Why so hostile? The prices were "not pulled out my ass" but sample prices from a supplier of panels. You could have said something a little bit less rude such as "I think you're incorrect, we can get panels in Germany for this price here" instead of making a mindless flame that makes you look like an asshat.
It would be nice, except for the cost. I bet a 120 watt solar panel costs around AU$1000 in volume. Even in a sunny place you're going to want at the bare minimum 10 of those panels per kilowatt you need, so by the time you're done you're going to be spending $200,000 on solar panels to run your house.
The trouble with solar is it's ruinously expensive. The surface area required generally isn't a problem for a house (use the roof), but when a solar panel costs £450 (about US $700) for a 120 watt panel, to actually get enough solar panel to do something like run your home becomes fantastically expensive. You'd need at least twice (preferably three times) the solar capacity that you actually use in many places, so you can store enough during the day for the night, and not be without power on a cloudy day. Just to run your desktop computer and monitor, realistically you'd need three of those 120 watt panels to avoid frequent power shortages. Even if the panels were half the price they are now, it would still be so expensive it would never actually pay back (monetarily - apparently the energy payback for a solar panel is about 6 years, and solar panels are typically guaranteed for 25 years) compared to just buying power from the electricity company.
The wishful thinking is that now ATi are owned by AMD, they might produce 3D hardware which they publish the hardware interface so we can ave open source graphics drivers. But I'm sure it'll never happen.
Well, for Microsoft to make money is about as difficult as falling off a log - they get paid for virtually every PC sold by default. Add all the PCs sold in a quarter, and that's a lot of money - Microsoft basically have a license to print money.
Google on the other hand actually have to compete to get paid.
Yahoo isn't that major as a music seller. eMusic is bigger (it's the second largest online music seller after the iTunes Music Store), and all music that eMusic sells is DRM-free - your download from eMusic is a plain MP3 file.
Since the US more or less uses 100% of the total oil it gets, if the Middle East oil went away, you'd immediately have a huge shortfall. This would make fuel prices in the US rocket - until the price causes a reduction in demand by 20%.
I suspect that a loss of 20% of the oil and the consequent increase in fuel prices would cause a very severe economic impact - so yes, the US *is* reliant on that oil. Unless the US can do without 20% of its oil tomorrow with no consequences, then it's reliant on it.
A large proportion of break-ins (particularly malware type break-ins) are not due to malice: quite often they are because a contractor/employee brought in their personal malware infested laptop and saw fit to connect it to the corporate network. Nearly all the problems I've seen on company networks are not due to malice but due to people doing silly things like this.
A huge number of corporate network problems can be solved just by keeping the honest people honest with things like MAC address approval.
*IF* Microsoft bundle Virtual PC with Windows, then yes - then they are abusing their monopoly. But if they don't - then no, I don't think they are; they are merely following the market leader (VMWare).
I agree with you on the house (and a mortgage tends to be long term, reasonably predictable, and is a necessity: you either rent or get a mortgage, and in the long run if you're going to be staying in one area, getting a mortgage is cheaper than renting and you get to keep the asset at the end).
However, on cars: there is no necessity at all to borrow money for a car. Buy a cheap second hand car if you don't have that much money. Cars are a terrible thing to buy on credit - not only do you have the interest payments, but a new car loses thousands in depreciation just being driven off the lot, and then continues to depreciate heavily for ever more. The extra maintenance costs of buying an older car are way less than the depreciation of a new car let alone the interest on a loan. Additionally, you can insure an older car liability only which is much cheaper than the full coverage a credit company will insist you have.
I tagged the article "wishfulthinking" - because that's what it is. The thing is those still running Windows 98 didn't really have any support to begin with, and are likely home users who haven't moved off Win98 because they don't know how to install Windows XP. Even though things like Fedora Core are really easier to install than Windows these days, most people running Win98 probably have absolutely no interest in learning how to use even an easy-to-use desktop Linux distro.
It will likely be a decade before Linux on the desktop gets even the marketshare that Apple has now - there are just too many impediments (like proprietary codecs) to keep even the clueful from switching, let alone the typical person who still uses Win98 on a daily basis.
