The big problem with electric cars is energy storage. Lithium batteries are too expensive, take too long to charge, don't have a high enough energy density, and don't last long enough. If the current work on ultracapacitors pans out (and that's a BIG if) electric cars will become a lot more practical for the mass market.
There are certainly issues with current electric cars, but only by having them in the market place in some form will there be any incentive to improve them. Lithium is expensive, but it will come done like anything else.
My concern will electric vehicles is how they will pan out in cold climates, like Scandinavia or Canada. From my experience batteries perform badly in the cold, with apparent charge dropping off until the battery is warmed up. For me this is where the real test of the technology will happen.
Given the slow move towards EFI, would it not make sense to make CoreBoot an EFI loader, with the BIOS support option? If it is EFI compatible I couldn't see it clearly marked on the website.
You are correct a backbone is very neccessary, also making it upgradeable helps a lot. However wireless can support sufficient speeds unless you are having every student in class stream high-bandwidth video. Which if you are well don't know what to tell you. Wired solutions are great for fixed desktops, but totally unrealistic in a mobile kid filled environement.
Certainly, though you would want to at least have the wireless access points wired to each other. Sure they can wirelessly repeat, but that would have a negative effect on the performance.
I will admit that listening to this helps me forget about the Songsmith adverts, but now I am hooked by this crazy computer generated singing. I would never have thought I would be hearing this version of Mozart's Magic Flute: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=mVd2c25noEE . You have truly ruined my evening, since I am now compelled to see what other crazy compositions there are with Vocaloid.;) That Leek thing is just crazy.
2 hours of those absolutely inhuman renditions of 'Roxanne' and 'Sgt Peppers', together with the MS infomercial, would be enough to break even the staunchest jihadist.
That's assuming that the torture team hasn't run from the building by then. Remember you are only meant to torture the prisoners, not everyone in the whole building.
That's certainly not a MacOS X dialogue (just look at the positioning of the buttons and the windows shape), but the computer the girl is using with all the stickers on it is most certainly a MacBook Pro running Windows.
I would start with wiring the building and then if you have a need to establish a lab, then you simply add local switches as necessary. I realise that there is a move to wireless networks, but they don't achieve the necessary speeds for certain applications, and prevents you from easily making your network secure. While this may not matter to students, for the administration this may be an issue. Once you have your physical infrastructure in place, then depending on usage requirements, you add severs and PCs according to needs. I tend to try to try to establish a network where Linux, MacOS X and Windows can all share resources, since that way there is no need to deal with multi-platform support as an after thought.
The other thing is to ensure that a competent systems administrator is in place;)
Good grief, someone needs to post a 24 hour guard by this guy, Ballmer is going to disappear his ass posthaste.
Well, you are making the assumption that this arrogance does not exist in the higher ranks. I personally feel that Microsoft is occupied by too many people out of touch with reality. Mind you there are departments that seem to slowly be seeing the light outside of their ivory tower, some of these including those working on IE8 and Microsoft office.
Gasp! They spied on everyone! No! My secrets!!!... So... they didn't really spy on everyone in the sense that they listened to my conversations so much as they COULD have.
Well they probably know what's in your pr0n collection. Nothing else seemed worth while;)
Since Obama is commander in chief of the military shouldn't he be able to use the same technology (Blackberry) they use? If our national defense is entrusted to a product why would that not be good enough for the boss?
Well this is what is happening. The Sectra is probably secure enough for military needs. The main issue with the Blackberry is that e-mail transits over a third-party server, instead of going directly from sender to recipient. The Blackberry would also probably need to be connected to the VPN at all times to ensure secure communication. I took a quick look at the Sectra and it lacks style and runs Windows Mobile, which IMHO has never been an ideal OS for a hand held device.
For one, Joe Average Citizen could be informed about their options, then take personal responsibility for their behaviour.
Certainly, though often enough being green means being motivated. Until the solutions you mentioned are readily available in the Best Buys of the world, rather only on a 'pro green' web site, then this stuff is not going to find its way into people's homes. Maybe it takes the customers asking the people running the places to make them available.
