Science is learning. It's that simple. Tell him that you spend your time learning about one specific subject; that you are trying to learn things that nobody else knows. That once YOU learn them, you help share that newfound knowledge with the world.
Well, you had already been modded as a troll before I posted my reply.
I am most certainly not an "enviro-wacko" I don't buy into "peak oil", among other topics. (Yet. If the "peak oil" crowd presents some actually compelling evidence...)
However, as I said, this study has been rather thoroughly debunked. Not least of which is the fact that they, as you quote, list a lifespan of 100,000 miles. Hell, the Prius has a longer warranty than that on its powertrain in California, so TOYOTA should hope that it lasts longer.
There is at least one instance I know of where the older style Prius is being used as a cab in Vancouver, BC. As of 2004, it had over 200,000 miles on it, and was still going strong. Toyota's reputation for long-lasting cars should hold true for the Prius as well. I know one "enviro-wacko" who is waiting for his current car to die before buying a Prius. His current car is a 1992 Toyota Camry with over 300,000 miles.
This study has been thoroughly debunked. The simplest debunking is just pointing out their skewed assumption that a Hummer will be driven for 300,000 miles, but a Prius will only be driven for 100,000. They then also assume that the Prius will just be thrown into a landfill, disregarding the fact that the car is about 95% recyclable, including the entire battery pack.
I'd actually like to see them commit to alternative fuels more. "100% hybrid" isn't good enough for me. 100% hybrid by 2010 would be nice, with a move to embrace other fuels by 2020.
Of course, he didn't say gas hybrid. Diesel hybrids would be nice; and this doesn't exclude plug-in hybrids, which have more utility than pure electric vehicles. And, in some strange way, you could consider a fuel cell/battery car to be a hybrid, even though the actual drivetrain is 100% electric. But some pure electric vehicles would be nice (bring back the RAV4-EV!) as would other alternative fuels.
It's not just hybrids. All 2008 model year cars will use the new testing scheme. The vast majority of cars will drop in MPG. Hybrids will drop a slightly higher percentage because the old test really was done in such a way as to 'unfairly' favor hybrids. The whole point of the new ratings is to match reality. The old ones were so far off reality, they took the raw data, and subtracted 15% to get the final numbers. The new test is supposedly good enough that they are just using the raw numbers the testing gives.
Under the old system, 3 of the 4 cars I have owned got worse gas mileage than the EPA estimates. The fourth actually got better. (Although it turns out that the fourth had a smaller engine than was advertised, and the manufacturer had to offer compensation to avoid a class action lawsuit about the deception.) I have checked the EPA's estimates for the same cars under the new system, and the 3 that were lower than the old numbers match almost exactly the new numbers.
Yes, one of them is a Prius. I get 45-50 MPG in it, depending on the season. (Worse in cooler weather, better in warmer.) So my real-world mileage should match the EPA's new numbers. Am I going to be upset because the sticker says a lower number? No. I'll be happy that I can finally reasonably rely on the sticker to tell me a reasonable estimate. Not some pie-in-the-sky number.
I also wonder about what this will do for CAFE standards... And car companies that advertise being environmentally friendly because x number of their models get 35 MPG or better, that will now have half those models drop below 35 MPG... Will they actually improve the cars? Will they just change their advertising to "30 MPG or better"? Or will they just give up and remove the newly degraded models from the list?
I recently did some research on Wikipedia on the Roman Empire. I ran into repeated use of the term "don the purple" when describing the accession of Roman emperors. Yet I NEVER found a description of what "the purple" really meant. Was it the crown? Was it a robe? Was it just an abstract term used with no direct object being referenced?
I asked about it on a talk page, and instead of somebody actually telling me, they said it should be obvious, and complained that I was nitpicking.
I know that when I edit articles in subjects I am knowledgeable about, I try to REMOVE 'jargon' when at all possible. If the jargon is an essential part of the article, then I make sure to explain the meaning in layman's terms, or link the jargon-esque word to an article that explains what it means.
