This is probably too late for anyone to read but I happen to run a DC hub with a minimum of several gb of legal files. The file types are all live recordings of phish friendly bands that allow taping in shn format (lossless audio compression. More information on this type of legal music trading can be found at www.etree.org. My wife's and mine personal music list for trade is at http://db2.etree.org/happysheep.
Well, agian, if you have disks that don't use up the full space, more power too you. Enjoy your T@2 feature and have fun. For me, and for a lot of the rest of the burning community, being limited to even 500MB on a disk is unnacceptable when most stuff you download is 700MB.
My question is, if you gave a CD with this on it to a fabrication facility for distrobution, would they be able to reproduce that with the stamping hardware?
No you cannot. A CD-R uses a dye sublimation process to fake the cd drive into thinking that the pits are there. There is other technology out there to create a picture in a disk. My personal favorite example (and what I was hoping the T@2 technology could do) is the latest Aphex Twin album where the data side has a face in it. The actual data has a picture in it. Now that is cool. I believe there was a/. article about it a few months ago.
500 MB? Really? Virtually every disc I burn has 100MB or less on it. They're so cheap you can waste the space, and what better way to waste a bit of space than with a cute picture.
Well, they may be useful for you then. Most of the time I am burning a music CD (before you complain its live and legal), a Game CD (for LAN parties ect.) or, most of the time, a system image or back-up of downloaded files. All of the above applications for cd's will use more space then I could and still get a decent image. Now I am mostly going by the feature in Maximum PC magazine but they did some extensive tests on it and stated that to get a readable font on the cd you could put a maximum of about 400MB on a CD just to do labeling, let alone a full picture.
Now the idea of the XMAS ornaments (alternately coasters or car mirror danglies) I really do like. Not sure if I could justify buying one of these for that purpose but when I shope for a burner the next time I might think about it.
While I usually dont respond to flamebait I would like to point a few things out so that hopefully we could have a better and more fulfilling discussion in the future. My point was not agianst the article and I am not agianst the technology. As soon as I saw this particular technology I got a stiffie thinking about the possibilities. I was imagining something like the Aphex Twin CD where there is a face in the data. However, this device does not do that. It only will Tattoo the data unto a non-used portion of the disk. Due to this limitation the device, while still possesing a high geek factor, is actually useless for most applications of it that I can think of. Things such as labeling the CD or putting a image in it for a pr0n cd. Even putting in a game manufactures logo in the data would be nigh impossible. I felt that this information needed to be discussed as it greatly cripples what would otherwise be a very cool device and changes it from a "must have" item into a cool geeky technical anomolie. I mentioned the article because I thought that this sort of information should be in the blurb. So in the future, even as a flamebaiting troll post, please do not say that information like this is useless and causing/. to go to hell just because I give a personal bad review to a product.
Additionally I think my hardware nerdness is a bit above question. I have been involved in the PC hardware scene since about 1994. Since about 1996 I have been a professional personal PC technician and have done a fairly good job of making a living out of it. I did my first case mod in 1998 by taking my PC case out and painting the thing black and red cause I thought it was cool. While I am not a linux zealot or anything I do know a thing or two about pc hardware. So while I may not be the biggest alpha geek in/. by any stretch of the imagination I think my record speaks for itself.
Note to moderators. THis is published without the +1 bonus. Please do not moderate this post as it is a reply to flamebait and trolling. Heck I'm at work and have nothing better to do.
I am very suprised that this is not mentioned in the article but this technology is almost completely useless. The Disk T@2 can only be put on a area with no data. So maybe if you are copying 100MB of mp3's to a cd you could add a bit of text but if you burn more than 300MB or so there is not enough room to put the image. Personally I can't remember the last time I burned a disk with under 500mb on it so this is really a pretty useless feature, however cool I thought it would be at first before I did some research.
The main problem with your analogy is this. If I was alking down the street and found Coke's Secret agreement I could then start producing it. I could even publish it on the internet. Same thing if I ever decided to "reverse engineer" thier soda forumla by using people with perfect taste or gas chromotography.
