The difference is there are a lot fewer races in a Parlimentary system. You vote for your MP and then what else? In US elections there can easily be 50 races in one election. You may not get them all in one election, but people vote for President, Governor, Mayor, City Council, US Congress, US Senate, State Legislature, state and local ballot initiatives, Superior Court judges, School Board, and more. There are so many elected offices and ballot initiatives, you would be amazed at the complexity.
Gotta agree there. It's been a few years since I've gone to a big-name concert, and they really rape your wallet 10 times worse than buying a $20 CD: $8 drinks, 50% Ticketmaster commission, parking hassles etc. etc. I guess you could still support your favorite bands by paying for an official fan club membership or buying a tshirt off their website.
It might still be genetic. Try looking up "island dwarfism". In environments with limited food, a large body that needs more energy is a disadvantage to survival. I'm not a biologist, but it's something to consider.
Not exactly. The highly paid professional athletes play in "spectator sports". It's a form of entertainment just like TV or movies. The revenues are proportional to how many fans are willing to pay for tickets (or watch commercial TV) to see them play. Sports equipment for amateurs are a secondary market, but it's vastly outweighed by the market for tickets and advertising.
Also, I don't think we should get sidetracked. Professional sports is only one path to being an attractive mate, and the rules of sports mean they sometimes select for freakishly tall or freakishly large bodies that may not otherwise be attractive. On a totally superficial level, women are attracted to power and dominance, i.e. the alpha male. Money, social status, attitude and physical strength are all part of it, and they can usually substitute for each other. This is a separate issue from whether children of elite athletes are better athletes themselves.
That's for everybody to decide for themselves. At this point, the record labels obviously feel that the commercial value of an edgy, anti-establishment act outweighs the propaganda value of a few anti-music industry songs. It's up to us to change that equation.
It's easy to say only listen to indie bands, but the musicians aren't the enemies, the labels are. It's easy to tell who's a sellout by their statements on downloading. Anti-P2P public service announcement? Sellout. Give away MP3's on the website like Offspring or write an anti-label song like The Ataris, Radio #2, or Korn, Y'all Want a Single? Not a sellout.
You can support bands by buying concert tickets or t-shirts, if you don't mind support other evil monopolies (Clear Channel and Ticketmaster).
That's not an issue with handheld consoles. They don't have the multi-GB hard drives of the next-gen consoles. Hard drive storage is really what makes binary patches practical. Hope this doesn't lead to console games getting rushed out the door half baked because they could patch it later.
To be fair, ATI only released specs up to the 9200. Every model after that had to be reverse-engineered. I had an X700 Pro and yeah, Linux compatibility pretty much sucked.
To put some actual numbers on it, I've measured ATX standby consumption on a few PCs with an AC power meter. They range from a low of 2W for an NForce4 system with a good quality Seasonic PSU to 8W for an NForce2 system with a cheapo no-name PSU that had an LED fan that stayed lit and kept spinning slowly even in standby. The NF4 system could also suspend to RAM which is almost the same as standby but with power still going to RAM. That used about 8-9W. That's bad compared to shutting off, but better than the 50-60W from the computer powered on and idle.
If you realyl want to solve this problem, design devices like TVs to keep the programming even if turned off. I would hit the power strip off if I didn't have to reprogram the channels every time I plug it back in!
You got that right. If they just made TVs, VCRs and stereos with non-volatile RAM and a battery powered clock, we could just shut them all off with a power strip. It's no big deal to flip the switch on the power strip when I get home.
There may be a large *amount* of reserves in the tar sands of Canada and the heavy oil of Venezuela, but it's useless if you can't produce it at a rate fast enough to keep up with global demand and the decline of old fields. I really do hope that new sources of energy can replace oil because the alternative is a doomsday collapse scenario. The risk here is the time lag between the market signal of high oil prices and the commercial availability of alternative transportation fuels in useful quantities. Even with rising oil prices, there will be a few boom and bust cycles where low oil prices make alternative energy unprofitable, and private investment will be risky.
Sony did something similar with the Linux kit for the PS2. The kernel was completely open source, but it ran in a VM that didn't expose any native hardware interfaces to prevent console modding.
Do you even remember how ugly an 8x8 dot matrix font looks? Or remember the low visibility of a non-backlit LCD? It might work for a cheap prototype, but would anybody want to buy it?
Gasoline and other liquid fuels have high energy density and are easy to store, but they need relatively heavy and bulky engines to convert heat to mechanical energy. In comparison to the engine, the fuel tank is a much smaller part of vehicle weight.
In an electric car, the relationship is reversed. The electric motor and power controller are relatively small, and the batteries are big and heavy because they have low energy density, even the most advanced lithium ion cells. When the EV1 first came out with lead-acid batteries, it was said that approx. 1000 lbs of batteries equalled the energy in one gallon of gasoline. It's easy to add more power but hard to add more fuel capacity.
