Regulating downloading and possession of the program is almost impossible.
Anyone with a degree in CS or CIS would automatically become suspect.
Just monitor the local ERs for people coming in with missing fingers or mangled hands.
Among the many things I've done in my long life after spending over 2 decades working with machine tools was about 6 years of "Light" gunsmithing. Considering the cost and the fact that we may legally build a firearm for our selves, I find that I can go out and purchase one for far less than what it'd cost to build one that has far more power, is accurate, and SAFE! I just purchased a 5 shot, tiny, light weight (13 oz) 38 spl +P for less than $500. Admittedly I had to register it in this state, but the printed gun comes nowhere near the capabilities of this tiny thing. The cylinder is Titanium and the frame is one piece of very light alloy. The barrel is a high strength liner in the alloy frame. It's so small and light you can almost forget it's in your pocket. At 13 oz, it feels like it's trying to unscrew your wrist. IOW. it's deadly on both ends and is not something you want to run through a couple boxes of heavy loads per day, just to practice.
Now being a CS major with work on my masters, I do find the printed gun intriguing, but at present I could purchase quite an arsenal for just the cost of the printer. That and I still have all my fingers. I do find I like the idea and challenge of being able to make something that will go bang when I pull a lanyard. Yes, lanyard. I'm sure not going to hang onto one of those things when it goes bang! OTOH I do like the idea of Titanium/ceramic sintering with a plasma or laser where you really could build a safe, powerful, functioning firearm, BUT that would be far more expensive by probably an order of magnitude, so again, I'll pass. Consider that with the experience and I already have a machine shop I'll still go out and purchase one. Maybe it's because I have the experience and know what it takes to build a durable, accurate and safe firearm that I purchase one instead. I consider the printed gun to be impracticable and unsafe "for now" and anyone who holds onto one while firing it to be a complete idiot with a death wish or figures they'd be better off with fewer fingers. Course I did a lot of idiotic things myself in years gone by.
/. is mostly liberals, A good person is prepared to risk all to protect themselves and those around them.
When all the stories that never get beyond the local papers, where when confronted with an armed victim the criminal flees without a shot being fired. A minimum of 200,000 lives are saved every year because we are prepared.You can not depend on the government or police saving you no matter how much surveillance they have.
And no, it is not like the ols west over here.
One of the worst parts of my job was interfacing with a system written by an MBA who "knew how to Code". He knew nothing of structured programming, or flow charts or no concept of unique records, or the normal forms in database construction. So when he cane across some tests that could have Y/N, Pass/Fail, and numeric values with different ranges he solved the problem by combining the test id and the product id. Sounds simple enough until you have to interface a system that expects unique tests like maybe SAP, or a lab information management system. Of course there were thousands of these tests.
Thanks, but after many hundreds of hours of seeing (and fixing) the results of that approach, lets keep coding to people who understand structured programming at least. Although they are unlikely to write a compiler, current state and next state arrays can be handy too.
The Milankovitch cycles are well known as the major reason for the climate cycles along with the precession of the equinoxes, The others are all bit players for the regular cycles.
Normally the earth warms and the oceans give off CO2. It's been that way with all natural cycles as far as we can tell.
Currently the oceans are serving as a giant sink for excess CO2 rather than giving off CO2. The accelerated melting of the ice packs, glaciers and polar ice caps has a tremendous stabilizing effect as each CC/gram of ice melting takes 100 calories. Nature's air conditioner is trying to hold the temperature down. That should stabilize at a higher temp once the North polar ice is gone and will go up more and faster as we lose each additional ice mass. Also as fresh water from the melting ice enters the oceans the "conveyor belts" will stop running. Who knows what that will do to the oceans ecological systems.
Once the South polar ice cap shows even the beginnings of substantial melting we will be well past the point of no return. Just hope sea water temperature does not go high enough to release the Methane Hydrate deposits. Shallow deposits in the Arctic are already vaporizing in some areas just North and West of the US RUSSIAN border.
There is a huge market of truly subsidized phones and I don't mean contracts. The only way I could get one originally was with a contract. That ran out and I've had a number of phone since, none on contract. My phones don't seem to last long.
