One of the reasons I use the 64-bit version of IE when I'm forced to use Windows is specifically to avoid plugins. There are basically *NO* plugins for 64-bit IE, including Flash.
And, double checking, apparently the OP is talking about the bank I use. Their main online login doesn't work on my Windows machine. Although in the place where the login box is on my Flash-laden computer is a simple 'login' button that takes me to a new (HTML-only) page that states "For a better security experience, we recommend installing Adobe Flash Player", but has an old fashioned form-based login.
"Security experience"???? Security shouldn't be an "experience"! Just say "For better security", even though the statement is debatable.
The difference is that Apple didn't advertise it having a FooBar 3 processor. They only advertised it having a FooBar 2 processor. So having a FooBar 2 compiler makes sense.
Then, six months later, they say "Oh, we're going to charge $5 for an update to allow you to use the FooBar 3 functionality."
Because the customer, up front, thought he was buying a FooBar 2, that's what he paid for.
Back to the real work, look at the prices of 802.11g hardware vs. 802.11n..11n hardware definitely carries a price premium. So Apple can't just claim unlocking some monetarily-insignificant feature. The 'upgrade' is worth a noticeable amount of money.
Another example would be HP's recent issue with some virtualization-processor-equipped computers coming with virtualization disabled. In this case, Intel doesn't make a 'Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz Processor' that DOESN'T have virtualization, so you know by HP's own specifications that the processor has the capability, so a customer can rightly expect to get the functionality. But if all they said was "Intel Processor", then you don't know WHAT it has in it. It could be an old Pentium M, with no 64-bit, no dual-core, no virtualiztion. So if all three are 'disabled', you don't know any better, you are getting what you paid for. If, later, HP announces that you actually got Core 2 Duo, and if you want to unlock 64-bit, dual-core, and virtualiztion, you'll have to pay a minor fee. Well, these are new features to you. You didn't know about these when you bought it. So you're getting *NEW* features (even though they've actually been there all along,) so (according to Apple's reading of Sarbanes-Oxley, which I personally don't agree with, but I'm trying to explain Apple's viewpoint,) you need to pay for these new features.
Apple never said "iMac includes 802.11n hardware, but you can only use 802.11g functionality," they said "iMac includes 802.11g."
As one other person responded, a good example is the Toyota Prius. In low-end packages, it doesn't have an alarm. Yet all the hardware and software for the alarm is there. You have to pay the dealer to use a tool to unlock the alarm. (Some dealers will do this for free if you ask nicely enough during a regular service visit. But according to Apple's interpretation of Sarbanes-Oxley, these dealers shouldn't do so, because it's giving you a new feature you didn't pay for.)
It's more like selling it as 802.11g, not acknowledging.11a at all, then six months down the road saying they'll unlock.11a for $5. This is where the accounting problem comes in. If they charge the extra $5 up front, it's not an accounting problem, it's just profiteering. (Although from my limited legal knowledge, it would be 100% legal for them to do what you suggest.)
Again, it's the Sarbanes-Oxley act that is the problem here. It makes it so that giving the customer a new feature later means that you have to wait until all features are delivered before you charge for it. If you sell it without the feature, claim the income now, then later unlock an unadvertised feature, you either need to restate your earnings for the previous sale, or charge for the unlocking, so that you can claim this feature was charged for now.
For all I know, Apple might be totally overreacting, and doesn't actually NEED to charge the $5. I'm just attempting to explain Apple's explanation. I personally think it's stupid to charge the $5.
This actually happens in many cases. The Toyota Prius, for example, is sold without an alarm system in lower-end packages, but it can be enabled using a scantool. Many dealers will do it for free if you're nice, usually as part of scheduled maintenance. Nice example. I have a Prius, and I did just this. I hadn't realized it before, but this means that my dealer could get in trouble with Sarbanes-Oxley. (Although on a Prius, the alarm is rather pointless unless you have the actually physically separate Glass Breakage Sensor; since nobody is going to be able to steal the car without your key or a tow truck, anyway.)
The story that would be news would be a hotel that does *not* do this. No. This is news because it's excessive and uncommon.
Otherwise, why would any of these places provide free networking in the first place. They aren't doing it out of the goodness of their heart and so they can sleep warm and cuddly at night. They're doing it because they've found other ways to make a buck off of it. Not everyone is so obsessed with money as you seem to think. Some people, even astute businesspeople, make decisions based on things like, "doing what's right", "giving back to the community", and "providing quality and value". I highly doubt that your average coffee-shop free WiFi is snooping on you.
Such extreme cynicism (as you seem to be promoting) is detrimental to society, and makes for a poor foundation to live by.
Although quite often companies offer free Wi-Fi in an effort to draw in more customers. So it *IS* about money, in a sense.
Except software has never really been considered a 'feature'. Free updates that include new functionality in software are not considered a problem.
It's HARDWARE that has the problem. For example, if Ford sold a car, then six months later said "bring your car in, and we'll turn on Anti-Lock Brakes for free!" that there's a problem. The car really had to include it all along, so it could be considered that this feature wasn't delivered until six months later, so they shouldn't be able to count the income from that feature until it is delivered.
Although I would think that common sense would say that this would only apply when the feature *WAS* advertised at time of sale, with the caveat that wouldn't be available for some time. "Anti-Lock Brakes included, to be unlocked via a software update in six months!" is selling the ABS, even though you don't get it. The 'free update' six months later means that the customer wasn't sold ABS at time of purchase, so the income to Ford at time of purchase is based on *NOT* including ABS. So they COULD claim ABS as a 'free update'.
Back to Apple, because they never advertised it as 802.11n, customers couldn't in good conscience be considered to have bought it expecting.11n. Apple never guaranteed.11n functionality at time of purchase, so.11n functionality wasn't something they 'sold'. Any computers sold SINCE the announcement I would say fall under this provision, since Apple has explicitly said that such computers include.11n hardware. Although I would hope that new computers include the enabler by default. (Although neither the Tech Specs pages nor the Store pages on any of the hardware say.11n yet.)
