Each CFL contains a small amount of mercury. According to the EPA reference below, 4mg per tube. Increasing numbers of spent CFLs going to incinerators and landfills put mercury back into the environment. While these lamps are still an overall environmental benefit in areas where electricity is generated from coal (which poisons the environment with lots of mercury), it is a net pollutant when the energy is coming from cleaner sources.
The important thing to remember is that CFLs need to be disposed of properly. Here are some links to help you out before you discard your next CFL:
OnStar has been selling navigation services without the need to program anything in. The conceirge on the other other end of the phone line does the destination lookup and route planning. It used to be that they read you the directions.
With this new system described below, they download directions to the car, which then uses GPS and wheel motion sensors to guide you along the route. Instead of a map display, it speaks the directions with names of streets and signs that you should watch for (eyes looking outside the car!).
OnStar will begin offering a new feature called Turn-by-Turn Navigation, which uses automated voice prompts to guide drivers to their destinations and builds on other safety and communication services already packaged with OnStar.
The service is the first of its kind in the market and appears to be an answer to complaints about in-dash mapping systems that are sometimes distracting and confusing to operate. ...
It will be introduced this spring on the 2006 Buick Lucerne, Cadillac DTS and Cadillac STS and be phased in on other GM vehicle models over the next two years.
GM is looking to OnStar to set its vehicles apart in a crowded market. While luxury auto brands Mercedes-Benz and Lexus have similar services, GM has pledged to make OnStar available on every vehicle by the end of 2007.
Arguing that, based on comparisions with other Sci-Fi series, Enterprise does not deserve to be continued, is missing a vital point. Sci-Fi is an aspect of Star Trek, but not what makes it great television.
Star Trek depicts humanity in pursuit of its highest ideals: discovery, technology, and civilization.
How many TV shows offer such a hopeful vision of the future of humanity? And do so with a primary basis that isn't depressing (Earth invaded/ruined, widespread depravity, etc.)?
Frankly, I don't keep up with television other than Star Trek, but I doubt there is any television show that provides such a truly positive feedback loop for society. That is what makes Star Trek so great. That is why it is so important that Star Trek carry on.
The article overlooks one of the biggest reasons to not buy an LCD monitor: The bad pixel problem.
Whether it shows up as a dark/missing pixel on brighter images, or a bright pixel on dark images, this persistent problem is an ugly side of LCD monitors.
Ever since buying an iMac with a single bright blue pixel on its LCD, I've resolved to never again buy another LCD that isn't warranted to be 100% defect-free. At least for now, no manufacturer except for Samsung (and only in S. Korea) seems to believe that more than zero bad pixels constitutes a problem.
The general line still is that a bad pixel or two is "normal". Well, it is as normal as an LP album with a scratch, a CD with an intermittent skip, or a dropped cell phone call. It happens, and much of the buying public accepts it, but it sucks and such garbage has no place in a quality product.
Vote with your pocketbook. I do. Caveat LCD emptor!
In an undergrad astronomy class many years ago, we did a calculation of the size of a black hole that is in the range of mass estimates for the universe. We found that based on what we know so far about the density of black holes and the universe, it is indeed possible that we are living inside a singularity the size of the universe.
When I read about cosmology, the most burning unanswered question to me is "What is the universe and where did it come from?". Is the universe we look out upon actually the inside of the biggest black hole of all? While it seems we have yet to find provable answers to those questions, the coincidence is attractive to believe in.
Looking around the Internet, this idea is often repeated but not yet resolved one way or the other. Some sources:
To win the X Prize requires that two sub-orbital flights be completed within two weeks. The June 21st first attempt is just less than two weeks before the Fourth of July, America's Independence Day. While I don't expect to hear a public commitment (or even comment) from the Spaceship One team, it looks suspiciously like they're hoping to wrap it up on Independence Day.
If cameras become pervasive in cell phones, something will have to give: I for one work in an R&D organization where cameras are banned - a policy that is common in many fields. While my employer bans cameras but has been slow to latch onto camera phones, one of our customers now inspects cell phones to prevent camera phones from coming onto the premises.