Cable/Sat DVR's don't know when they're going to get hit with a data download being addressed to them. They have to always be ready to take it, therefore always spinning. Besides that, it doesn't take that much power to keep the disc spinning, compared to frequent re-starts after stops
You don't really need an HD to be spinning for that. When the data starts coming start doing buffered writes, the hard disk will start when there is data to be written to it and in the mean time memory takes care of the data in the meantime. It doesn't take long for a disk to start spinning, so I would rather have it not consuming when it is idle.
For the remote you could just have a very low power pic listen for the remote and turn the the set. user a super cap to run it and every few days if you don't use the TV have it power it's self up and charge the cap.
You could also include piezo electric buttons, so that the press of a key provides enough power to transmit the signal, though in reality the power requirements are probably too high. The TV could also be made to power its standby mode using solar power.
Almost all of those issues seem to be aesthetic, and that opinion will vary between person to person. For instance, I love the new control panel, the Ribbon, and the style of the windows/taskbar. Sounds like this OS is right up my alley!
The aesthetics still need work. They can't get a common icon theme thoughout the OS, for applications they own. For me it feels more cluttered and harder to use than XP. I don't feel the a UI expert was involved.
In the end what really gets me is that Apple is able to release a new OS increment almost every year, yet is able to include useful new features and what generally feels like well though out UI design. Sure they don't get it right every time, but since the incursion of MacOS X, they seem to be getting it right more often. Microsoft might have to deal with many more hardware platforms, but the issues they have with Vista are essentially hardware independent.
Sweet so something that should be accessible to everyone is only available to people using some propriety piece of software. Why couldn't they just stream in MPEG? Flash would be better, but fails for the same reasons as Silverlight.
This was a question once asked to me in an interview. I answered "a fancy name for client-server", which seemed to satisfy the interviewer. In many way this is all SOA is, though with the added elements of usually being based on SOAP, XML and connecting to some data provider. The idea is that you are moving the service implementation out of the process and into another one, remotely or locally.
Single provider and SOA?
on
The Zen of SOA
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
One question that recently cropped up is whether SOA makes any sense if you are only connecting with a single data provider? The idea being that the architectural and maintenance costs don't make sense in this scenario since there is just too much over heard. Once you have a requirement connecting to multiple data providers then the effort pays out. Just curious to hear what/.ers have to say.
If she accidentally ordered a box with the wrong OS she should have had it replaced, not talked about it...
Certainly, but it doesn't sound like Dell was being helpful.
One thing that annoys about Dell is that they offer Red Hat on some of their high end portables, yet it does not include the drivers for the Ethernet connector or the audio. You can't find them on their site either. That sucks big time. Ubuntu was eventually installed on that machine, independent of Dell, and that handled the hardware just fine.
Trying to find another someone else who can run Apple in the same way as Steve Jobs might not be an easy task, but as long the person who will eventually replace him understands the keys to Apple's new found success then maybe that will be enough. For me what I see from Apple:
- constant innovation
- pushing the boundaries
- quality industrial design and engineering
- simplicity of use, especially when it comes to complex tasks
- beauty in design, without being tacky
- getting the technology right
- getting employees to give their best
- don't get smug - getting smug was what hurt Apple when Windows 95 came out
Sure I can't expect a perfect track record, but as long as these items are part of the check list and being attained most of the time, then that's all that matters.
If youtube is going to start carrying government videos, presumably funded by taxpayers, the videos need to be public domain and youtube needs to have a built in mechanism to allow views to save the video. I know there are ways of saving the videos already, but youtube does not provide this functionality.
Google videos does, and it is still operational I believe. All it would take is for Google to mirror a copy of the YouTube video on the Google videos sites.
What bothers me is that most US airports have no notion of international transit. If I am not from the USA or Canada, then I need a transit visa if my airline requires me have a connecting flight in the USA. Such cases can occur for example if someone is from Dubai and was visiting Canada, but flying on a US airline. Such measures would encourage the traveller to seek an airline that doesn't pass through the USA. When airlines are hurting this is not something that is helping things out.
Slashdot Mirror
The big problem with electric cars is energy storage. Lithium batteries are too expensive, take too long to charge, don't have a high enough energy density, and don't last long enough. If the current work on ultracapacitors pans out (and that's a BIG if) electric cars will become a lot more practical for the mass market.