The only places I have seen people claiming it has a Samsung processor are based on pure speculation from "industry analysts". There is no confirmation, nor even serious inside information.
Why couldn't it just be running a Freescale PowerPC? They have 'system on a chip' PPCs made for extremely low power consumption, and for integrated environments such as this. They have 603e processors (which older versions of OS X can be hacked into running on,) that only draw 2.5 watts of power. They even have a 3.1 watt G4, and PowerPC 800-series processors that draw as low as 0.1 watt (yes, one-tenth of a watt, and are code compatible with the G3.)
If I am the author of a book on astronomy, and a book on cooking, and I freely give out a book that has the cover of my astronomy book, but is really my cooking book, I have freely given out the cooking book. I, as the copyright holder, have given it out. Even if I did it through a third party, I chose to give this out. Therefore, I can't claim that someone is stealing it from me, since I am the one who decided to give it out.
And I most certainly can *NOT* sue someone for trying to get my astronomy book for free, because they never got my astronomy book. They got the cooking book that I gave them. I am the one that gave it to them, though, so I can't sue them for downloading it.
To go back to my example, if Weird Al puts his song "Fat" on torrent sites, but with the name "Weird Al - The Saga Begins", he can't sue someone for downloading it. He put it there. Just because it's labeled wrong doesn't negate the fact that the copyright holder put it there. He can't sue for downloading the song Fat, because he put it there. And he can't sue because you TRIED to download The Saga Begins, because you didn't download that!
The 'spoof' file, that is. After all, the xAA is posting it to torrent sites themselves. Doesn't that make the file obviously legal. Therefore, even if it is named something that would be infringing copyright, wouldn't it still be legal to download? Even better, they are offering a file for download that is from the xAA itself, that claims to be some copyright-protected property. Isn't it then false advertising? If I was a major musician, say a certain comedy-minded one, and offered a file on my website for free download, claiming it is a song asking you not to download it, but the file isn't really that song, but just static; could I sue the downloader for trying to download my song? No.
Even if it is on GooTube instead of my own website, and I don't acknowledge that I put it there, it's still me putting it up for the public to download.
So no illegal activity has happened. So even though someone who would be downloading the file is the KIND of person who is likely downloading songs in violation of copyright, you haven't caught me doing anything inherently wrong, so how can you sue me?
i.e. "I caught this guy stealing a copy of my free pamphlet from the gray-market newsstand, so obviously he is stealing copies of non-free magazines, too!"
I have interviewed candidates for a position of on-site technician; a person who goes to people's homes, or small business locations, to fix their computers.
I had people with qualifications ranging from 'none' (he thought the job posting was for entry-level phone support,) to 'extremely qualified, but not for this job' (an IBM programmer of 30 years who had recently been laid off.) In each case, I did explain why I thought they were not a correct fit for the position.
In five years of doing this, I have conducted interviews on three occasions. I always found the best candidate through personal connections, not through open hiring. (I hired three people through open hiring, all three ended up being horrible; but they were sadly the best of the group of candidates each time.)
VLC may be used by some very technical users, but it is by no means a 'widespread' app. And on top of it, it only executes with the rights of the current user. And it affects the Windows version as well. This means that it is a minor bug on the Mac OS, (which requires authentication to do serious root-level damage,) but a fairly serious bug on Windows XP (which will happily screw up the computer without authentication.)
And, heck, VLC has already updated to fix this! (Source only at the moment, but they say updated binaries are due 'within the next few hours' as of 21:30 GMT (4:30 EST, 1:30 PST.) And one source already has a fixed binary available.
Complaining about bugs in Open Source software is even MORE ridiculous than my initial implication.
As long as their choice of third-party apps includes only fairly widespread apps, I wont' complain. But if they start to find problems in some random odd shareware app that the vast majority of even technically-inclined Mac users don't use, then they'll be pushing it. (MS Office for Mac, fine. Photoshop, fine. FireFox, fine. Delicious Library, borderline. Missing Link, borderline. BonEcho, sorry, no.)
A jury isn't even supposed to interpret the law. Creating the law is the legislative branch. Interpreting the law is the judicial branch. A jury's purpose is to determine FACT. We, the people, are just a human lie detector. If 'lie detectors' and mind reading devices became available that were, to the satisfaction of the court, 100% reliable, it would be within the spirit of the founding fathers' intentions to replace jurys with these devices.
By contrast, in most pre-United-States societies, the judge not only interpreted law, but also determined what was 'fact' in the case. The judge decided if witnesses were lying. Therefore, the judge alone was the sole arbiter of one's fate.
To go into wonderful controversial territory, we'll take the old OJ Simpson case. His jury's sole responsibility was "Did OJ Simpson, beyond a reasonable doubt, cause the death of these two people?" By returning a verdict of "Not Guilty", the jury declared that they felt that there was not enough evidence, or the evidence was not believable enough, to convict. That's the way the system works. The jury determines what the facts are.
Appeals cannot appeal what the jury determined were the facts of the case. An appeal only appeals for mistakes on the JUDGE's part, or the LAWYERs' parts, on their application of the law. So if a judge told a jury that a law meant "x", but the defendant thinks the law means "y", he can appeal. But once a jury has decided that "x" was lying, that fact can not be appealed. This is where most appeals fail. Because they try to appeal the FACTS of the case, not the application of LAW of the case. (You can't even appeal a law itself as a result of a verdict based on it. If I don't like the fact that a "statutory rape" law exists, and I get convicted of it, I can't appeal on the grounds that the law is invalid. I have to separately sue the state to invalidate the law.)
Jury Nullification is technically illegal, but there is apparently no penalty for it.
Yes, a jury's say is final. Yes, a jury has the POWER to decide if a law is fair and just, but a jury is not SUPPOSED to do that. A jury is supposed to determine if a law was broken, and apply penalties.