An unlikely, but very cool way for OnStar to catch a hit-and-run felon. You might not like it (though you might someday appreciate having been stopped before you kill again), but millions of others would cheer anything that helped land your sorry DUI a** in jail!
Coach Wooden: A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that's teamwork.
That is John R. Wooden, legendary coach emeritus of UCLA's college basketball program.
Mr. Gates: Collecting data is only the first step toward wisdom. But sharing data is the first step toward community.
I've always thought of myself as both a literary historian and a literary critic, someone who loves archives and someone who is dedicated to resurrecting texts that have dropped out of sight."
I find that sentiment especially appropriate for the Open Source Software movement. As software maintainers get burned out or lose interest, others who value the work are able to pick it up and carry it forward.
Ms. Nasar: One little thing can solve an incredibly complex problem.
That is the economist and author of "A Beautiful Mind", Sylvia Naser.
I've always thought of myself as both a literary historian and a literary critic, someone who loves archives and someone who is dedicated to resurrecting texts that have dropped out of sight."
On my cynical days, I think that if another Hitler came to power, no one would even attempt to stop him.
...
Sure Saddam is a monster, but he's a small-time monster.
For all of the atrocities the world has allowed to happen since WWII, you're pretty quick to dismiss the closest copy of Hitler our generation has seen. Your post is a good example of how the world could have been so blind to Hitler's rise. Saddam being an avowed admirer of Hitler should be enough to tip anyone off who cares, but if you are looking for some more tell-tale signs...
Hitler used Jews as a scapegoat, for anti-Semites were many and Jews were few. He spoke of larger ambitions, but started by invading a single neighboring country (Czechoslovakia). He had no qualms about gassing civilians to death. And most of Europe, with the noteworthy exception of a courageous British PM, fell over itself like a hoard of quislings to avoid confronting him.
Saddam uses Zionists (Jews) as a scapegoat, for anti-Semites are still many and Jews are even fewer after Hitler was allowed to go and kill a third of the world's population. He has spoken of larger ambitions, but started by invading a neighboring country (Kuwait, if you don't count Iran). He has had no qualms about gassing civilians to death. And again most of Europe, with the noteworthy exception of a courageous British PM, is falling over itself like a hoard of quislings to avoid confronting him.
The world did a little better in 1991 than it did in 1938, but Saddam is far from through. So far. In this generation, however, America is out front in the effort to stop the most genocidal and expansionist dictator of our era.
As Apple gets its parallel processing and grid computing act together, IA32's MHz will never be able to keep up.
MHz makes for only a two to four times throughput difference at best (I'm being generous to P4 in comparision to G4) and costs you more for power and cooling. Parallel processing can scale many orders of magnitude beyond that, and you don't have all your eggs in one basket when a motherboard dies.
The only way you'll stop it happening again -- IMHO -- is to stop funding Israel and get the fsck out of the economies and political systems of supposedly "independent" states that don't want you there (the people, that is, not the rulers), and to stop backing dictatorships like Saudi Arabia just because they're "on your side". In Ireland they used to say: "You cannot have a military solution to a political problem." Guess what? They were right.
Since when is a problem just political? If the Jews in Israel didn't have technology and military capabilities, they'd have been massacred decades ago. In a part of the world where Muslims want to govern themselves under Sharia, it is nothing other than pure racism and xenophobia that speaks of throwing the Jews into the sea instead of letting them govern themselves, on land they have held most sacred for millenia, according to their own democratic and free society.
Without the proper military response to savagery, a lot more innocents will die. Israel appears to recognize more than its neighbors do that land, property, and undignified treatment can be returned or compensated for, but no person can atone for an innocent life that has been taken willfully. And technology is key, whether in avoiding collateral damage, foiling planned attacks, rescuing victims of bombs and earthquakes, or documenting human rights abuses.
In post-WWII Europe, the US and Israel, technology has been used to save lives, and when it has been used militarily, it has been with restraint. It baffles me that to some, Iraq's use of weapons of mass destruction against its own population and invasion of sovereign nations is less relevant today than Israel's targeting combatants who have been slaughtering Jewish civilians for generations, long before the West Bank and Gaza came under Israeli control
Even if I think some of what Israel does is misguided, I can't help but be amazed at how restrained it is being in the face of such existential threats.