Now, If I reverse engineer microsofts Copyrighted file format and release a tool to create it then I can actually be sued by ms. It is a government protected monopoly instead of a closely gaurded secret. I personally think that if "We the people" are going to give out monopolies it should be done according to what is in the best public interests. My personal feeling is that all software should be set as a patentable work with only the output able to be copyrighted. Thats really a much longer discussion than I have the time to go into right now though.:) However, it does mean that if we are to give microsoft a legal monopoly then there should be a expiration date set on it at that point. The balance should be maitained between driving new innovation and... putting as many ideas as possible into the public domain to drive more innovation.
Re:ABC AND Slashdot get taken in
on
Lunar Power
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· Score: 2
I see your point on solar panels in particular causing a ertian amount of pollution. However, I still cannot imagine them being worse than burning fossil fuels. They seem more practical than wind power and are more available than water-turbines or geothermal energy. My point was not about solar panels themselves tho. I just think that there has to be a cheaper and more accesable way to get away from fossil fuel dependance than putting freaking solar panels on then moon. My point for solar panels on houses was just to illustrate that there is a better chance of getting that passed through congress,however slim that chance may be, than getting congress and the president to sign a treaty to put solar panels on the moon. Especially considering that this is the administration that will not agree to the kyoto protocols and thinks that alaskan oil drilling is a good way to solve the energy crisis.
I will read that sight soime. At a first glance it looks like there is some very good information on there. Thanx for the link.
Re:ABC AND Slashdot get taken in
on
Lunar Power
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· Score: 2
while coating your car with solar panels is a nice idea, considering the power efficiency isn't enough to run the a/c, radio, windshield wipers all at once even when the sun IS out, well you can see its only a nice idea , not really a total solution?
I never said that solar power is or could be a total solution. however it is something that can be done now, on current building and other ones that we are going to be ripping the ground up on anyways, for a minimal cost. I would go into depth but I already have in reply to another post. Let me point you there.
Re:ABC AND Slashdot get taken in
on
Lunar Power
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· Score: 2
Don't complain that your post is being labelled a troll. If I grok the essence of trolling, it is the posting of extreme views in order to elicit a reaction from a forum. I'm sure you're a very sincere troll, who believes what he's saying. But "this'll never work,/. sucks, dump the article and fire the editor, how could anyone take such a stupid idea seriously, take this guy's funding" certainly constitutes "extreme views." The proposal is much better than you make it sound. It requires little new technology, has several logical points in its favor, and just requires that Americans show some cajones and put some of their DVD-buying money into it.
I concede your point here but I assure you that what I said was not meant as a troll. I would like to discuss some of what you put in here tho.
First thing is the/. editorial policy. (Yea i know offtopic and flamebait but I dont care about karma anymore so lets go into the fog.) If a writer for the new york times caught as much crap as some of the editors on slashdot (I would like to Say Katz but i actually sorta like his articles) they would be relegated to the back page at best and most likely fired. Furthermore, the aforementioned New York Times is much more responsive to thier readership than/. is. I would like to point out the/. blackout that is going to/has already happened (dont have the link right here and i am too lazy to find it right now.) In any other business they would probably release an apology for what was said that pissed off so many readers and publically chastise the employee who said it. Just like any other PR snafu./. evidently does not care enough to even post a responce in the thread that was started.
OK, now getting to the topic at hand. Solar panels as part of a building code.
First, you need more than just solar panels. You also need some pretty expensive equipment to regulate the energy coming in from those panels and transform it into the "flavor" of energy used by the power grid
These systems are already in place and have been made nigh foolproof for the consumer market. All modern solar panel installations can be made to pump power back into the grid. This is even true for home systems. My mother in law has one of these set up on a second house of hers that is currently vacant. She makes enough money off the panels to be able to cover all the routine repairs on this house. Nothing major, you certianly wont get rich off of it but it illistrates the point. ON top of that the panels are completely maintance free. They only need to be replaced every 30 years or so. This is where it gets sticky. http://www.mrsolar.com/ is a page to get some prices. Now if you live anywhere except for califoria (where you get a tax break) the solar panels will not pay for thier own electricity for about 15-30 years. Most people are not willing to spend this much up-front to "help savemother earth." This is why i say that it should only be on new homes and should be considered part of the building code, like walls of a certian strength. This way we wil slowly cut down our energy expenderatures over time. The idea is not to fully remove our dependance from burning things but to limit it as much as possible as quickly and easily as possible.