However, the government gives away "Millions" of cell phones and even smart phones all of which are a truly subsidized phone with subsidized calling. These give the dealer full price "as I under stand" and the phone company gets paid.
Better Yet, if what they have does the job and new software gains them nothing they can see (no savings), then they have no valid reason for upgrading no matter how much they've saved in the past. IOW, If it works, why change?
Don't worry, these guys are smokin' some good stuff!
If they top the regs and safety issues it'll never be affordable to "the masses". A rich few? Maybe,
But let's say they can make it affordable. The average driver is a danger to himself and others on the road. They want to turn these drivers loose in 3 dimensions with no roads?
Then there is traffic. The movement would need to be automated and controlled by ATC or similar agency with the so called driver inputting the origin and destination.
I'd love to have one, but until a miracle happens they will remain completely impracticable.
The list of why not is endless, while the list of practicality is extremely short
They move us more and more into the entitlement mentality and thus into dependency on the government.
They took many thousands from me for SS and spent it. If I had been able to invest that with the same return I've had on what I did invest I'd be a multi millionair, so I figure they should owe me that much. Instead they want to take my IRAs and give me a guaranteed income if they can get it through and I believe both parties have been working on that for a decade or so.
I'm a firm believer in the free market system with just enough regulation to make sure competition remains to give them incentives to make better products at lower prices. Don't regulate the system to the point where small businesses can't exist and have to employee people part time to save money.
I don't care how much some one else makes as long as I'm treated fairly. If they didn't steal it from me they don't owe me anything.
I'm far more concerned with government's meddling while picking winners and losers than the giant industrial complex, although this bunch seems pretty good at backing losers with our money. They may "print" more money to pay the bills, but that just makes our money worth less. A lot less. Meanwhile they leave out the two biggest contributors to inflation (food and fuel) when they calculate it. They may not see those as inflation, but every one of us earning a wage and raising a family sure does. Yet they are recruiting people for food stamps and the only minority not supported is now the white, American, Male.
Obama promise "Hope and Change" and so far he has made all we complained about "Bush doing" far worse. There is a lot of truth in the Bush poster that says "Miss Me Yet" and although I was not happy with him as POTUS I'd NOW trade him for Obama in a heart beat.
Instead of being terminated, the are buying hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition to the total of around two Billion rounds. 2 to 3 times per person than what the military uses. Now that's some substantial food for the conspiracy theorists to chew on. Is Obama just creating an ammunition shortage to prevent the citizens from getting their hands on it...Of course this id creating shortages for border patrol and police agencies too.
Or is it something much darker?
Then there is that huge information monitoring and data storage unit out in Utah or Idaho?
It Depends. Almost every Extended Warranty I've purchased has paid off in spades to the tune of several thousand dollars, but I'm very choosy about when I purchase these extended warranties.
sortius_nod is only partially correct. There are two time a product is likely to fail. Early on, often called infant mortality, which is usually covered by regular warranties and as he/she says, later on in life, but some products have a much higher likely hood of failing.
Newly released high technology and reconditioned devices, both mechanical and electronic as well as "open box" items. Also more and more original warranties are covering less an less, often under very specific conditions. Really check out the exceptions clause in every warranty.
For the first few years I found the ROHS compliant devices to be very troublesome with a number of solder joints failing in TVs and Motherboards. I still do not trust ROHS solder and repair with real 60/40 solder of which I have a lifetime supply. In most cases a couple of pounds will last for many years.
Returned tools or yard equipment may have an extraordinary discount and appear to have never been used. I purchased extra coverage on a large trailer type yard vac. This thing was big! It appeared to be unused. They said it was returned because was too big for the guy's yard. I checked the oil which was "full to the line" and clean. I did half the yard and had to add oil. The engine seized the next time I used it. The overnight soak with WD40 loosened it up, but the engine was shot. They sent a mechanic out to check and he replaced the entire engine. I had a large "walk behind rototiller" for several years, Hooked a rogue tree root which demolished the transmission, tore up the blades, and bent the crank. Again they came out and replaced just about everything except the frame and tires. We purchased a new 40" HDTV some years back. they had just been released and we had to wait for them to come in. (40" is now about a 1/4 the price). The original warranty ran out and so did the audio. Service man came out and resoldered a ROHS joint and remarked that doing so had become a major portion of his business. Yes, the one service call was more than the extended contract, but unlike the yard equipment it didn't run into thousands of dollars.