Here is an Arab population that has never stopped feeding its generations on the same racist propaganda as the Nazis who wiped out over a third of the Jews in the world. And with all their military and technological advantages Jews still have peace demonstrations and political debates rather than bombing them into oblivion? There is hope yet for the human race!
One critical thing missing from any technology is the wisdom to use it.
What's really ironic (if that's the proper word) is that it's modern greenhouse gas emitting industry that is extending life support to the growing population!
So typically short-sighted!
What do you propose we do with all of the refugees when America's coastal regions are under water?
We STILL don't know EXACTLY what happened to the dinosaurs. Could it be possible that this thermal cycle is NORMAL for this planet in that, like a person with a virus, their tempurature rises to try to rid itself of the virus?
The use of web access to perform company business clearly would have to be considered in any "tightened" policy: research of all types as well as purchasing. A company that pulled the Internet from these functions would be slitting its own throat and deserves what it gets.
An aspect that I haven't seen brought up, however, is the productivity that comes from keeping salaried employees at work. Being able to handle personal business online and not having to take long lunches or leave early before the stores/banks/etc. close is a benefit to employees, employers and even the environment.
Sure beats Yahoo, where I've never seen a banner ad for something I'm interested in. And those casino pop-ups make Yahoo look like part of the Net's red-light district
So go for it,/.! Who can argue with complete freedom of choice? Heck, if somebody doesn't like it, let them take the slash software and do it better with their own time and money.
Great looks, straightforward to navigate, and the content you're after, but the site is frustratingly buggy, frequently unavailable, and/or easily hacked.
Sites with these defects are not well designed, no matter how well other aspects are designed.
The price difference between the Treo and an i300 is even smaller than that. I got an i300 a month ago at Best Buy for $450 plus tax.
The i300 has its bugs (the worst is the Datebook alarm that sometimes goes beserk, requiring a reset to stop the loud, public embarassment), but being a Palm phone (as is the i300), I'd surprised to learn the Treo is much better.
PVRs might actually improve viewership and their profits, if studios were to embrace them.
First of all, they let viewers get around preemption by local affiliates. How many times have you grumbled because a basketball or hockey game you'd never watch preempted your favorite show, which you had set your VCR to record?
Do studios consider time-shifting a boon or a bane? Surely, that VCR feature has held onto more viewers than it gets credit for. In these days of working multiple jobs to make ends meet, trying to give quality family time and heaven forbid... following the President's advice and volunteering more of our time... how on earth does anyone with a life have time for television - much less the shows they want to see - at the times when they're broadcast? I don't know about you, but I watch exactly one show per week, and that is only because it is recorded on my VCR (when the network hasn't preempted it).
As far as building vast libraries go, it has already been said that people can do that today with the VCR. However, collecting a series actually makes people hungry for more new programming (To paraphrase the words of Harlan Ellison, when asked if he had read all of the immense number of books in his house, "Why would I want a house only full of books I've already read?"). Consider how many TV shows with cult followings the studios could keep running profitably if people could automatically time shift them from the undesirable broadcast time slots.
So, bottom line is, the studios are shooting themselves in the foot if they stand in the way of PVRs.
I already plan to buy a PVR as soon as I can get one with a FireWire interface and software for my iMac G4. Indeed, why spend $400 for a PVR with a hard drive when I've got a perfectly good one on my computer - which I and a growing number of Americans spend a lot more time in front of than the television?
Your thesis is well presented, and I agree that having a "superhero" character has been a recurring aspect, but it is not, as you say, the essence of Star Trek.
Star Trek has been about exploring frontiers. Not only space, but the challenges we see from here on Earth today. Whether it is peacefully relating to races and cultures, resolving ethical dilemmas, overcoming hurdles, or growing as individuals and as a society, pushing these frontiers is the recurring theme of the franchise.
If anything, the superhero aspect constantly causes problems for the show. Wesley in TNG was so perfect it was annoying, and his exit was conveniently arranged. When Kes started to become too powerful, she had to leave Voyager.
