good guy, suddenly he's a bad guy and killed off (because the actor quit the show unexpectedly).
so again the concept that the writers 'had a plan' was blown for me early on.
I never watched BSG, but heard about this after the fact and my first thought was "wow, I dodged that bullet".
Shows can have no real continuing storyline and be good (anthology series, many of the "Law & Order" franchise, etc.), but if a show tries to have a continuing storyline, then it must be fully planned out before the episode that introduces it, or it will show, and fans will turn into enemies.
For bonus points, the producers need to have contingency plans for characters when the actor can no longer play the role.
My company uses a three-factor identification system for remote access - our username, an 8-digit number we set ourselves and need to memorize, and a 6-digit SecureID rotating PIN.
takes even less time if the kids have assigned seats. Not difficult to see that Bobby's desk is empty. Not a big hit with the kids, but effective.
I had teachers in high school who let you know that they would take attendance based on the "assigned" seat, but the seat was assigned based on where you were actually sitting on the 2nd or 3rd day of the semester (giving you a chance to get the seat you wanted to be in).
Fingerprints? I think we've done that one pretty much to death.
For humans past puberty, fingerprints are actually a very good method of identification. Unfortunately, no current biometric scanner uses the fact that oils are left behind on a true "fingerprint".
So, a good system would be to have a glass scan surface that can clean itself. Then, the subject presses their finger to the glass and removes it. A cover then blocks access to the glass, and the true fingerprint (composed of residual oils) is scanned. Bonus points if the scanner uses cyanoacrylate to enhance the fingerprint before scanning.
What we need to do is encourage developers to develop a storyline and allow jump-in cooperation from people you approve.
Although I agree completely, I have to say that I also see how it would be very hard to design a game to hit the "challenging but fun" sweet spot in both single and co-op modes.
Even good games (e.g., Half-Life 2) are obviously hard enough to design for single-player (note the reliance on infinitely spawning enemies), so adding in co-op would likely result in this same sort of approach. And, there are a lot of "bosses" in games that are hard to kill because the design is such that they can always attack you, but with co-op, it might be too easy.
But, there are a lot of games with NPCs who aren't critical to the story, like other soldiers you pick up along the way. Maybe a co-op mode would allow control of those characters by other players.
Anecdotal, of course... but I, and others that tried it in my circle of friends/acquaintances (including system administrator at work), all agreed that it crashed a lot and was generally unstable, and much inferior to XP x86-32, and seemed like a "hack" more than a 64-bit OS.
Well, all the 64-bit Windows OSs are "hacks" in that MS chose to use registry settings and transparent folder re-direction that causes no end of problems, instead of continuing on the path they had set up when moving from 16 to 32 bits.
Basically, there was "SYSTEM" for 16-bit Windows, and "SYSTEM32" for 32-bit, but then MS decided that 64-bit systems would use "SYSTEM32" for 64-bit apps and SysWoW64 for 32-bit apps. Because of this, you can end up with DLLs in the wrong place, and apps that don't work. I found out that some apps with 32-bit and 64-bit versions can't both be installed on the machine at the same time because of this sort of issue.
If you don't know this, then it can be hard to debug problems when they occur. But, I've had no system-level issues in nearly two years of daily use. The only ongoing issue I have seen is that MS Outlook 2003 will randomly crash after being open for a long time. I don't run games, so that may help the stability. Also, modern hardware is much better suited to deal with large amounts of memory, etc. I don't doubt that XP-64 was unstable on early 64-bit hardware.
Man, anyone with a Model M that works in an office environment deserves a swift kick in the nuts. It's incredibly inconsiderate to the rest of your coworkers.
The "silent" keyboard on my Dell at work rattles so much every time you type that it's louder than any keyclick.
Seriously, unless you work in an office that is absolutely silent, keyboard noise is not an issue. I spent this afternoon having to listen to phone call on speakerphone from 3 offices down. I couldn't say anything like "please close your door" because the offender is "important". I really feel sorry for the people who were closer than me.
Also, it was x64 and I wanted to [natively] use more than 3.5gb RAM, and Linux wasn't an option for some of my software.
64-bit XP has been out for a long time, and is quite usable.
It suffers from the same issues as 64-bit Vista and 7 (e.g., if you don't have drivers for your hardware, you're SOL), but otherwise works pretty much the same as 32-bit XP, with the advantage of using more memory. I use XP-64 as my desktop at home, and generally don't have to think about it being a 64-bit OS any more...everything just works.
