Given all your descriptions, there are a number of physicists and mathematicians around the world that are now starting to openly suggest whether we may have to re-examine the whole ideas of Special and General Relativity.
The first person(s) who successfully shows the successor to the theories of relativity will become the most important person(s) in the history of physics since Einstein and Newton.
If Monica Bellucci was just eight years younger she would have been perfect for the role. As such, given the potential for sequel movies, she's too old to star in this role, even though she looks like the way they're drawing the WW character now in the comics.
I think the Lucy Lawless of circa 1995--just when she started her role as Xena: Warrior Princess--would have worked for the WW role, because Lawless was tall enough and muscular enough for the role back then.
As such, don't be surprised that Joss Whedon choses a relative unknown for the title role. After all, Lynda Carter was a virtual unknown when she got the role in 1976, and it was amazing sheer luck that she looked almost exactly like the way WW was drawn in the comics at the time.
I think that would be a perfect role for Lynda Carter in the new movie--after all, she is old enough and has the right hair color to play the same Hippolyta we know from the original comic book (I know that Hippolyta has always been shown with black hair at least since the early 1970's).
For one reason: it requires approval of the estate of Charles Moulton Marston, the creator of the Wonder Woman character. (It should be noted that the way the DC Comics division of Time Warner handles the Wonder Woman copyrights includes special deferences to some fairly complicated clauses from the Marston estate in handling the character rights and design.)
I do think, however, that the costume design will probably be one used by the current artist on the comic book, though.
The problem of diesel particulates is a nasty problem that needs to be corrected before diesels become widely available.
Fortunately, with the arrival of low-sulfur diesel fuel (mandated by the EPA by the late Summer of 2006), this makes it possible to offer turbodiesel engines with common-rail pressurized direct fuel injection (e.g., extremely precise fuel delivery into the combustion chamber) and catalytic converters that an also "burn off" diesel particulates simultaneously so we can get diesel engines that will be legal in all 50 states in the USA. That will pave the way for our biggest vehicles (SUV's, pickup trucks and minivans) to be switched to these new class of clean-burning diesel engines en masse, which could cut the fuel consumption of these vehicles 35-45 percent! =)
Also, clean-burning turbodiesel engines can have great automotive applications. Honda's much-lauded i-CTDi 2.2-liter turbodiesel engine which was introduced in Europe in early 2004 shows you can get great fuel efficiency and low emissions without sacrificing power output; it would be the perfect engine for the Honda Accord (it may be a tad slower than the 2.4-liter I-4 gasoline engine now used on US models but you can't argue with the possibility of 40 miles per US gallon or better fuel efficiency in freeway driving).
Seriously, any USB mouse out there will work. You can get 'em for roughly a dollar nowadays.
Actually, the cheapest USB mouse I've seen retail usually goes for around US$5.00.:)
But if you want reliability and the ability to really customize mouse functionality (very useful for more experienced users), you have to go with Microsoft or Logitech USB mouse pointers. Is it small wonder why the Apple Store sells the Logitech MX-500 mouse, which I use and really like?
Speaking of which, Apple should be seriously ashamed of themselves for coming up with that hockey puck mouse pointer for the original iMac. If they had gone with the current oblong-shaped mouse design instead the company could have saved themselves a lot of end user complaints, just for starters.
If you know how to set up the button controls on the Logitech MX-500 mouse pointer (seven if you include the standard left and right mouse click or eight if you can use the scroll wheel as a mouse click button also), you can set up very powerful and customized window control functions that could be very useful for image editing and multimedia editing. You'd think that with the MX-500 be available from the Apple Store, Apple would get a hint that serious power users of the Mac would like a mouse with more than one button for customized navigation features.
The fact that Apple has supported multi-button/scroll wheel mice since MacOS 8.6 tells me that Apple was too enamoured of their decision to "keep things simple."
With the MX-500, you could make special button assignments in MacOS X that could make for vastly easier navigation of multiple windows, for starters.
...They should license the technology developed by MySoft Technology's excellent Maxthon "shell" program for IE 5.x and later and incorporate it into IE 7.0.
What makes Maxthon quite good is their very powerful AD Hunter feature, which not only blocks most popup windows but will block many ads which load system-slowing Flash animation and/or spyware into your system. With AD Hunter fully enabled, surfing the Web actually becomes quite pleasant even with a V.90/V.92 dial-up connection.
Combine IE 7.0's own features with Maxthon and the demand for Firefox goes down dramatically.
...Right at the time the judgement against Microsoft in the US v. Microsoft case.
It was that very judgement that sent NASDAQ stocks spiraling down to the circa 2000 level where it is now (more or less). And the technology industry has yet to completely recover from that judicial fiasco.
Actually, I don't see Microsoft choosing sides mattering that much.