The other reason that I say this needs tobe done for all new structures is that it will not damage the enviroment further. However much I would love to pave death valley over with solar panels to provide electricity for all of california it would completely wreck the environment around death valley. So the minimal envirmental impact is another reason that I think that this is a good power solution.
The last reason i think that this is a good solution is its do-ability. Taking on 10 grand to the price of a new house (less as soon as there is some good compitition in this area) does not sound too bad given the advantages. Also, with the advent of the new solar tiles that can actually be used as roofing material more money can be saved in the long run. While i agree with you that this is not the most energy efficient way to use solar panels due to the atmosphere it is something that can be done now, today, with a simple building code enacted.
This is opposed to putting these solar panels in space somewhere. if we are to put them in space then the moon is as good a place as any. These would be perfect for GETTING POWER IN SPACE. You still have the large signal loss while beaming this power into the atmosphere down to the energy collection stations on earth. Unless we are talking about beaming it to a space elevator that can put the power down a wire to earth. Then we get back to my first point which is that we need to be looking at more immediate goals in space exploration and exploitation before we start talking about fanciful moon stations.
So agian, I close my argument by saying that we need to focus on stuff that we can do now. We have the technology and the resources to easily solve our energy crisis (and with fossil fuels running out quickly it will soon be a real crisis). All that it would take is a few changes in the ways that we do things. California is a good example on how legislation can help energy and pollution problems. (LA has reduced thier power consumption per capita as well as thier general air pollution levels immensly in the 15 years that I lived in cali.) I do not see ay reason why well-crafted national level legislation cannot help in this case (outside of well monied oil interests and oil presidents stopping it.)
Well, I'll stop ranting now. I would point you to the hydrogen slashdot story that appeared a few days ago for why that will and will not work and how it is different than fossil fuels (cleaner burning, less scarce, harder to get at.)
Re:ABC AND Slashdot get taken in
on
Lunar Power
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· Score: 2
I'm not saying that it cannot be done. Or even done practically. I just believe that we need to focus on something that is much more do-able now than setting up a robot factory on the moon to cover a good portion of it with solar panels when we dont even have that great of a low orbit space station going yet. Let alone something like a space elevator so we could get all of the materials needed to "seed" this project up to the moon. I would much rather hear talks of a space elevator being set up as a first step to getting us into space cheaply then hear of this guy speaking about point z in our space plans.
Re:ABC AND Slashdot get taken in
on
Lunar Power
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· Score: 1, Troll
Well, I hate replying to my own posts but I just had to say that this is no troll. Everything that I say is downright true.
C'mon editors. My cat could have figured out a better power scheme than this. Even the Hydrogren that is 20KM under the surface of the earth would be cheaper. New national level building codes where we force all new buildings to have solar panel roof tiles and solar colleting windows would be easier to pass by congress. Also, quite frankly, the guys that are still hacking away at cold fusion probably have a better chance of getting it all to work.
This particular idea of using the moon for a "power source" then "beaming" the power back down to earth using "microwaves" is fanciful at best. At the same time there are any number of alternates to this idea that make some serious sense. Personally I think mandating that all new buildings to have solar power built into the roofs and windows is a damn good idea, certianly better than this one, cheaper, and possible with our current technology, not to mention not needing any international treaties just to raise the capitol. So please, before marking me as a Troll, think for a few seconds. The guy is a wacko and if he is using public money he should have his grants stripped from him and have that money re-assigned to areas where it would be useful.
And wishing for a better moderation system on Slashdot is just Par for the course. Hell, at the very least we should be able to moderate the stories and those editors who never post anything decent should get fired. It's called consumer feedback and every other job on the planet has it. Why shouldn't it apply to slashdot editors as well?
ABC AND Slashdot get taken in
on
Lunar Power
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· Score: 4, Troll
ABC.com and Slashdot both put up a story from a wacko. News at 11.
C'mon editors. My cat could have figured out a better power scheme than this. Even the Hydrogren that is 20KM under the surface of the earth would be cheaper. New national level building codes where we force all new buildings to have solar panel roof tiles and solar colleting windows would be easier to pass by congress. Also, quite frankly, the guys that are still hacking away at cold fusion probably have a better chance of getting it all to work.
Damn I wish this was K5 so I could vote to dump this article.
