That pretty much sums up my opinion of the iPhone. Two year contract with AT&T (of all companies) and I get to $600+ on the actual phone? I personally think I can rough it out with my Creative Zen Vision M and cheap mobile phone. Yes, I will have to switch between the two when I want to go from talking on the phone to listening to music, but I think I can suffer through it. Not that I don't love AT&T throttling their networks and helping men in black suits hook up black boxes to their networks, but I think I can do without my iPhone/AT&T combo.
Why would you care if one day a man walks on Mars? Maybe I am just a selfish prick, but unless that man is me, I don't really care. Turning vast amounts of society's resources into a project to get a handful of humans onto Mars is a waste of my money. It might make your nationalistic pride feel warm and fuzzy, or maybe give you a feeling of greater human accomplishment, but warm fuzzy feelings is the extent of what is really accomplished.
If NASA wants to do something worthwhile, it would dumped the maned space programs all together and focus on making space access cheaper. If Europe had a NASA in 1400's it would be trying to make a row boat that can cross the Atlantic so that three people can go over, come back, and tell us how awesome North America is. Screw that. I don't want row boats for three. I want big three masted ships packed full of pioneers looking to plant crops, build houses, find gold, and kill the natives (OK, that wasn't the most PC analogy). My point is that if NASA wants to make itself useful, it should be working on space ships to let any brave/stupid soul cross through space, rather then showing that using the resources of a civilization it can get half a dozen people into space and back again.
If I had my hands on NASA mission statement it would do exactly two things. NASA would conduct basic research into the nature of the universe (Hubble, Mars Rovers, etc.) and it would conduct and fund research to bring the cost of space travel down. There would be none of this silliness around blowing a few billion just so that a handful of humans can say they went to Mars and came back.
Again, you miss the point that any such laser would have a very small arc. At the very best, it could hit everything in its horizon. Unless China feels like plopping down a line of laser weapons that can basically hit into space, the notion is silly. Further to hit something on the horizon would be HARDER then hitting a satellite in space due to the fact that there is more atmosphere when shooting sideways then straight up. As a laser travels through the atmosphere, it not only burns away energy, but it also starts to disperse. To make matters worse, targeting over such long distances is damn close to impossible. Even a 1/1000th of a degree off results in a completely missed shot when shooting a target cruising along at 100,000 feet. Throw on top of that the fact that the target is going to be moving at 4,000 mph, and the idea that you could hit such a target is laughable in the short to medium term. Any system that could hit such a target would basically be a ballistic missile defense system that could take out any target in the air, including satellites and other airplanes.
If the Chinese have some super secret laser defense system that can actually cover a worthwhile area of China with a beam of d00m that can hit all the way into space, the US is already fucked in any sort of conflict. Personally, I will not have most lost sleep for fears that China has a line of massive super secret laser defense systems that they will use to take out spy drones.
"Laser defenses" are hardly worth losing much sleep over. In order to hit a target moving the speeds this thing moves and at the height it travels, you will not only need one very powerful laser, but a damn good targeting system. Even then, the laser can only hit what is in its horizon, with stuff on the horizon being extremely difficult to hit and taking even more power. Any such laser would be pretty damn big, pretty damn obvious, consume a very noticeable amount of juice, and be a big fat plump target.
Fears of laser defenses hardly justify much worry. Conventional missiles are probably far more worth worrying about, but even then you are talking about a very fast, very long range missile that probably looks more like a ballistic missile then a normal missile. And if they hit one? Oh no. They just killed a robot. The alternative is to use much larger and slower manned vehicles or rely on satellites... which China has shown it is capable of knocking down.
Right, and giving someone a bullet proof vest doesn't suddenly make you a competent soldier. What is your point? I don't think anyone OMFG give them a single piece of equipment suddenly the US military is the best policing force in the world. It is just one minor component of the many that will be needed.
Re:Practical for fragile high-profit crops (berrie
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I can promise you with complete certainty, that it would be a hell of a lot cheaper to grow berries 100 miles outside of NYC where the land is plentiful and utilities cheaper will be FAR more economically then throwing up a multi-story building in down town NYC. Whatever you save in moving the food 100 miles less will be pocket change to the amount you would need to spend on the land... to say absolutely nothing about the cost of utilities, labor (yeah, try paying minimum wage for labor down town), and the cost of actually building such a monstrosity. There is not a slim chance in hell that a flimsy green house on cheap land 100 miles away from NYC is going to cost more then a multi-story high tech farm in the downtown.
The idea is completely trash. It comes from some professor who can't balance his check book or likes to think up fruity ideas that are not even a little bit feasible so that he can proudly display his completely bull shit "green" credentials.
Re:The middle-east should be the first to try this
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They already have places like this that are much cheaper... they are called 'green houses'. Only instead of building a structure out of concrete that is multiple stories high and extremely expensive, we build them out of the (relative to a building) cheap materials like plastic, wood, and glass.
Simply put, the entire idea is junk. Simple cheap green house farming on cheap land is not economical today. The idea that you could make a multi-story building with some magical way of getting light to the center of it (electricity? Oh, that is real green AND economical) is down right stupid. Even the simplest of logical thinking would expose this idea as utterly unworkable.
The only thing that this idea has done is pay a few undergrads beer money for a few hours spent fucking around on a stupid idea from a professor who can't be fired because he got tenure 50 years ago.
And It Pays for Undergrad Beer Money!
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While the work the 'students' have done is interesting on an intellectual level, it is a complete farce when it comes to economics. I find it pretty doubtful that crops could even begin to contemplate competing against other land uses like offices, condos, and retail space, especially in urban areas where land costs are through the rough. On top of that, you are going to need to pay the utilities on this monster in addition to shipping in all the equipment and supplies. There is not a slim chance in hell that such a project could be economically viable.
There is a very good reason why farmers don't construct massive green houses to grow their crops year round; it is too damn expensive. The cost of constructing a green house is pittance compared to the cost of constructing a 30 story building in an urban area. What they are in effect suggesting is not only that you grow all of your food in a green house, but that you do it in a place where land costs are the highest in the world in a structure that costs a few orders of magnitude more then a green house!