Encyclopedias are *NOT* research journals. They should explain the subject in terms that someone who is wholly unfamiliar with the subject can understand. Yes, 'dumbing down' may create times when an article is technically inaccurate, but such inaccuracies in the name of simplicity should be noted, with a link to a more technically accurate, if less readable, explanation.
My son's middle school (grades 6-8 for those who don't know what "middle school" is,) uses Linux in their computers labs, and OpenOffice.org. Sadly, though, OO.o presentations are still called "PowerPoints", even by the teacher.
OpenOffice.org is probably the easiest one to implement, and it has the benefit of even returning money to the district in the form of lack of licensing fees.
K-12 Linux is harder to implement, but can save a district a *LOT* of money, because it makes hardware last a few years longer, and cuts out licensing costs. (And if you have a dedicated volunteer publicize an "install day" to the local Linux User Groups, you can get lots of install labor for free. Hell, it'll even have the side benefit, if you write Microsoft telling them of your impending switch, of having Microsoft donate software to you for the few computers that you want or have to keep on Windows.
(Disclaimer, K-12 Linux was created and is actively developed in the high school I attended, so I may be a bit biased; although I graduated way before the project started.)
Saying that it has made its way "into the public domain" implies that the copyright on it has been waived, therefore anyone can do anything they want with it.
The linked article doesn't mention anything of the sort. It makes it sound like it has "become public", meaning to become available.
The Radeon is underclocked in firmware. It is 'slow' in both OS X and Windows. I use ATITool to "re-clock" it when playing games, but otherwise leave it underclocked in Windows.
I have Vista Ultimate on my MacBook Pro, and the fan runs faster in Vista with 'Dreamscene' desktop on, but the computer otherwise idle, than it runs in OS X when I have a distributed computing running 24/7.
I'll have to try a battery rundown comparison tonight when I know I'll be running the battery down.
2. Get the order to violate copyright and patent law, plus violate license agreements, in writing. You write it out. Get your boss to sign it. Make sure it explicitly states that the boss is choosing to break the law. Tell the boss that he has asked you to break the law, and you will only do so if he signs it. If he threatens to fire you, remind him that the law protects the jobs of those who refuse to violate the law. If he signs, go to 3. If he gives in, then you're okay. If he fires you, go to 5.
3. Write the owners or every member of the board of directors, as appropriate for the type of company. If they give in, you're okay. If not, go to 4. If they fire you, go to 5.
4. If they still insist, do it, then write the BSA. I can't stand them, but you can get reward large enough to keep you happily unemployed for a year or more while you search for a better company to work for. If you get fired, still go to 5. Otherwise, feel happy that you have punished stupid management.
5. If you are fired for refusing to break the law, contact a local employment attorney. You have an open-and-shut case. He/she will work on contingency, meaning you won't pay up front, (s)he'll just take a percentage of the settlement/judgement.
Yes. The WayBack machines complies with all (legitimate) DMCA requests immediately. Kahle doesn't want to archive anything that the legal owner doesn't want archived. He respects copyright, even though his entire operation relies on the expiration of copyright.
Yup, I'm sure it was SoundExchange. (The coffee shop owner is a friend, and she was fuming about it.)
It's apparently like the recent brouhaha over streaming music on the internet. How one organization sets the royalty rates for ALL music, even musicians that DON'T want to be represented by this organization.
There is a small coffee shop in my town that used to have live music Friday and Saturday nights. NONE of the artists that played there were RIAA-affiliated. (All were very small local bands, none of which had record deals, all were self-produced.)
SoundExchange shut down the live music. Somehow, that neither I, nor the owner of the coffee shop were able to determine, SoundExchange actually does control the playback of all music in the U.S.
My cable connection ($60/month) is 8-12 Mbps down, 1.5 Mbps up.
But it's not guaranteed. If my service goes down, I call and complain, and they get someone out to fix it within a couple days. If I'm *REALLY* lucky, they'll be out same-day.