And, isn't it fallacious, considering that these same users *can* access the copyrighted content without bnetd, through use of the games' touted single player aspects?
No they cannot. The currently available WC3Beta does not have a single player mode and MUST be played on-line. There is supposedly a hack for it to play a skirmish vs. the computer but I heard that it is unstable and that the AI does really stupid things (hence the beta.)
To be honest I would have to check agian. It was the stuff that came with the drive. Just did a straight copy. I just happened to have to have my game of GTA3 interupted because he wanted to test it.;)
What are you talking about. My friend got a phillips DVD-RW and we were able to make straight copies of disks without even blinking. Went straight into my dvd player and I couldnt tell the difference as to which one was in without ejecting the disk and looking at it. At no time did we ever have to decode the movie.
Very simply, They had DVD-RW (or some other competing format) type of burners. All of these sorts of devices just make a copy of the cd. So there is no reason to decode the movie, you just copy it with all of its protections enabled. Why would you spend the hours needed to decode it and copy it to an unencrypted mpeg-1 file when you can just leave it there for cheaper and do it faster?
Evolution !=mutation.
Sorry man, more mutations usually does indicate an increase in the speed of evolutionary change. IF mutations and random change of some sort is happening a certian small percentage of those mutations will be more (or less) useful for furthered survival of that organisms genes. The more mutation that occurs means that there is a better chance of a "good" mutation happening. Especially considering how rare a "good" mutation is. While most mutations will be bad an increace in mutations usually means an increace in ALL mutations, useful and detrimental. The really detrimental ones die off without passing on thier genes. Most traits and mutations dont ultimately matter and may or may not be passed on depending on other traits that organism has. (A non-useful mutation of a third nipple doesn't stop Marky-mark from getting laid.) And that one in a million benificial mutation that can also be passed on is evolution.
But sir, Why do I have to pay for it. Just so the mpaa can make more money? The beauty of a good capitalist system is that if prices of a item is cheap in one area and shipping does not add to much to the price, then other areas can get it for the prie of the unit in that area plus shipping and a small cut for the shipper. This holds true for every single type of property in the world. And just because a industry asks for it we give them the ability not to be subject to this law of economics. Come on. Give me a break. If I can get a DVD from India for $5 American and ship it too America for say another $5 there is no reason that it shouldnt cost me $10 to aquire that DVD. The only thing that is stopping me from doing that now is a artificial law that has no benifit to the general populous. All it does is shovel money to the movie companies. So yes, I do have a natural and moral right to watch a DVD from another reagion.
Also i would like to point out that your example is flawed. The reasons for the PAL and NTSC standards were not to region off the world to gain more profits. It was a natural result of the technology at the time. And, at least in my book, the way that a situation was created does effect my feelings on it.
guess you'll be burning all of your malicious DVDs then? I have no problem with region encoding - its the studios right to decide when they will release a product in each market. They've done it for years with tapes and cinema releases - why is everyone suddenly bitchin because they're still doing it with DVDs?
Because now I cannot go to japan and buy a copy of Kenshin to watch on my home VCR in America. A certian amount of freedom to choose has been taken away from me by the region coding. Before the "invisible hand" of free market trade held the prices of VHS down because I could always wait 6 months for the foriegn (read cheap) versions of the film to be released. Now I can no longer do that. I am also limited in the content that I can recieve, especially if you are a Anime/Japanese television/Hong Kong Cinema fan. At least thats why I make a stink about this crap.:)
Yea but arcanum just sucked. The magic system was no fun to play and the technology system was just downright frustrating even with a walkthrough. Also the inability to make a mixed charachter and the fact that you NPC's would rebel agianst you (I am a different alignment than my other party guy so I wont help him) just made the game unplayable to me. It should have been a great game but Arcanum just wasnt.
Now for good RPG elements I would reccomend the japanese FF versions (5 in particular). They dont have the dumb-down part to them like the American versions do. I was/am a big fan of the BG series but I do have to admit that the games take a bit too long. I passed one but just couldnt bring myself to pass 2 let alone the add-on packs.
While I see your point 2 and 3 are different. There is a large difference between breaking copy protection illegally (a la DMCA) to play a out of region DVD and Modding a system to accept out of country games which I believe is still legal. My understanding is that the reason the american ps1 could not play japanese games was due to hardware incompatabilities and not a region coded lockout. Which should make importing a japanese game legal while a japanese movie would be illegal.