The whole idea is silly. It is a cute intellectual game and if it pays beer money for a few undergrads, great, but paying for undergrad beer money is about as far as this idea is going to go.
That might not have been the original intent, but that is what they are used for now, and this is what they have to adapt to. For better or for worse, there is no other organization out there capable of acting as a police force in a combat zone, especially when it is a combat zone filled with warring ethnic and tribal rivals. Cops don't have the fire power, the UN couldn't find its dick (much less a genocide) if you handed it to them, and NGOs don't fight. The only alternative to using a national army is hiring out a mercenary army.
Now, it could be argued that acting as police is a waste of time/money. That said, I sure would like the army to have the ability to play worlds police if we have to. The future conflicts of this world will be Rwanda and Darfur style genocides and civil wars. Perhaps we will silently watch as we have in the past, but we should at least have the capacity to act should watching a nation drop 10% of its population in an orgy of rape and murder (as seen in Rwanda) eventually gets to our delicate sense of morality. Of course, we could just go the European rout and ignore every single genocide all together while paying lip service to diplomacy. It isn't terribly effective, but it sure is cheaper and lets you bring out peace slogans.
How about not spending the money on figuring out ways to destroy some gook village and instead spend it on health care. Wait untill they turn this stuff on you. Wait until they turn an army of wi-fi LAN bots on us? Oh dear god. Please, don't let them give me free wi-fi access!
No, dropping a few billion every couple of years to keep up with Intel is what kills a computer company. AMD is running down the same rout that other device makers are going. Outsource the actual production and just do design work. It isn't like AMD will suddenly retreat from working in fabs. They would still have to work closely with the foundry and would likely have people semi-permanently stationed at said foundries. The real difference is that at the foundry, they would be running more then just AMD chips. Hell, AMD, Sony, and a whole pile of companies already do this on their low end products.
The only real practical difference for AMD is that they will have less control over management decisions at the foundry. Personally, I don't see this as a bad thing. If AMD can take its hands off, it means that the foundry can do what it does best, and AMD can do what they do best. The only real danger in such an approach is that poor lines of communication could result in longer development times. Considering how much money they stand to save, the risk of longer development times is tolerable. AMD could probably even cede the high end market to Intel if it had to, if that meant cost domination of everything else. Contrary to popular belief, the high end market is NOT where money is made.
First, the answer has already been posted. Get a money order.
Two, you are an idiot if you pay cash to the university. You don't trust banks but you are willing to trust a university? Your trust issues are more then a little fucked up. If you pay cash to a university, you have one less piece of a paper trail should the university turn around and screw you... and screw you they often do. Universities are notorious for piss poor management, lost bills, and all other manner of headaches. Despite the general incompetence of most universities, the one thing you can always fall back on is that if they charge you electronically there is not only their receipt, but a transaction from your bank as well. When you go to dispute your bill, you will be armed with a very clear record of how they fucked up. Your trust priorities are a little confused if you think that a bank is more likely to screw you then a university.
I highly suggest making friends with money orders, refillable credit cards, or some other method of paying besides cash. Only using cash will keep you from doing some very simple things, like ordering stuff online, sending checks in the mail, etc.
I am not sure if you are paranoid, trying to dodge taxes, or just are not happy with the crop of crazy groups available at universities and decided to start your own but you are likely to find the all cash world not worth whatever you are getting. Sure, you might dodge a few taxes, but the amount you pay in pain and the inability to easily use basic services is likely to be far worse then Uncle Sam's FICA taxes. If you are just paranoid... well, I suggest seeing a doctor with the power to prescribe medication. Uncle Sam really doesn't give a shit that you had to pay a school deposit. Really.
You line of logic is spoken like someone who knows nothing of the semiconductor market.
The semiconductor market is one of the most brutal markets in existence. Capital costs are through the roof, demand is unstable and hard to predict, and the margins are razor thin. AMD is doing itself a favor to extract as much of itself out of the market as possible and focus on design. Design and production are as different as night and day. Competency in one speaks little about competency in the other.
What AMD is gaining is mass market production above and beyond what they currently have. Do they have to pay a middleman a cut? Sure, but in return they are getting access to massive foundries that can produce on an industrial scale. The foundry doesn't care what runs through its lines, so long as something is running. The more they run, the cheaper it is. It isn't like they will just run AMD chips. They will run a whole pile of other chips that run on the same equipment. The result is that they can sink the massive capital costs that a modern day semiconductor factory costs and run enough volume to make it profitable. Short of becoming diving into the foundry business and running lines for other companies, AMD has no way of running the massive volume it takes to make justify the horrific capital costs that a cutting edge semiconductor foundry demands.
The semiconductor foundry business is a cut throat world to be in. Massive capital costs, low profit margins, and over capacity makes keeping a foundry running a full time struggle. AMD is doing itself a favor by doing what AMD does best. AMD designs good chips. AMD isn't a semiconductor foundry. The slightly higher costs in paying 'middlemen' is pittance compared to the horrific cost of dropping a multi-billion dollar foundry down every couple of years while at the same time selling and junking your old multi-billion dollar foundries.
First, you are crazy. There is no solar panel in this world that is getting 50% efficiency, and even if it did exist, the price tag would be through the roof.
Second, the problem isn't finding cheap electricity or making cars green. You can make a nice green car that has a workable radius and eats off the grid without too much problem. The issue is that it costs an arm and a leg and no one will buy it.
The challenge in making the future car is not making it greener. Greener is only part of the challenge. The real challenge is making it cheap enough so that people can at least consider buying one. Slapping a few solar panels onto a car to get a trickle of energy does not solve this problem. You just notch up the price tag a few hundred dollars more in return for a minimal pay back.
There is one very sever problem with doing trucks first; trucks actually have to be economical. You can sell a consumer a car that costs more over life of the vehicle on warm thoughts and green trendiness. For a truck, you will have absolutely no such luck. Trucking companies run on thin margins and will demand economics above all else. Further, trucks are the hardest of all possible problems to solve. Namely, a truck demands extreme range and extreme power. The range issue in particular is very hard problem for 'green' cars to solve.