There are certainly issues with current electric cars, but only by having them in the market place in some form will there be any incentive to improve them. Lithium is expensive, but it will come done like anything else.
My concern will electric vehicles is how they will pan out in cold climates, like Scandinavia or Canada. From my experience batteries perform badly in the cold, with apparent charge dropping off until the battery is warmed up. For me this is where the real test of the technology will happen.
Given the slow move towards EFI, would it not make sense to make CoreBoot an EFI loader, with the BIOS support option? If it is EFI compatible I couldn't see it clearly marked on the website.
You are correct a backbone is very neccessary, also making it upgradeable helps a lot. However wireless can support sufficient speeds unless you are having every student in class stream high-bandwidth video. Which if you are well don't know what to tell you. Wired solutions are great for fixed desktops, but totally unrealistic in a mobile kid filled environement.
Certainly, though you would want to at least have the wireless access points wired to each other. Sure they can wirelessly repeat, but that would have a negative effect on the performance.
I will admit that listening to this helps me forget about the Songsmith adverts, but now I am hooked by this crazy computer generated singing. I would never have thought I would be hearing this version of Mozart's Magic Flute: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=mVd2c25noEE . You have truly ruined my evening, since I am now compelled to see what other crazy compositions there are with Vocaloid. ;) That Leek thing is just crazy.
2 hours of those absolutely inhuman renditions of 'Roxanne' and 'Sgt Peppers', together with the MS infomercial, would be enough to break even the staunchest jihadist.
That's assuming that the torture team hasn't run from the building by then. Remember you are only meant to torture the prisoners, not everyone in the whole building.
Apparently this is Metallica done with Songsmith: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZWTfrW3gEo&feature=related . I just have one word: ouch.
That's certainly not a MacOS X dialogue (just look at the positioning of the buttons and the windows shape), but the computer the girl is using with all the stickers on it is most certainly a MacBook Pro running Windows.
I would start with wiring the building and then if you have a need to establish a lab, then you simply add local switches as necessary. I realise that there is a move to wireless networks, but they don't achieve the necessary speeds for certain applications, and prevents you from easily making your network secure. While this may not matter to students, for the administration this may be an issue. Once you have your physical infrastructure in place, then depending on usage requirements, you add severs and PCs according to needs. I tend to try to try to establish a network where Linux, MacOS X and Windows can all share resources, since that way there is no need to deal with multi-platform support as an after thought.
The other thing is to ensure that a competent systems administrator is in place ;)
Good grief, someone needs to post a 24 hour guard by this guy, Ballmer is going to disappear his ass posthaste.
Well, you are making the assumption that this arrogance does not exist in the higher ranks. I personally feel that Microsoft is occupied by too many people out of touch with reality. Mind you there are departments that seem to slowly be seeing the light outside of their ivory tower, some of these including those working on IE8 and Microsoft office.
"We're looking to gouge customers who are too stupid to look elsewhere."
Well someone has to look after them ;)
Gasp! They spied on everyone! No! My secrets!!! ... So... they didn't really spy on everyone in the sense that they listened to my conversations so much as they COULD have.
Well they probably know what's in your pr0n collection. Nothing else seemed worth while ;)
Agreed. Bush's transparency-masked GIFs [wikipedia.org] just didn't cut it.
The other problem with 8-bit GIFs is that they lacked depth.
Since Obama is commander in chief of the military shouldn't he be able to use the same technology (Blackberry) they use? If our national defense is entrusted to a product why would that not be good enough for the boss?
Well this is what is happening. The Sectra is probably secure enough for military needs. The main issue with the Blackberry is that e-mail transits over a third-party server, instead of going directly from sender to recipient. The Blackberry would also probably need to be connected to the VPN at all times to ensure secure communication. I took a quick look at the Sectra and it lacks style and runs Windows Mobile, which IMHO has never been an ideal OS for a hand held device.
For one, Joe Average Citizen could be informed about their options, then take personal responsibility for their behaviour.
Certainly, though often enough being green means being motivated. Until the solutions you mentioned are readily available in the Best Buys of the world, rather only on a 'pro green' web site, then this stuff is not going to find its way into people's homes. Maybe it takes the customers asking the people running the places to make them available.