I agree they are seldom worth the money and some are filled with more loop holes than a politicians promises, but we are seeing an influx of electronics and other goods with substandard workmanship and not just from China. With the current state of the economy QA seems to be suffering at home and abroad. Companies are not only not hiring, but streamlining operations and cutting out steps they think will still keep their failure rates within acceptable limits (what the customer will put up with and still buy the product). Another thing to consider is, what would the most expensive failure be? Is it cheaper to repair than the cost of the extended warranty? Does the regular warranty cover all failures, or just in limited cases. Is it worth the cost? When it came time to renew the one on the TV I figured if it failed again I'd be farther ahead to just get a new one far cheaper and more advanced than the original.
Still, many extended warranties look good on the surface, but are near worthless in the real world. I use them, but only in very limited instances. I hope the reduction in quality I've been seeing does not make them much more worthwhile.
Salt is also used in our food, but in stronger doses the ancient Chinese used it as a poison. Salt in excess or where you don't want it is pollution. CO2 in certain concentrations is good. It's food for plants and helps keep the Earth at a comfortable temperature, but in excess it suffocates animals and causes temperatures to rise.
Melting ice may cause sea levels to rise, but it also serves as the earths air conditioner as it soaks up 100 calories to melt 1CC of ice and only 1 Calorie to raise the temp of 1CC of water 1 deg C so while we have enough ice it should counter the warming, but at the cost of sea level rise and contamination of the sea water. That 1 Calorie will raise 1 CC of air at standard temperature and pressure much more.
Again fresh water supports animal life on land, but too much fresh water into the sea is a pollution that kills off marine life.
We can find the same effect for many things both in nature and man made, but the fact remains that too much CO2 is will cause animals to die and thus becomes a pollutant..
In Trap shooting we even remove the safeties. DAO handguns might as well not have one, but you don't put your finger on the trigger unless you're ready to use it.
We may not be able to purchase a new one without it eventually. It actually has some good possibilities, but they could potentially be misused by the government so I'm against the idea.
As to reliability, I used to shoot trap competitively and had one dud shell in over 300,000 factory shells and none in nearly as many reloads. When I started competing I quit reloading and shot factory shells only.
In rifles I also had one failure. It was a broken firing pin in a Marlin lever action in 35 Remington caliber. No misfires in center fire hand guns and none in hundreds of thousands of 22 rim fire handguns or rifles. I used to go through a carton (500 shells) per week, but that was years ago
When I take them all with only 2 misfires, one due to the firearm and one due to the ammunition that works out to roughly less than 1 in 400,000 shots. It could be over 1 tn a half million, but I really don't know how many 22 rim fire I've gone through.
I do realize I probably have fired a lot more rounds than the average shooter.
At-any-rate, 1 in a thousand would be far too many and they'd have to prove a MTBF of over a million for police and military under some pretty adverse conditions and I doubt our anti gun politicians would be above lying about the success rate.
It has some good aspects, but there is just too much room for failure, or government misuse.
I was a project manager for installing a system for a large multinational chemical corporation. That installation (hardware and software) had to be FDA"Validated"
This is not like engineering validation, it means every entry has to be demonstrated to work properly.
Just starting with a user log in. You start with a valid name and PW. Print the input and print the output.
Use a valid name plus an extra character and a valid PW. print the input and out put screens.
Repeat for the PW with an extra character. Print input and output,
Repeat with an extra character for both and print the screens.
Repeat the above minus a character. IE, name, PW, and both
Now do it with blank fields.
You have to do this for every entry possible in the system.
We started with a stack of printouts for the entries. When we finished we had a stack well over 4 feet tall and a second stack 2 or 3 feet tall.
All hardware had to be traceable and proven on a monthly basis.
If a router were changed it had to have a paper trail.
It probably ran over half a million for the implementation including FDA Validation and that was in addition to the quarter million for the software.
Security is also a nightmare.
FDA regulations on the data handling pretty much doubled the cost of the system.
