Back when I made fireworks, I'd make my own charcoal. Never was very good at it, but it did make for some very nice willow effects when done right. I kill a small part of a polar bear every day when I cook dinner on my (LP gas fired) stove. If I'd known more about inductive when I redid the kitchen I might have chosen differently. Oh well, gas is fun to cook on, and I'm willing to live with the consequences. I'm (otherwise) pretty green.
What amazes me is that the Republican party seems so wedded to the idea. For a group which wants less intervention in business dealings and is supposed to be the side which weighs costs versus returns, they look a lot like the part of the Democratic party I'm not happy with. Anyone who bills for their time should be incensed at the added personnel cost of flying anywhere on business these days. It's an enormous burden and a drag on the economy. For most professionals, the cost to fly is less than the time-delay tax that's been levied post-9-11.
The answer would likely be close to zero. Of course, that's mostly because you have all the effect of a drop of water in a hurricane. The hurricane still does damage, though.
But I digress...if you used charcoal you make yourself without the use of fossil fuels, you're likely to be net zero for carbon emissions. All the carbon you use was probably pulled out of the air in the last 20-40 years by the tree you are burning, and the stuff you'll burn tomorrow comes out the trees growing today.
As for baby back ribs, I like mine wet. With a side of cornbread and beans. If I'm going to hell, I may as well do it on a full stomach.
Re:Yep Fuel economy has always been king.
on
Plane Simple Truth
·
· Score: 1
Well, it is in the name of preventing the high crime of "taking credit for a terrorist act via email" (note that if it had been "...on the internet" it could have been patented).
Apparently, somebody got frustrated that they couldn't track down the low level flunkie who sent the message because it was done on an uncontrolled wifi connection. Apparently, while the terrorists are good at using anonymous email, they lack the skills to send a letter anonymously through physical post without leaving those key identifying marks which always lead investigators to get the bad guys (...in the movies).
Actually, I believe that the purported reason is that certain people are expected to have plans and documents related to the planning of terrorist acts. Since data has been found on laptops of those in terrorist groups, this is a drag net to try and capture data which would otherwise be impossible to find through normal investigative channels.
I still think it has a horrible ROI, but then again I think that the entire DHS could be disbanded and we'd have very little additional fear of terrorists. The answer to a miscommunication (i.e. the lack of continuity in connecting aircraft pilots to terrorist groups) is not to create a larger bureaucracy and theatrical security measures to try and comfort the general population. I think I did a quick calculation once, and we could put a plainclothed marshall on half of all commercial jets for less than the TSA airport screening budget. Not that that would be any cost savings, but it sure would cut down on the wasted time at the airports.
If it's trademark law, then why bother with an accept/deny? Anyone can just go look up the trademark, and they can get sued if they misuse it regardless of any click-through agreement. Why bother unless there some additional burden which is being included which they'd rather you not read about? Access to your data and clicks? The right to search and use the information on your computer? You can always put a notice in the "about" screen if you want to be explicit.
Yeah, many who "can" have gone other places to get more reliable employment. What gets left are the chair warmers. The problem is that it's institutionalized now, and I don't think you can turn that ship around without a major overhaul. And I don't mean renaming the directorates and giving them different numbers or letters.
I feel sorry for having to do stuff at KSC. I saw some annoying stuff with the unions while we were there, and even had one come up to us to complain because we had (gasp) engineers working on hardware. We were lucky that there were no union limits on us, since we weren't from KSC (I was Goddard). That was a long time ago though, so I don't know if its still that way.
I was dead lucky - every manager (save one) in my group was a hard-core engineer, and knew their stuff inside out. I was kind of a slacker back then, and I feel bad about it. Don't get me wrong - I did stuff, but it wasn't always the most efficient way to get the mission accomplished. If I could go back again, into the same environment, I probably would. Now that I've run a company I have a much deeper appreciation for efficiency. Of course, I now also understand some of the frustrations my supers had with top brass.
Can't remember the survey, but a (seemingly nonpartisan) group projected forward and found that McCain would add a trillion dollars more to the debt than Obama based on their known program expenditures and tax plans. The major problem I have is that both intend to increase the national debt by several trillion dollars. To me, that's a bad thing.