Cars are (relatively) low hanging fruit. You still need range, but in truth, if you can offer a car that for the first 40 miles runs off the grid and then switches over to gas, you have just made a car that will spend 95% of its time on the grid and make a dent in the problem. For a 'first 40 miles is on the grid' truck on the other hand doesn't even begin to touch the problem nor entice any trucking companies to buy your product.
I am not suggesting that shipping is not a major environmental problem. It is. That said, it is a problem that is much farther out of reach then the issue of personal transportation. To fix shipping, it is going to take a major technological breakthrough that really is not yet on the horizon. Cars on the other hand can be tackled with the tools of today and have a significant environmental impact.
Moore is a propagandist in the extreme. There are a dozen websites out there devoted to pointing out every single false statement he has made, but that misses the point. The point is that the content of his films are clearly blatant attempts to persuade even in the absences of facts. The most obvious example of this comes in the way that he manipulates what he films. Slow motion shots of someone talking and then degrading the film quality makes anyone look creepy. Showing people about to appear on TV getting makeup put on as if that some how bolsters your point is laughable. I bet Moore himself puts a pound of makeup on before going on TV... like all the other public figures. Yes, Bush played golf after 9/11. Dear god, anyone who isn't in perpetual misery after 9/11 is clearly a terrorist. Moore's movies are full of such blatant propaganda techniques. He isn't making a documentary. A documentary would have poured through documents, interviewed people, and in general built a convincing argument. Moore's work does do this to some extent, but also spends vast amounts of time using every single cheap trick in the book to manipulate, cut, and distort the video and sound to influence the opinion of the viewer without using facts.
Like his message or hate his message, Moore would find himself far more at home in a Soviet propaganda studio then among the ranks of real documentarians. I don't find Moore nauseating for his message, I find him nauseating for his methods.
Oblivion was 'open ended' in that you picked your quests and did them at your own pace. Beyond that, the game was on rails. In Fallout, you could solve almost every single quest many different ways. In Oblivion, most quests had one only one final 'answer'. Personally, I fear for this part of Fallout more then anything else. The combat, SPECIAL, all these things to me are easy to sacrifice for new and improved versions. What I fear is crappy Oblivion style dialog and narrow oblivion style quests.
If this is not one the silliest displays in fan boi logic ever... I don't know what is.
Followed right after by...
Why they wouldn't have just released it as a unbranded GSM phone that any T-Mobile or AT&T customer could just throw a SIM card into is beyond me. Maybe Apple really wants to do the right thing, but maybe they have just not read your post and realized that they could just sell it unlocked to anyone!...or maybe Apple really likes locked down devices where they control as many of the paths into as possible, and also like the idea of scoring a monthly revenue stream by tying the iPhone into a subscription service and scoring some of AT&Ts profits.
Ha! Seriously people. Apple is not a bitch little consumer electronics company being beaten and abused by all around it. Apple sets the rules and others play by them. Apple simply likes locked down devices. Apple offers a slick looking and well marketed locked down device. The disadvantage is that you are tied by the balls to Apple for all things concerning Apple products. The advantage is that because Apple has a device where they control the software, hardware, and most of the entry points into the device, the device is relatively reliable.
This is how Apple works. They have worked like this for as long as they have been around. Locked down device, software/hardware integration, high reliability, slick look, slick marketing. Take it or leave and spend less time on tears when you realize that part of the Apple package is an Apple lock in. The Apple lock is what makes the device reliable and predictable. Don't like? Don't buy Apple.
Well, one could argue that when iTunes and the iPod were unproven (had anybody prior to Apple been successful at selling music online?) Jobs had a lot less leverage with the labels then he does now. I didn't follow it that closely, because I don't care to line Apple or RIAAs pockets to buy crappy music (used CDs are a better value for me), but that's just a hunch on my part.
Job's didn't need any leverage. Indie labels were literally begging to sell DRM free music so that they could compete easier with the RIAA labels. What changed was Apple, not the labels. Smaller labels have been begging for this for a while. As was shown when Apple signed up EMI, there was no mystery contract clause that prevent Apple from offering DRM free music to certain labels. It was a magical coincidence that Jobs suddenly started decrying DRM as the devils work a few months before the deal was released, but didn't make a stink of it years back. It was just good marketing.
do dispute that AT&T is Apple's "bitch" though. And I do dispute that it's in Apple's best interest to force this product to be sold with a data plan. What do they care if you download your iTunes songs via Cingular's EDGE network or an open wi-fi point somewhere? I'm sure there was a bit of give and take on both Apple and AT&T's part in the negotiations for this product.
Apple had the option to sell their phones the exact same way Nokia does. Every carrier sells Nokia phones. Nokia sells the carriers phones and gives them the keys to lock and unlock features. You can also buy a Nokia phone that is completely unlocked right from Nokia. Apple could have followed the same model. Instead, Apple decided to sell a closed phone to a single carrier. Apple could have offer an exclusive deal to another carrier, played them off each other, or simply sold the phone open to anyone who wanted it. This is a great deal for AT&T, but it means that Apple is in the position of calling the shots.
The fact that Apple is selling a relatively closed phone tied to AT&T services should not be a surprise and follows Apple's traditional business strategy. By making AT&T the only carrier and cutting the phone off from competing outside services, Apple retains control over what goes into the phone and how it interacts with the network. What you are going to get is a phone with hardware and software designed to interact with a single system. The result will be a closed system tied to a single carrier and what some might find onerous restrictions on the use of the devices. The pay off will be an Apple customized service with greater reliability because they only need to support a single network pipe into the phone. I also wouldn't be surprised if Apple is getting to skim some of the money for the subscription service on top of what they get for selling the device.
Apple is not the victim. It is not the poor little consumer electronics company getting manhandled by the big bad cell phone company. Love it or hate it, Apple is a titian that is kicking ass and taking names. Apple does what Apple does because Apple wants to do it.
No, it sounds like the damn carrier (AT&T in this case), as usual, has way too much power and is holding back true innovation by restricting what the device maker (Apple) in this case can offer to their customers.
