For my house, A/C is by far the biggest chomper of energy. During the summer months my electric bill gets as high as $270, and during the winter it gets as low as $70. Not only that, but on hot (97 degrees f) days my upstairs never gets cooler than about 78f.
It's a fairly new house, so I can't simply replace the upstairs unit, but I think it's clear that they didn't install a large enough one. What can I do? Put another powered roof ventilator in? Add more insulation in the attic? Put a radiant barrier on the underside of my roof?
This website helps to answer these questions. It provides some analysis of the different scenarios. Dunno if the analysis is accurate or not...
The Government and the Corporations do not have a Constitutional right to privacy.
Newsflash: neither do citizens. The closest the constitution comes is this:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
So your search history is fair game, as long as its not being used for searches and seizures. I get spam to an address I used for a Western Digital hard drive rebate. My neighbors kids get credit card offers after someone bought a kids magazine in their name. Privacy in the US is a joke compared to the strong laws in some countries (Germany IIRC is a good example).
I remember an old question from grad school: Why might you add a bunch of floating point numbers starting with the smallest? The answer is because floating point decimal accuracy goes down the larger the characteristic (non-decimal) is, so add the small numbers to get a larger characteristic before you add the larger numbers in. If you add the big numbers first, adding the small numbers might not change the intermediate sum.
Of course, real-world floating point error in numerical algorithms is much more subtle. On the other hand, software engineering errors are often not subtle at all, so maybe things balance out.:)
I thought the next limiting factor for hard drive densities was the limits of physics with respect to magnetic materials? So there's no need to get perpendicular?
Tell that to John Hancock. He signed the Declaration of Independence very large, knowing that it would likely cost him his life, and yet wanting everyone to know that he was willing to run that risk.
On the other hand, a compiler fix is plausible. The idea would be to avoid generating this kind of code. I'm sure some compiler gurus can point out precedent for this sort of thing.
This is actually a hard decision for parents considering cochlear implants for their deaf children. They wonder should they implant a device now that can enable their kids to hear, even though it most likely would make future therapies involving growing of cochlear hair cells impossible.
As one follow-up poster said, the human body is intricately designed by evolution, and a hard act to beat. Unfortunately, it's also hard to figure the thing out. For parents of deaf children, they can give them something that works okay today so that they can learn to talk (during the window of language acquisition), instead of waiting for experimental therapies that are at least 10 years, and perhaps 30 or 50, from being developed for humans.
By the way, the cochlear implant really is a bionic ear. It bypasses all of the mechanical parts of the outer, middle, and inner ear. Sound hits a microphone, then gets processed by a computer, then electrical impulses directly stimulate the auditory nerve.
Re:ANYTHING has to be better...
on
Ekiga 2.0 Released
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· Score: 2, Informative
Recently I poked around to find out the state of the art for videoconferencing. The best appears to be Sightspeed. The quality is good, and they have Mac and Windows clients. Family using Windows can point IE to a webpage which downloads an ActiveX control to display video in the browser.
The free service has a 30 second limit on video mail, and only allows one-to-one conferencing.
Yes, Google will hire a mouthpiece as soon as they get tired of swimming in money. Sheesh. If the market wasn't happy with them, their stock price wouldn't be astronomical.
I'm sure that's what IBM said of OS/2, Lotus said about Ami Pro, and Netscape said about their browser. That approach only works when the playing field is fair.
So much for my resolution to never, ever respond here again.
Well, as a 10^3 userid, let me tell you, 10^4 grasshopper, that you can go silent again. I can see no point to your condescending rant. (Unlike this condescending rant.)
I disagree with people who say get an electronics kit. I seem to remember that they were a lot like legos... "Put this there" without explaining why.
I say buy an old 70's era car... Something like a Mustang or Corvette. They fix it with your kid. A lot of the techniques you use to get a car running well are just like the techniques you use to get a computer running well... Diagnosis, debugging, measuring, modifying, checking, etc.
Plus your kid will have a useful knowledge of how cars work. And when they turn 16, give it to them. They'll be a lot less likely to wreck something they've spent years to create.
In 1929, a German surgical trainee, Werner Forssmann, experimented on a human cadaver and realized how easy it was to guide a urological catheter from an arm vein into the right atrium. He went so far as to dissect the veins of his own forearm and guide a urological catheter into his right atrium using fluoroscopic control and a mirror. With the catheter in place, he walked to the x-ray room with no ill effects to have his chest x-rayed. This made Forssmann the first to document right heart catheterization in humans using radiographic techniques. In return, he was fired from his position at the hospital and won the Nobel Prize in 1956.
Yikes! I wonder if during his Nobel acceptance he gave the hospital the finger.;)
Actually, it's even worse than that. He's using a model of the world as his proof, as if the model is the world. According to that logic, Newton would say that it's possible to go faster than the speed of light.
Really it's the other way around. Perhaps one day we will be able to achieve time travel, updating the model along the way.
Over and over his answer to many questions was "we've implemented much better security processes". Then the question comes from the Microsoft employee that basically says these processes are a joke, and that "in the trenches" they are just going through the motions. Why didn't he answer the question?