When my T-1 at work goes down, not only is it a big deal, but when we call and complain, we have it fixed within the hour. If I'm really UN-LUCKY, it will take the full 60 minutes.
What other president lied to start a war that has killed more than 3000 American troops? Johnson.
What other president has overseen the arrest of innocent people (there have been "enemy combatants" released with their charges dropped), holding them for years as "enemy combatants" without any right to habeas corpus?Roosevelt. And he didn't even declare them "enemy combatants;" and a much larger percentage were U.S. citizens.
Oh, wait... They were both Democrats, so it's okay.
(I am a Democrat-leaning liberal independent. I hate Bush, I think he is the worst president ever. But don't go making blind assertions.)
Probably not that this page is actually kept up to date every day. More like it hit/., and some Dell webmaster saw it and went "Oh, crap! We need to say he's running the latest and greatest."
I wish I was in Iowa. I have original discs for at least a dozen copies of Windows, and almost as many copies of Office. I'm sure I even have receipts for at least half of those.
1. It mentions 96,000+ web sites were monitored for the purpose of determining this. What were they? Were they evenly distributed by raw population? By internet-using population?
2. Does this survey make any attempt to take into account 'individual PC users' vs. 'internet cafe' users? i.e. Is this percentage of COMPUTERS or percentage of USERS? (Or, more likely, percentage of individual web hits?)
I can't find any technical details on how this survey was conducted, other than the slight mention of number of websites involved.
My son's computer was set so that his login was a "Limited" user. Lots of pre-2002 (i.e. written for Win9x, therefore pre user account level and permissions,) games had major issues. They insisted on running as an Administrator. Which meant either changing his login to Administrator (not likely,) or me coming in and typing in my password every time he wanted to run Microsoft's own "Midtown Madness".
Vista, on the other hand, appears to let old games work just fine on a Limited account. Obviously, REALLY old games don't work at all, but Win98-era games work just fine again.
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Science is learning. It's that simple. Tell him that you spend your time learning about one specific subject; that you are trying to learn things that nobody else knows. That once YOU learn them, you help share that newfound knowledge with the world.
That's what science is.
Prius with 285,000+ miles.
Well, you had already been modded as a troll before I posted my reply.
I am most certainly not an "enviro-wacko" I don't buy into "peak oil", among other topics. (Yet. If the "peak oil" crowd presents some actually compelling evidence...)
However, as I said, this study has been rather thoroughly debunked. Not least of which is the fact that they, as you quote, list a lifespan of 100,000 miles. Hell, the Prius has a longer warranty than that on its powertrain in California, so TOYOTA should hope that it lasts longer.
There is at least one instance I know of where the older style Prius is being used as a cab in Vancouver, BC. As of 2004, it had over 200,000 miles on it, and was still going strong. Toyota's reputation for long-lasting cars should hold true for the Prius as well. I know one "enviro-wacko" who is waiting for his current car to die before buying a Prius. His current car is a 1992 Toyota Camry with over 300,000 miles.
This study has been thoroughly debunked. The simplest debunking is just pointing out their skewed assumption that a Hummer will be driven for 300,000 miles, but a Prius will only be driven for 100,000. They then also assume that the Prius will just be thrown into a landfill, disregarding the fact that the car is about 95% recyclable, including the entire battery pack.
I'd actually like to see them commit to alternative fuels more. "100% hybrid" isn't good enough for me. 100% hybrid by 2010 would be nice, with a move to embrace other fuels by 2020.
Of course, he didn't say gas hybrid. Diesel hybrids would be nice; and this doesn't exclude plug-in hybrids, which have more utility than pure electric vehicles. And, in some strange way, you could consider a fuel cell/battery car to be a hybrid, even though the actual drivetrain is 100% electric. But some pure electric vehicles would be nice (bring back the RAV4-EV!) as would other alternative fuels.