You have got to be joking me. Apple is not some poor bitch that gets kicked around the consumer electronics market. In fact, Apple is no one's bitch, despite claims to the contrary that pop up when Apple's policies don't match up nicely with what people envision it should be doing. This was most clearly shown when Apple and EMI made a deal to offer DRM free music. It had been bitch and moaned endlessly that Apple refused to offer DRM free music for the indie companies that wanted it. The great Apple defense was that 1) It is too hard to some how integrated DRM and non-DRM free music in the same service and 2) Apple is prevented by super secret contracts that don't let them offer DRM free music to rival recording labels.
Behold, both defenses were utterly wrong. Apple clearly has the capacity to offer DRM free music, and the fact that the RIAA has not pig piled on with lawsuits when Apple let EMI offer DRM free music shows pretty clearly that there is not some secret contract with the RIAA that prevents Apple from offering DRM free music to indie labels.
This is the same scenario. "OMFG, Apple is going to offer a restricted product. I bet AT&T is making them do it."
No, Apple is doing what it wants because it wants to do it. Any of the other carriers would have broken their backs to be the ones to own the iPhone. Hell, Apple doesn't even have to have a carrier and could just offer an open phone to anyone who wants to buy it. Apple is on top and AT&T is without a doubt the bitch. There is only one iPhone, but there are dozens of carriers.
Accept Apple products at face value. Apple products are all tightly controlled platforms with integrated software and hardware. The disadvantage to this is of course that if you buy Apple's products, you become Apple's bitch and basically need to feed from the tit of Apple with few alternatives. On the flip side, Apple has a massive amount of control over what goes into their products and the image of their products. The result is a device that looks slick, will make you feel hip and trendy, and will likely be reliable.
Yeah, that is right, Apple products have both advantages and disadvantages. The iPhone is no exception. Holy shit.
If there was not a rich organization with a small army of lawyers suing children and grandmothers without computers, I might not be worried about having my name slapped onto my music. Sadly, there such an entity and they are not known for calmly and reasonably looking at the evidence before slapping a ridiculous lawsuit on you for a few hundred thousand dollars.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out a scenario where having your name slapped all over your music could come back to bite you in the ass very hard without doing anything illegal. It would only take a single security breach on your computer and a single file to leak out and get tossed up onto a P2P network and suddenly the RIAA has your name. Hell, this very thing happens in college all the time where an idiot with a laptop set up to share on his home network (without any security) plugs it into the school network and people merrily copy his music and toss it up on P2P sites. Is there plenty of room for deniability? Sure, but if it takes a year and a tens of thousands of dollars to prove you did no wrong when you don't own a fucking computer or are a 10 year old child, I doubt that this legal process is the sort of thing that most humans would be willing to risk.
For better or for worse though, the people who realize that this is a lawsuit waiting to happen are exactly the people to actually run a secure system. As a result, the real victims will be the stupid spyware infested mother or kid... the exact sort of people who will download their music from iTunes onto a compromised computer risk paying a very sever consequence for things they don't understand and are not illegal.
I personally will (continue) to avoid iTunes like the plague. Saving a few bucks on music at the cost of DRMed crap or music marked up with my personal information just isn't worth it. There is enough (legal) free music out there to keep me satisfied. If I am really dying for a particular band, I can buy the CD and get my music unmarked, DRM, and at the highest available quality.
Personally, I am disgusted with the entire industry. Legal risks aside, I personally just don't want to support this industry in general. With a few exceptions outside of the major labels, this industry is sick, corrupt, and inflicting legal insanity upon the population. If by some magic the laws on DRM were fully enforced and everyone was made to pay the appropriate fines, the US would be an impoverished third world nation with debt to make Africa look like a fairytale land of economic prosperity.
Oh god, I had wiped my memory of this nightmares until you reminded me. X-com and X-com 2 were awesome games. All the shit that poured forth after those two was a crime against humanity. Personally, I don't know how Micropros managed to fuck up so thoroughly such an awesome and interesting universe.
The Blackberry owns a large part of a small market. If your market is 'all mobile phones', then a Blackberry barely registers. If your market is businessmen and IT professional who make over 80K, then it owns a substantial, but still less then dominating market share. If your market is 'smart phones', then of course, the Blackberry is king.
The iPhone is ignoring the later two markets in favor of the a sizable segment of the first market. While I doubt that the iPhone is going to tear into Nokia in terms of total phones sold, you better believe that they are going to trounce the 'everything that isn't a standard phone and isn't for professionals' market. Further, the iPhone is going to vastly expand the 'more then a standard phone' market. While they might not hit the numbers that Nokia might hit, they will certainly make a pile of money.
Apple has an eye for moving into markets with no fashion sense, slapping some white plastic down, running a marketing blitz, and making a product in that market that is more the just function, but "cool". Hey, don't get me wrong. I see it as utterly mindless consumerism with a thin layer of functionality, but I am not the target audience. Apple is going to make a killing. It would take an incredible failure in marketing and functionality to ruin the iPhone. Personally, I don't think the rest of the market stands even a slim shot in hell trying to play the trendy game. Apple is trendy. Nokia has all the trendiness of an IBM work station.
They are not going to call it SimCity 5. They are currently searching for a new name BECAUSE it will be so unlike the other SimCity games. The name they are working for SimCity Societies. What the hell the game is going to be about if it isn't a quasi-realistic city simulator is beyond me, but it looks like they are not going to just notch the counter up one. Think Fallout Tactics instead of Fallout 3. Though, comparing anything to Fallout Tactics is probably not a good way to reassure a fan of the original game.
If the iPhone plans on taking on the Crackberry, then it's GOT to be useful for business. The thing that makes the Crackberry sell like crazy is that it sync's seamlessly with most business email systems.
If the iPhone can't do that, ultimately it will be relegated to a vanity toy. Apple is not gunning for Blackberry devices. They are not gunning for the business market. Hell, they will sell to businesses or anyone else for a chunk of change, but that really is not their goal.
