That explains a lot about the abombination that is the Win32 API - it always felt like it was designed by two dozen different teams who never spoke to each other. I guess that there must be at least a kernel of truth to that supposition.
I like aspects of the 80s too, the technology, at least the computers, were a lot of fun. They were simple enough you could understand them pretty much entirely, you could actually get down to the bare iron and not be wrapped up in 15 layers of abstraction, even proprietary software was somewhat open - you had books like "The Complete Spectrum ROM disassembly" - a complete and well commented listing of the entire machine OS - imagine if someone tried to do that with Windows - firstly, you'd need something the size of Britannica, and secondly you'd be sued to smithereens within milliseconds of thinking of the idea.
I don't really see the iPad as a "personal computer", but an appliance, a bit like a washing machine or a microwave oven (although that may be pushing it because the iPad does a bit more than "just wash clothes" or just "toast" or whatever). But it's clearly pitched as a consumer appliance, rather than a general purpose computer.
Battery recharge time is less of an issue than getting the electricity to the cars without a huge power infrastructure upgrade (nationwide).
To give you an idea of what needs to happen, I live in an island with a population of 80,000. There are probably 35,000 vehicles on the road. We have a combined cycle gas turbine power station of 35MWe capacity, and a waste incinerator that generates another 7MWe. Considering the longest return journey you can make here is only about 80 miles or so, it would be pretty practical to have an electric car.
Consider a battery pack that holds 60kWh (not unreasonable for a small electric vehicle) that can be charged in 5 minutes, that is, each charger is going to want to draw at least 720kW. It only takes 58 people charging their cars simultaneously to *completely exhaust* all of the island's *total* generating capacity. Of course people like things like the lights to be on, their computers to work etc. so with the current generating capacity, in reality only about 5 to 10 people can ever charge their cars at any one time. There's usually that many cars at any one time during the day at any island filling station. We would need something like four or five times the generating capacity, and it would have to be very "throttleable" to track demand, so it would all have to be gas turbine. Forget nuclear or wind.
Cars tend to sit most of the day, and have hours and hours available to sit charging. It would be far better to have many slow charging stations in car parks and at homes to charge vehicles overnight when demand is low and there's capacity to spare, and this would fit in very well with nuclear power generation. Better still, have a standard battery form factor and battery exchange stations, so you still get a quick "fill up", but without having to draw ridiculous amounts of current off the grid.
Why does Firefox need to carry the codec at all? Why not just use the installed system libraries to play h.264 video? Then it ceases to be Mozilla's problem.
As an experiment, about a year ago I installed Ubuntu on my PC (complete with proprietary nvidia 3D card), to see if I could:
* set it up so I could install 3D games * set it up to play MP3 files * set it up to play DVDs and random MP4 videos * do the common usery things (read email, browse the web, play YouTube videos)
without using the command line.
The experiment showed it was entirely possible, and indeed - easy. Much easier than installing Windows. Even the nvidia driver installed over the net - Ubuntu simply prompted me "Do you want to install the proprietary nvidia drivers?" after first boot.
Linux doesn't have a "continued dependence on the command line" at least for anything a normal user does. If you complain that administration needs a command line, it does on Windows as well - there are many tasks on Windows Server that can only be accomplished via the command line and enough things on the Windows desktop that at least need hacking the registry.
Perhaps 5 years ago this criticism was valid, but it's not now with supported hardware.
Avgas is less energy dense than normal car fuel (only slightly). The only special thing about avgas is that it is nominally 100 octane, and it still contains tetraethyl lead (its proper name is 100LL - 100 low lead, although "LL" is relative - it has about 4 times the amount of lead as car fuel did when it still contained lead - 100LL has much less lead than 130 octane avgas, which is no longer made).
Actually, there is little or no fear factor when you're that high up - the ground looks so far away as to be pretty unthreatening. There's a lot more fear response from being close to the ground, but just high enough to kill you - say 30 or 40 feet.
I used to ride a lot in Houston (Clear Lake area). Although people sounding their horns occasionally was a problem, I never had anything thrown at me or any deliberate attempt at an assault. We used to do three 30 mile rides during week days, and a longer ride on Saturdays.
However, I left Houston in 2002. Perhaps it got worse. (At the best of times, Houston resembles a fire ants nest that has been kicked over, with angry fire ants running around all over the place).
Really? The clock is *that* intolerant on a 3 and a bit Mbps signal that a couple of mm is going to really make a difference?