I think now that Apple is supporting Blu-Ray, don't be surprised that Microsoft ends up supporting this format, too. The reasons are simple: MS wants interoperability with high-definition DVD discs created with a non-Microsoft OS, and I think Microsoft likes the higher recordable storage capacity of Blu-Ray discs, too.
Until the prices of HD-TVs start going down to be similar to the price of a normal TV, most people are still going to have regular SD-TVs.
However, the prices of TV's capable of displaying ATSC high-definition signals in 720p or 1080i formats are rapidly dropping. For example, you can get decent 43" to 50" (diagonal) wide-screen rear-projection TV's using LCD elements for well under US$2,700, and I expect those prices to drop even further within the next 18 months or so. Feed these new RPTV's with a true HD signal compared to the 480p signal from a current DVD player and you'll notice how much sharper the HD signal is.:)
China's Muslim Population is larger than Saudi Arabia's, who cares?
Well, the Chinese government certain does. There's been occasional insurgencies against the Chinese government in Xinjiang Autonomous Region; this made the Chinese government nervous given that a small part of Afghanistan shares a border with China, especially when Afghanistan was under Taliban rule. Today, the Xinjiang region is fast becoming the "Imperial Valley" of China, thanks to the fact that despite the desert conditions there the soil is nutrient-rich enough that any oases in that area (and there are many) could grow high-quality agricultural crops; the Chinese government certainly does NOT want a Muslim insurgency ruining that potential cash cow.
Thanks for the clarification. Otherwise, eBay's own lawyers and/or their representative lobbyists will be visiting Senator Mumper's office explaining why this proposed law may not be such a good ides.
If you install SP2 on your machine you may find that a lot of your favourite software no longer works.
That's not Microsoft's problem anymore, given that MS has "closed" a lot of the security loopholes in SP2 that many older programs need to work properly. You'll need to check with the software vendor to get a version that does work with WinXP SP2.
You haven't met many users outside the IT field apparently.
If anyone had bothered to read in the last five years the business section of the newspaper (and often the front page!) they will get stories about problems with Internet security when you go online. Given the frequently deliberate scary tone of these stories that are aimed at general public readers, that's usually enough to concern the majority of users into inquiring about the use of antivirus programs, software and hardware firewalls, and anti-spyware programs. This is especially true in the last few years for new broadband Internet users, where the installation package for broadband usually do include at least a firewall program.
Granted, you need to have the firewall turned off for this work, but there's a whole lotta machines that don't have it turned on.
...Isn't the Internet Connection Firewall that comes with Windows XP SP2 turned on by default when you install it in the first place?
Anyway, given all the warnings about Internet security in the last five years, the majority of users will already have downloaded and installed firewall programs such as ZoneAlarm.
Sirius/XM is cool and is an extension of the cable/sat TV business model
In fact, one of the big draws is that satellite radio offers the chance for people to listen to many types of national broadcasts that you can't get with local radio. That's why ESPN Radio has done well because you can hear all of their programming 24 hours a day, and Fox Sports Radio is growing because of their association with XM. I wouldn't be surprised that once both Sirius and XM reach "critical mass" of listeners you will see a lot of national talk radio shows go to satellite radio, too.
I think people here are forgetting that next year, a new, higher-capacity wireless networking technology called WiMax (802.16 and 802.20) will start to roll out from various companies.
Unlike WiFi, WiMax is designed specifically to handle very large numbers of users from a single transceiving antenna array and could become the way that the entire USA gets large-scale broadband Internet access; it's far cheaper to put up transceiver towers and/or adapt current cellphone towers for WiMax access points than to hardware broadband Internet connections via cable or DSL to every residence, especially in rural areas or areas where ripping out legacy telecommunications wiring is too expensive.
Given the potential considerable expense to setting up WiMax hardware, I expect WiMax to be paid service only, probably being charged US$29.95-US$34.95 per month for unlimited access.
Alas, I wouldn't trust measurements from thermometers located in urban areas, though. Scientists discovered that when you keep "official" thermometers in urban areas they tend to skew higher due to urban development in the last 100 years or so.
Measurements done at "official" thermometers done at rural locations actually show very little (if any) increase in local temperatures in the last 100 years.
i can't imagine 9000nm if the seating on the 777-200lr is as cramped as most modern passenger planes. passengers will be killing each other!
I think most airlines agree, hence the reason why Singapore Airlines' Airbus A340-500 planes which fly the current longest routes in the world (between Los Angeles and Singapore and New York (Newark) and Singapore) only seat 181 passengers, which means very roomy seating in both Business and Economy classes.
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Given all your descriptions, there are a number of physicists and mathematicians around the world that are now starting to openly suggest whether we may have to re-examine the whole ideas of Special and General Relativity.