I know all about "jury nullification," and think it is horrible. The legislative branch writes laws, not the judiciary. The only time the judiciary should nullify a law is when that law itself is what is on trial. For example, if I think that a law barring people born on Tuesdays from marrying people born on Thursdays is stupid, and I end up on a jury that is a trial against two people who got married in violation of this law, I am morally compelled to want to acquit them. But I am duty-bound to convict them. If they raise a lawsuit against the state for HAVING the law, and I'm on THAT jury, I will happily rule against the law, though.
Win or lose, you pay your own lawyer fees (which, if you go with the court-appointed attorney, is free,) and any fine. The fine is *NOT* considered paying back court costs, it is a deterrent.
And you can only get your money back (and compensation for the hassle,) if you sue the government for wrongful prosecution and win. Basically, you have to prove that the government charged you when they knew you were innocent. (i.e. if they charge someone with murder, knowing full well that the accused didn't do it, because they know that the accused knows who did it. So they are charging one person with murder SOLELY to get that person to break and testify against someone else.) The trick, of course, is PROVING that the government KNEW that you were innocent. If they had even the slightest shred of circumstantial evidence, it can be hard to win one of these cases. (I was on a jury for one of these once. It was rather obvious that the government PROBABLY knew, but that wasn't enough to find against the government. The judge's instructions were very clear.)
i thought most estimates were that Hydrogen would be a better 'storage medium' than batteries? For example, United Nuclear was developing a conversion kit that would convert any standard gasoline car to run on Hydrogen. (They put the project on hold due to supply issues, they say that the CSPC is trying to ban one of the chemicals necessary for their system.) But they got a Corvette to go 650 miles on one 'tank' of Hydrogen. (This is combusting Hydrogen, not turning it into electricity via a fuel cell.)
Sounds like it has at least comparable energy density to gasoline, when stored and burned this way. Yeah, fuel cells are inefficient, but it doesn't mean ALL Hydrogen systems are inefficient. This is also a system that just takes in water, slowly converts it to Hydrogen and Oxygen, then stores the Hydrogen in their special tanks. It can be powered solely by a solar panel, but it is slow, taking two days to generate enough Hydrogen to drive a couple hundred miles. So it would be well suited as a 'commuter car', but not necessarily for long trips. Of course, as soon as there are 'Hydrogen stations' that you could refuel at, that would change.
And where is this 100% renewable energy going to come from? Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to build a wind turbine? How much energy it takes to produce solar panels? All of THAT energy comes from fossil fuels. Fuel to forge the steel. Fuel to make silicone. Fuel to transport and install the materials. Hell, even oil for the ball-bearings on the turbines. So you're spending energy, and therefore polluting, to build all this infrastructure...and now thanks to the wonders of hydrogen, you need to spend 4 times as much resources, and produce 4 times the pollution, because you need 4 times the infrastructure. Not exactly what I'd call a great deal. You can't forge steel from electric sources? These sources can't be clean? Yes, at one point in time, 'non-renewable' energy was involved, but only because there is no choice unless we actually MAKE the renewable sources! And wind turbines will 'make back' their environmental 'creation cost' quickly, then go on for a very long time. A coal fired plant is ALWAYS spitting out pollution. Gasoline is ALWAYS spitting out pollution. Building a new non-renewable plant entails the exact same penalties as building a renewable plant, but it will then be dirty even after it's online. A renewable plant only gets that 'dirtiness' during construction. And when the entire energy generation system is renewable, then even creating new plants is now clean.
I'm sorry, but your logic just doesn't follow. As a prior person mentioned, the difference is that with oil, you START with a 'charged' system, whereas with Hydrogen, you start with a 'discharged' system. You have to spend the energy to get Hydrogen to a 'charged' state, but if the energy source for this 'charging' is renewable, it doesn't matter!
The valid question is "Are you switching to a 64-bit Operating System?"
Name one major processor currently available that ISN'T 64-bit. Athlon has been 64 bit for a few years, Even Sempron is 64-bit now. Pentium 4, Pentium D, and even Celeron have been 64-bit for over a year. The only major chip that ISN'T 64-bit is Core Duo, and that is being totally eclipsed by Core 2 Duo now. (I'm not even touching the server space, which is likewise all 64-bit.)
Software that runs fine on a 32-bit processor will run perfectly on a 64-bit processor. (Assuming you mean x86 architecture. I'm also not going to consider the possibility of switching to Itanium or other non-x86 64-bit ISAs.)
The real question is "Should I upgrade to 64-bit Vista?" or "Should I switch to a 64-bit build of Linux?" For Vista, I'll say sure. Vista alone will break enough stuff that you might as well go all out. With Linux, I'd say stick with what works, unless you specifically have a 64-bit compiled application that will benefit from the extra registers that the 64-bit extensions add, or that will specifically take advantage of more than 4 GB of memory per thread.
As for Mac OS? It's already 64-bit on 64-bit architectures, for the UNIX-layer. And Leopard will be fully 64-bit on 64-bit architectures, no choice on your part.
Now, the original poster seems to be implying that this is an inherent flaw with Vista that affects all machines.
I have been running the beta of Vista for months now, on multiple machines, including laptops, and have yet to see this occur even once. With varying sets of hardware and sofware on the machines. I have not read on any messageboards of this being a widespread issue.
Now, my MacBook Pro, when shipped, had an issue that if I had an ExpressCard in the slot, it would instantly wake up from sleep as soon as it went into sleep mode. This meant that if the lid was closed, it would go to sleep, wake up, go back to sleep, wake up, etc, until either the battery died, or I opened it up. This was fixed with a firmware update. More recently, one of my external peripherals seems to cause a kernel panic on waking up. If i unplug the peripheral first, it wakes up fine though.
This is in contrast to a certain model of Dell laptop from 2000 that my company bought a dozen of that NONE of them would go into sleep mode properly. Dell's official answer? Disable sleep mode. On a laptop. (The symptom was that when you told it to go to sleep, it would turn off the hard drive, monitor, and fans. But it was apparently supplying full power to the processor, causing it to cook itself. We had one of them get so hot while shut in the user's laptop bag that the screen warped, and the machine died. The others didn't have permanent damage.)
Re:Walk them through a series of simple examples..