What *I* don't understand is people who can't take care of CDs. I have audio CDs over 10 years old that still play fine, and I've never had a PSX or other CD-based game become unplayable. In fact, my 1995 PSX launch titles all still run fine on my PS2.
Slashdot Mirror
Some people had the link wrong. It is https://www.delladapterprogram.com/Main.aspx and running just fine for me.
This is probably too late for anyone to read but I happen to run a DC hub with a minimum of several gb of legal files. The file types are all live recordings of phish friendly bands that allow taping in shn format (lossless audio compression. More information on this type of legal music trading can be found at www.etree.org. My wife's and mine personal music list for trade is at http://db2.etree.org/happysheep.
Yea I know its off-topic but interesting too.
My question is, if you gave a CD with this on it to a fabrication facility for distrobution, would they be able to reproduce that with the stamping hardware?
No you cannot. A CD-R uses a dye sublimation process to fake the cd drive into thinking that the pits are there. There is other technology out there to create a picture in a disk. My personal favorite example (and what I was hoping the T@2 technology could do) is the latest Aphex Twin album where the data side has a face in it. The actual data has a picture in it. Now that is cool. I believe there was a /. article about it a few months ago.
Well, they may be useful for you then. Most of the time I am burning a music CD (before you complain its live and legal), a Game CD (for LAN parties ect.) or, most of the time, a system image or back-up of downloaded files. All of the above applications for cd's will use more space then I could and still get a decent image. Now I am mostly going by the feature in Maximum PC magazine but they did some extensive tests on it and stated that to get a readable font on the cd you could put a maximum of about 400MB on a CD just to do labeling, let alone a full picture.
Now the idea of the XMAS ornaments (alternately coasters or car mirror danglies) I really do like. Not sure if I could justify buying one of these for that purpose but when I shope for a burner the next time I might think about it.
Additionally I think my hardware nerdness is a bit above question. I have been involved in the PC hardware scene since about 1994. Since about 1996 I have been a professional personal PC technician and have done a fairly good job of making a living out of it. I did my first case mod in 1998 by taking my PC case out and painting the thing black and red cause I thought it was cool. While I am not a linux zealot or anything I do know a thing or two about pc hardware. So while I may not be the biggest alpha geek in /. by any stretch of the imagination I think my record speaks for itself.
Note to moderators. THis is published without the +1 bonus. Please do not moderate this post as it is a reply to flamebait and trolling. Heck I'm at work and have nothing better to do.
I am very suprised that this is not mentioned in the article but this technology is almost completely useless. The Disk T@2 can only be put on a area with no data. So maybe if you are copying 100MB of mp3's to a cd you could add a bit of text but if you burn more than 300MB or so there is not enough room to put the image. Personally I can't remember the last time I burned a disk with under 500mb on it so this is really a pretty useless feature, however cool I thought it would be at first before I did some research.
Now, If I reverse engineer microsofts Copyrighted file format and release a tool to create it then I can actually be sued by ms. It is a government protected monopoly instead of a closely gaurded secret. I personally think that if "We the people" are going to give out monopolies it should be done according to what is in the best public interests. My personal feeling is that all software should be set as a patentable work with only the output able to be copyrighted. Thats really a much longer discussion than I have the time to go into right now though. :) However, it does mean that if we are to give microsoft a legal monopoly then there should be a expiration date set on it at that point. The balance should be maitained between driving new innovation and ... putting as many ideas as possible into the public domain to drive more innovation.
I will read that sight soime. At a first glance it looks like there is some very good information on there. Thanx for the link.
I never said that solar power is or could be a total solution. however it is something that can be done now, on current building and other ones that we are going to be ripping the ground up on anyways, for a minimal cost. I would go into depth but I already have in reply to another post. Let me point you there.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=31542&cid=3395 090
I concede your point here but I assure you that what I said was not meant as a troll. I would like to discuss some of what you put in here tho.