Most of the end user systems like this dentist had are relatively simple and straight forward to write. You create a set of generic screens which can be tailored for most professions, but any time a change is made the whole works has to be proven to satisfy the FDA again.
It's basically creating a set of custom screens tailored to the profession although the data should be encrypted, with integrity and security guaranteed.
IOW Medical software that is FDA compliant is a royal PITA. It's no wonder it's so expensive.
Physics, Chemistry, and Computer Science re heavily math laden disciplines.
Using the computer is not the same and there on some occasions the math can be separated from the computer work. CS ans CIS are quite different when it comes to math. Even the first year in graduate school takes more math than a minor or it did for me.
I have enough math from under grad for a minor and grades good enough to become a graduate Assistant, but I still needed more math.
Many times the math can be separated out on the job, if there is someone sharp enough to coordinate it or as in graphics, some one can tell you what they need.
In one graphics course alone we started with linear transforms, worked up through Fourier transforms and on to discrete math and matrix Algebra.
Why so? I've had 100MBs via local cable for quite some time although I still use my local ISP for web hosting and e-mail. I use the high speed cable for connect only.
I see no need fo a faster service than what I have now. I doubt you'd even see the difference gaming as the latency is almost non existent. The only reason I can see for gigabit speeds is lots of bulk transfers and that's faster than the internals of most computers are capable of reaching. I have a gigabit network, but even with the latest mo boards I'm limited by the computers internal data transfer rates. Of course I could run multiple systems in parallel, but how many would profit from that except a few / dotters.
These numbers sound great, but what good are they if my computers can't reach those speeds and that is way beyond the capabilities of all but a tiny number of special purpose systems.
That, and so far my cable company could care less about what I do as long as I pay my bill, while Google is noted for customer data mining...What Google knows it's likely the government knows and that makes me nervous just on general principles. Don't forget the Internet security bill is coming up for a vote...SOON
The big screen is going to remain the main bread and butter for TV. Applications are fine for the 2 or 3" crowd, but who really wants to watch movies or even their favorite show on a 3" screen unless you are traveling.
BTW we have Satellite, cable. OTA, and streaming. I've not watched a national network in 3 weeks.
I do not like Fox's format, but I believe they are number one for all head to head comparisons for news and talking heads. CNN which was top just a few years ago is now at the bottom of the heap and the big 3 aren't far behind CNN. It's not that Fox is good, but the others are so bad.
Apparently Win 8 has not outnumbered XP machines yet, so it's out numbered by two previously successful OS implementations
Yes, our machines have gotten much better and more stable, but most of the large companies I'm familiar with finally went to Win 7, but are definately not going to Win 8 and that represents tens of thousands of machines. BTW they were dragged kicking and screaming from XP Pro to Win 7, not because they wanted to go, but were forced/blackmailed into making the change.
They all would have been content to stay with XP and are not happy with the idea of the cloud.
As we move to streaming we will reach a point where we can watch most shows on our schedule, any tome any where. Even the big sets now have Internet access. , Once a critical mass is reached free streaming of broadcast content will end and everyone will pay for viewing time or bandwidth used for streaming. They aren't streaming for our benefit and where there's a buck to be made they'll go after it. Make access easy, give good quality, let us watch what we want when we want. Set the hook and reel us in. Create the market, create the mind set, and create the pay scale.
Ever subscribe to a sporting event? A major event? It's downright expensive and makes several months of satellite or cable look cheap.
Quite possibly broadcasters, or some broadcasters will choose to go with this model and give up the broadcasting with all the expenses ant time involved.
It'll be a lot more convenient, but I'm willing to wager it will not be free.
Almost as important as "can you do it" is the question, "is it economically viable.
There is the molecular sponge for storage, which IIRC can actually hold more than a tank of equal dimensions.
The problem with Hydrogen is the low power density compared to hydrocarbons. .
Obama blamed Bush and then not only made the same mistakes, but amplified them and still blamed Bush
It was a case of going from pretty bad to really, really bad.
I'm not a fan of bush, but that add, "Do you miss me yet?" Is getting a lot of "Ohhh Yahhh" replies.