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Verizon Can't Do Math
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No amount of reasoning ("when 1KB is.002 cents how can 10KB be 2 cents") to get around that, because every step is calculated and reasoned independently. That's exactly it. Thank you for stating it that way.
Calculation and interpretation are being done independently of each other.
They do the math, and come up with a number that is two digits, decimal, three digits. When dealing with money in the U.S., basically the ONLY time we use numbers that look like this is when referring to dollars. So the brain immediately says dollars. But when referring to amounts that are zero decimal a few digits, our brain knows that we are referring to cents. The brain is making this leap, and because the people see that the bill confirms what their instinct tells them should be right (the total charge,) they don't bother TRYING to make the (correct) logical leap. They see a very small number, so it must be cents. But because it is, indeed, smaller than one whole cent, they again know that it is measured as "point something cents". So they know "point something cents," and they see "point zero zero two,", so they make the (faulty) logical leap of "point zero zero two cents." Then they do the math, and get "seventy one point seventy nine," and see that as dollars, since, silly caller, only DOLLARS are phrased as "something something point something something!"
It's horrible. I see the faulty logic, yet I see no way of getting them to understand. (The caller most certainly tried a lot harder than I would have. I would have gotten frustrated to the point of hanging up well before he did.)
The Verizon reps claim the rate is 0.002 cents per kilobyte. They say 'cents' because they see a number with a decimal point, but it is below 0.01. So they know it is a fraction of a cent. Somehow, it gets in there that it is 0.002 cents. Then, when they do the math, they get 71.786. They see a number with two digits before a decimal point, then a few digits after the decimal point. In the U.S., we are preconditioned to see that as 'dollars and cents'. Of course, since they also see that their system charged $71.78 (or $71.79, if it rounded up. I don't remember,) and it looks right. But their brain still has difficulty seeing that.002 is anything other than cents. I mean, heck, listen to the female rep in the second half "Who ever heard of.002 dollars?" She simply cannot comprehend a value expressed in dollars that is less than one cent. But since she knows that values that small are 'cents', it must mean cents.
Yes, it's simple math. Yes, all of the Verizon people should have known better. But I can comprehend their mindset, as incorrect as it is. I still find the whole ".002 dollars is the same thing as.002 cents" thing amazing though, especially when the customer clearly then has them differentiate 2 dollars from 2 cents, and half a dollar from half a cent.
The only way I can think of to explain it better to them is to tell them to get out a pen and pad. Write down the number for "one dollar". What did you write down? One point zero zero? Good. Make sure you have the little dollar sign at the front. Now write down the number for "half a dollar." Point five zero? Good. Again, make sure you have that dollar symbol. Now write it down with the "cents" symbol. The amount was "fifty cents", so you would write five zero cents-sign, right? Now write down the number for one cent. Point zero one with a dollar sign? Good. Writing it down as cents it would be one and the cents-sign, correct? Do you see how "point zero one dollars" is the same as "one cent"? Now half a cent. Point zero zero five with a dollar sign? Good. Is "half a cent" the same as "point five cents"? Yes? Good. So we can write that down as point five with a cent sign. Do you see how 'point five cents' and 'point zero zero five dollars' are the same? That they are the same value, but when you write it as 'dollars', it has two extra zeroes? Now write down one tenth of a cent. Not one tenth of a DOLLAR, but one tenth of a CENT. This would be one tenth of a penny. Something that you can get ten for a penny. Did you write down point zero zero zero one dollars? Again, if you write it as cents, it would be point zero one cents. Two extra zeroes when you are expressing it as dollars, yet it is the same value. So I was charged point zero zero two CENTS. Which, to convert to dollars, would be point zero zero zero zero two DOLLARS.
It would also have the best voice recognition and handwriting recognition out there; but it wouldn't be advertised, because Apple wants to forget the past, even while retaining the technology...
Hadn't thought about the requirement to keep two lines going. But they were doing it anyway. And they could have used the savings on the moon program to put Saturn Vs into other productive use.
Skylab CSMs took off which half the fuel load. Exactly my point. A lunar CSM could take off with that fuel load, then refuel once in orbit.
I do see my error on Apollo 5, though. It didn't have a 'real' CSM.
From everyone's favorite source, Wikipedia:
Earth Orbit CSM: 14,781 kg (per Apollo 7,) Partly fueled LEM: 13,941 kg (per Apollo 10.) Total for non-fully fueled: 28,722 kg
Saturn Ib payload is uncertain by Wikipedia. In one place, it says only 15,300 kg to LEO, but then it goes on to mention a 20,000kg+ Apollo (Skylab) module. So we'll assume that each lunar mission needed 2 Ib launches, one fo rthe CSM, one for the LEM.
According to http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/lvs /saturnib.htm and http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/lvs /saturnv.htm, a Saturn V launch was $431 million, and a Saturn Ib launch was $107 million. That's 4 Ib launches per V launch. Even if you had to launch two Ibs to get the CSM and LEM up separately, it would STILL have been cheaper. The V had a payload of 118,000 kg to LEO. That would have been more than enough for a fueling 'depot' that would have fueled the entire planned 11 landings. And the V would then not have to have been man-rated, saving development costs.
There were 10 Saturn V manned launches, with another 3 in the works. That's 13*$431m=$5.6 billion, plus the one manned Ib's $107m, $5.7 bil. Two Vs for refueling depots, plus 26 Ibs (two in place of each V launch, except the one V launch didn't have a LEM, so it would only use up one Ib, plus the one actual manned Ib launch,) is $862m for the 2 Vs, and $2.4b for the Ibs. Total $3.3 billion. A savings of $2.4 billion. That savings could have paid for a lot more programs. Possibly Skylab could have been truly fully developed, Space Shuttle developed sooner (although the STS ended up a boondoggle in the end due to design compromises,) or even a permanent moon settlement, like planned now, could have started in the 1970s. And if they had managed to get LEO-only CSM/LEM pair to launch together on a Ib, that would cut the number of Ib flights almost in half, saving an extra $1.2 bil.