If Microsoft is serious about security, they need to treat it like they treated reliability. Eventually about 50% of their resources were spent on testing. (One tester for each developer.) I'm sure that this was a battle, but eventually the developers saw the benefit and bought into it. Hopefully Microsoft will eventually devote developers exclusively to security, and in nontrivial numbers.
Asking developers to do a security review at the end of the development cycle is about as effective as asking them to do some testing at the end.
Given what Microsoft did to Netscape, what made you guys decide to enter the browser market? What made you think that you could succeed? And do you worry about the day when Opera gets enough market share to make Microsoft respond?
Slashdot Mirror
For my house, A/C is by far the biggest chomper of energy. During the summer months my electric bill gets as high as $270, and during the winter it gets as low as $70. Not only that, but on hot (97 degrees f) days my upstairs never gets cooler than about 78f.
It's a fairly new house, so I can't simply replace the upstairs unit, but I think it's clear that they didn't install a large enough one. What can I do? Put another powered roof ventilator in? Add more insulation in the attic? Put a radiant barrier on the underside of my roof?
This website helps to answer these questions. It provides some analysis of the different scenarios. Dunno if the analysis is accurate or not...
If you want to expand the number on your machine, run this:
perl -Mbignum -e 'print 2**32582657 - 1'
If it takes too long for you, you can also have perl print an approximation:
perl -e 'print 2**32582657 - 1'
It's nice to see that even mother nature's aquarium sometimes ends up looking like every aquarium I've ever owned.
Newsflash: neither do citizens. The closest the constitution comes is this:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
So your search history is fair game, as long as its not being used for searches and seizures. I get spam to an address I used for a Western Digital hard drive rebate. My neighbors kids get credit card offers after someone bought a kids magazine in their name. Privacy in the US is a joke compared to the strong laws in some countries (Germany IIRC is a good example).
I remember an old question from grad school: Why might you add a bunch of floating point numbers starting with the smallest? The answer is because floating point decimal accuracy goes down the larger the characteristic (non-decimal) is, so add the small numbers to get a larger characteristic before you add the larger numbers in. If you add the big numbers first, adding the small numbers might not change the intermediate sum. Of course, real-world floating point error in numerical algorithms is much more subtle. On the other hand, software engineering errors are often not subtle at all, so maybe things balance out. :)
What would be awesome is if Steve Jobs used the Mac's voice recognition to have it type out "Dear Aunt double the killer delete select all"
I thought the next limiting factor for hard drive densities was the limits of physics with respect to magnetic materials? So there's no need to get perpendicular?
Tell that to John Hancock. He signed the Declaration of Independence very large, knowing that it would likely cost him his life, and yet wanting everyone to know that he was willing to run that risk.
On the other hand, a compiler fix is plausible. The idea would be to avoid generating this kind of code. I'm sure some compiler gurus can point out precedent for this sort of thing.
pussy.
As one follow-up poster said, the human body is intricately designed by evolution, and a hard act to beat. Unfortunately, it's also hard to figure the thing out. For parents of deaf children, they can give them something that works okay today so that they can learn to talk (during the window of language acquisition), instead of waiting for experimental therapies that are at least 10 years, and perhaps 30 or 50, from being developed for humans.
By the way, the cochlear implant really is a bionic ear. It bypasses all of the mechanical parts of the outer, middle, and inner ear. Sound hits a microphone, then gets processed by a computer, then electrical impulses directly stimulate the auditory nerve.
Actually, algorithms + data structures + embedded specifications = correct software.
They only offer a Windows version because they are targeting the largest group of people with brain problems.
Your account just got suspended.
The free service has a 30 second limit on video mail, and only allows one-to-one conferencing.
Yes, Google will hire a mouthpiece as soon as they get tired of swimming in money. Sheesh. If the market wasn't happy with them, their stock price wouldn't be astronomical.
I'm sure that's what IBM said of OS/2, Lotus said about Ami Pro, and Netscape said about their browser. That approach only works when the playing field is fair.
I say buy an old 70's era car... Something like a Mustang or Corvette. They fix it with your kid. A lot of the techniques you use to get a car running well are just like the techniques you use to get a computer running well... Diagnosis, debugging, measuring, modifying, checking, etc.
Plus your kid will have a useful knowledge of how cars work. And when they turn 16, give it to them. They'll be a lot less likely to wreck something they've spent years to create.
Really it's the other way around. Perhaps one day we will be able to achieve time travel, updating the model along the way.
I knew it. Reading the articles on Slashdot is useless after all!
If Microsoft is serious about security, they need to treat it like they treated reliability. Eventually about 50% of their resources were spent on testing. (One tester for each developer.) I'm sure that this was a battle, but eventually the developers saw the benefit and bought into it. Hopefully Microsoft will eventually devote developers exclusively to security, and in nontrivial numbers.
Asking developers to do a security review at the end of the development cycle is about as effective as asking them to do some testing at the end.
Given what Microsoft did to Netscape, what made you guys decide to enter the browser market? What made you think that you could succeed? And do you worry about the day when Opera gets enough market share to make Microsoft respond?