Sorry - but a normal ethernet cable will be more than adequate. You're wasting your money if you spent $500 on the Denon cable - you've been had. Ensuring the PCB traces are exactly the same length isn't good engineering for this particular task, it's simply wasting your time. I simply do not believe the clock tolerance is measured in picoseconds.
Not if the condensation level is higher (which it usually is in the desert). People keep calling this the "upper atmosphere", but 2000 feet above the surface of the desert in this area is probably only 7000 AMSL which is still very firmly in the lower atmosphere.
which suggests that Microsoft's new-found eagerness to 'engage' with open source has nothing to do with a real desire to reach a pacific accommodation with free software, but is simply a way for Microsoft to fight against it from close up, and armed with inside knowledge
Who was it who said "Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer" ?
Actually, they do tend to have an online EFTPOS - we have a network of 24 *very small* (most one man) retail establishments, and all the chip&pin machines have to go online to work. They do not store any transactions themselves (the system is Barclays PDQ)
One interesting thing I found out about the TGV is the rolling stock technology is actually Spanish (a Talgo design - i.e. the one axle shared between two lightweight cars). The latest Talgo rolling stock also automatically tilts in corners without the need for gyros or hydraulics - an ingeniously simple system. Renfe has been running Talgo stock since the 1950s (the railway museum in Madrid has an example of one of the original Talgo-II sets)
Well, if you travel from Madrid to Bilbao in Spain, you have to put your bags through an X-ray (but there's no metal detector check like an airport, and the X-ray is rather faster than the airport version). However, ETA (the Basque separatists) have been fairly active of late so it's probably deter them from bombing trains.
The iPlayer streams. It takes about 0.5 seconds for your TV programme to start playing. That's certainly a lot faster than waiting many hours for something to download over BitTorrent. The iPlayer has been enormously successful, so much so many ISPs are complaining and want the BBC to pay them for all the extra bandwidth.
IMAP email (actually, IMAPS) works perfectly on my iPhone. I also have authenticated SMTP over SSL for sending - I've not had a problem with either. (I also prefer my email to be pull only - email should be something I can poll when I have time, not something that goes ping every time something arrives, so push email is a "meh" feature for me).
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It's ironic how your post accusing his post of being a straw man argument is, in itself, a straw man argument.
That explains a lot about the abombination that is the Win32 API - it always felt like it was designed by two dozen different teams who never spoke to each other. I guess that there must be at least a kernel of truth to that supposition.
I like aspects of the 80s too, the technology, at least the computers, were a lot of fun. They were simple enough you could understand them pretty much entirely, you could actually get down to the bare iron and not be wrapped up in 15 layers of abstraction, even proprietary software was somewhat open - you had books like "The Complete Spectrum ROM disassembly" - a complete and well commented listing of the entire machine OS - imagine if someone tried to do that with Windows - firstly, you'd need something the size of Britannica, and secondly you'd be sued to smithereens within milliseconds of thinking of the idea.
That's why they don't and never have used potentiometers for the car's throttle.
I don't really see the iPad as a "personal computer", but an appliance, a bit like a washing machine or a microwave oven (although that may be pushing it because the iPad does a bit more than "just wash clothes" or just "toast" or whatever). But it's clearly pitched as a consumer appliance, rather than a general purpose computer.
And no, I won't be getting one.
You can't recycle oil (once burned, it's difficult to do anything with the CO2 liberated). However, you can recycle battery packs containing lithium.
Since when has South America been a country?
Battery recharge time is less of an issue than getting the electricity to the cars without a huge power infrastructure upgrade (nationwide).
To give you an idea of what needs to happen, I live in an island with a population of 80,000. There are probably 35,000 vehicles on the road. We have a combined cycle gas turbine power station of 35MWe capacity, and a waste incinerator that generates another 7MWe. Considering the longest return journey you can make here is only about 80 miles or so, it would be pretty practical to have an electric car.
Consider a battery pack that holds 60kWh (not unreasonable for a small electric vehicle) that can be charged in 5 minutes, that is, each charger is going to want to draw at least 720kW. It only takes 58 people charging their cars simultaneously to *completely exhaust* all of the island's *total* generating capacity. Of course people like things like the lights to be on, their computers to work etc. so with the current generating capacity, in reality only about 5 to 10 people can ever charge their cars at any one time. There's usually that many cars at any one time during the day at any island filling station. We would need something like four or five times the generating capacity, and it would have to be very "throttleable" to track demand, so it would all have to be gas turbine. Forget nuclear or wind.
Cars tend to sit most of the day, and have hours and hours available to sit charging. It would be far better to have many slow charging stations in car parks and at homes to charge vehicles overnight when demand is low and there's capacity to spare, and this would fit in very well with nuclear power generation. Better still, have a standard battery form factor and battery exchange stations, so you still get a quick "fill up", but without having to draw ridiculous amounts of current off the grid.