It is interesting to see what the economists think is important to the economy. I was a bit surprised that the debt is gaining ground (28% ranked it 8-10 in importance). I'd much rather see the country acting like a business wrt debt - you have to rest your line of credit at least once every (n) years to keep in good standing. I can see lots of reasons to have a debt, but very little reason to have it expanding so quickly with no plan to retire it.
No, you see there's this "governmental" organization which, while funded by the taxpayer, could waste far more money every year than they could ever hope to get from the US congress. Apparently $20B doesn't go as far as it used to. So instead of getting rid of expensive luxuries, they decided that they could make a few more dollars by selling some of these patent rights. Oh, sure, they could just release them to the public, but then they wouldn't benefit form them.
You see, NASA is no longer a truly "governmental" organization. It's a corporate welfare organization which hands over most of the tax dollars it gets to contractors who spend the money to make sure there's enough work to go around for all their employees. As, quite honestly, they should. They're corporations. The problem is that congress is complicit, as the money they dump into the corporations is really funneling money back into their own districts. That's one reason that NASA installations are spread far and wide. You have to make sure that if you're going to spend a lot of money, everybody get a share.
Think of it as playing golf, and once you get to the green, everybody agrees to pick up their putts instead of putting them. As long as everyone gets to cheat the system a bit, everybody agrees. Of course, golf is a gentlemens game, so such tomfoolery is against the rules. But in congress it is (pardon the expression) par for the course.
No, if we really wanted an efficient NASA, we'd fire all the contractors, hire the best talent, and keep them busy on projects of scientific importance. A few percent of idle hours as projects shift focus is trivial compared to the money wasted on contracts and contract administration. Of course, we'd also scrap manned spaceflight for the time being. Oh, we wouldn't have to get rid of it - it could be part of a new jobs program for top test pilots and well-spoken PhDs who like scuba, physical fitness, and flying private aircraft. Don't get me wrong; manned spaceflight is one of the coolest things on (or beyond) earth, and I wanted to be an astronaut too. It just seems to be a shame to funnel so much of NASAs resources into a poorly managed program which only gets off the ground a half dozen times a year. I say hire the best and brigthest to really develop the next generation and hire new kids to fly the ships when you get there. If Storey Musgrave is still around, you can put him as head of the new department. Oh, and don't hire anybody from Thiokol...they appear to believe that any new space vehicle should have a pair of SRBs strapped to it.
By decrypting a DVD to watch it, you must adhere to the requirements of the access controls. If you remove the encryption, which is effectively required to copy the movie to the hard drive(1), you've circumvented the access controls. It's perfectly legal to do so if it is covered under fair use. Its perfectly illegal to do so for, or on behalf of, someone else - i.e. your end user. Personally, I don't give a shit, and am just glad that Slysoft has chosen to provide the software off shore so that those of us who would prefer not to have shelves of DVDs in the living room can put together a server. I also think that making something legal, but then making it impossible for nearly the entire population, as just bad faith on the part of legislators. Though I won't say he's perfect, I'm proud that Rick Boucher (D-VA) is my representative in congress.
(1) You're correct that someone could read the key on the disc and record both the key and the encrypted data to the hard drive, then (in theory) use the key on the fly to decrypt the data. That would be, by my reading, allowable, provided that the licensee of the software for playback was within their licensing restrictions to play back data in that manner. I don't know whether either of the two conditions exist in this case.
That was ny thought. $20/hr? Hell, I live in the middle of nowhere, and if these were really people who knew the ins and outs of windows they'd have to pay twice that. Of course, if the goal is to have someone who can memorize the CS support line script instead of reading it off the screen into the phone, then you can probably find some out of work actors (are there any other kind?) who will shill for $20/hr.
Hell, I don't think I'd let anyone making $20/hr touch my windows boxes. They're fragile enough as it is.
By plain reading of the law, you may not assist anyone, in any way in circumventing DRM...
No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
A and B are pretty clear, regardless of C. You might argue that the primary purpose is convenience, but since it could also be argued that convenience explicitly requires circumvention that may be shaky ground. I haven't heard of a test case in this, as nobody has been willing to put their corporate butt on the line yet.