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Regulating downloading and possession of the program is almost impossible. Anyone with a degree in CS or CIS would automatically become suspect. Just monitor the local ERs for people coming in with missing fingers or mangled hands. Among the many things I've done in my long life after spending over 2 decades working with machine tools was about 6 years of "Light" gunsmithing. Considering the cost and the fact that we may legally build a firearm for our selves, I find that I can go out and purchase one for far less than what it'd cost to build one that has far more power, is accurate, and SAFE! I just purchased a 5 shot, tiny, light weight (13 oz) 38 spl +P for less than $500. Admittedly I had to register it in this state, but the printed gun comes nowhere near the capabilities of this tiny thing. The cylinder is Titanium and the frame is one piece of very light alloy. The barrel is a high strength liner in the alloy frame. It's so small and light you can almost forget it's in your pocket. At 13 oz, it feels like it's trying to unscrew your wrist. IOW. it's deadly on both ends and is not something you want to run through a couple boxes of heavy loads per day, just to practice. Now being a CS major with work on my masters, I do find the printed gun intriguing, but at present I could purchase quite an arsenal for just the cost of the printer. That and I still have all my fingers. I do find I like the idea and challenge of being able to make something that will go bang when I pull a lanyard. Yes, lanyard. I'm sure not going to hang onto one of those things when it goes bang! OTOH I do like the idea of Titanium/ceramic sintering with a plasma or laser where you really could build a safe, powerful, functioning firearm, BUT that would be far more expensive by probably an order of magnitude, so again, I'll pass. Consider that with the experience and I already have a machine shop I'll still go out and purchase one. Maybe it's because I have the experience and know what it takes to build a durable, accurate and safe firearm that I purchase one instead. I consider the printed gun to be impracticable and unsafe "for now" and anyone who holds onto one while firing it to be a complete idiot with a death wish or figures they'd be better off with fewer fingers. Course I did a lot of idiotic things myself in years gone by.
/. is mostly liberals, A good person is prepared to risk all to protect themselves and those around them. When all the stories that never get beyond the local papers, where when confronted with an armed victim the criminal flees without a shot being fired. A minimum of 200,000 lives are saved every year because we are prepared.You can not depend on the government or police saving you no matter how much surveillance they have. And no, it is not like the ols west over here.
Unlike Boston, instead of rushing to help, people just took out their phones and recorded the act
One of the worst parts of my job was interfacing with a system written by an MBA who "knew how to Code". He knew nothing of structured programming, or flow charts or no concept of unique records, or the normal forms in database construction. So when he cane across some tests that could have Y/N, Pass/Fail, and numeric values with different ranges he solved the problem by combining the test id and the product id. Sounds simple enough until you have to interface a system that expects unique tests like maybe SAP, or a lab information management system. Of course there were thousands of these tests. Thanks, but after many hundreds of hours of seeing (and fixing) the results of that approach, lets keep coding to people who understand structured programming at least. Although they are unlikely to write a compiler, current state and next state arrays can be handy too.
The Milankovitch cycles are well known as the major reason for the climate cycles along with the precession of the equinoxes, The others are all bit players for the regular cycles. Normally the earth warms and the oceans give off CO2. It's been that way with all natural cycles as far as we can tell. Currently the oceans are serving as a giant sink for excess CO2 rather than giving off CO2. The accelerated melting of the ice packs, glaciers and polar ice caps has a tremendous stabilizing effect as each CC/gram of ice melting takes 100 calories. Nature's air conditioner is trying to hold the temperature down. That should stabilize at a higher temp once the North polar ice is gone and will go up more and faster as we lose each additional ice mass. Also as fresh water from the melting ice enters the oceans the "conveyor belts" will stop running. Who knows what that will do to the oceans ecological systems. Once the South polar ice cap shows even the beginnings of substantial melting we will be well past the point of no return. Just hope sea water temperature does not go high enough to release the Methane Hydrate deposits. Shallow deposits in the Arctic are already vaporizing in some areas just North and West of the US RUSSIAN border.
Hmmm..I think the procreation problem is a personal one. I have kids and grand kids on two continents.