It's not just hybrids. All 2008 model year cars will use the new testing scheme. The vast majority of cars will drop in MPG. Hybrids will drop a slightly higher percentage because the old test really was done in such a way as to 'unfairly' favor hybrids. The whole point of the new ratings is to match reality. The old ones were so far off reality, they took the raw data, and subtracted 15% to get the final numbers. The new test is supposedly good enough that they are just using the raw numbers the testing gives.
Under the old system, 3 of the 4 cars I have owned got worse gas mileage than the EPA estimates. The fourth actually got better. (Although it turns out that the fourth had a smaller engine than was advertised, and the manufacturer had to offer compensation to avoid a class action lawsuit about the deception.) I have checked the EPA's estimates for the same cars under the new system, and the 3 that were lower than the old numbers match almost exactly the new numbers.
Yes, one of them is a Prius. I get 45-50 MPG in it, depending on the season. (Worse in cooler weather, better in warmer.) So my real-world mileage should match the EPA's new numbers. Am I going to be upset because the sticker says a lower number? No. I'll be happy that I can finally reasonably rely on the sticker to tell me a reasonable estimate. Not some pie-in-the-sky number.
I also wonder about what this will do for CAFE standards... And car companies that advertise being environmentally friendly because x number of their models get 35 MPG or better, that will now have half those models drop below 35 MPG... Will they actually improve the cars? Will they just change their advertising to "30 MPG or better"? Or will they just give up and remove the newly degraded models from the list?
Thank you for the location of a definition. I'll do so.
I recently did some research on Wikipedia on the Roman Empire. I ran into repeated use of the term "don the purple" when describing the accession of Roman emperors. Yet I NEVER found a description of what "the purple" really meant. Was it the crown? Was it a robe? Was it just an abstract term used with no direct object being referenced?
I asked about it on a talk page, and instead of somebody actually telling me, they said it should be obvious, and complained that I was nitpicking.
I know that when I edit articles in subjects I am knowledgeable about, I try to REMOVE 'jargon' when at all possible. If the jargon is an essential part of the article, then I make sure to explain the meaning in layman's terms, or link the jargon-esque word to an article that explains what it means.
Encyclopedias are *NOT* research journals. They should explain the subject in terms that someone who is wholly unfamiliar with the subject can understand. Yes, 'dumbing down' may create times when an article is technically inaccurate, but such inaccuracies in the name of simplicity should be noted, with a link to a more technically accurate, if less readable, explanation.
OpenOffice.org is probably the easiest one to implement, and it has the benefit of even returning money to the district in the form of lack of licensing fees.
K-12 Linux is harder to implement, but can save a district a *LOT* of money, because it makes hardware last a few years longer, and cuts out licensing costs. (And if you have a dedicated volunteer publicize an "install day" to the local Linux User Groups, you can get lots of install labor for free. Hell, it'll even have the side benefit, if you write Microsoft telling them of your impending switch, of having Microsoft donate software to you for the few computers that you want or have to keep on Windows.
(Disclaimer, K-12 Linux was created and is actively developed in the high school I attended, so I may be a bit biased; although I graduated way before the project started.)
Saying that it has made its way "into the public domain" implies that the copyright on it has been waived, therefore anyone can do anything they want with it.
The linked article doesn't mention anything of the sort. It makes it sound like it has "become public", meaning to become available.
The Radeon is underclocked in firmware. It is 'slow' in both OS X and Windows. I use ATITool to "re-clock" it when playing games, but otherwise leave it underclocked in Windows.
I have Vista Ultimate on my MacBook Pro, and the fan runs faster in Vista with 'Dreamscene' desktop on, but the computer otherwise idle, than it runs in OS X when I have a distributed computing running 24/7.
I'll have to try a battery rundown comparison tonight when I know I'll be running the battery down.
2. Get the order to violate copyright and patent law, plus violate license agreements, in writing. You write it out. Get your boss to sign it. Make sure it explicitly states that the boss is choosing to break the law. Tell the boss that he has asked you to break the law, and you will only do so if he signs it. If he threatens to fire you, remind him that the law protects the jobs of those who refuse to violate the law. If he signs, go to 3. If he gives in, then you're okay. If he fires you, go to 5.