Now, this doesn't mean that making the copy is illegal, as the DMCA does _not_ take away any rights generally considered to be fair use.
Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this titl
So you are free to make any copies for personal use which would have been allowed prior to the DMCA, regardless of DRM. The catch is that nobody can help you without running afoul of the law - which means you have to break the encryption yourself and code the decrypter yourself. It's like locking you in a steel cage and telling you that you can leave any time you want, you just have to get out all by yourself.
10,000 years after humans destroy themselves in full up nuclear war, you'll find the parts made of MP35N lying at the bottom of the ocean. It'll be the only thing that's still shiny.
As for stronger steel; nobody in the building industry really cares. It might be nice for the nuclear industry, but I don't expect it to transition back to the original use. The problem with "stronger" is that most metals get more brittle. That's a bad thing in seismic regions, where the hysteresis of a ductile joint is used to mitigate the damage in a structure. The other problem is cost. High performance materials (and there are lots of them) generally are a significant premium over A992/A36 steel. Most owners would use bamboo and baling twine if the building code let them get away with it, if it mean being able to put marble in all the restrooms. (Oh, they'll say they want it done right, until they get the cost estimate. Then they decide they'll just do the minimum.)
While I can't argue that some idiots have laptops for desktops (which, in general, is more power conscious, as laptops generally run on less juice than a desktop), many people actually need laptops to work on, or use them in places where there just isn't power. Sure, I plug mine in everyday at work - I'm typing on it while it's in the docking station right now - it syncs to the network every day and I take it with me home to do work/play there. I also take it on travel to work remotely. When I'm in the field, if I have time between appointments I type up reports and download images from my digital camera. Sure, I could leave the truck running, but it seems a bit wasteful to run an 8 cylinder gasoline engine for a 90watt laptop. When I'm stuck in an airport I (1) don't want to have to find a seat neat an outlet and (2) would rather not lug my power adapter on the plane. Number 2 was hammered home on a recent pleasure trip when my wife took her laptop with an extended battery (Dell 420 something, very lightweight) and I did about an hours worth of word processing at the gate plus some surfing, then my daughter (and I) watched two 90 minute movies during the flight, and the battery still had about 35-40% remaining. I would have been reaching for the power brick or an extra battery if I'd taken my M70.
I want more life - as much as possible - and having the option of long runtime without cords can be quite useful. If I carry a kilo of powerbrick or a kilo of battery, I'm still carrying the same amount. If I'm only going to be gone for [24h runtime], I can just leave the cord - and the search for an outlet - at home.
Yes, but the text is often extremely variable. I am considering a patent on a device which uses the energy from the actual keystrokes to power the machine, and provide a crisp, easily readable output on normal paper. I found one of these up in the attic of my house, but I'm sure that if I apply for the patent with words like "internet" and a few possible business methods I can can get it approved. It also makes a very cool clackety-clack sound while typing, a bit reminiscent of the old IBM model M, but louder. I guarantee all the typing geeks will have to have one. I'm going to make a mint!
You do realize that displacement = weight, right? It can't be any other way - a static ship displaces _exactly_ it's weight in fluid, and the weight of displaced air is negligible, which just leaves water. Now, I'll grant you that some of the weight may be ballast at a low cost, but some of that weight is going to be electronics...which is pretty darned expensive per pound.
Same reason the original blink made it to HTML - because the can. Reminds you a lot of the Jurassic Park line..."they> were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
...I actually RTFA. And I still think it's ridiculous.
Each of these ships weighs 300 tonnes (which I presume is close enough to a ton for engineering), or 600,000lbs. You're telling me you can build a ship for $5 a pound? I call bullshit. Steel is one of the least expensive materials, and raw steel is running close to $1/lb delivered, with absolutely zero fabrication, zero assembly, zero testing, zero commissioning, and zero operation. There's no way you can build a durable, seagoing ship for $5/lb.
Second...what powers these things? Oh, sure they use rotating sails. Bullshit. That was scrapped long ago. It has all the drawbacks of powered propulsion (you have to spin them with motors) and all the drawbacks of sails (if there is no wind, you have to propulsion). Every first year aero engineering student learns about these things.