There is a huge market of truly subsidized phones and I don't mean contracts. The only way I could get one originally was with a contract. That ran out and I've had a number of phone since, none on contract. My phones don't seem to last long. However, the government gives away "Millions" of cell phones and even smart phones all of which are a truly subsidized phone with subsidized calling. These give the dealer full price "as I under stand" and the phone company gets paid.
Better Yet, if what they have does the job and new software gains them nothing they can see (no savings), then they have no valid reason for upgrading no matter how much they've saved in the past. IOW, If it works, why change?
Don't worry, these guys are smokin' some good stuff! If they top the regs and safety issues it'll never be affordable to "the masses". A rich few? Maybe, But let's say they can make it affordable. The average driver is a danger to himself and others on the road. They want to turn these drivers loose in 3 dimensions with no roads? Then there is traffic. The movement would need to be automated and controlled by ATC or similar agency with the so called driver inputting the origin and destination. I'd love to have one, but until a miracle happens they will remain completely impracticable. The list of why not is endless, while the list of practicality is extremely short
They move us more and more into the entitlement mentality and thus into dependency on the government. They took many thousands from me for SS and spent it. If I had been able to invest that with the same return I've had on what I did invest I'd be a multi millionair, so I figure they should owe me that much. Instead they want to take my IRAs and give me a guaranteed income if they can get it through and I believe both parties have been working on that for a decade or so. I'm a firm believer in the free market system with just enough regulation to make sure competition remains to give them incentives to make better products at lower prices. Don't regulate the system to the point where small businesses can't exist and have to employee people part time to save money. I don't care how much some one else makes as long as I'm treated fairly. If they didn't steal it from me they don't owe me anything. I'm far more concerned with government's meddling while picking winners and losers than the giant industrial complex, although this bunch seems pretty good at backing losers with our money. They may "print" more money to pay the bills, but that just makes our money worth less. A lot less. Meanwhile they leave out the two biggest contributors to inflation (food and fuel) when they calculate it. They may not see those as inflation, but every one of us earning a wage and raising a family sure does. Yet they are recruiting people for food stamps and the only minority not supported is now the white, American, Male.
Obama promise "Hope and Change" and so far he has made all we complained about "Bush doing" far worse. There is a lot of truth in the Bush poster that says "Miss Me Yet" and although I was not happy with him as POTUS I'd NOW trade him for Obama in a heart beat.
Instead of being terminated, the are buying hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition to the total of around two Billion rounds. 2 to 3 times per person than what the military uses. Now that's some substantial food for the conspiracy theorists to chew on. Is Obama just creating an ammunition shortage to prevent the citizens from getting their hands on it...Of course this id creating shortages for border patrol and police agencies too. Or is it something much darker? Then there is that huge information monitoring and data storage unit out in Utah or Idaho?
It Depends. Almost every Extended Warranty I've purchased has paid off in spades to the tune of several thousand dollars, but I'm very choosy about when I purchase these extended warranties. sortius_nod is only partially correct. There are two time a product is likely to fail. Early on, often called infant mortality, which is usually covered by regular warranties and as he/she says, later on in life, but some products have a much higher likely hood of failing. Newly released high technology and reconditioned devices, both mechanical and electronic as well as "open box" items. Also more and more original warranties are covering less an less, often under very specific conditions. Really check out the exceptions clause in every warranty. For the first few years I found the ROHS compliant devices to be very troublesome with a number of solder joints failing in TVs and Motherboards. I still do not trust ROHS solder and repair with real 60/40 solder of which I have a lifetime supply. In most cases a couple of pounds will last for many years. Returned tools or yard equipment may have an extraordinary discount and appear to have never been used. I purchased extra coverage on a large trailer type yard vac. This thing was big! It appeared to be unused. They said it was returned because was too big for the guy's yard. I checked the oil which was "full to the line" and clean. I did half the yard and had to add oil. The engine seized the next time I used it. The overnight soak with WD40 loosened it up, but the engine was shot. They sent a mechanic out to check and he replaced the entire engine. I had a large "walk behind rototiller" for several years, Hooked a rogue tree root which demolished the transmission, tore up the blades, and bent the crank. Again they came out and replaced just about everything except the frame and tires. We purchased a new 40" HDTV some years back. they had just been released and we had to wait for them to come in. (40" is now about a 1/4 the price). The original warranty ran out and so did the audio. Service man came out and resoldered a ROHS joint and remarked that doing so had become a major portion of his business. Yes, the one service call was more than the extended contract, but unlike the yard equipment it didn't run into thousands of dollars. I agree they are seldom worth the money and some are filled with more loop holes than a politicians promises, but we are seeing an influx of electronics and other goods with substandard workmanship and not just from China. With the current state of the economy QA seems to be suffering at home and abroad. Companies are not only not hiring, but streamlining operations and cutting out steps they think will still keep their failure rates within acceptable limits (what the customer will put up with and still buy the product). Another thing to consider is, what would the most expensive failure be? Is it cheaper to repair than the cost of the extended warranty? Does the regular warranty cover all failures, or just in limited cases. Is it worth the cost? When it came time to renew the one on the TV I figured if it failed again I'd be farther ahead to just get a new one far cheaper and more advanced than the original. Still, many extended warranties look good on the surface, but are near worthless in the real world. I use them, but only in very limited instances. I hope the reduction in quality I've been seeing does not make them much more worthwhile.