As far as efficiency. The engineering challenge is that the engine needs to run over a wide range of power outputs. A car might have an engine with 200 peak hp, but it might need 50 hp to accelerate in normal city driving and only 20 hp to cruise at speed (these are all rough ballpark figures). Because of this, automobile engines will always be less efficient than stationary engines which run in a much narrower range of power outputs. Hybrids help by reducing the peak power requirements of the engine and getting extra power for acceleration from the electric drive. I think even with the energy losses from transmission and recharging, an electric car is still more efficient.
Who ever said people would pay for municipal broadband our of their property taxes? It would probably be billed by usage just like your water bill which is usually run by a municipal utility. If you don't like the price, don't buy it.
Parent is correct. An out of state car with over 7500 miles is considered used and can be registered with no penalties. When it's time for the smog check, the testing station will measure emissions by the 45 state standards.
Do the words "get a life" mean anything? I've known plenty of workaholics and video game addicts, but this is the first time in the last 15 years I've had the urge to tell someone that.
If you don't want the typical slimy dealership experience, there are ways around that. There are auto broker services like Carsdirect, Autonation, and Costco that will sell cars for a pre-negotiated discount price. Carsdirect even gives you their price right on the website, no need to call for a quote. It doesn't get any easier than that. The reason no-hassle one price doesn't work is because buyers looking for a deal will take the no-hassle price into another dealer and they'll beat it.
All that auto dealerships now offer you is the degrading process of "oh, gee, I dunno, I'm gonna have to talk to my boss about that offer you just made" and "here is a payment plan we can offer you in which I'll only talk about the monthly payments and hide the effective 14% interest rate that amounts to".
It's true that dealers will try to funnel all negotiations in that direction, but if you're firm they will negotiate price and finance interest rate separately (firm means be prepared to walk out). Get pre-approved financing from your bank or credit union and walk in prepared to pay cash. They'll still try to sell you their own financing, but if they beat the other rate, it's a bonus for you.
Abu Gonzales has been pushing ISP data retention since at least early this year, and he's invoked all the usual boogeymen to get it passed: terrorism and kiddie porn.
He's tried: -meeting privately with the major ISPs to ask them for voluntary compliance -getting Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner to introduce a bill that went nowhere. -somehow persuading Qwest to endorse legislation
I don't mean to pimp Cnet. Search any tech news site for "ISP data retention" and you'll see the history of this.
Slashdot Mirror
The difference is there are a lot fewer races in a Parlimentary system. You vote for your MP and then what else? In US elections there can easily be 50 races in one election. You may not get them all in one election, but people vote for President, Governor, Mayor, City Council, US Congress, US Senate, State Legislature, state and local ballot initiatives, Superior Court judges, School Board, and more. There are so many elected offices and ballot initiatives, you would be amazed at the complexity.
Gotta agree there. It's been a few years since I've gone to a big-name concert, and they really rape your wallet 10 times worse than buying a $20 CD: $8 drinks, 50% Ticketmaster commission, parking hassles etc. etc. I guess you could still support your favorite bands by paying for an official fan club membership or buying a tshirt off their website.
It might still be genetic. Try looking up "island dwarfism". In environments with limited food, a large body that needs more energy is a disadvantage to survival. I'm not a biologist, but it's something to consider.
Not exactly. The highly paid professional athletes play in "spectator sports". It's a form of entertainment just like TV or movies. The revenues are proportional to how many fans are willing to pay for tickets (or watch commercial TV) to see them play. Sports equipment for amateurs are a secondary market, but it's vastly outweighed by the market for tickets and advertising.
Also, I don't think we should get sidetracked. Professional sports is only one path to being an attractive mate, and the rules of sports mean they sometimes select for freakishly tall or freakishly large bodies that may not otherwise be attractive. On a totally superficial level, women are attracted to power and dominance, i.e. the alpha male. Money, social status, attitude and physical strength are all part of it, and they can usually substitute for each other. This is a separate issue from whether children of elite athletes are better athletes themselves.
I know, the article was pretty dumb. No hard research. It was all superficial and highly speculative.
That's for everybody to decide for themselves. At this point, the record labels obviously feel that the commercial value of an edgy, anti-establishment act outweighs the propaganda value of a few anti-music industry songs. It's up to us to change that equation.
It's easy to say only listen to indie bands, but the musicians aren't the enemies, the labels are. It's easy to tell who's a sellout by their statements on downloading. Anti-P2P public service announcement? Sellout. Give away MP3's on the website like Offspring or write an anti-label song like The Ataris, Radio #2, or Korn, Y'all Want a Single? Not a sellout.
You can support bands by buying concert tickets or t-shirts, if you don't mind support other evil monopolies (Clear Channel and Ticketmaster).
Well, that's easy. Don't stare at ads in a Steam game! Keep your crosshair off to the side so it doesn't think you're looking at an ad.