I don't disagree with anything you say, but I think you misunderstand how big the 'vanity toy' market is. Apple computers, iPods, and most of Apple's stuff falls solidly in the 'vanity toy' market. College kids buy iBooks not because they have any deep philosophical beliefs about what makes a good OS, they just like shiny white plastic. People pick an iPod not because it is light years ahead of a Creative or Sandisk player (they are not these days), they pick an iPod because it is a cool ass 'vanity toy'. Apple is going to make a killing on the iPhone BECAUSE it is a 'vanity toy' and there are a tens of millions of Americans willing to shell out a few hundred dollars to get one. Apple releasing an ugly brown phone would be a thousands times more devastating to their profits then releasing a phone that doesn't sync well with business networks.
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That pretty much sums up my opinion of the iPhone. Two year contract with AT&T (of all companies) and I get to $600+ on the actual phone? I personally think I can rough it out with my Creative Zen Vision M and cheap mobile phone. Yes, I will have to switch between the two when I want to go from talking on the phone to listening to music, but I think I can suffer through it. Not that I don't love AT&T throttling their networks and helping men in black suits hook up black boxes to their networks, but I think I can do without my iPhone/AT&T combo.
Why would you care if one day a man walks on Mars? Maybe I am just a selfish prick, but unless that man is me, I don't really care. Turning vast amounts of society's resources into a project to get a handful of humans onto Mars is a waste of my money. It might make your nationalistic pride feel warm and fuzzy, or maybe give you a feeling of greater human accomplishment, but warm fuzzy feelings is the extent of what is really accomplished.
If NASA wants to do something worthwhile, it would dumped the maned space programs all together and focus on making space access cheaper. If Europe had a NASA in 1400's it would be trying to make a row boat that can cross the Atlantic so that three people can go over, come back, and tell us how awesome North America is. Screw that. I don't want row boats for three. I want big three masted ships packed full of pioneers looking to plant crops, build houses, find gold, and kill the natives (OK, that wasn't the most PC analogy). My point is that if NASA wants to make itself useful, it should be working on space ships to let any brave/stupid soul cross through space, rather then showing that using the resources of a civilization it can get half a dozen people into space and back again.
If I had my hands on NASA mission statement it would do exactly two things. NASA would conduct basic research into the nature of the universe (Hubble, Mars Rovers, etc.) and it would conduct and fund research to bring the cost of space travel down. There would be none of this silliness around blowing a few billion just so that a handful of humans can say they went to Mars and came back.
Again, you miss the point that any such laser would have a very small arc. At the very best, it could hit everything in its horizon. Unless China feels like plopping down a line of laser weapons that can basically hit into space, the notion is silly. Further to hit something on the horizon would be HARDER then hitting a satellite in space due to the fact that there is more atmosphere when shooting sideways then straight up. As a laser travels through the atmosphere, it not only burns away energy, but it also starts to disperse. To make matters worse, targeting over such long distances is damn close to impossible. Even a 1/1000th of a degree off results in a completely missed shot when shooting a target cruising along at 100,000 feet. Throw on top of that the fact that the target is going to be moving at 4,000 mph, and the idea that you could hit such a target is laughable in the short to medium term. Any system that could hit such a target would basically be a ballistic missile defense system that could take out any target in the air, including satellites and other airplanes.
If the Chinese have some super secret laser defense system that can actually cover a worthwhile area of China with a beam of d00m that can hit all the way into space, the US is already fucked in any sort of conflict. Personally, I will not have most lost sleep for fears that China has a line of massive super secret laser defense systems that they will use to take out spy drones.
"Laser defenses" are hardly worth losing much sleep over. In order to hit a target moving the speeds this thing moves and at the height it travels, you will not only need one very powerful laser, but a damn good targeting system. Even then, the laser can only hit what is in its horizon, with stuff on the horizon being extremely difficult to hit and taking even more power. Any such laser would be pretty damn big, pretty damn obvious, consume a very noticeable amount of juice, and be a big fat plump target.
Fears of laser defenses hardly justify much worry. Conventional missiles are probably far more worth worrying about, but even then you are talking about a very fast, very long range missile that probably looks more like a ballistic missile then a normal missile. And if they hit one? Oh no. They just killed a robot. The alternative is to use much larger and slower manned vehicles or rely on satellites... which China has shown it is capable of knocking down.
Right, and giving someone a bullet proof vest doesn't suddenly make you a competent soldier. What is your point? I don't think anyone OMFG give them a single piece of equipment suddenly the US military is the best policing force in the world. It is just one minor component of the many that will be needed.
I can promise you with complete certainty, that it would be a hell of a lot cheaper to grow berries 100 miles outside of NYC where the land is plentiful and utilities cheaper will be FAR more economically then throwing up a multi-story building in down town NYC. Whatever you save in moving the food 100 miles less will be pocket change to the amount you would need to spend on the land... to say absolutely nothing about the cost of utilities, labor (yeah, try paying minimum wage for labor down town), and the cost of actually building such a monstrosity. There is not a slim chance in hell that a flimsy green house on cheap land 100 miles away from NYC is going to cost more then a multi-story high tech farm in the downtown.
The idea is completely trash. It comes from some professor who can't balance his check book or likes to think up fruity ideas that are not even a little bit feasible so that he can proudly display his completely bull shit "green" credentials.
They already have places like this that are much cheaper... they are called 'green houses'. Only instead of building a structure out of concrete that is multiple stories high and extremely expensive, we build them out of the (relative to a building) cheap materials like plastic, wood, and glass.
Simply put, the entire idea is junk. Simple cheap green house farming on cheap land is not economical today. The idea that you could make a multi-story building with some magical way of getting light to the center of it (electricity? Oh, that is real green AND economical) is down right stupid. Even the simplest of logical thinking would expose this idea as utterly unworkable.
The only thing that this idea has done is pay a few undergrads beer money for a few hours spent fucking around on a stupid idea from a professor who can't be fired because he got tenure 50 years ago.
While the work the 'students' have done is interesting on an intellectual level, it is a complete farce when it comes to economics. I find it pretty doubtful that crops could even begin to contemplate competing against other land uses like offices, condos, and retail space, especially in urban areas where land costs are through the rough. On top of that, you are going to need to pay the utilities on this monster in addition to shipping in all the equipment and supplies. There is not a slim chance in hell that such a project could be economically viable.