Show too many capabilities, and when the character doesn't use that capability in another setting, it becomes unbelievable.
It sounds as if you'd be just as happy if Voyager had never been. And judging from the reponses, you're clearly not alone. If there was a lot of great, new science fiction programming being produced, I could allow the chorus of curmudgeons and nitpickers to go unchallenged. But, under the circumstances, I must disagree with you: The cynics add nothing of value here.
People like to ask each other "Which Star Trek (or other sci-fi/TV) series is your favorite?". Mine is an answer you may not have heard before: My favorite series is always the one(s) that is (are) producing new episodes. And no, this response is not as vacuous as it might sound. Some might even agree with me that it is silly, perhaps with rare exception, to watch the same old episodes of any television show over and over again, analyzing them for consistency and adherence to a nebulous ideal as if they were some form of High Art.
This is supposed to be ongoing, weekly entertainment, and I for one found Voyager to be substantially as worthwhile as any images that are out there. It is so rare to find television that regularly tries to convey a hopeful vision of the future. I will want my kids to see people living in a world where we have evolved beyond many of today's problems and often subdue the darker sides of human nature, where we see ourselves setting higher ideals and trying to live up to them, where science, technology and discovery figure prominently in the theme (sure it's phony, but how much interesting can you say about the future that isn't phony?), and where people are using the challenges facing them to pull ahead into a future that is even more magical.
I'll miss Voyager (at least until the next new show arrives), and may there always be new shows to take its place!
Slashdot Mirror
The important thing to remember is that CFLs need to be disposed of properly. Here are some links to help you out before you discard your next CFL:
OnStar has been selling navigation services without the need to program anything in. The conceirge on the other other end of the phone line does the destination lookup and route planning. It used to be that they read you the directions.
With this new system described below, they download directions to the car, which then uses GPS and wheel motion sensors to guide you along the route. Instead of a map display, it speaks the directions with names of streets and signs that you should watch for (eyes looking outside the car!).
An article and some snippets in case it gets pulled into archive:/ 20060207/AUTO01/602070414/1148
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=
Arguing that, based on comparisions with other Sci-Fi series, Enterprise does not deserve to be continued, is missing a vital point. Sci-Fi is an aspect of Star Trek, but not what makes it great television.
Star Trek depicts humanity in pursuit of its highest ideals: discovery, technology, and civilization.
How many TV shows offer such a hopeful vision of the future of humanity? And do so with a primary basis that isn't depressing (Earth invaded/ruined, widespread depravity, etc.)?
Frankly, I don't keep up with television other than Star Trek, but I doubt there is any television show that provides such a truly positive feedback loop for society. That is what makes Star Trek so great. That is why it is so important that Star Trek carry on.
The article overlooks one of the biggest reasons to not buy an LCD monitor: The bad pixel problem.
Whether it shows up as a dark/missing pixel on brighter images, or a bright pixel on dark images, this persistent problem is an ugly side of LCD monitors.
Ever since buying an iMac with a single bright blue pixel on its LCD, I've resolved to never again buy another LCD that isn't warranted to be 100% defect-free. At least for now, no manufacturer except for Samsung (and only in S. Korea) seems to believe that more than zero bad pixels constitutes a problem.
The general line still is that a bad pixel or two is "normal". Well, it is as normal as an LP album with a scratch, a CD with an intermittent skip, or a dropped cell phone call. It happens, and much of the buying public accepts it, but it sucks and such garbage has no place in a quality product.
Vote with your pocketbook. I do. Caveat LCD emptor!
When I read about cosmology, the most burning unanswered question to me is "What is the universe and where did it come from?". Is the universe we look out upon actually the inside of the biggest black hole of all? While it seems we have yet to find provable answers to those questions, the coincidence is attractive to believe in.
Looking around the Internet, this idea is often repeated but not yet resolved one way or the other. Some sources:
So for want of a "better" explanation, I believe the universe is the inside of a black hole. And no, I've never done drugs.