That's not an issue with handheld consoles. They don't have the multi-GB hard drives of the next-gen consoles. Hard drive storage is really what makes binary patches practical. Hope this doesn't lead to console games getting rushed out the door half baked because they could patch it later.
To be fair, ATI only released specs up to the 9200. Every model after that had to be reverse-engineered. I had an X700 Pro and yeah, Linux compatibility pretty much sucked.
To put some actual numbers on it, I've measured ATX standby consumption on a few PCs with an AC power meter. They range from a low of 2W for an NForce4 system with a good quality Seasonic PSU to 8W for an NForce2 system with a cheapo no-name PSU that had an LED fan that stayed lit and kept spinning slowly even in standby. The NF4 system could also suspend to RAM which is almost the same as standby but with power still going to RAM. That used about 8-9W. That's bad compared to shutting off, but better than the 50-60W from the computer powered on and idle.
Actually a typical 3.5" hard drive uses around 10W max. That's a lot less than the CPU, monitor or video card (when you're 3D gaming).
You got that right. If they just made TVs, VCRs and stereos with non-volatile RAM and a battery powered clock, we could just shut them all off with a power strip. It's no big deal to flip the switch on the power strip when I get home.
There may be a large *amount* of reserves in the tar sands of Canada and the heavy oil of Venezuela, but it's useless if you can't produce it at a rate fast enough to keep up with global demand and the decline of old fields. I really do hope that new sources of energy can replace oil because the alternative is a doomsday collapse scenario. The risk here is the time lag between the market signal of high oil prices and the commercial availability of alternative transportation fuels in useful quantities. Even with rising oil prices, there will be a few boom and bust cycles where low oil prices make alternative energy unprofitable, and private investment will be risky.
Sony did something similar with the Linux kit for the PS2. The kernel was completely open source, but it ran in a VM that didn't expose any native hardware interfaces to prevent console modding.
Or more accurately, recruitment propaganda.
Compare the heat of all sunlight falling on the Earth to the heat output of one fusion reactor. Not even close.
Do you even remember how ugly an 8x8 dot matrix font looks? Or remember the low visibility of a non-backlit LCD? It might work for a cheap prototype, but would anybody want to buy it?
Gasoline and other liquid fuels have high energy density and are easy to store, but they need relatively heavy and bulky engines to convert heat to mechanical energy. In comparison to the engine, the fuel tank is a much smaller part of vehicle weight.
In an electric car, the relationship is reversed. The electric motor and power controller are relatively small, and the batteries are big and heavy because they have low energy density, even the most advanced lithium ion cells. When the EV1 first came out with lead-acid batteries, it was said that approx. 1000 lbs of batteries equalled the energy in one gallon of gasoline. It's easy to add more power but hard to add more fuel capacity.
As far as efficiency. The engineering challenge is that the engine needs to run over a wide range of power outputs. A car might have an engine with 200 peak hp, but it might need 50 hp to accelerate in normal city driving and only 20 hp to cruise at speed (these are all rough ballpark figures). Because of this, automobile engines will always be less efficient than stationary engines which run in a much narrower range of power outputs. Hybrids help by reducing the peak power requirements of the engine and getting extra power for acceleration from the electric drive. I think even with the energy losses from transmission and recharging, an electric car is still more efficient.
Who ever said people would pay for municipal broadband our of their property taxes? It would probably be billed by usage just like your water bill which is usually run by a municipal utility. If you don't like the price, don't buy it.
Parent is correct. An out of state car with over 7500 miles is considered used and can be registered with no penalties. When it's time for the smog check, the testing station will measure emissions by the 45 state standards.
Do the words "get a life" mean anything? I've known plenty of workaholics and video game addicts, but this is the first time in the last 15 years I've had the urge to tell someone that.
If you don't want the typical slimy dealership experience, there are ways around that. There are auto broker services like Carsdirect, Autonation, and Costco that will sell cars for a pre-negotiated discount price. Carsdirect even gives you their price right on the website, no need to call for a quote. It doesn't get any easier than that. The reason no-hassle one price doesn't work is because buyers looking for a deal will take the no-hassle price into another dealer and they'll beat it.
It's true that dealers will try to funnel all negotiations in that direction, but if you're firm they will negotiate price and finance interest rate separately (firm means be prepared to walk out). Get pre-approved financing from your bank or credit union and walk in prepared to pay cash. They'll still try to sell you their own financing, but if they beat the other rate, it's a bonus for you.
Abu Gonzales has been pushing ISP data retention since at least early this year, and he's invoked all the usual boogeymen to get it passed: terrorism and kiddie porn.
He's tried:
-meeting privately with the major ISPs to ask them for voluntary compliance
-getting Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner to introduce a bill that went nowhere.
-somehow persuading Qwest to endorse legislation
I don't mean to pimp Cnet. Search any tech news site for "ISP data retention" and you'll see the history of this.