No, even if the concept works (which is, imho, questionable), I predict it will cost at least an order of magnitude greater than planned. Why not spend the money to advance solar collection techniques and battery/storage technology to avoid both the CO2 problem with fossil fuels, and the inherent limits to fossil fuel usage?
The sibling post is correct about wear leveling causing a shrinking drive rather than a full sized drive which suddenly fails. I suppose its possible that they're lying about it, but there doesn't seem to be much outcry in other flash devices which use the technology.
Besides, these things have 10^7 or better write cycles if I'm reading the write endurance correctly. To put it in perspective, you probably can't burn one of these things out in 5 years, no matter how hard you try. You could just write the usenet to it continuously and not see any performance degradation for a couple of years. I'm getting numbers in the 0.5 to 2.5 Petabyte range for write capacity.
A million dollars isn't what it used to be. It's easy to be a "millionaire," but for most people who get there, it takes many years - often decades. Frittering away 6% of your net worth on something like this doesn't really seem like a good expenditure. Now, if you happen to have a 7 or 8 figure annual salary and the likelihood of that continuing for the foreseeable future, this might come in handy when you visit your house on the island your own in the carribean.
Not really. Bypassing digital rights management is prohibited _except_ as provided for fair use (and a select few other uses). What's prohibited is for anyone else to help you in any way to crack the DRM yourself. So you don't lose your rights to fair use, they just prevent nearly everyone from exercising their rights by making the hurdle to use nearly insurmountable (personally cracking the system and coding the decryption software from scratch). The good thing is that it's not illegal to use someone else measure, just that it is illegal to provide such a measure. That's how Slysoft gets away with it (anydvd and anydvdhd, both of which decrypt content quite well) - they're located in Antigua. They can't sell it to you in the united states, but it is perfectly legal to buy it. Since Antigua and the US have been involved in a monumental pissing match of late, they aren't interested in helping enforce any US laws.
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Back when I made fireworks, I'd make my own charcoal. Never was very good at it, but it did make for some very nice willow effects when done right. I kill a small part of a polar bear every day when I cook dinner on my (LP gas fired) stove. If I'd known more about inductive when I redid the kitchen I might have chosen differently. Oh well, gas is fun to cook on, and I'm willing to live with the consequences. I'm (otherwise) pretty green.
What amazes me is that the Republican party seems so wedded to the idea. For a group which wants less intervention in business dealings and is supposed to be the side which weighs costs versus returns, they look a lot like the part of the Democratic party I'm not happy with. Anyone who bills for their time should be incensed at the added personnel cost of flying anywhere on business these days. It's an enormous burden and a drag on the economy. For most professionals, the cost to fly is less than the time-delay tax that's been levied post-9-11.
The answer would likely be close to zero. Of course, that's mostly because you have all the effect of a drop of water in a hurricane. The hurricane still does damage, though.
But I digress...if you used charcoal you make yourself without the use of fossil fuels, you're likely to be net zero for carbon emissions. All the carbon you use was probably pulled out of the air in the last 20-40 years by the tree you are burning, and the stuff you'll burn tomorrow comes out the trees growing today.
As for baby back ribs, I like mine wet. With a side of cornbread and beans. If I'm going to hell, I may as well do it on a full stomach.
Stop talking about our president like that.
Well, it is in the name of preventing the high crime of "taking credit for a terrorist act via email" (note that if it had been "...on the internet" it could have been patented).
Apparently, somebody got frustrated that they couldn't track down the low level flunkie who sent the message because it was done on an uncontrolled wifi connection. Apparently, while the terrorists are good at using anonymous email, they lack the skills to send a letter anonymously through physical post without leaving those key identifying marks which always lead investigators to get the bad guys (...in the movies).
Actually, I believe that the purported reason is that certain people are expected to have plans and documents related to the planning of terrorist acts. Since data has been found on laptops of those in terrorist groups, this is a drag net to try and capture data which would otherwise be impossible to find through normal investigative channels.