Citing ANY encyclopaedia (whether it's Britannica or BillyBob's World Tome) should be academic suicide. That is not what an encyclopaedia is for. An encyclopaedia is good as a STARTING POINT only. It doesn't matter who's it is - an encyclopaedia is NOT for academic research.
No, there's an easy way of avoiding the moderation groupthink mod-down. If you are about to express an unpopular (but reasoned) opinion, just preface your message with "I bet I get modded down for this, but...". Works every time, because mods feel they must mod the post up to avoid accusations of moderator groupthink.
If you are exposed to the vacuum of space, your blood doesn't boil and your lungs don't explode. You lose consciousness in around 9 to 12 seconds (because your lungs work in reverse at no or very low pressures) but the skin is strong enough and your cardiovascular system remains pressurized so long as you are still alive.
You'll already be dead by the time your body freezes/overheats.
I think that article overestimates the time of useful consciousness. If you quickly lose pressure in an aircraft at 40,000 feet, the time of useful consciousness is only around 12 seconds.
The trouble is it's not until the oxygen is used up in the blood (like someone trying to suffocate you at sea level), but when the pressure is that low (or in the case of space, a vacuum) your lungs work in reverse - they actually *pull* oxygen out of your bloodstream.
No encyclopaedia should appear in your references for an academic paper whether it's Britannica or Wikipedia. However, there's nothing wrong with using one to START your research into a specific subject: encyclopaedias are great places to start but really shouldn't be used as a reference: not because it might be inaccurate, but because that's not what it's there for!
If we survive (by I mean survive - not the mere existence of humans scratching out a living, but a technological society of some description) in the long term, it will be purely by luck.
Take the current issues: the possibility of cheap oil running out, and climate change.
Unfortunately we're not a hive mind. It takes individual actions to actually address these issues. People whine about climate change, and how the US isn't in $INSERT_TREATY_HERE - when they aren't personally prepared to sign up to their own personal Kyoto.
The trouble is this: you can give up your car and make a difference that is so small it's simply impossible to measure - but at the same time take a MASSIVE degradation in lifestyle, or continue driving. In this car example, everyone has to give up at once. But since we're not a hive mind it won't happen, and people just won't do it on an individual basis because they know it doesn't matter unless everyone else does it at the same time.
We may get lucky. The price in oil may increase at a rate where it doesn't simply cause economic collapse, but instead results in market forces that cause people to seek alternatives. We might not get lucky, and the economy might collapse in ruins and take with it our technological society. The trouble is we are no more in control of our destiny than a dog on this scale because we're not a hive mind and won't all simultaneously change our lifestyles to address oncoming problems.
We may get lucky on climate change - the world may get warmer and wetter (although it'll suck for Bangladesh, and undoubtedly Africa will take it in the shorts as it always does) and agriculture may become more productive. Or we might get unlucky and things get hotter and dryer. The thing is we're not willing to do anything worthwhile to address the problem - because people aren't willing to do anything about it on an individual level. People aren't even motivated to do really easy things that don't even impact their lifestyle.
On a point of pedantry, the vast majority of broadband users use modems, too. ADSL and cable still needs modulation/demodulation of the signal - hence ADSL modem and cable modem. Broadband routers are just a switch, router and modem all stuffed in one box.
No, Microsoft will do what it usually does: not actually develop something, but buy a company that already is in the market they are trying to enter. It's a typical Microsoft business method right from the days of MS-DOS.
The other ISPs are also recording your browsing habits (note: only 1 b in 'habit') - so whether you use Google or not as an ISP, your browsing habits will still come back to bite you if you're doing any browsing that is likely to do that sort of thing.
So far, unlike the big ISPs, Google has fought the Government in court when it comes to giving up records. Other companies just say "Here you are FBI, here's all the records no problem".
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Why so hostile? The prices were "not pulled out my ass" but sample prices from a supplier of panels. You could have said something a little bit less rude such as "I think you're incorrect, we can get panels in Germany for this price here" instead of making a mindless flame that makes you look like an asshat.