There is a very good reason why farmers don't construct massive green houses to grow their crops year round; it is too damn expensive. The cost of constructing a green house is pittance compared to the cost of constructing a 30 story building in an urban area. What they are in effect suggesting is not only that you grow all of your food in a green house, but that you do it in a place where land costs are the highest in the world in a structure that costs a few orders of magnitude more then a green house!
The whole idea is silly. It is a cute intellectual game and if it pays beer money for a few undergrads, great, but paying for undergrad beer money is about as far as this idea is going to go.
That might not have been the original intent, but that is what they are used for now, and this is what they have to adapt to. For better or for worse, there is no other organization out there capable of acting as a police force in a combat zone, especially when it is a combat zone filled with warring ethnic and tribal rivals. Cops don't have the fire power, the UN couldn't find its dick (much less a genocide) if you handed it to them, and NGOs don't fight. The only alternative to using a national army is hiring out a mercenary army.
Now, it could be argued that acting as police is a waste of time/money. That said, I sure would like the army to have the ability to play worlds police if we have to. The future conflicts of this world will be Rwanda and Darfur style genocides and civil wars. Perhaps we will silently watch as we have in the past, but we should at least have the capacity to act should watching a nation drop 10% of its population in an orgy of rape and murder (as seen in Rwanda) eventually gets to our delicate sense of morality. Of course, we could just go the European rout and ignore every single genocide all together while paying lip service to diplomacy. It isn't terribly effective, but it sure is cheaper and lets you bring out peace slogans.
No, dropping a few billion every couple of years to keep up with Intel is what kills a computer company. AMD is running down the same rout that other device makers are going. Outsource the actual production and just do design work. It isn't like AMD will suddenly retreat from working in fabs. They would still have to work closely with the foundry and would likely have people semi-permanently stationed at said foundries. The real difference is that at the foundry, they would be running more then just AMD chips. Hell, AMD, Sony, and a whole pile of companies already do this on their low end products.
The only real practical difference for AMD is that they will have less control over management decisions at the foundry. Personally, I don't see this as a bad thing. If AMD can take its hands off, it means that the foundry can do what it does best, and AMD can do what they do best. The only real danger in such an approach is that poor lines of communication could result in longer development times. Considering how much money they stand to save, the risk of longer development times is tolerable. AMD could probably even cede the high end market to Intel if it had to, if that meant cost domination of everything else. Contrary to popular belief, the high end market is NOT where money is made.
First, the answer has already been posted. Get a money order.
Two, you are an idiot if you pay cash to the university. You don't trust banks but you are willing to trust a university? Your trust issues are more then a little fucked up. If you pay cash to a university, you have one less piece of a paper trail should the university turn around and screw you... and screw you they often do. Universities are notorious for piss poor management, lost bills, and all other manner of headaches. Despite the general incompetence of most universities, the one thing you can always fall back on is that if they charge you electronically there is not only their receipt, but a transaction from your bank as well. When you go to dispute your bill, you will be armed with a very clear record of how they fucked up. Your trust priorities are a little confused if you think that a bank is more likely to screw you then a university.
I highly suggest making friends with money orders, refillable credit cards, or some other method of paying besides cash. Only using cash will keep you from doing some very simple things, like ordering stuff online, sending checks in the mail, etc.
I am not sure if you are paranoid, trying to dodge taxes, or just are not happy with the crop of crazy groups available at universities and decided to start your own but you are likely to find the all cash world not worth whatever you are getting. Sure, you might dodge a few taxes, but the amount you pay in pain and the inability to easily use basic services is likely to be far worse then Uncle Sam's FICA taxes. If you are just paranoid... well, I suggest seeing a doctor with the power to prescribe medication. Uncle Sam really doesn't give a shit that you had to pay a school deposit. Really.
You line of logic is spoken like someone who knows nothing of the semiconductor market.
The semiconductor market is one of the most brutal markets in existence. Capital costs are through the roof, demand is unstable and hard to predict, and the margins are razor thin. AMD is doing itself a favor to extract as much of itself out of the market as possible and focus on design. Design and production are as different as night and day. Competency in one speaks little about competency in the other.
What AMD is gaining is mass market production above and beyond what they currently have. Do they have to pay a middleman a cut? Sure, but in return they are getting access to massive foundries that can produce on an industrial scale. The foundry doesn't care what runs through its lines, so long as something is running. The more they run, the cheaper it is. It isn't like they will just run AMD chips. They will run a whole pile of other chips that run on the same equipment. The result is that they can sink the massive capital costs that a modern day semiconductor factory costs and run enough volume to make it profitable. Short of becoming diving into the foundry business and running lines for other companies, AMD has no way of running the massive volume it takes to make justify the horrific capital costs that a cutting edge semiconductor foundry demands.
The semiconductor foundry business is a cut throat world to be in. Massive capital costs, low profit margins, and over capacity makes keeping a foundry running a full time struggle. AMD is doing itself a favor by doing what AMD does best. AMD designs good chips. AMD isn't a semiconductor foundry. The slightly higher costs in paying 'middlemen' is pittance compared to the horrific cost of dropping a multi-billion dollar foundry down every couple of years while at the same time selling and junking your old multi-billion dollar foundries.
First, you are crazy. There is no solar panel in this world that is getting 50% efficiency, and even if it did exist, the price tag would be through the roof.
Second, the problem isn't finding cheap electricity or making cars green. You can make a nice green car that has a workable radius and eats off the grid without too much problem. The issue is that it costs an arm and a leg and no one will buy it.
The challenge in making the future car is not making it greener. Greener is only part of the challenge. The real challenge is making it cheap enough so that people can at least consider buying one. Slapping a few solar panels onto a car to get a trickle of energy does not solve this problem. You just notch up the price tag a few hundred dollars more in return for a minimal pay back.
There is one very sever problem with doing trucks first; trucks actually have to be economical. You can sell a consumer a car that costs more over life of the vehicle on warm thoughts and green trendiness. For a truck, you will have absolutely no such luck. Trucking companies run on thin margins and will demand economics above all else. Further, trucks are the hardest of all possible problems to solve. Namely, a truck demands extreme range and extreme power. The range issue in particular is very hard problem for 'green' cars to solve.