The first person(s) who successfully shows the successor to the theories of relativity will become the most important person(s) in the history of physics since Einstein and Newton.
But Theron is just a bit too thin for the role unless she starts bulking up. Besides, isn't Theron already busying doing several movies nowadays?
If Monica Bellucci was just eight years younger she would have been perfect for the role. As such, given the potential for sequel movies, she's too old to star in this role, even though she looks like the way they're drawing the WW character now in the comics.
I think the Lucy Lawless of circa 1995--just when she started her role as Xena: Warrior Princess--would have worked for the WW role, because Lawless was tall enough and muscular enough for the role back then.
As such, don't be surprised that Joss Whedon choses a relative unknown for the title role. After all, Lynda Carter was a virtual unknown when she got the role in 1976, and it was amazing sheer luck that she looked almost exactly like the way WW was drawn in the comics at the time.
I think that would be a perfect role for Lynda Carter in the new movie--after all, she is old enough and has the right hair color to play the same Hippolyta we know from the original comic book (I know that Hippolyta has always been shown with black hair at least since the early 1970's).
For one reason: it requires approval of the estate of Charles Moulton Marston, the creator of the Wonder Woman character. (It should be noted that the way the DC Comics division of Time Warner handles the Wonder Woman copyrights includes special deferences to some fairly complicated clauses from the Marston estate in handling the character rights and design.)
I do think, however, that the costume design will probably be one used by the current artist on the comic book, though.
...It looks like those very small "breadbox" case designs for PC compatibles that has been around for a couple of years.
In short, it's not even anywhere close to being inspired by the Mac Mini.
The problem of diesel particulates is a nasty problem that needs to be corrected before diesels become widely available.
Fortunately, with the arrival of low-sulfur diesel fuel (mandated by the EPA by the late Summer of 2006), this makes it possible to offer turbodiesel engines with common-rail pressurized direct fuel injection (e.g., extremely precise fuel delivery into the combustion chamber) and catalytic converters that an also "burn off" diesel particulates simultaneously so we can get diesel engines that will be legal in all 50 states in the USA. That will pave the way for our biggest vehicles (SUV's, pickup trucks and minivans) to be switched to these new class of clean-burning diesel engines en masse, which could cut the fuel consumption of these vehicles 35-45 percent! =)
Also, clean-burning turbodiesel engines can have great automotive applications. Honda's much-lauded i-CTDi 2.2-liter turbodiesel engine which was introduced in Europe in early 2004 shows you can get great fuel efficiency and low emissions without sacrificing power output; it would be the perfect engine for the Honda Accord (it may be a tad slower than the 2.4-liter I-4 gasoline engine now used on US models but you can't argue with the possibility of 40 miles per US gallon or better fuel efficiency in freeway driving).
Seriously, any USB mouse out there will work. You can get 'em for roughly a dollar nowadays.
:)
Actually, the cheapest USB mouse I've seen retail usually goes for around US$5.00.
But if you want reliability and the ability to really customize mouse functionality (very useful for more experienced users), you have to go with Microsoft or Logitech USB mouse pointers. Is it small wonder why the Apple Store sells the Logitech MX-500 mouse, which I use and really like?
Speaking of which, Apple should be seriously ashamed of themselves for coming up with that hockey puck mouse pointer for the original iMac. If they had gone with the current oblong-shaped mouse design instead the company could have saved themselves a lot of end user complaints, just for starters.
...Once you become a more serious Mac user you really do want more than one button on a mouse!
This is especially true if you need to keep multiple windows open and are running an image-editing or multimedia-editing program.
If you know how to set up the button controls on the Logitech MX-500 mouse pointer (seven if you include the standard left and right mouse click or eight if you can use the scroll wheel as a mouse click button also), you can set up very powerful and customized window control functions that could be very useful for image editing and multimedia editing. You'd think that with the MX-500 be available from the Apple Store, Apple would get a hint that serious power users of the Mac would like a mouse with more than one button for customized navigation features.
The fact that Apple has supported multi-button/scroll wheel mice since MacOS 8.6 tells me that Apple was too enamoured of their decision to "keep things simple."
With the MX-500, you could make special button assignments in MacOS X that could make for vastly easier navigation of multiple windows, for starters.
...They should license the technology developed by MySoft Technology's excellent Maxthon "shell" program for IE 5.x and later and incorporate it into IE 7.0.
What makes Maxthon quite good is their very powerful AD Hunter feature, which not only blocks most popup windows but will block many ads which load system-slowing Flash animation and/or spyware into your system. With AD Hunter fully enabled, surfing the Web actually becomes quite pleasant even with a V.90/V.92 dial-up connection.
Combine IE 7.0's own features with Maxthon and the demand for Firefox goes down dramatically.
...Right at the time the judgement against Microsoft in the US v. Microsoft case.