First thing is the /. editorial policy. (Yea i know offtopic and flamebait but I dont care about karma anymore so lets go into the fog.) If a writer for the new york times caught as much crap as some of the editors on slashdot (I would like to Say Katz but i actually sorta like his articles) they would be relegated to the back page at best and most likely fired. Furthermore, the aforementioned New York Times is much more responsive to thier readership than /. is. I would like to point out the /. blackout that is going to/has already happened (dont have the link right here and i am too lazy to find it right now.) In any other business they would probably release an apology for what was said that pissed off so many readers and publically chastise the employee who said it. Just like any other PR snafu. /. evidently does not care enough to even post a responce in the thread that was started.
OK, now getting to the topic at hand. Solar panels as part of a building code.
First, you need more than just solar panels. You also need some pretty expensive equipment to regulate the energy coming in from those panels and transform it into the "flavor" of energy used by the power grid
These systems are already in place and have been made nigh foolproof for the consumer market. All modern solar panel installations can be made to pump power back into the grid. This is even true for home systems. My mother in law has one of these set up on a second house of hers that is currently vacant. She makes enough money off the panels to be able to cover all the routine repairs on this house. Nothing major, you certianly wont get rich off of it but it illistrates the point. ON top of that the panels are completely maintance free. They only need to be replaced every 30 years or so. This is where it gets sticky. http://www.mrsolar.com/ is a page to get some prices. Now if you live anywhere except for califoria (where you get a tax break) the solar panels will not pay for thier own electricity for about 15-30 years. Most people are not willing to spend this much up-front to "help savemother earth." This is why i say that it should only be on new homes and should be considered part of the building code, like walls of a certian strength. This way we wil slowly cut down our energy expenderatures over time. The idea is not to fully remove our dependance from burning things but to limit it as much as possible as quickly and easily as possible.
The other reason that I say this needs tobe done for all new structures is that it will not damage the enviroment further. However much I would love to pave death valley over with solar panels to provide electricity for all of california it would completely wreck the environment around death valley. So the minimal envirmental impact is another reason that I think that this is a good power solution.
The last reason i think that this is a good solution is its do-ability. Taking on 10 grand to the price of a new house (less as soon as there is some good compitition in this area) does not sound too bad given the advantages. Also, with the advent of the new solar tiles that can actually be used as roofing material more money can be saved in the long run. While i agree with you that this is not the most energy efficient way to use solar panels due to the atmosphere it is something that can be done now, today, with a simple building code enacted.
This is opposed to putting these solar panels in space somewhere. if we are to put them in space then the moon is as good a place as any. These would be perfect for GETTING POWER IN SPACE. You still have the large signal loss while beaming this power into the atmosphere down to the energy collection stations on earth. Unless we are talking about beaming it to a space elevator that can put the power down a wire to earth. Then we get back to my first point which is that we need to be looking at more immediate goals in space exploration and exploitation before we start talking about fanciful moon stations.
So agian, I close my argument by saying that we need to focus on stuff that we can do now. We have the technology and the resources to easily solve our energy crisis (and with fossil fuels running out quickly it will soon be a real crisis). All that it would take is a few changes in the ways that we do things. California is a good example on how legislation can help energy and pollution problems. (LA has reduced thier power consumption per capita as well as thier general air pollution levels immensly in the 15 years that I lived in cali.) I do not see ay reason why well-crafted national level legislation cannot help in this case (outside of well monied oil interests and oil presidents stopping it.)
Well, I'll stop ranting now. I would point you to the hydrogen slashdot story that appeared a few days ago for why that will and will not work and how it is different than fossil fuels (cleaner burning, less scarce, harder to get at.)
I'm not saying that it cannot be done. Or even done practically. I just believe that we need to focus on something that is much more do-able now than setting up a robot factory on the moon to cover a good portion of it with solar panels when we dont even have that great of a low orbit space station going yet. Let alone something like a space elevator so we could get all of the materials needed to "seed" this project up to the moon. I would much rather hear talks of a space elevator being set up as a first step to getting us into space cheaply then hear of this guy speaking about point z in our space plans.
C'mon editors. My cat could have figured out a better power scheme than this. Even the Hydrogren that is 20KM under the surface of the earth would be cheaper. New national level building codes where we force all new buildings to have solar panel roof tiles and solar colleting windows would be easier to pass by congress. Also, quite frankly, the guys that are still hacking away at cold fusion probably have a better chance of getting it all to work.