I still think it has a horrible ROI, but then again I think that the entire DHS could be disbanded and we'd have very little additional fear of terrorists. The answer to a miscommunication (i.e. the lack of continuity in connecting aircraft pilots to terrorist groups) is not to create a larger bureaucracy and theatrical security measures to try and comfort the general population. I think I did a quick calculation once, and we could put a plainclothed marshall on half of all commercial jets for less than the TSA airport screening budget. Not that that would be any cost savings, but it sure would cut down on the wasted time at the airports.
If it's trademark law, then why bother with an accept/deny? Anyone can just go look up the trademark, and they can get sued if they misuse it regardless of any click-through agreement. Why bother unless there some additional burden which is being included which they'd rather you not read about? Access to your data and clicks? The right to search and use the information on your computer? You can always put a notice in the "about" screen if you want to be explicit.
Yeah, many who "can" have gone other places to get more reliable employment. What gets left are the chair warmers. The problem is that it's institutionalized now, and I don't think you can turn that ship around without a major overhaul. And I don't mean renaming the directorates and giving them different numbers or letters.
I feel sorry for having to do stuff at KSC. I saw some annoying stuff with the unions while we were there, and even had one come up to us to complain because we had (gasp) engineers working on hardware. We were lucky that there were no union limits on us, since we weren't from KSC (I was Goddard). That was a long time ago though, so I don't know if its still that way.
I was dead lucky - every manager (save one) in my group was a hard-core engineer, and knew their stuff inside out. I was kind of a slacker back then, and I feel bad about it. Don't get me wrong - I did stuff, but it wasn't always the most efficient way to get the mission accomplished. If I could go back again, into the same environment, I probably would. Now that I've run a company I have a much deeper appreciation for efficiency. Of course, I now also understand some of the frustrations my supers had with top brass.
Can't remember the survey, but a (seemingly nonpartisan) group projected forward and found that McCain would add a trillion dollars more to the debt than Obama based on their known program expenditures and tax plans. The major problem I have is that both intend to increase the national debt by several trillion dollars. To me, that's a bad thing.
It is interesting to see what the economists think is important to the economy. I was a bit surprised that the debt is gaining ground (28% ranked it 8-10 in importance). I'd much rather see the country acting like a business wrt debt - you have to rest your line of credit at least once every (n) years to keep in good standing. I can see lots of reasons to have a debt, but very little reason to have it expanding so quickly with no plan to retire it.
No, you see there's this "governmental" organization which, while funded by the taxpayer, could waste far more money every year than they could ever hope to get from the US congress. Apparently $20B doesn't go as far as it used to. So instead of getting rid of expensive luxuries, they decided that they could make a few more dollars by selling some of these patent rights. Oh, sure, they could just release them to the public, but then they wouldn't benefit form them.
You see, NASA is no longer a truly "governmental" organization. It's a corporate welfare organization which hands over most of the tax dollars it gets to contractors who spend the money to make sure there's enough work to go around for all their employees. As, quite honestly, they should. They're corporations. The problem is that congress is complicit, as the money they dump into the corporations is really funneling money back into their own districts. That's one reason that NASA installations are spread far and wide. You have to make sure that if you're going to spend a lot of money, everybody get a share.
Think of it as playing golf, and once you get to the green, everybody agrees to pick up their putts instead of putting them. As long as everyone gets to cheat the system a bit, everybody agrees. Of course, golf is a gentlemens game, so such tomfoolery is against the rules. But in congress it is (pardon the expression) par for the course.
No, if we really wanted an efficient NASA, we'd fire all the contractors, hire the best talent, and keep them busy on projects of scientific importance. A few percent of idle hours as projects shift focus is trivial compared to the money wasted on contracts and contract administration. Of course, we'd also scrap manned spaceflight for the time being. Oh, we wouldn't have to get rid of it - it could be part of a new jobs program for top test pilots and well-spoken PhDs who like scuba, physical fitness, and flying private aircraft. Don't get me wrong; manned spaceflight is one of the coolest things on (or beyond) earth, and I wanted to be an astronaut too. It just seems to be a shame to funnel so much of NASAs resources into a poorly managed program which only gets off the ground a half dozen times a year. I say hire the best and brigthest to really develop the next generation and hire new kids to fly the ships when you get there. If Storey Musgrave is still around, you can put him as head of the new department. Oh, and don't hire anybody from Thiokol...they appear to believe that any new space vehicle should have a pair of SRBs strapped to it.