Why does Firefox need to carry the codec at all? Why not just use the installed system libraries to play h.264 video? Then it ceases to be Mozilla's problem.
As an experiment, about a year ago I installed Ubuntu on my PC (complete with proprietary nvidia 3D card), to see if I could:
* set it up so I could install 3D games
* set it up to play MP3 files
* set it up to play DVDs and random MP4 videos
* do the common usery things (read email, browse the web, play YouTube videos)
without using the command line.
The experiment showed it was entirely possible, and indeed - easy. Much easier than installing Windows. Even the nvidia driver installed over the net - Ubuntu simply prompted me "Do you want to install the proprietary nvidia drivers?" after first boot.
Linux doesn't have a "continued dependence on the command line" at least for anything a normal user does. If you complain that administration needs a command line, it does on Windows as well - there are many tasks on Windows Server that can only be accomplished via the command line and enough things on the Windows desktop that at least need hacking the registry.
Perhaps 5 years ago this criticism was valid, but it's not now with supported hardware.
Avgas is less energy dense than normal car fuel (only slightly). The only special thing about avgas is that it is nominally 100 octane, and it still contains tetraethyl lead (its proper name is 100LL - 100 low lead, although "LL" is relative - it has about 4 times the amount of lead as car fuel did when it still contained lead - 100LL has much less lead than 130 octane avgas, which is no longer made).
Actually, there is little or no fear factor when you're that high up - the ground looks so far away as to be pretty unthreatening. There's a lot more fear response from being close to the ground, but just high enough to kill you - say 30 or 40 feet.
I used to ride a lot in Houston (Clear Lake area). Although people sounding their horns occasionally was a problem, I never had anything thrown at me or any deliberate attempt at an assault. We used to do three 30 mile rides during week days, and a longer ride on Saturdays.
However, I left Houston in 2002. Perhaps it got worse. (At the best of times, Houston resembles a fire ants nest that has been kicked over, with angry fire ants running around all over the place).
The police weren't trawling Twitter: according to the article in The Independent, a "friend" grassed him up.
Really? The clock is *that* intolerant on a 3 and a bit Mbps signal that a couple of mm is going to really make a difference?
Sorry - but a normal ethernet cable will be more than adequate. You're wasting your money if you spent $500 on the Denon cable - you've been had. Ensuring the PCB traces are exactly the same length isn't good engineering for this particular task, it's simply wasting your time. I simply do not believe the clock tolerance is measured in picoseconds.
Not if the condensation level is higher (which it usually is in the desert). People keep calling this the "upper atmosphere", but 2000 feet above the surface of the desert in this area is probably only 7000 AMSL which is still very firmly in the lower atmosphere.
It also seems to be used as punctuation by some people - putting "lol" where a full stop usually may be found...
I don't understand the whole 72 virgins thing. Wouldn't 72 experienced women be better? (apologies to Old Harry's Game)
Who was it who said "Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer" ?
Sorry, mail order brides are from *Russia*, not China or Japan...
Actually, they do tend to have an online EFTPOS - we have a network of 24 *very small* (most one man) retail establishments, and all the chip&pin machines have to go online to work. They do not store any transactions themselves (the system is Barclays PDQ)
One interesting thing I found out about the TGV is the rolling stock technology is actually Spanish (a Talgo design - i.e. the one axle shared between two lightweight cars). The latest Talgo rolling stock also automatically tilts in corners without the need for gyros or hydraulics - an ingeniously simple system. Renfe has been running Talgo stock since the 1950s (the railway museum in Madrid has an example of one of the original Talgo-II sets)
Well, if you travel from Madrid to Bilbao in Spain, you have to put your bags through an X-ray (but there's no metal detector check like an airport, and the X-ray is rather faster than the airport version). However, ETA (the Basque separatists) have been fairly active of late so it's probably deter them from bombing trains.
The iPlayer streams. It takes about 0.5 seconds for your TV programme to start playing. That's certainly a lot faster than waiting many hours for something to download over BitTorrent. The iPlayer has been enormously successful, so much so many ISPs are complaining and want the BBC to pay them for all the extra bandwidth.
IMAP email (actually, IMAPS) works perfectly on my iPhone. I also have authenticated SMTP over SSL for sending - I've not had a problem with either. (I also prefer my email to be pull only - email should be something I can poll when I have time, not something that goes ping every time something arrives, so push email is a "meh" feature for me).