Intel introduced the Pentium Extreme Edition 955 chip on the 65 nm process in December of 2005, and in a volume processor, the Core Duo, in January 2006. If AMD will have their 65 nm processor in Q1 '07, that puts them 12-15 months behind.
If they're 18 months behind on 45 nm, then they have a real problem... That actually puts them farther behind Intel than they are now.
Unless they mean they plan on being at 45 nm within 18 months of TODAY. Which, if Intel's roadmaps holds accurate as well, would have AMD only about 6 months behind Intel.
Unfortunately for AMD, Intel is not only getting their 45 nm process done, they're also working on their next-generation core, Nehalem. Which means that by the time AMD comes out with 45 nm of their current architecture, Intel might already be onto a more efficient core.
If you want to run a moonbase, how do you get lots of fuel into Earth orbit? And into lunar orbit? Doesn't sound terribly efficient. You get fuel into Earth orbit with heavy lifters. That carry enough fuel for multiple moon trips. You then use a light-lift rocket to get the actual spacecraft up. You can then do multiple light-lift spacecraft up to use up the previously launched fuel more cheaply than putting each spacecraft on its own heavly-lift rocket. If we had used a Saturn V to put a refueling station up (Skylab sized, without the 'space station' internals,) we could have used Saturn-IBs to actually launch the moon-ready pair. (The IB was used to launch Apollo 5, an unmanned CSM/LM pair.) Refuel in LEO, then head off to the moon. That would have saved a lot of money, and could have kept us going to the moon. The main reason this wasn't done was to save development time. It would have required longer to develop the orbiting refueling depot and related procedures.
As for putting a fueling station in lunar orbit, yeah, that's more difficult. The moon's gravity is low enough that 'wasting' the fuel to do direct lunar launches all the way back to Earth orbit would probably have to do until we come up with a 'cheap' way to get mass quantities of fuel to lunar orbit.
But, again, it might be cheaper to launch one big 'fuel depot' to the lunar surface and cut down on the need to carry return fuel out (from Earth) and down on the actual landing craft.
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One of the reasons I use the 64-bit version of IE when I'm forced to use Windows is specifically to avoid plugins. There are basically *NO* plugins for 64-bit IE, including Flash.
And, double checking, apparently the OP is talking about the bank I use. Their main online login doesn't work on my Windows machine. Although in the place where the login box is on my Flash-laden computer is a simple 'login' button that takes me to a new (HTML-only) page that states "For a better security experience, we recommend installing Adobe Flash Player", but has an old fashioned form-based login.
"Security experience"???? Security shouldn't be an "experience"! Just say "For better security", even though the statement is debatable.
The difference is that Apple didn't advertise it having a FooBar 3 processor. They only advertised it having a FooBar 2 processor. So having a FooBar 2 compiler makes sense.
.11n hardware definitely carries a price premium. So Apple can't just claim unlocking some monetarily-insignificant feature. The 'upgrade' is worth a noticeable amount of money.
Then, six months later, they say "Oh, we're going to charge $5 for an update to allow you to use the FooBar 3 functionality."
Because the customer, up front, thought he was buying a FooBar 2, that's what he paid for.
Back to the real work, look at the prices of 802.11g hardware vs. 802.11n.
Another example would be HP's recent issue with some virtualization-processor-equipped computers coming with virtualization disabled. In this case, Intel doesn't make a 'Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz Processor' that DOESN'T have virtualization, so you know by HP's own specifications that the processor has the capability, so a customer can rightly expect to get the functionality. But if all they said was "Intel Processor", then you don't know WHAT it has in it. It could be an old Pentium M, with no 64-bit, no dual-core, no virtualiztion. So if all three are 'disabled', you don't know any better, you are getting what you paid for. If, later, HP announces that you actually got Core 2 Duo, and if you want to unlock 64-bit, dual-core, and virtualiztion, you'll have to pay a minor fee. Well, these are new features to you. You didn't know about these when you bought it. So you're getting *NEW* features (even though they've actually been there all along,) so (according to Apple's reading of Sarbanes-Oxley, which I personally don't agree with, but I'm trying to explain Apple's viewpoint,) you need to pay for these new features.
Apple never said "iMac includes 802.11n hardware, but you can only use 802.11g functionality," they said "iMac includes 802.11g."
As one other person responded, a good example is the Toyota Prius. In low-end packages, it doesn't have an alarm. Yet all the hardware and software for the alarm is there. You have to pay the dealer to use a tool to unlock the alarm. (Some dealers will do this for free if you ask nicely enough during a regular service visit. But according to Apple's interpretation of Sarbanes-Oxley, these dealers shouldn't do so, because it's giving you a new feature you didn't pay for.)
It's more like selling it as 802.11g, not acknowledging .11a at all, then six months down the road saying they'll unlock .11a for $5. This is where the accounting problem comes in. If they charge the extra $5 up front, it's not an accounting problem, it's just profiteering. (Although from my limited legal knowledge, it would be 100% legal for them to do what you suggest.)
Again, it's the Sarbanes-Oxley act that is the problem here. It makes it so that giving the customer a new feature later means that you have to wait until all features are delivered before you charge for it. If you sell it without the feature, claim the income now, then later unlock an unadvertised feature, you either need to restate your earnings for the previous sale, or charge for the unlocking, so that you can claim this feature was charged for now.
For all I know, Apple might be totally overreacting, and doesn't actually NEED to charge the $5. I'm just attempting to explain Apple's explanation. I personally think it's stupid to charge the $5.
Such extreme cynicism (as you seem to be promoting) is detrimental to society, and makes for a poor foundation to live by.
Although quite often companies offer free Wi-Fi in an effort to draw in more customers. So it *IS* about money, in a sense.
Except software has never really been considered a 'feature'. Free updates that include new functionality in software are not considered a problem.
.11n. Apple never guaranteed .11n functionality at time of purchase, so .11n functionality wasn't something they 'sold'. Any computers sold SINCE the announcement I would say fall under this provision, since Apple has explicitly said that such computers include .11n hardware. Although I would hope that new computers include the enabler by default. (Although neither the Tech Specs pages nor the Store pages on any of the hardware say .11n yet.)