3. Write the owners or every member of the board of directors, as appropriate for the type of company. If they give in, you're okay. If not, go to 4. If they fire you, go to 5.
4. If they still insist, do it, then write the BSA. I can't stand them, but you can get reward large enough to keep you happily unemployed for a year or more while you search for a better company to work for. If you get fired, still go to 5. Otherwise, feel happy that you have punished stupid management.
5. If you are fired for refusing to break the law, contact a local employment attorney. You have an open-and-shut case. He/she will work on contingency, meaning you won't pay up front, (s)he'll just take a percentage of the settlement/judgement.
Yes. The WayBack machines complies with all (legitimate) DMCA requests immediately. Kahle doesn't want to archive anything that the legal owner doesn't want archived. He respects copyright, even though his entire operation relies on the expiration of copyright.
Yup, I'm sure it was SoundExchange. (The coffee shop owner is a friend, and she was fuming about it.)
It's apparently like the recent brouhaha over streaming music on the internet. How one organization sets the royalty rates for ALL music, even musicians that DON'T want to be represented by this organization.
There is a small coffee shop in my town that used to have live music Friday and Saturday nights. NONE of the artists that played there were RIAA-affiliated. (All were very small local bands, none of which had record deals, all were self-produced.)
SoundExchange shut down the live music. Somehow, that neither I, nor the owner of the coffee shop were able to determine, SoundExchange actually does control the playback of all music in the U.S.
My cable connection ($60/month) is 8-12 Mbps down, 1.5 Mbps up.
But it's not guaranteed. If my service goes down, I call and complain, and they get someone out to fix it within a couple days. If I'm *REALLY* lucky, they'll be out same-day.
When my T-1 at work goes down, not only is it a big deal, but when we call and complain, we have it fixed within the hour. If I'm really UN-LUCKY, it will take the full 60 minutes.
Johnson. What other president has overseen the arrest of innocent people (there have been "enemy combatants" released with their charges dropped), holding them for years as "enemy combatants" without any right to habeas corpus? Roosevelt. And he didn't even declare them "enemy combatants;" and a much larger percentage were U.S. citizens.
Oh, wait... They were both Democrats, so it's okay.
(I am a Democrat-leaning liberal independent. I hate Bush, I think he is the worst president ever. But don't go making blind assertions.)
Probably not that this page is actually kept up to date every day. More like it hit /., and some Dell webmaster saw it and went "Oh, crap! We need to say he's running the latest and greatest."
Well, he must have just updated it, because now they all say Vista Ultimate (other than the Ubuntu.)
Yeah, but this money from Microsoft doesn't require me to sell my copies.
I wish I was in Iowa. I have original discs for at least a dozen copies of Windows, and almost as many copies of Office. I'm sure I even have receipts for at least half of those.
1. It mentions 96,000+ web sites were monitored for the purpose of determining this. What were they? Were they evenly distributed by raw population? By internet-using population?
2. Does this survey make any attempt to take into account 'individual PC users' vs. 'internet cafe' users? i.e. Is this percentage of COMPUTERS or percentage of USERS? (Or, more likely, percentage of individual web hits?)
I can't find any technical details on how this survey was conducted, other than the slight mention of number of websites involved.
Thanks for the info, that is almost certainly the reason. (You mean, Microsoft planned something and actually got it RIGHT?)
My son's computer was set so that his login was a "Limited" user. Lots of pre-2002 (i.e. written for Win9x, therefore pre user account level and permissions,) games had major issues. They insisted on running as an Administrator. Which meant either changing his login to Administrator (not likely,) or me coming in and typing in my password every time he wanted to run Microsoft's own "Midtown Madness".
Vista, on the other hand, appears to let old games work just fine on a Limited account. Obviously, REALLY old games don't work at all, but Win98-era games work just fine again.