Even so, there are a lot of vehicles with torque curves such that they have close to max torque at very low RPMs, and they will act the same as your car.
I'm not a major league player, but after watching a good number of games, I assure you that I, most fans, and every major league player knows, very likely, what base they will reach when it becomes apparent where the ball will land.
You really haven't watched enough baseball games, and the article admits that the people that did the math aren't really familiar with baseball, either. The variables involved are far larger than most people would realize.
First, the assumption is that either there are no runners on base or that there are two outs.
Second, not just speed of the fielders but their quality (e.g., will they play a carom correctly, do they have a strong and accurate arm) determines whether taking another base is realistic.
Third, the speed of the runner will greatly change the equation. The very fastest runner might need a very wide circle, but much slower runners will not benefit from the wide turn.
Last, as the article briefly notes, runners already do all these calculations in their head and adjust their basepath optimally. Even the most casual viewer of baseball will notice that a runner leads off second not only towards third, but towards left field. In other words, they are positioning themselves close to the correct location on the curve in the article. And, again, even the most casual viewer will also know why this cannot be done at first base.
I have a hybrid with a CVT. I can basically out accelerate almost anything on the road (except for true sports cars) from a standstill to the speed limit.
Not a chance, unless "the speed limit" is very low.
Although you will almost certainly use less fuel, there are many non-"sports cars" that will out-accelerate any hybrid. There's even this seven passenger hauler that weighs nearly 5000 pounds.
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exactly.. consumer lines are very oversold
Actually, Verizon FiOS is one of the few ISPs where even consumer lines are not oversold, at least not in reality. Technically, if everyone in your neighborhood signed up for the very fastest service (50Mbps or higher download), then there would be some contention. But, as long as a few people in the neighborhood aren't FiOS customers (or sign up for slower service), you're OK.
The real advantages to business FiOS are the ability to run any server and a decent SLA.
Most ISP's in the US already have a (high) data cap.
For very small values of "high".
When a legal movie download can be anywhere from 500MB to 3GB, a monthly cap that can be as low as 5GB isn't "high". Even 50GB is can easily be reached by completely legal means for a moderately technically savvy family.
Many don't understand that Sci-fi is big and expensive to make.
Good sci-fi can be made for the same price as any other good series...you don't need millions of dollars of special effects to tell a good story.
Her character was pretty interesting, too, as it was obvious she wasn't doing 'Terminator' things
And then, when her character did do "Terminator things" (like emotionlessly killing dozens of people), it made the character even more interesting.
The key to a Terminator TV series is that movies don't give you time to show that the machines really do have a long-term plan...the movies imply their only long-term plan is "kill all humans". So, in that regard, the TV series was excellent. Overall, it was quite good, and definitely had what I consider to be the most unexpected scene in all of TV (in the episode "Adam Raised a Cain").
Also the bandwidth of the data signal will be much less than a TV signal, so it won't require nearly as much power.
You canna change the laws of physics. You still will need enough power in the transmission to allow it to propagate to the receiving antenna, and the power required to do that is almost completely controlled by the carrier frequency and the distance between transmitter and receiver, with little regard to the frequency width of the transmission (as long as that width is anywhere near reasonable).
That said, it's still not going to be a very useful service, because although I haven't checked recently, I seem to recall that Australia uses around 7-8MHz per TV channel. Using incredibly complex (and fragile) encoding, you can fit about 30Mbps in an 8MHz over-the-air transmission. Even at 256Kbps per user, that's just 120 users per TV channel. Since there are less than 100 analog TV channels being shut down, that means this scheme would give fewer than 10,000 users speeds that even the worst DSL can usually match.
It doesn't matter how good or bad the items being advertised are, I don't want my attention distracted from the story the film is telling.
Basically, as long as the characters don't "advertise", I think the public is fine with it.
For example, if Q says to Bond, "now, let me tell you about the 'additions' to the BMW Z3...", and that's the only mention of the make or model of the car in the movie, it's probably OK. But if Bond were constantly asking people if they "want a ride in my BMW", it'd be too much (like the mentioned Omega watch example).
I'd have to admit that I haven't tried XP x64 recently with newer hardware and good x64 drivers/software.
I've had good luck with 64-bit Vista drivers on XP x64, especially for printers. Also, anything for 64-bit Win2K3 will work.
Want my copy of XP x64? ;)
I only needed the one 64-bit OS, since I need to run several VMs all the time that have drag and drop with my main OS. Otherwise, 4GB really is more than enough for most users (e.g., no serious video or photo editing).