It's HARDWARE that has the problem. For example, if Ford sold a car, then six months later said "bring your car in, and we'll turn on Anti-Lock Brakes for free!" that there's a problem. The car really had to include it all along, so it could be considered that this feature wasn't delivered until six months later, so they shouldn't be able to count the income from that feature until it is delivered.
Although I would think that common sense would say that this would only apply when the feature *WAS* advertised at time of sale, with the caveat that wouldn't be available for some time. "Anti-Lock Brakes included, to be unlocked via a software update in six months!" is selling the ABS, even though you don't get it. The 'free update' six months later means that the customer wasn't sold ABS at time of purchase, so the income to Ford at time of purchase is based on *NOT* including ABS. So they COULD claim ABS as a 'free update'.
Back to Apple, because they never advertised it as 802.11n, customers couldn't in good conscience be considered to have bought it expecting
The only places I have seen people claiming it has a Samsung processor are based on pure speculation from "industry analysts". There is no confirmation, nor even serious inside information.
Why couldn't it just be running a Freescale PowerPC? They have 'system on a chip' PPCs made for extremely low power consumption, and for integrated environments such as this. They have 603e processors (which older versions of OS X can be hacked into running on,) that only draw 2.5 watts of power. They even have a 3.1 watt G4, and PowerPC 800-series processors that draw as low as 0.1 watt (yes, one-tenth of a watt, and are code compatible with the G3.)
If I am the author of a book on astronomy, and a book on cooking, and I freely give out a book that has the cover of my astronomy book, but is really my cooking book, I have freely given out the cooking book. I, as the copyright holder, have given it out. Even if I did it through a third party, I chose to give this out. Therefore, I can't claim that someone is stealing it from me, since I am the one who decided to give it out.
And I most certainly can *NOT* sue someone for trying to get my astronomy book for free, because they never got my astronomy book. They got the cooking book that I gave them. I am the one that gave it to them, though, so I can't sue them for downloading it.
To go back to my example, if Weird Al puts his song "Fat" on torrent sites, but with the name "Weird Al - The Saga Begins", he can't sue someone for downloading it. He put it there. Just because it's labeled wrong doesn't negate the fact that the copyright holder put it there. He can't sue for downloading the song Fat, because he put it there. And he can't sue because you TRIED to download The Saga Begins, because you didn't download that!
The 'spoof' file, that is. After all, the xAA is posting it to torrent sites themselves. Doesn't that make the file obviously legal. Therefore, even if it is named something that would be infringing copyright, wouldn't it still be legal to download? Even better, they are offering a file for download that is from the xAA itself, that claims to be some copyright-protected property. Isn't it then false advertising? If I was a major musician, say a certain comedy-minded one, and offered a file on my website for free download, claiming it is a song asking you not to download it, but the file isn't really that song, but just static; could I sue the downloader for trying to download my song? No.
Even if it is on GooTube instead of my own website, and I don't acknowledge that I put it there, it's still me putting it up for the public to download.
So no illegal activity has happened. So even though someone who would be downloading the file is the KIND of person who is likely downloading songs in violation of copyright, you haven't caught me doing anything inherently wrong, so how can you sue me?
i.e. "I caught this guy stealing a copy of my free pamphlet from the gray-market newsstand, so obviously he is stealing copies of non-free magazines, too!"
I have interviewed candidates for a position of on-site technician; a person who goes to people's homes, or small business locations, to fix their computers.
I had people with qualifications ranging from 'none' (he thought the job posting was for entry-level phone support,) to 'extremely qualified, but not for this job' (an IBM programmer of 30 years who had recently been laid off.) In each case, I did explain why I thought they were not a correct fit for the position.
In five years of doing this, I have conducted interviews on three occasions. I always found the best candidate through personal connections, not through open hiring. (I hired three people through open hiring, all three ended up being horrible; but they were sadly the best of the group of candidates each time.)
Yes, indeed.
VLC may be used by some very technical users, but it is by no means a 'widespread' app. And on top of it, it only executes with the rights of the current user. And it affects the Windows version as well. This means that it is a minor bug on the Mac OS, (which requires authentication to do serious root-level damage,) but a fairly serious bug on Windows XP (which will happily screw up the computer without authentication.)
And, heck, VLC has already updated to fix this! (Source only at the moment, but they say updated binaries are due 'within the next few hours' as of 21:30 GMT (4:30 EST, 1:30 PST.) And one source already has a fixed binary available.
Complaining about bugs in Open Source software is even MORE ridiculous than my initial implication.
As long as their choice of third-party apps includes only fairly widespread apps, I wont' complain. But if they start to find problems in some random odd shareware app that the vast majority of even technically-inclined Mac users don't use, then they'll be pushing it. (MS Office for Mac, fine. Photoshop, fine. FireFox, fine. Delicious Library, borderline. Missing Link, borderline. BonEcho, sorry, no.)
A jury isn't even supposed to interpret the law. Creating the law is the legislative branch. Interpreting the law is the judicial branch. A jury's purpose is to determine FACT. We, the people, are just a human lie detector. If 'lie detectors' and mind reading devices became available that were, to the satisfaction of the court, 100% reliable, it would be within the spirit of the founding fathers' intentions to replace jurys with these devices.
By contrast, in most pre-United-States societies, the judge not only interpreted law, but also determined what was 'fact' in the case. The judge decided if witnesses were lying. Therefore, the judge alone was the sole arbiter of one's fate.
To go into wonderful controversial territory, we'll take the old OJ Simpson case. His jury's sole responsibility was "Did OJ Simpson, beyond a reasonable doubt, cause the death of these two people?" By returning a verdict of "Not Guilty", the jury declared that they felt that there was not enough evidence, or the evidence was not believable enough, to convict. That's the way the system works. The jury determines what the facts are.