I should preface this by saying "just my opinion"
By decrypting a DVD to watch it, you must adhere to the requirements of the access controls. If you remove the encryption, which is effectively required to copy the movie to the hard drive(1), you've circumvented the access controls. It's perfectly legal to do so if it is covered under fair use. Its perfectly illegal to do so for, or on behalf of, someone else - i.e. your end user. Personally, I don't give a shit, and am just glad that Slysoft has chosen to provide the software off shore so that those of us who would prefer not to have shelves of DVDs in the living room can put together a server. I also think that making something legal, but then making it impossible for nearly the entire population, as just bad faith on the part of legislators. Though I won't say he's perfect, I'm proud that Rick Boucher (D-VA) is my representative in congress.
(1) You're correct that someone could read the key on the disc and record both the key and the encrypted data to the hard drive, then (in theory) use the key on the fly to decrypt the data. That would be, by my reading, allowable, provided that the licensee of the software for playback was within their licensing restrictions to play back data in that manner. I don't know whether either of the two conditions exist in this case.
That was ny thought. $20/hr? Hell, I live in the middle of nowhere, and if these were really people who knew the ins and outs of windows they'd have to pay twice that. Of course, if the goal is to have someone who can memorize the CS support line script instead of reading it off the screen into the phone, then you can probably find some out of work actors (are there any other kind?) who will shill for $20/hr.
Hell, I don't think I'd let anyone making $20/hr touch my windows boxes. They're fragile enough as it is.
By plain reading of the law, you may not assist anyone, in any way in circumventing DRM...
No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
A and B are pretty clear, regardless of C. You might argue that the primary purpose is convenience, but since it could also be argued that convenience explicitly requires circumvention that may be shaky ground. I haven't heard of a test case in this, as nobody has been willing to put their corporate butt on the line yet.
Now, this doesn't mean that making the copy is illegal, as the DMCA does _not_ take away any rights generally considered to be fair use.
Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this titl
So you are free to make any copies for personal use which would have been allowed prior to the DMCA, regardless of DRM. The catch is that nobody can help you without running afoul of the law - which means you have to break the encryption yourself and code the decrypter yourself. It's like locking you in a steel cage and telling you that you can leave any time you want, you just have to get out all by yourself.
10,000 years after humans destroy themselves in full up nuclear war, you'll find the parts made of MP35N lying at the bottom of the ocean. It'll be the only thing that's still shiny.
As for stronger steel; nobody in the building industry really cares. It might be nice for the nuclear industry, but I don't expect it to transition back to the original use. The problem with "stronger" is that most metals get more brittle. That's a bad thing in seismic regions, where the hysteresis of a ductile joint is used to mitigate the damage in a structure. The other problem is cost. High performance materials (and there are lots of them) generally are a significant premium over A992/A36 steel. Most owners would use bamboo and baling twine if the building code let them get away with it, if it mean being able to put marble in all the restrooms. (Oh, they'll say they want it done right, until they get the cost estimate. Then they decide they'll just do the minimum.)
While I can't argue that some idiots have laptops for desktops (which, in general, is more power conscious, as laptops generally run on less juice than a desktop), many people actually need laptops to work on, or use them in places where there just isn't power. Sure, I plug mine in everyday at work - I'm typing on it while it's in the docking station right now - it syncs to the network every day and I take it with me home to do work/play there. I also take it on travel to work remotely. When I'm in the field, if I have time between appointments I type up reports and download images from my digital camera. Sure, I could leave the truck running, but it seems a bit wasteful to run an 8 cylinder gasoline engine for a 90watt laptop. When I'm stuck in an airport I (1) don't want to have to find a seat neat an outlet and (2) would rather not lug my power adapter on the plane. Number 2 was hammered home on a recent pleasure trip when my wife took her laptop with an extended battery (Dell 420 something, very lightweight) and I did about an hours worth of word processing at the gate plus some surfing, then my daughter (and I) watched two 90 minute movies during the flight, and the battery still had about 35-40% remaining. I would have been reaching for the power brick or an extra battery if I'd taken my M70.