That math seems so wrong, since 5 grams is less than 1/5 (specifically, 0.176) of a ounce. I can't believe that a singe ounce of sugar is 6.8 tsp, or more than 2 tablespoons.
However, I've been wrong before...
Because I was curious, I measured, and 1 tablespoon of ordinary sugar weighs about 12 grams.
Um, there are a lot of quite successful selling breakfast cereals that are just fine as far as "healthy" goes. For example, Wheat Chex.
Sure, it's not uber-whole-grain-all-natural-extra-fiber, but there's nothing wrong with it. And, you can get store-brand equivalents that are cheaper and pretty much exactly the same.
First, if you want a high def copy of the show, you're going to wait an average of 24 hours.
I'm not sure if you are saying "this is the way the networks should do it" or "that's how long it takes for an HD copy to appear on file-sharing sites".
If the latter, that's flat-out wrong, as I have recently seen shows up as fast as 38 minutes after the end of the first broadcast. My DVR screwed up on "No Ordinary Family", and I noticed the upload time of the torrent showed that.
Copy what HBO is doing -- make good programming, with good scripts and not pandering to the "prime time" audience or worrying about adult-themed content.
You could also substitute "BBC" for "HBO" in that sentence.
Like every media production company, they both have lots of misses, but their best is generally better than other sources. Sometimes, though, I think that some HBO shows succeed merely because they show naked people. Finding a middle ground where you don't have to worry about every little word in the script, or a little too much violence, or a few sexual situations, and you can produce some very good shows, indeed.
Unfortunately for scifi fans, none of the premium networks, despite plenty of non-mainstream series, have been particularly big on scifi series of any kind so far.
I think they have been as active in sci-fi as any other network. Remember that "Stargate; SG-1" started on Showtime and "Odyssey 5" was also a Showtime series.
Although SG ran 5 years on Showtime, it has had a very long life afterwards on other networks. "Odyssey 5" was supposed to do the same 5 year run, but was canned after one year.
So, it really doesn't matter if it's a premium channel, cable network, or broadcast network...they all want to have a show with huge ratings (for that channel) in the timeslot, and good sci-fi, because it requires you to think a bit, tends to get average ratings at best.
They'd all be better off to plot the overall story in advance, so they can see their destination and work towards it.
Right, and by "plot" they should know it means something like "Joe is really a bad guy", but it doesn't require them to decide exactly how the rest of the characters figure that out. Instead, they feel that "deciding things in advance constrains us". Or worse, "the viewers wanted...."
But, knowing that Joe is a bad guy would give the writers a chance to write details into episodes that will later make sense once the truth is revealed. Instead, we get shows where after 40+ episodes where Joe is obviously a good guy, suddenly he's a bad guy and killed off (because the actor quit the show unexpectedly).
so again the concept that the writers 'had a plan' was blown for me early on.
I never watched BSG, but heard about this after the fact and my first thought was "wow, I dodged that bullet".
Shows can have no real continuing storyline and be good (anthology series, many of the "Law & Order" franchise, etc.), but if a show tries to have a continuing storyline, then it must be fully planned out before the episode that introduces it, or it will show, and fans will turn into enemies.
For bonus points, the producers need to have contingency plans for characters when the actor can no longer play the role.
My company uses a three-factor identification system for remote access - our username, an 8-digit number we set ourselves and need to memorize, and a 6-digit SecureID rotating PIN.
This is still only two-factor authentication:
Many companies make this same naming mistake, with banks being the worst.
takes even less time if the kids have assigned seats. Not difficult to see that Bobby's desk is empty. Not a big hit with the kids, but effective.
I had teachers in high school who let you know that they would take attendance based on the "assigned" seat, but the seat was assigned based on where you were actually sitting on the 2nd or 3rd day of the semester (giving you a chance to get the seat you wanted to be in).
Fingerprints? I think we've done that one pretty much to death.
For humans past puberty, fingerprints are actually a very good method of identification. Unfortunately, no current biometric scanner uses the fact that oils are left behind on a true "fingerprint".
So, a good system would be to have a glass scan surface that can clean itself. Then, the subject presses their finger to the glass and removes it. A cover then blocks access to the glass, and the true fingerprint (composed of residual oils) is scanned. Bonus points if the scanner uses cyanoacrylate to enhance the fingerprint before scanning.
I'll alert the costume department that they let a real space suit slip through their fingers.