Appeals cannot appeal what the jury determined were the facts of the case. An appeal only appeals for mistakes on the JUDGE's part, or the LAWYERs' parts, on their application of the law. So if a judge told a jury that a law meant "x", but the defendant thinks the law means "y", he can appeal. But once a jury has decided that "x" was lying, that fact can not be appealed. This is where most appeals fail. Because they try to appeal the FACTS of the case, not the application of LAW of the case. (You can't even appeal a law itself as a result of a verdict based on it. If I don't like the fact that a "statutory rape" law exists, and I get convicted of it, I can't appeal on the grounds that the law is invalid. I have to separately sue the state to invalidate the law.)
Jury Nullification is technically illegal, but there is apparently no penalty for it.
Yes, a jury's say is final. Yes, a jury has the POWER to decide if a law is fair and just, but a jury is not SUPPOSED to do that. A jury is supposed to determine if a law was broken, and apply penalties.
I know all about "jury nullification," and think it is horrible. The legislative branch writes laws, not the judiciary. The only time the judiciary should nullify a law is when that law itself is what is on trial. For example, if I think that a law barring people born on Tuesdays from marrying people born on Thursdays is stupid, and I end up on a jury that is a trial against two people who got married in violation of this law, I am morally compelled to want to acquit them. But I am duty-bound to convict them. If they raise a lawsuit against the state for HAVING the law, and I'm on THAT jury, I will happily rule against the law, though.
As has been said, nope.
Win or lose, you pay your own lawyer fees (which, if you go with the court-appointed attorney, is free,) and any fine. The fine is *NOT* considered paying back court costs, it is a deterrent.
And you can only get your money back (and compensation for the hassle,) if you sue the government for wrongful prosecution and win. Basically, you have to prove that the government charged you when they knew you were innocent. (i.e. if they charge someone with murder, knowing full well that the accused didn't do it, because they know that the accused knows who did it. So they are charging one person with murder SOLELY to get that person to break and testify against someone else.) The trick, of course, is PROVING that the government KNEW that you were innocent. If they had even the slightest shred of circumstantial evidence, it can be hard to win one of these cases. (I was on a jury for one of these once. It was rather obvious that the government PROBABLY knew, but that wasn't enough to find against the government. The judge's instructions were very clear.)
i thought most estimates were that Hydrogen would be a better 'storage medium' than batteries? For example, United Nuclear was developing a conversion kit that would convert any standard gasoline car to run on Hydrogen. (They put the project on hold due to supply issues, they say that the CSPC is trying to ban one of the chemicals necessary for their system.) But they got a Corvette to go 650 miles on one 'tank' of Hydrogen. (This is combusting Hydrogen, not turning it into electricity via a fuel cell.)
Sounds like it has at least comparable energy density to gasoline, when stored and burned this way. Yeah, fuel cells are inefficient, but it doesn't mean ALL Hydrogen systems are inefficient. This is also a system that just takes in water, slowly converts it to Hydrogen and Oxygen, then stores the Hydrogen in their special tanks. It can be powered solely by a solar panel, but it is slow, taking two days to generate enough Hydrogen to drive a couple hundred miles. So it would be well suited as a 'commuter car', but not necessarily for long trips. Of course, as soon as there are 'Hydrogen stations' that you could refuel at, that would change.
I'm sorry, but your logic just doesn't follow. As a prior person mentioned, the difference is that with oil, you START with a 'charged' system, whereas with Hydrogen, you start with a 'discharged' system. You have to spend the energy to get Hydrogen to a 'charged' state, but if the energy source for this 'charging' is renewable, it doesn't matter!
The valid question is "Are you switching to a 64-bit Operating System?"
Name one major processor currently available that ISN'T 64-bit. Athlon has been 64 bit for a few years, Even Sempron is 64-bit now. Pentium 4, Pentium D, and even Celeron have been 64-bit for over a year. The only major chip that ISN'T 64-bit is Core Duo, and that is being totally eclipsed by Core 2 Duo now. (I'm not even touching the server space, which is likewise all 64-bit.)
Software that runs fine on a 32-bit processor will run perfectly on a 64-bit processor. (Assuming you mean x86 architecture. I'm also not going to consider the possibility of switching to Itanium or other non-x86 64-bit ISAs.)
The real question is "Should I upgrade to 64-bit Vista?" or "Should I switch to a 64-bit build of Linux?" For Vista, I'll say sure. Vista alone will break enough stuff that you might as well go all out. With Linux, I'd say stick with what works, unless you specifically have a 64-bit compiled application that will benefit from the extra registers that the 64-bit extensions add, or that will specifically take advantage of more than 4 GB of memory per thread.
As for Mac OS? It's already 64-bit on 64-bit architectures, for the UNIX-layer. And Leopard will be fully 64-bit on 64-bit architectures, no choice on your part.
Now, the original poster seems to be implying that this is an inherent flaw with Vista that affects all machines.
I have been running the beta of Vista for months now, on multiple machines, including laptops, and have yet to see this occur even once. With varying sets of hardware and sofware on the machines. I have not read on any messageboards of this being a widespread issue.
Now, my MacBook Pro, when shipped, had an issue that if I had an ExpressCard in the slot, it would instantly wake up from sleep as soon as it went into sleep mode. This meant that if the lid was closed, it would go to sleep, wake up, go back to sleep, wake up, etc, until either the battery died, or I opened it up. This was fixed with a firmware update. More recently, one of my external peripherals seems to cause a kernel panic on waking up. If i unplug the peripheral first, it wakes up fine though.
This is in contrast to a certain model of Dell laptop from 2000 that my company bought a dozen of that NONE of them would go into sleep mode properly. Dell's official answer? Disable sleep mode. On a laptop. (The symptom was that when you told it to go to sleep, it would turn off the hard drive, monitor, and fans. But it was apparently supplying full power to the processor, causing it to cook itself. We had one of them get so hot while shut in the user's laptop bag that the screen warped, and the machine died. The others didn't have permanent damage.)
Calculation and interpretation are being done independently of each other.