Salt is also used in our food, but in stronger doses the ancient Chinese used it as a poison. Salt in excess or where you don't want it is pollution. CO2 in certain concentrations is good. It's food for plants and helps keep the Earth at a comfortable temperature, but in excess it suffocates animals and causes temperatures to rise. Melting ice may cause sea levels to rise, but it also serves as the earths air conditioner as it soaks up 100 calories to melt 1CC of ice and only 1 Calorie to raise the temp of 1CC of water 1 deg C so while we have enough ice it should counter the warming, but at the cost of sea level rise and contamination of the sea water. That 1 Calorie will raise 1 CC of air at standard temperature and pressure much more. Again fresh water supports animal life on land, but too much fresh water into the sea is a pollution that kills off marine life. We can find the same effect for many things both in nature and man made, but the fact remains that too much CO2 is will cause animals to die and thus becomes a pollutant..
I would have written it off well before now! If it's not good enough to use out-of-the-box, I don't want it. I would have gone with the Glock in 40.
In Trap shooting we even remove the safeties. DAO handguns might as well not have one, but you don't put your finger on the trigger unless you're ready to use it.
We may not be able to purchase a new one without it eventually. It actually has some good possibilities, but they could potentially be misused by the government so I'm against the idea. As to reliability, I used to shoot trap competitively and had one dud shell in over 300,000 factory shells and none in nearly as many reloads. When I started competing I quit reloading and shot factory shells only. In rifles I also had one failure. It was a broken firing pin in a Marlin lever action in 35 Remington caliber. No misfires in center fire hand guns and none in hundreds of thousands of 22 rim fire handguns or rifles. I used to go through a carton (500 shells) per week, but that was years ago When I take them all with only 2 misfires, one due to the firearm and one due to the ammunition that works out to roughly less than 1 in 400,000 shots. It could be over 1 tn a half million, but I really don't know how many 22 rim fire I've gone through. I do realize I probably have fired a lot more rounds than the average shooter. At-any-rate, 1 in a thousand would be far too many and they'd have to prove a MTBF of over a million for police and military under some pretty adverse conditions and I doubt our anti gun politicians would be above lying about the success rate. It has some good aspects, but there is just too much room for failure, or government misuse.
I was a project manager for installing a system for a large multinational chemical corporation. That installation (hardware and software) had to be FDA"Validated" This is not like engineering validation, it means every entry has to be demonstrated to work properly. Just starting with a user log in. You start with a valid name and PW. Print the input and print the output. Use a valid name plus an extra character and a valid PW. print the input and out put screens. Repeat for the PW with an extra character. Print input and output, Repeat with an extra character for both and print the screens. Repeat the above minus a character. IE, name, PW, and both Now do it with blank fields. You have to do this for every entry possible in the system. We started with a stack of printouts for the entries. When we finished we had a stack well over 4 feet tall and a second stack 2 or 3 feet tall. All hardware had to be traceable and proven on a monthly basis. If a router were changed it had to have a paper trail. It probably ran over half a million for the implementation including FDA Validation and that was in addition to the quarter million for the software. Security is also a nightmare. FDA regulations on the data handling pretty much doubled the cost of the system. Most of the end user systems like this dentist had are relatively simple and straight forward to write. You create a set of generic screens which can be tailored for most professions, but any time a change is made the whole works has to be proven to satisfy the FDA again. It's basically creating a set of custom screens tailored to the profession although the data should be encrypted, with integrity and security guaranteed. IOW Medical software that is FDA compliant is a royal PITA. It's no wonder it's so expensive.