To win the X Prize requires that two sub-orbital flights be completed within two weeks. The June 21st first attempt is just less than two weeks before the Fourth of July, America's Independence Day. While I don't expect to hear a public commitment (or even comment) from the Spaceship One team, it looks suspiciously like they're hoping to wrap it up on Independence Day.
If cameras become pervasive in cell phones, something will have to give: I for one work in an R&D organization where cameras are banned - a policy that is common in many fields. While my employer bans cameras but has been slow to latch onto camera phones, one of our customers now inspects cell phones to prevent camera phones from coming onto the premises.
An unlikely, but very cool way for OnStar to catch a hit-and-run felon. You might not like it (though you might someday appreciate having been stopped before you kill again), but millions of others would cheer anything that helped land your sorry DUI a** in jail!
And finally,
Muhammad Ali, the legend himself.I predict this ad will win many awards.
For all of the atrocities the world has allowed to happen since WWII, you're pretty quick to dismiss the closest copy of Hitler our generation has seen. Your post is a good example of how the world could have been so blind to Hitler's rise. Saddam being an avowed admirer of Hitler should be enough to tip anyone off who cares, but if you are looking for some more tell-tale signs ...
Hitler used Jews as a scapegoat, for anti-Semites were many and Jews were few. He spoke of larger ambitions, but started by invading a single neighboring country (Czechoslovakia). He had no qualms about gassing civilians to death. And most of Europe, with the noteworthy exception of a courageous British PM, fell over itself like a hoard of quislings to avoid confronting him.
Saddam uses Zionists (Jews) as a scapegoat, for anti-Semites are still many and Jews are even fewer after Hitler was allowed to go and kill a third of the world's population. He has spoken of larger ambitions, but started by invading a neighboring country (Kuwait, if you don't count Iran). He has had no qualms about gassing civilians to death. And again most of Europe, with the noteworthy exception of a courageous British PM, is falling over itself like a hoard of quislings to avoid confronting him.
The world did a little better in 1991 than it did in 1938, but Saddam is far from through. So far. In this generation, however, America is out front in the effort to stop the most genocidal and expansionist dictator of our era.
MHz makes for only a two to four times throughput difference at best (I'm being generous to P4 in comparision to G4) and costs you more for power and cooling. Parallel processing can scale many orders of magnitude beyond that, and you don't have all your eggs in one basket when a motherboard dies.
Since when is a problem just political? If the Jews in Israel didn't have technology and military capabilities, they'd have been massacred decades ago. In a part of the world where Muslims want to govern themselves under Sharia, it is nothing other than pure racism and xenophobia that speaks of throwing the Jews into the sea instead of letting them govern themselves, on land they have held most sacred for millenia, according to their own democratic and free society.
Without the proper military response to savagery, a lot more innocents will die. Israel appears to recognize more than its neighbors do that land, property, and undignified treatment can be returned or compensated for, but no person can atone for an innocent life that has been taken willfully. And technology is key, whether in avoiding collateral damage, foiling planned attacks, rescuing victims of bombs and earthquakes, or documenting human rights abuses.
In post-WWII Europe, the US and Israel, technology has been used to save lives, and when it has been used militarily, it has been with restraint. It baffles me that to some, Iraq's use of weapons of mass destruction against its own population and invasion of sovereign nations is less relevant today than Israel's targeting combatants who have been slaughtering Jewish civilians for generations, long before the West Bank and Gaza came under Israeli control
Even if I think some of what Israel does is misguided, I can't help but be amazed at how restrained it is being in the face of such existential threats. Here is an Arab population that has never stopped feeding its generations on the same racist propaganda as the Nazis who wiped out over a third of the Jews in the world. And with all their military and technological advantages Jews still have peace demonstrations and political debates rather than bombing them into oblivion? There is hope yet for the human race!
One critical thing missing from any technology is the wisdom to use it.
So typically short-sighted! What do you propose we do with all of the refugees when America's coastal regions are under water?
Good point: This time you're the virus!
An aspect that I haven't seen brought up, however, is the productivity that comes from keeping salaried employees at work. Being able to handle personal business online and not having to take long lunches or leave early before the stores/banks/etc. close is a benefit to employees, employers and even the environment.