It would be nice, except for the cost. I bet a 120 watt solar panel costs around AU$1000 in volume. Even in a sunny place you're going to want at the bare minimum 10 of those panels per kilowatt you need, so by the time you're done you're going to be spending $200,000 on solar panels to run your house.
Radiant COLD? No such thing.
The trouble with solar is it's ruinously expensive. The surface area required generally isn't a problem for a house (use the roof), but when a solar panel costs £450 (about US $700) for a 120 watt panel, to actually get enough solar panel to do something like run your home becomes fantastically expensive. You'd need at least twice (preferably three times) the solar capacity that you actually use in many places, so you can store enough during the day for the night, and not be without power on a cloudy day. Just to run your desktop computer and monitor, realistically you'd need three of those 120 watt panels to avoid frequent power shortages. Even if the panels were half the price they are now, it would still be so expensive it would never actually pay back (monetarily - apparently the energy payback for a solar panel is about 6 years, and solar panels are typically guaranteed for 25 years) compared to just buying power from the electricity company.
The wishful thinking is that now ATi are owned by AMD, they might produce 3D hardware which they publish the hardware interface so we can ave open source graphics drivers. But I'm sure it'll never happen.
Well, for Microsoft to make money is about as difficult as falling off a log - they get paid for virtually every PC sold by default. Add all the PCs sold in a quarter, and that's a lot of money - Microsoft basically have a license to print money.
Google on the other hand actually have to compete to get paid.
Yahoo isn't that major as a music seller. eMusic is bigger (it's the second largest online music seller after the iTunes Music Store), and all music that eMusic sells is DRM-free - your download from eMusic is a plain MP3 file.
There will still be plenty of tire roar, it'll hardly be silent.
Since the US more or less uses 100% of the total oil it gets, if the Middle East oil went away, you'd immediately have a huge shortfall. This would make fuel prices in the US rocket - until the price causes a reduction in demand by 20%.
I suspect that a loss of 20% of the oil and the consequent increase in fuel prices would cause a very severe economic impact - so yes, the US *is* reliant on that oil. Unless the US can do without 20% of its oil tomorrow with no consequences, then it's reliant on it.
A large proportion of break-ins (particularly malware type break-ins) are not due to malice: quite often they are because a contractor/employee brought in their personal malware infested laptop and saw fit to connect it to the corporate network. Nearly all the problems I've seen on company networks are not due to malice but due to people doing silly things like this.
A huge number of corporate network problems can be solved just by keeping the honest people honest with things like MAC address approval.
*IF* Microsoft bundle Virtual PC with Windows, then yes - then they are abusing their monopoly. But if they don't - then no, I don't think they are; they are merely following the market leader (VMWare).
What about nerdy marine biologists, you insensitive clod!
I agree with you on the house (and a mortgage tends to be long term, reasonably predictable, and is a necessity: you either rent or get a mortgage, and in the long run if you're going to be staying in one area, getting a mortgage is cheaper than renting and you get to keep the asset at the end).
However, on cars: there is no necessity at all to borrow money for a car. Buy a cheap second hand car if you don't have that much money. Cars are a terrible thing to buy on credit - not only do you have the interest payments, but a new car loses thousands in depreciation just being driven off the lot, and then continues to depreciate heavily for ever more. The extra maintenance costs of buying an older car are way less than the depreciation of a new car let alone the interest on a loan. Additionally, you can insure an older car liability only which is much cheaper than the full coverage a credit company will insist you have.
I tagged the article "wishfulthinking" - because that's what it is. The thing is those still running Windows 98 didn't really have any support to begin with, and are likely home users who haven't moved off Win98 because they don't know how to install Windows XP. Even though things like Fedora Core are really easier to install than Windows these days, most people running Win98 probably have absolutely no interest in learning how to use even an easy-to-use desktop Linux distro.
It will likely be a decade before Linux on the desktop gets even the marketshare that Apple has now - there are just too many impediments (like proprietary codecs) to keep even the clueful from switching, let alone the typical person who still uses Win98 on a daily basis.