It was that very judgement that sent NASDAQ stocks spiraling down to the circa 2000 level where it is now (more or less). And the technology industry has yet to completely recover from that judicial fiasco.
Actually, I don't see Microsoft choosing sides mattering that much.
I think now that Apple is supporting Blu-Ray, don't be surprised that Microsoft ends up supporting this format, too. The reasons are simple: MS wants interoperability with high-definition DVD discs created with a non-Microsoft OS, and I think Microsoft likes the higher recordable storage capacity of Blu-Ray discs, too.
Until the prices of HD-TVs start going down to be similar to the price of a normal TV, most people are still going to have regular SD-TVs.
:)
However, the prices of TV's capable of displaying ATSC high-definition signals in 720p or 1080i formats are rapidly dropping. For example, you can get decent 43" to 50" (diagonal) wide-screen rear-projection TV's using LCD elements for well under US$2,700, and I expect those prices to drop even further within the next 18 months or so. Feed these new RPTV's with a true HD signal compared to the 480p signal from a current DVD player and you'll notice how much sharper the HD signal is.
China's Muslim Population is larger than Saudi Arabia's, who cares?
Well, the Chinese government certain does. There's been occasional insurgencies against the Chinese government in Xinjiang Autonomous Region; this made the Chinese government nervous given that a small part of Afghanistan shares a border with China, especially when Afghanistan was under Taliban rule. Today, the Xinjiang region is fast becoming the "Imperial Valley" of China, thanks to the fact that despite the desert conditions there the soil is nutrient-rich enough that any oases in that area (and there are many) could grow high-quality agricultural crops; the Chinese government certainly does NOT want a Muslim insurgency ruining that potential cash cow.
Thanks for the clarification. Otherwise, eBay's own lawyers and/or their representative lobbyists will be visiting Senator Mumper's office explaining why this proposed law may not be such a good ides.
If you install SP2 on your machine you may find that a lot of your favourite software no longer works.
That's not Microsoft's problem anymore, given that MS has "closed" a lot of the security loopholes in SP2 that many older programs need to work properly. You'll need to check with the software vendor to get a version that does work with WinXP SP2.
You haven't met many users outside the IT field apparently.
If anyone had bothered to read in the last five years the business section of the newspaper (and often the front page!) they will get stories about problems with Internet security when you go online. Given the frequently deliberate scary tone of these stories that are aimed at general public readers, that's usually enough to concern the majority of users into inquiring about the use of antivirus programs, software and hardware firewalls, and anti-spyware programs. This is especially true in the last few years for new broadband Internet users, where the installation package for broadband usually do include at least a firewall program.
Anyway, given all the warnings about Internet security in the last five years, the majority of users will already have downloaded and installed firewall programs such as ZoneAlarm.
Who uses Netscape anymore anyways?
Certainly not me. I run either Firefox 1.0.1 or the Maxthon 1.2.00 shell program for Internet Explorer instead.
Sirius/XM is cool and is an extension of the cable/sat TV business model
In fact, one of the big draws is that satellite radio offers the chance for people to listen to many types of national broadcasts that you can't get with local radio. That's why ESPN Radio has done well because you can hear all of their programming 24 hours a day, and Fox Sports Radio is growing because of their association with XM. I wouldn't be surprised that once both Sirius and XM reach "critical mass" of listeners you will see a lot of national talk radio shows go to satellite radio, too.
I think people here are forgetting that next year, a new, higher-capacity wireless networking technology called WiMax (802.16 and 802.20) will start to roll out from various companies.
Unlike WiFi, WiMax is designed specifically to handle very large numbers of users from a single transceiving antenna array and could become the way that the entire USA gets large-scale broadband Internet access; it's far cheaper to put up transceiver towers and/or adapt current cellphone towers for WiMax access points than to hardware broadband Internet connections via cable or DSL to every residence, especially in rural areas or areas where ripping out legacy telecommunications wiring is too expensive.
Given the potential considerable expense to setting up WiMax hardware, I expect WiMax to be paid service only, probably being charged US$29.95-US$34.95 per month for unlimited access.
Alas, I wouldn't trust measurements from thermometers located in urban areas, though. Scientists discovered that when you keep "official" thermometers in urban areas they tend to skew higher due to urban development in the last 100 years or so.
Measurements done at "official" thermometers done at rural locations actually show very little (if any) increase in local temperatures in the last 100 years.
i can't imagine 9000nm if the seating on the 777-200lr is as cramped as most modern passenger planes. passengers will be killing each other!
I think most airlines agree, hence the reason why Singapore Airlines' Airbus A340-500 planes which fly the current longest routes in the world (between Los Angeles and Singapore and New York (Newark) and Singapore) only seat 181 passengers, which means very roomy seating in both Business and Economy classes.