Cable/Sat DVR's don't know when they're going to get hit with a data download being addressed to them. They have to always be ready to take it, therefore always spinning. Besides that, it doesn't take that much power to keep the disc spinning, compared to frequent re-starts after stops
You don't really need an HD to be spinning for that. When the data starts coming start doing buffered writes, the hard disk will start when there is data to be written to it and in the mean time memory takes care of the data in the meantime. It doesn't take long for a disk to start spinning, so I would rather have it not consuming when it is idle.
For the remote you could just have a very low power pic listen for the remote and turn the the set. user a super cap to run it and every few days if you don't use the TV have it power it's self up and charge the cap.
You could also include piezo electric buttons, so that the press of a key provides enough power to transmit the signal, though in reality the power requirements are probably too high. The TV could also be made to power its standby mode using solar power.
Almost all of those issues seem to be aesthetic, and that opinion will vary between person to person. For instance, I love the new control panel, the Ribbon, and the style of the windows/taskbar. Sounds like this OS is right up my alley!
The aesthetics still need work. They can't get a common icon theme thoughout the OS, for applications they own. For me it feels more cluttered and harder to use than XP. I don't feel the a UI expert was involved.
In the end what really gets me is that Apple is able to release a new OS increment almost every year, yet is able to include useful new features and what generally feels like well though out UI design. Sure they don't get it right every time, but since the incursion of MacOS X, they seem to be getting it right more often. Microsoft might have to deal with many more hardware platforms, but the issues they have with Vista are essentially hardware independent.
Sweet so something that should be accessible to everyone is only available to people using some propriety piece of software. Why couldn't they just stream in MPEG? Flash would be better, but fails for the same reasons as Silverlight.
Does anyone know WTF SOA is?
This was a question once asked to me in an interview. I answered "a fancy name for client-server", which seemed to satisfy the interviewer. In many way this is all SOA is, though with the added elements of usually being based on SOAP, XML and connecting to some data provider. The idea is that you are moving the service implementation out of the process and into another one, remotely or locally.
One question that recently cropped up is whether SOA makes any sense if you are only connecting with a single data provider? The idea being that the architectural and maintenance costs don't make sense in this scenario since there is just too much over heard. Once you have a requirement connecting to multiple data providers then the effort pays out. Just curious to hear what /.ers have to say.
Still, I hope this gives second thoughts to any people in charge who considering to "spare money" by installing Windows on such sensitive systems...
I suppose it all depends on whether the people making the decision were 'sponsored'?
If she accidentally ordered a box with the wrong OS she should have had it replaced, not talked about it...
Certainly, but it doesn't sound like Dell was being helpful.
One thing that annoys about Dell is that they offer Red Hat on some of their high end portables, yet it does not include the drivers for the Ethernet connector or the audio. You can't find them on their site either. That sucks big time. Ubuntu was eventually installed on that machine, independent of Dell, and that handled the hardware just fine.
Trying to find another someone else who can run Apple in the same way as Steve Jobs might not be an easy task, but as long the person who will eventually replace him understands the keys to Apple's new found success then maybe that will be enough. For me what I see from Apple:
- constant innovation
- pushing the boundaries
- quality industrial design and engineering
- simplicity of use, especially when it comes to complex tasks
- beauty in design, without being tacky
- getting the technology right
- getting employees to give their best
- don't get smug - getting smug was what hurt Apple when Windows 95 came out
Sure I can't expect a perfect track record, but as long as these items are part of the check list and being attained most of the time, then that's all that matters.
If youtube is going to start carrying government videos, presumably funded by taxpayers, the videos need to be public domain and youtube needs to have a built in mechanism to allow views to save the video. I know there are ways of saving the videos already, but youtube does not provide this functionality.
Google videos does, and it is still operational I believe. All it would take is for Google to mirror a copy of the YouTube video on the Google videos sites.
What bothers me is that most US airports have no notion of international transit. If I am not from the USA or Canada, then I need a transit visa if my airline requires me have a connecting flight in the USA. Such cases can occur for example if someone is from Dubai and was visiting Canada, but flying on a US airline. Such measures would encourage the traveller to seek an airline that doesn't pass through the USA. When airlines are hurting this is not something that is helping things out.