Sure beats Yahoo, where I've never seen a banner ad for something I'm interested in. And those casino pop-ups make Yahoo look like part of the Net's red-light district
So go for it, /.! Who can argue with complete freedom of choice? Heck, if somebody doesn't like it, let them take the slash software and do it better with their own time and money.
Great looks, straightforward to navigate, and the content you're after, but the site is frustratingly buggy, frequently unavailable, and/or easily hacked.
Sites with these defects are not well designed, no matter how well other aspects are designed.
The price difference between the Treo and an i300 is even smaller than that. I got an i300 a month ago at Best Buy for $450 plus tax.
The i300 has its bugs (the worst is the Datebook alarm that sometimes goes beserk, requiring a reset to stop the loud, public embarassment), but being a Palm phone (as is the i300), I'd surprised to learn the Treo is much better.
PVRs might actually improve viewership and their profits, if studios were to embrace them.
... following the President's advice and volunteering more of our time ... how on earth does anyone with a life have time for television - much less the shows they want to see - at the times when they're broadcast? I don't know about you, but I watch exactly one show per week, and that is only because it is recorded on my VCR (when the network hasn't preempted it).
First of all, they let viewers get around preemption by local affiliates. How many times have you grumbled because a basketball or hockey game you'd never watch preempted your favorite show, which you had set your VCR to record?
Do studios consider time-shifting a boon or a bane? Surely, that VCR feature has held onto more viewers than it gets credit for. In these days of working multiple jobs to make ends meet, trying to give quality family time and heaven forbid
As far as building vast libraries go, it has already been said that people can do that today with the VCR. However, collecting a series actually makes people hungry for more new programming (To paraphrase the words of Harlan Ellison, when asked if he had read all of the immense number of books in his house, "Why would I want a house only full of books I've already read?"). Consider how many TV shows with cult followings the studios could keep running profitably if people could automatically time shift them from the undesirable broadcast time slots.
So, bottom line is, the studios are shooting themselves in the foot if they stand in the way of PVRs.
I already plan to buy a PVR as soon as I can get one with a FireWire interface and software for my iMac G4. Indeed, why spend $400 for a PVR with a hard drive when I've got a perfectly good one on my computer - which I and a growing number of Americans spend a lot more time in front of than the television?
How about a video arcade game where characters are completely naked?
Play NuDefender in your home! In your club! In your shopping mall!
Now wouldn't that be a good test case?
Your thesis is well presented, and I agree that having a "superhero" character has been a recurring aspect, but it is not, as you say, the essence of Star Trek.
Star Trek has been about exploring frontiers. Not only space, but the challenges we see from here on Earth today. Whether it is peacefully relating to races and cultures, resolving ethical dilemmas, overcoming hurdles, or growing as individuals and as a society, pushing these frontiers is the recurring theme of the franchise.
If anything, the superhero aspect constantly causes problems for the show. Wesley in TNG was so perfect it was annoying, and his exit was conveniently arranged. When Kes started to become too powerful, she had to leave Voyager.
Show too many capabilities, and when the character doesn't use that capability in another setting, it becomes unbelievable.
People like to ask each other "Which Star Trek (or other sci-fi/TV) series is your favorite?". Mine is an answer you may not have heard before: My favorite series is always the one(s) that is (are) producing new episodes. And no, this response is not as vacuous as it might sound. Some might even agree with me that it is silly, perhaps with rare exception, to watch the same old episodes of any television show over and over again, analyzing them for consistency and adherence to a nebulous ideal as if they were some form of High Art.
This is supposed to be ongoing, weekly entertainment, and I for one found Voyager to be substantially as worthwhile as any images that are out there. It is so rare to find television that regularly tries to convey a hopeful vision of the future. I will want my kids to see people living in a world where we have evolved beyond many of today's problems and often subdue the darker sides of human nature, where we see ourselves setting higher ideals and trying to live up to them, where science, technology and discovery figure prominently in the theme (sure it's phony, but how much interesting can you say about the future that isn't phony?), and where people are using the challenges facing them to pull ahead into a future that is even more magical.
I'll miss Voyager (at least until the next new show arrives), and may there always be new shows to take its place!