Cars are (relatively) low hanging fruit. You still need range, but in truth, if you can offer a car that for the first 40 miles runs off the grid and then switches over to gas, you have just made a car that will spend 95% of its time on the grid and make a dent in the problem. For a 'first 40 miles is on the grid' truck on the other hand doesn't even begin to touch the problem nor entice any trucking companies to buy your product.
I am not suggesting that shipping is not a major environmental problem. It is. That said, it is a problem that is much farther out of reach then the issue of personal transportation. To fix shipping, it is going to take a major technological breakthrough that really is not yet on the horizon. Cars on the other hand can be tackled with the tools of today and have a significant environmental impact.
Moore is a propagandist in the extreme. There are a dozen websites out there devoted to pointing out every single false statement he has made, but that misses the point. The point is that the content of his films are clearly blatant attempts to persuade even in the absences of facts. The most obvious example of this comes in the way that he manipulates what he films. Slow motion shots of someone talking and then degrading the film quality makes anyone look creepy. Showing people about to appear on TV getting makeup put on as if that some how bolsters your point is laughable. I bet Moore himself puts a pound of makeup on before going on TV... like all the other public figures. Yes, Bush played golf after 9/11. Dear god, anyone who isn't in perpetual misery after 9/11 is clearly a terrorist. Moore's movies are full of such blatant propaganda techniques. He isn't making a documentary. A documentary would have poured through documents, interviewed people, and in general built a convincing argument. Moore's work does do this to some extent, but also spends vast amounts of time using every single cheap trick in the book to manipulate, cut, and distort the video and sound to influence the opinion of the viewer without using facts.
Like his message or hate his message, Moore would find himself far more at home in a Soviet propaganda studio then among the ranks of real documentarians. I don't find Moore nauseating for his message, I find him nauseating for his methods.
Oblivion was 'open ended' in that you picked your quests and did them at your own pace. Beyond that, the game was on rails. In Fallout, you could solve almost every single quest many different ways. In Oblivion, most quests had one only one final 'answer'. Personally, I fear for this part of Fallout more then anything else. The combat, SPECIAL, all these things to me are easy to sacrifice for new and improved versions. What I fear is crappy Oblivion style dialog and narrow oblivion style quests.
Ha! Seriously people. Apple is not a bitch little consumer electronics company being beaten and abused by all around it. Apple sets the rules and others play by them. Apple simply likes locked down devices. Apple offers a slick looking and well marketed locked down device. The disadvantage is that you are tied by the balls to Apple for all things concerning Apple products. The advantage is that because Apple has a device where they control the software, hardware, and most of the entry points into the device, the device is relatively reliable.
This is how Apple works. They have worked like this for as long as they have been around. Locked down device, software/hardware integration, high reliability, slick look, slick marketing. Take it or leave and spend less time on tears when you realize that part of the Apple package is an Apple lock in. The Apple lock is what makes the device reliable and predictable. Don't like? Don't buy Apple.
Well, one could argue that when iTunes and the iPod were unproven (had anybody prior to Apple been successful at selling music online?) Jobs had a lot less leverage with the labels then he does now. I didn't follow it that closely, because I don't care to line Apple or RIAAs pockets to buy crappy music (used CDs are a better value for me), but that's just a hunch on my part.
Job's didn't need any leverage. Indie labels were literally begging to sell DRM free music so that they could compete easier with the RIAA labels. What changed was Apple, not the labels. Smaller labels have been begging for this for a while. As was shown when Apple signed up EMI, there was no mystery contract clause that prevent Apple from offering DRM free music to certain labels. It was a magical coincidence that Jobs suddenly started decrying DRM as the devils work a few months before the deal was released, but didn't make a stink of it years back. It was just good marketing.
do dispute that AT&T is Apple's "bitch" though. And I do dispute that it's in Apple's best interest to force this product to be sold with a data plan. What do they care if you download your iTunes songs via Cingular's EDGE network or an open wi-fi point somewhere? I'm sure there was a bit of give and take on both Apple and AT&T's part in the negotiations for this product.
Apple had the option to sell their phones the exact same way Nokia does. Every carrier sells Nokia phones. Nokia sells the carriers phones and gives them the keys to lock and unlock features. You can also buy a Nokia phone that is completely unlocked right from Nokia. Apple could have followed the same model. Instead, Apple decided to sell a closed phone to a single carrier. Apple could have offer an exclusive deal to another carrier, played them off each other, or simply sold the phone open to anyone who wanted it. This is a great deal for AT&T, but it means that Apple is in the position of calling the shots.
The fact that Apple is selling a relatively closed phone tied to AT&T services should not be a surprise and follows Apple's traditional business strategy. By making AT&T the only carrier and cutting the phone off from competing outside services, Apple retains control over what goes into the phone and how it interacts with the network. What you are going to get is a phone with hardware and software designed to interact with a single system. The result will be a closed system tied to a single carrier and what some might find onerous restrictions on the use of the devices. The pay off will be an Apple customized service with greater reliability because they only need to support a single network pipe into the phone. I also wouldn't be surprised if Apple is getting to skim some of the money for the subscription service on top of what they get for selling the device.
Apple is not the victim. It is not the poor little consumer electronics company getting manhandled by the big bad cell phone company. Love it or hate it, Apple is a titian that is kicking ass and taking names. Apple does what Apple does because Apple wants to do it.
No, it sounds like the damn carrier (AT&T in this case), as usual, has way too much power and is holding back true innovation by restricting what the device maker (Apple) in this case can offer to their customers.
You have got to be joking me. Apple is not some poor bitch that gets kicked around the consumer electronics market. In fact, Apple is no one's bitch, despite claims to the contrary that pop up when Apple's policies don't match up nicely with what people envision it should be doing. This was most clearly shown when Apple and EMI made a deal to offer DRM free music. It had been bitch and moaned endlessly that Apple refused to offer DRM free music for the indie companies that wanted it. The great Apple defense was that 1) It is too hard to some how integrated DRM and non-DRM free music in the same service and 2) Apple is prevented by super secret contracts that don't let them offer DRM free music to rival recording labels.