Physics, Chemistry, and Computer Science re heavily math laden disciplines. Using the computer is not the same and there on some occasions the math can be separated from the computer work. CS ans CIS are quite different when it comes to math. Even the first year in graduate school takes more math than a minor or it did for me. I have enough math from under grad for a minor and grades good enough to become a graduate Assistant, but I still needed more math. Many times the math can be separated out on the job, if there is someone sharp enough to coordinate it or as in graphics, some one can tell you what they need. In one graphics course alone we started with linear transforms, worked up through Fourier transforms and on to discrete math and matrix Algebra.
Why so? I've had 100MBs via local cable for quite some time although I still use my local ISP for web hosting and e-mail. I use the high speed cable for connect only. I see no need fo a faster service than what I have now. I doubt you'd even see the difference gaming as the latency is almost non existent. The only reason I can see for gigabit speeds is lots of bulk transfers and that's faster than the internals of most computers are capable of reaching. I have a gigabit network, but even with the latest mo boards I'm limited by the computers internal data transfer rates. Of course I could run multiple systems in parallel, but how many would profit from that except a few / dotters. These numbers sound great, but what good are they if my computers can't reach those speeds and that is way beyond the capabilities of all but a tiny number of special purpose systems. That, and so far my cable company could care less about what I do as long as I pay my bill, while Google is noted for customer data mining...What Google knows it's likely the government knows and that makes me nervous just on general principles. Don't forget the Internet security bill is coming up for a vote...SOON
The big screen is going to remain the main bread and butter for TV. Applications are fine for the 2 or 3" crowd, but who really wants to watch movies or even their favorite show on a 3" screen unless you are traveling. BTW we have Satellite, cable. OTA, and streaming. I've not watched a national network in 3 weeks. I do not like Fox's format, but I believe they are number one for all head to head comparisons for news and talking heads. CNN which was top just a few years ago is now at the bottom of the heap and the big 3 aren't far behind CNN. It's not that Fox is good, but the others are so bad.
Apparently Win 8 has not outnumbered XP machines yet, so it's out numbered by two previously successful OS implementations Yes, our machines have gotten much better and more stable, but most of the large companies I'm familiar with finally went to Win 7, but are definately not going to Win 8 and that represents tens of thousands of machines. BTW they were dragged kicking and screaming from XP Pro to Win 7, not because they wanted to go, but were forced/blackmailed into making the change. They all would have been content to stay with XP and are not happy with the idea of the cloud.
As we move to streaming we will reach a point where we can watch most shows on our schedule, any tome any where. Even the big sets now have Internet access. , Once a critical mass is reached free streaming of broadcast content will end and everyone will pay for viewing time or bandwidth used for streaming. They aren't streaming for our benefit and where there's a buck to be made they'll go after it. Make access easy, give good quality, let us watch what we want when we want. Set the hook and reel us in. Create the market, create the mind set, and create the pay scale. Ever subscribe to a sporting event? A major event? It's downright expensive and makes several months of satellite or cable look cheap. Quite possibly broadcasters, or some broadcasters will choose to go with this model and give up the broadcasting with all the expenses ant time involved. It'll be a lot more convenient, but I'm willing to wager it will not be free.
Almost as important as "can you do it" is the question, "is it economically viable. There is the molecular sponge for storage, which IIRC can actually hold more than a tank of equal dimensions. The problem with Hydrogen is the low power density compared to hydrocarbons. .
Obama blamed Bush and then not only made the same mistakes, but amplified them and still blamed Bush It was a case of going from pretty bad to really, really bad. I'm not a fan of bush, but that add, "Do you miss me yet?" Is getting a lot of "Ohhh Yahhh" replies.