They do the math, and come up with a number that is two digits, decimal, three digits. When dealing with money in the U.S., basically the ONLY time we use numbers that look like this is when referring to dollars. So the brain immediately says dollars. But when referring to amounts that are zero decimal a few digits, our brain knows that we are referring to cents. The brain is making this leap, and because the people see that the bill confirms what their instinct tells them should be right (the total charge,) they don't bother TRYING to make the (correct) logical leap. They see a very small number, so it must be cents. But because it is, indeed, smaller than one whole cent, they again know that it is measured as "point something cents". So they know "point something cents," and they see "point zero zero two,", so they make the (faulty) logical leap of "point zero zero two cents." Then they do the math, and get "seventy one point seventy nine," and see that as dollars, since, silly caller, only DOLLARS are phrased as "something something point something something!"
It's horrible. I see the faulty logic, yet I see no way of getting them to understand. (The caller most certainly tried a lot harder than I would have. I would have gotten frustrated to the point of hanging up well before he did.)
Yes, it's simple math. Yes, all of the Verizon people should have known better. But I can comprehend their mindset, as incorrect as it is. I still find the whole ".002 dollars is the same thing as .002 cents" thing amazing though, especially when the customer clearly then has them differentiate 2 dollars from 2 cents, and half a dollar from half a cent.
The only way I can think of to explain it better to them is to tell them to get out a pen and pad. Write down the number for "one dollar". What did you write down? One point zero zero? Good. Make sure you have the little dollar sign at the front. Now write down the number for "half a dollar." Point five zero? Good. Again, make sure you have that dollar symbol. Now write it down with the "cents" symbol. The amount was "fifty cents", so you would write five zero cents-sign, right? Now write down the number for one cent. Point zero one with a dollar sign? Good. Writing it down as cents it would be one and the cents-sign, correct? Do you see how "point zero one dollars" is the same as "one cent"? Now half a cent. Point zero zero five with a dollar sign? Good. Is "half a cent" the same as "point five cents"? Yes? Good. So we can write that down as point five with a cent sign. Do you see how 'point five cents' and 'point zero zero five dollars' are the same? That they are the same value, but when you write it as 'dollars', it has two extra zeroes? Now write down one tenth of a cent. Not one tenth of a DOLLAR, but one tenth of a CENT. This would be one tenth of a penny. Something that you can get ten for a penny. Did you write down point zero zero zero one dollars? Again, if you write it as cents, it would be point zero one cents. Two extra zeroes when you are expressing it as dollars, yet it is the same value. So I was charged point zero zero two CENTS. Which, to convert to dollars, would be point zero zero zero zero two DOLLARS.
It would also have the best voice recognition and handwriting recognition out there; but it wouldn't be advertised, because Apple wants to forget the past, even while retaining the technology...
Hadn't thought about the requirement to keep two lines going. But they were doing it anyway. And they could have used the savings on the moon program to put Saturn Vs into other productive use.
s /saturnib.htm and http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/lvs /saturnv.htm, a Saturn V launch was $431 million, and a Saturn Ib launch was $107 million. That's 4 Ib launches per V launch. Even if you had to launch two Ibs to get the CSM and LEM up separately, it would STILL have been cheaper. The V had a payload of 118,000 kg to LEO. That would have been more than enough for a fueling 'depot' that would have fueled the entire planned 11 landings. And the V would then not have to have been man-rated, saving development costs.
Skylab CSMs took off which half the fuel load. Exactly my point. A lunar CSM could take off with that fuel load, then refuel once in orbit.
I do see my error on Apollo 5, though. It didn't have a 'real' CSM.
From everyone's favorite source, Wikipedia:
Earth Orbit CSM: 14,781 kg (per Apollo 7,)
Partly fueled LEM: 13,941 kg (per Apollo 10.)
Total for non-fully fueled: 28,722 kg
Saturn Ib payload is uncertain by Wikipedia. In one place, it says only 15,300 kg to LEO, but then it goes on to mention a 20,000kg+ Apollo (Skylab) module. So we'll assume that each lunar mission needed 2 Ib launches, one fo rthe CSM, one for the LEM.
According to http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/lv
There were 10 Saturn V manned launches, with another 3 in the works. That's 13*$431m=$5.6 billion, plus the one manned Ib's $107m, $5.7 bil. Two Vs for refueling depots, plus 26 Ibs (two in place of each V launch, except the one V launch didn't have a LEM, so it would only use up one Ib, plus the one actual manned Ib launch,) is $862m for the 2 Vs, and $2.4b for the Ibs. Total $3.3 billion. A savings of $2.4 billion. That savings could have paid for a lot more programs. Possibly Skylab could have been truly fully developed, Space Shuttle developed sooner (although the STS ended up a boondoggle in the end due to design compromises,) or even a permanent moon settlement, like planned now, could have started in the 1970s. And if they had managed to get LEO-only CSM/LEM pair to launch together on a Ib, that would cut the number of Ib flights almost in half, saving an extra $1.2 bil.
Intel introduced the Pentium Extreme Edition 955 chip on the 65 nm process in December of 2005, and in a volume processor, the Core Duo, in January 2006. If AMD will have their 65 nm processor in Q1 '07, that puts them 12-15 months behind.
If they're 18 months behind on 45 nm, then they have a real problem... That actually puts them farther behind Intel than they are now.
Unless they mean they plan on being at 45 nm within 18 months of TODAY. Which, if Intel's roadmaps holds accurate as well, would have AMD only about 6 months behind Intel.
Unfortunately for AMD, Intel is not only getting their 45 nm process done, they're also working on their next-generation core, Nehalem. Which means that by the time AMD comes out with 45 nm of their current architecture, Intel might already be onto a more efficient core.
As for putting a fueling station in lunar orbit, yeah, that's more difficult. The moon's gravity is low enough that 'wasting' the fuel to do direct lunar launches all the way back to Earth orbit would probably have to do until we come up with a 'cheap' way to get mass quantities of fuel to lunar orbit.
But, again, it might be cheaper to launch one big 'fuel depot' to the lunar surface and cut down on the need to carry return fuel out (from Earth) and down on the actual landing craft.