This particular idea of using the moon for a "power source" then "beaming" the power back down to earth using "microwaves" is fanciful at best. At the same time there are any number of alternates to this idea that make some serious sense. Personally I think mandating that all new buildings to have solar power built into the roofs and windows is a damn good idea, certianly better than this one, cheaper, and possible with our current technology, not to mention not needing any international treaties just to raise the capitol. So please, before marking me as a Troll, think for a few seconds. The guy is a wacko and if he is using public money he should have his grants stripped from him and have that money re-assigned to areas where it would be useful.
And wishing for a better moderation system on Slashdot is just Par for the course. Hell, at the very least we should be able to moderate the stories and those editors who never post anything decent should get fired. It's called consumer feedback and every other job on the planet has it. Why shouldn't it apply to slashdot editors as well?
C'mon editors. My cat could have figured out a better power scheme than this. Even the Hydrogren that is 20KM under the surface of the earth would be cheaper. New national level building codes where we force all new buildings to have solar panel roof tiles and solar colleting windows would be easier to pass by congress. Also, quite frankly, the guys that are still hacking away at cold fusion probably have a better chance of getting it all to work.
Damn I wish this was K5 so I could vote to dump this article.
No they cannot. The currently available WC3Beta does not have a single player mode and MUST be played on-line. There is supposedly a hack for it to play a skirmish vs. the computer but I heard that it is unstable and that the AI does really stupid things (hence the beta.)
To be honest I would have to check agian. It was the stuff that came with the drive. Just did a straight copy. I just happened to have to have my game of GTA3 interupted because he wanted to test it. ;)
What are you talking about. My friend got a phillips DVD-RW and we were able to make straight copies of disks without even blinking. Went straight into my dvd player and I couldnt tell the difference as to which one was in without ejecting the disk and looking at it. At no time did we ever have to decode the movie.
Very simply, They had DVD-RW (or some other competing format) type of burners. All of these sorts of devices just make a copy of the cd. So there is no reason to decode the movie, you just copy it with all of its protections enabled. Why would you spend the hours needed to decode it and copy it to an unencrypted mpeg-1 file when you can just leave it there for cheaper and do it faster?
Evolution !=mutation. Sorry man, more mutations usually does indicate an increase in the speed of evolutionary change. IF mutations and random change of some sort is happening a certian small percentage of those mutations will be more (or less) useful for furthered survival of that organisms genes. The more mutation that occurs means that there is a better chance of a "good" mutation happening. Especially considering how rare a "good" mutation is. While most mutations will be bad an increace in mutations usually means an increace in ALL mutations, useful and detrimental. The really detrimental ones die off without passing on thier genes. Most traits and mutations dont ultimately matter and may or may not be passed on depending on other traits that organism has. (A non-useful mutation of a third nipple doesn't stop Marky-mark from getting laid.) And that one in a million benificial mutation that can also be passed on is evolution.
Also i would like to point out that your example is flawed. The reasons for the PAL and NTSC standards were not to region off the world to gain more profits. It was a natural result of the technology at the time. And, at least in my book, the way that a situation was created does effect my feelings on it.
Because now I cannot go to japan and buy a copy of Kenshin to watch on my home VCR in America. A certian amount of freedom to choose has been taken away from me by the region coding. Before the "invisible hand" of free market trade held the prices of VHS down because I could always wait 6 months for the foriegn (read cheap) versions of the film to be released. Now I can no longer do that. I am also limited in the content that I can recieve, especially if you are a Anime/Japanese television/Hong Kong Cinema fan. At least thats why I make a stink about this crap. :)
Now for good RPG elements I would reccomend the japanese FF versions (5 in particular). They dont have the dumb-down part to them like the American versions do. I was/am a big fan of the BG series but I do have to admit that the games take a bit too long. I passed one but just couldnt bring myself to pass 2 let alone the add-on packs.
Well thats my 2 cents. Take it or leave it ;)
I was more reffering to the united states in this example. But, according to the article, in the UK, you are correct. However stupid it may seem. :)
While I see your point 2 and 3 are different. There is a large difference between breaking copy protection illegally (a la DMCA) to play a out of region DVD and Modding a system to accept out of country games which I believe is still legal. My understanding is that the reason the american ps1 could not play japanese games was due to hardware incompatabilities and not a region coded lockout. Which should make importing a japanese game legal while a japanese movie would be illegal.
You obviously don't have children.