Behold, both defenses were utterly wrong. Apple clearly has the capacity to offer DRM free music, and the fact that the RIAA has not pig piled on with lawsuits when Apple let EMI offer DRM free music shows pretty clearly that there is not some secret contract with the RIAA that prevents Apple from offering DRM free music to indie labels.
This is the same scenario. "OMFG, Apple is going to offer a restricted product. I bet AT&T is making them do it."
No, Apple is doing what it wants because it wants to do it. Any of the other carriers would have broken their backs to be the ones to own the iPhone. Hell, Apple doesn't even have to have a carrier and could just offer an open phone to anyone who wants to buy it. Apple is on top and AT&T is without a doubt the bitch. There is only one iPhone, but there are dozens of carriers.
Accept Apple products at face value. Apple products are all tightly controlled platforms with integrated software and hardware. The disadvantage to this is of course that if you buy Apple's products, you become Apple's bitch and basically need to feed from the tit of Apple with few alternatives. On the flip side, Apple has a massive amount of control over what goes into their products and the image of their products. The result is a device that looks slick, will make you feel hip and trendy, and will likely be reliable.
Yeah, that is right, Apple products have both advantages and disadvantages. The iPhone is no exception. Holy shit.
If there was not a rich organization with a small army of lawyers suing children and grandmothers without computers, I might not be worried about having my name slapped onto my music. Sadly, there such an entity and they are not known for calmly and reasonably looking at the evidence before slapping a ridiculous lawsuit on you for a few hundred thousand dollars.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out a scenario where having your name slapped all over your music could come back to bite you in the ass very hard without doing anything illegal. It would only take a single security breach on your computer and a single file to leak out and get tossed up onto a P2P network and suddenly the RIAA has your name. Hell, this very thing happens in college all the time where an idiot with a laptop set up to share on his home network (without any security) plugs it into the school network and people merrily copy his music and toss it up on P2P sites. Is there plenty of room for deniability? Sure, but if it takes a year and a tens of thousands of dollars to prove you did no wrong when you don't own a fucking computer or are a 10 year old child, I doubt that this legal process is the sort of thing that most humans would be willing to risk.
For better or for worse though, the people who realize that this is a lawsuit waiting to happen are exactly the people to actually run a secure system. As a result, the real victims will be the stupid spyware infested mother or kid... the exact sort of people who will download their music from iTunes onto a compromised computer risk paying a very sever consequence for things they don't understand and are not illegal.
I personally will (continue) to avoid iTunes like the plague. Saving a few bucks on music at the cost of DRMed crap or music marked up with my personal information just isn't worth it. There is enough (legal) free music out there to keep me satisfied. If I am really dying for a particular band, I can buy the CD and get my music unmarked, DRM, and at the highest available quality.
Personally, I am disgusted with the entire industry. Legal risks aside, I personally just don't want to support this industry in general. With a few exceptions outside of the major labels, this industry is sick, corrupt, and inflicting legal insanity upon the population. If by some magic the laws on DRM were fully enforced and everyone was made to pay the appropriate fines, the US would be an impoverished third world nation with debt to make Africa look like a fairytale land of economic prosperity.
To sum up my full opinion, fuck the RIAA.
Oh god, I had wiped my memory of this nightmares until you reminded me. X-com and X-com 2 were awesome games. All the shit that poured forth after those two was a crime against humanity. Personally, I don't know how Micropros managed to fuck up so thoroughly such an awesome and interesting universe.
The Blackberry owns a large part of a small market. If your market is 'all mobile phones', then a Blackberry barely registers. If your market is businessmen and IT professional who make over 80K, then it owns a substantial, but still less then dominating market share. If your market is 'smart phones', then of course, the Blackberry is king.
The iPhone is ignoring the later two markets in favor of the a sizable segment of the first market. While I doubt that the iPhone is going to tear into Nokia in terms of total phones sold, you better believe that they are going to trounce the 'everything that isn't a standard phone and isn't for professionals' market. Further, the iPhone is going to vastly expand the 'more then a standard phone' market. While they might not hit the numbers that Nokia might hit, they will certainly make a pile of money.
Apple has an eye for moving into markets with no fashion sense, slapping some white plastic down, running a marketing blitz, and making a product in that market that is more the just function, but "cool". Hey, don't get me wrong. I see it as utterly mindless consumerism with a thin layer of functionality, but I am not the target audience. Apple is going to make a killing. It would take an incredible failure in marketing and functionality to ruin the iPhone. Personally, I don't think the rest of the market stands even a slim shot in hell trying to play the trendy game. Apple is trendy. Nokia has all the trendiness of an IBM work station.
They are not going to call it SimCity 5. They are currently searching for a new name BECAUSE it will be so unlike the other SimCity games. The name they are working for SimCity Societies. What the hell the game is going to be about if it isn't a quasi-realistic city simulator is beyond me, but it looks like they are not going to just notch the counter up one. Think Fallout Tactics instead of Fallout 3. Though, comparing anything to Fallout Tactics is probably not a good way to reassure a fan of the original game.
If the iPhone can't do that, ultimately it will be relegated to a vanity toy. Apple is not gunning for Blackberry devices. They are not gunning for the business market. Hell, they will sell to businesses or anyone else for a chunk of change, but that really is not their goal.
I don't disagree with anything you say, but I think you misunderstand how big the 'vanity toy' market is. Apple computers, iPods, and most of Apple's stuff falls solidly in the 'vanity toy' market. College kids buy iBooks not because they have any deep philosophical beliefs about what makes a good OS, they just like shiny white plastic. People pick an iPod not because it is light years ahead of a Creative or Sandisk player (they are not these days), they pick an iPod because it is a cool ass 'vanity toy'. Apple is going to make a killing on the iPhone BECAUSE it is a 'vanity toy' and there are a tens of millions of Americans willing to shell out a few hundred dollars to get one. Apple releasing an ugly brown phone would be a thousands times more devastating to their profits then releasing a phone that doesn't sync well with business networks.