Citing ANY encyclopaedia (whether it's Britannica or BillyBob's World Tome) should be academic suicide. That is not what an encyclopaedia is for. An encyclopaedia is good as a STARTING POINT only. It doesn't matter who's it is - an encyclopaedia is NOT for academic research.
No, there's an easy way of avoiding the moderation groupthink mod-down. If you are about to express an unpopular (but reasoned) opinion, just preface your message with "I bet I get modded down for this, but...". Works every time, because mods feel they must mod the post up to avoid accusations of moderator groupthink.
If you are exposed to the vacuum of space, your blood doesn't boil and your lungs don't explode. You lose consciousness in around 9 to 12 seconds (because your lungs work in reverse at no or very low pressures) but the skin is strong enough and your cardiovascular system remains pressurized so long as you are still alive.
You'll already be dead by the time your body freezes/overheats.
I think that article overestimates the time of useful consciousness. If you quickly lose pressure in an aircraft at 40,000 feet, the time of useful consciousness is only around 12 seconds.
The trouble is it's not until the oxygen is used up in the blood (like someone trying to suffocate you at sea level), but when the pressure is that low (or in the case of space, a vacuum) your lungs work in reverse - they actually *pull* oxygen out of your bloodstream.
No encyclopaedia should appear in your references for an academic paper whether it's Britannica or Wikipedia. However, there's nothing wrong with using one to START your research into a specific subject: encyclopaedias are great places to start but really shouldn't be used as a reference: not because it might be inaccurate, but because that's not what it's there for!
Why did she have the chairs chained together? It wasn't like Steve Balmer was going to be there!
If we survive (by I mean survive - not the mere existence of humans scratching out a living, but a technological society of some description) in the long term, it will be purely by luck.
Take the current issues: the possibility of cheap oil running out, and climate change.
Unfortunately we're not a hive mind. It takes individual actions to actually address these issues. People whine about climate change, and how the US isn't in $INSERT_TREATY_HERE - when they aren't personally prepared to sign up to their own personal Kyoto.
The trouble is this: you can give up your car and make a difference that is so small it's simply impossible to measure - but at the same time take a MASSIVE degradation in lifestyle, or continue driving. In this car example, everyone has to give up at once. But since we're not a hive mind it won't happen, and people just won't do it on an individual basis because they know it doesn't matter unless everyone else does it at the same time.
We may get lucky. The price in oil may increase at a rate where it doesn't simply cause economic collapse, but instead results in market forces that cause people to seek alternatives. We might not get lucky, and the economy might collapse in ruins and take with it our technological society. The trouble is we are no more in control of our destiny than a dog on this scale because we're not a hive mind and won't all simultaneously change our lifestyles to address oncoming problems.
We may get lucky on climate change - the world may get warmer and wetter (although it'll suck for Bangladesh, and undoubtedly Africa will take it in the shorts as it always does) and agriculture may become more productive. Or we might get unlucky and things get hotter and dryer. The thing is we're not willing to do anything worthwhile to address the problem - because people aren't willing to do anything about it on an individual level. People aren't even motivated to do really easy things that don't even impact their lifestyle.
On a point of pedantry, the vast majority of broadband users use modems, too. ADSL and cable still needs modulation/demodulation of the signal - hence ADSL modem and cable modem. Broadband routers are just a switch, router and modem all stuffed in one box.
No, Microsoft will do what it usually does: not actually develop something, but buy a company that already is in the market they are trying to enter. It's a typical Microsoft business method right from the days of MS-DOS.
If this site was pro-Microsoft or neutral, it wouldn't really be Slashdot would it? It'd have to be renamed Cee Colon Backslash.
The other ISPs are also recording your browsing habits (note: only 1 b in 'habit') - so whether you use Google or not as an ISP, your browsing habits will still come back to bite you if you're doing any browsing that is likely to do that sort of thing.
So far, unlike the big ISPs, Google has fought the Government in court when it comes to giving up records. Other companies just say "Here you are FBI, here's all the records no problem".