Obviously, the costume department needed to loosen their grip a bit.
What we need to do is encourage developers to develop a storyline and allow jump-in cooperation from people you approve.
Although I agree completely, I have to say that I also see how it would be very hard to design a game to hit the "challenging but fun" sweet spot in both single and co-op modes.
Even good games (e.g., Half-Life 2) are obviously hard enough to design for single-player (note the reliance on infinitely spawning enemies), so adding in co-op would likely result in this same sort of approach. And, there are a lot of "bosses" in games that are hard to kill because the design is such that they can always attack you, but with co-op, it might be too easy.
But, there are a lot of games with NPCs who aren't critical to the story, like other soldiers you pick up along the way. Maybe a co-op mode would allow control of those characters by other players.
Anecdotal, of course... but I, and others that tried it in my circle of friends/acquaintances (including system administrator at work), all agreed that it crashed a lot and was generally unstable, and much inferior to XP x86-32, and seemed like a "hack" more than a 64-bit OS.
Well, all the 64-bit Windows OSs are "hacks" in that MS chose to use registry settings and transparent folder re-direction that causes no end of problems, instead of continuing on the path they had set up when moving from 16 to 32 bits.
Basically, there was "SYSTEM" for 16-bit Windows, and "SYSTEM32" for 32-bit, but then MS decided that 64-bit systems would use "SYSTEM32" for 64-bit apps and SysWoW64 for 32-bit apps. Because of this, you can end up with DLLs in the wrong place, and apps that don't work. I found out that some apps with 32-bit and 64-bit versions can't both be installed on the machine at the same time because of this sort of issue.
If you don't know this, then it can be hard to debug problems when they occur. But, I've had no system-level issues in nearly two years of daily use. The only ongoing issue I have seen is that MS Outlook 2003 will randomly crash after being open for a long time. I don't run games, so that may help the stability. Also, modern hardware is much better suited to deal with large amounts of memory, etc. I don't doubt that XP-64 was unstable on early 64-bit hardware.
Man, anyone with a Model M that works in an office environment deserves a swift kick in the nuts. It's incredibly inconsiderate to the rest of your coworkers.
The "silent" keyboard on my Dell at work rattles so much every time you type that it's louder than any keyclick.
Seriously, unless you work in an office that is absolutely silent, keyboard noise is not an issue. I spent this afternoon having to listen to phone call on speakerphone from 3 offices down. I couldn't say anything like "please close your door" because the offender is "important". I really feel sorry for the people who were closer than me.
Also, it was x64 and I wanted to [natively] use more than 3.5gb RAM, and Linux wasn't an option for some of my software.
64-bit XP has been out for a long time, and is quite usable.
It suffers from the same issues as 64-bit Vista and 7 (e.g., if you don't have drivers for your hardware, you're SOL), but otherwise works pretty much the same as 32-bit XP, with the advantage of using more memory. I use XP-64 as my desktop at home, and generally don't have to think about it being a 64-bit OS any more...everything just works.
I'm talking in town speed limits.
So, yes, you're talking 0-30.
Even so, there are a lot of vehicles with torque curves such that they have close to max torque at very low RPMs, and they will act the same as your car.
I'm not a major league player, but after watching a good number of games, I assure you that I, most fans, and every major league player knows, very likely, what base they will reach when it becomes apparent where the ball will land.
You really haven't watched enough baseball games, and the article admits that the people that did the math aren't really familiar with baseball, either. The variables involved are far larger than most people would realize.
First, the assumption is that either there are no runners on base or that there are two outs.
Second, not just speed of the fielders but their quality (e.g., will they play a carom correctly, do they have a strong and accurate arm) determines whether taking another base is realistic.
Third, the speed of the runner will greatly change the equation. The very fastest runner might need a very wide circle, but much slower runners will not benefit from the wide turn.
Last, as the article briefly notes, runners already do all these calculations in their head and adjust their basepath optimally. Even the most casual viewer of baseball will notice that a runner leads off second not only towards third, but towards left field. In other words, they are positioning themselves close to the correct location on the curve in the article. And, again, even the most casual viewer will also know why this cannot be done at first base.
I have a hybrid with a CVT. I can basically out accelerate almost anything on the road (except for true sports cars) from a standstill to the speed limit.
Not a chance, unless "the speed limit" is very low.
Although you will almost certainly use less fuel, there are many non-"sports cars" that will out-accelerate any hybrid. There's even this seven passenger hauler that weighs nearly 5000 pounds.