I want more life - as much as possible - and having the option of long runtime without cords can be quite useful. If I carry a kilo of powerbrick or a kilo of battery, I'm still carrying the same amount. If I'm only going to be gone for [24h runtime], I can just leave the cord - and the search for an outlet - at home.
Yes, but the text is often extremely variable. I am considering a patent on a device which uses the energy from the actual keystrokes to power the machine, and provide a crisp, easily readable output on normal paper. I found one of these up in the attic of my house, but I'm sure that if I apply for the patent with words like "internet" and a few possible business methods I can can get it approved. It also makes a very cool clackety-clack sound while typing, a bit reminiscent of the old IBM model M, but louder. I guarantee all the typing geeks will have to have one. I'm going to make a mint!
... that a jackalope is easily recognizable from his debut in Pixar's Boundin' short.
You do realize that displacement = weight, right? It can't be any other way - a static ship displaces _exactly_ it's weight in fluid, and the weight of displaced air is negligible, which just leaves water. Now, I'll grant you that some of the weight may be ballast at a low cost, but some of that weight is going to be electronics...which is pretty darned expensive per pound.
Same reason the original blink made it to HTML - because the can. Reminds you a lot of the Jurassic Park line..."they> were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
...I actually RTFA. And I still think it's ridiculous.
Each of these ships weighs 300 tonnes (which I presume is close enough to a ton for engineering), or 600,000lbs. You're telling me you can build a ship for $5 a pound? I call bullshit. Steel is one of the least expensive materials, and raw steel is running close to $1/lb delivered, with absolutely zero fabrication, zero assembly, zero testing, zero commissioning, and zero operation. There's no way you can build a durable, seagoing ship for $5/lb.
Second...what powers these things? Oh, sure they use rotating sails. Bullshit. That was scrapped long ago. It has all the drawbacks of powered propulsion (you have to spin them with motors) and all the drawbacks of sails (if there is no wind, you have to propulsion). Every first year aero engineering student learns about these things.
No, even if the concept works (which is, imho, questionable), I predict it will cost at least an order of magnitude greater than planned. Why not spend the money to advance solar collection techniques and battery/storage technology to avoid both the CO2 problem with fossil fuels, and the inherent limits to fossil fuel usage?
The sibling post is correct about wear leveling causing a shrinking drive rather than a full sized drive which suddenly fails. I suppose its possible that they're lying about it, but there doesn't seem to be much outcry in other flash devices which use the technology.
Besides, these things have 10^7 or better write cycles if I'm reading the write endurance correctly. To put it in perspective, you probably can't burn one of these things out in 5 years, no matter how hard you try. You could just write the usenet to it continuously and not see any performance degradation for a couple of years. I'm getting numbers in the 0.5 to 2.5 Petabyte range for write capacity.
Have you seen Wall-E? It's not that bad. Yet.
Hell, 8 track is still the only format I have my Bee Gees Greatest Hits in. All I can say is thank goodness I no longer own an 8 track player.
A million dollars isn't what it used to be. It's easy to be a "millionaire," but for most people who get there, it takes many years - often decades. Frittering away 6% of your net worth on something like this doesn't really seem like a good expenditure. Now, if you happen to have a 7 or 8 figure annual salary and the likelihood of that continuing for the foreseeable future, this might come in handy when you visit your house on the island your own in the carribean.
Not really. Bypassing digital rights management is prohibited _except_ as provided for fair use (and a select few other uses). What's prohibited is for anyone else to help you in any way to crack the DRM yourself. So you don't lose your rights to fair use, they just prevent nearly everyone from exercising their rights by making the hurdle to use nearly insurmountable (personally cracking the system and coding the decryption software from scratch). The good thing is that it's not illegal to use someone else measure, just that it is illegal to provide such a measure. That's how Slysoft gets away with it (anydvd and anydvdhd, both of which decrypt content quite well) - they're located in Antigua. They can't sell it to you in the united states, but it is perfectly legal to buy it. Since Antigua and the US have been involved in a monumental pissing match of late, they aren't interested in helping enforce any US laws.