LTE (E-UTRA, specifically) supports both TDD and FDD.
My current belief is that current incumbent mobile providers (excluding Sprint) will deploy LTE, while new entrants will deploy WiMAX. LTE is more expensive, but includes interoperability with the GSM family (GSM/UMTS) and the CDMA2000 family - that makes it more valuable for providers who have large existing networks.
The incumbent providers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon) already offer full Internet access, although it has low transfer caps (5GB).
It's fun to piss on the US, but Verizon appears to be taking the lead in LTE deployment, T-Mobile (US) has announced HSPA+ by the end of 2010, and AT&T serves more HSDPA customers than any other wireless provider in the world.
So, yeah, OK. Whatever. I guess I'll have to choose between two different HSDPA networks and three different CDMA2000 EV-DO networks here in the "highly populated area" of Boulder, CO.
The question is whether any of this is relevant in netbooks. The reality is Atom is crippled right now by an outdated power-hungry chipset. Typical idle power consumption on an Atom-based netbook is around 8W, which breaks out (approximately) as follows:
The problem with these ARM netbooks is that they only address the power consumption of the CPU and the chipset. Once you consider the total platform power consumption, it's more like 4W, which is half as much, not 5x less.
OK, half as much power consumption is still great. But Intel is launching a die-shrunk, lower power, integrated die-shrunk NB (it's an MCM) Atom platform this fall. Expect that to shave 2-3W off of total platform power consumption. So now ARM-based netbooks have a 1-2W advantage.
Architect weenies like to comment on how complex and awful the x86 decoder is. And you're entirely right - Intel is going to have a hell of a time trying to cram x86 into anything cellphone-sized. But in a netbook, where a 30Wh battery is perfectly reasonable given the size of the device (which is limited by the need to have a big keyboard and screen), and where other elements (storage, memory, display) are more power-hungry, the half-watt advantage you have from having a simpler ISA isn't going to matter as much.
Not to defend WinMo, which in my opinion is crap, but there has been Bluetooth PAN sharing support (basically NAT running on the phone) since at least Windows Mobile 5. My T-Mobile Dash definitely had support for it, out of the box.
Right. I was there (in 2008), and I dealt with WA-520 traffic for a summer (I lived on Avondale Rd, which turns into WA-520).
You don't take 30 buses on WA-520 and I-5 at the same time without causing a major traffic disruption. It's like trying to get 150 cars to merge, all at once. The chances of an accident are significant, which would result in hour-plus delays during rush hour. Even if everything goes smoothly, that much merging invariably disrupts traffic - that's why they have those flow control lights.
The better option is to work with the State Patrol to manage traffic. The State Patrol shuts down the highway temporarily (about 2-5 minutes), allows the buses to merge, then allows traffic to flow again. The amount of disruption is minimized.
This is done routinely for sports events, concerts, and other events that produce large traffic volumes.
Note that the State Patrol did not provide an escort *back* to Microsoft after the event I went to, nor did they provide an escort during the other intern events (baseball games and the like).
I interned for Microsoft in 2008 and for Google last summer.
At Microsoft, we got a police escort to the zoo. But, to be honest, while the story casts it as a VIP thing, it's actually set up to minimize traffic disruption.
Microsoft has 800+ interns in the Redmond area, which means about 20 buses if they need to go anywhere at once. Attempting to push 20 buses through already congested streets is a nightmare. Better to shut down the roads for a couple of minutes than risk an accident or clog up the streets.
The housing benefit isn't exactly a steal. You can share an apartment (with another MS intern) for about $600/mo, or they will give you $3000 to find housing on your own. I chose the latter.
Relocation costs are effectively plane fare plus a couple of days of car rental, or mileage if you drive.
I was offered a full-time job, but I turned it down because I was more interested in graduate school. The full time job is contingent on working for the same group that you interned with. I must admit that the package they offer is pretty tempting.
Google paid me considerably more than Microsoft. I worked in my home city (Boulder CO), so I didn't need relocation or housing. I did get to spend a week in Mountain View (paid for by Google) for orientation and training.
Google didn't have any major events in Boulder, but I'm not sure about Mountain View.
Google's interview process was considerably easier than Microsoft's, but that's because at Microsoft interns go through the full interview process (for me, two phone interviews plus 4 interviews onsite at Microsoft). Google does not offer interns full-time jobs unless they go through a conversion process that includes the full interview track.
Both Microsoft and Google had me doing real work that went into actual products. My code was reviewed, just like a normal employee. I went to meetings, had performance evaluations, and worked an 8-9 hour day, just like a normal employee.
By the way, if anyone wants to know about the interview process:
- Neither company asks 'brain-teaser' questions anymore. It's straight-up CS fundamentals, algorithms, and data structures. - I was interviewed by actual developers from the teams that I ended up working for. These people know their shit and will see through BS.
There's no magic trick or great mystery here. Either you know your shit and can get hired, or you don't and it will be apparent.
Also, why is Previous Versions not mentioned here? It's not new either, Windows Vista had the Previous Versions functionality.
Previous Versions is THE reason to use Vista (and now 7). No other OS takes delta snapshots of your disk daily (sometimes more often, like when you install software), by default, and exposes them in a user-friendly interface.
Time Machine requires a second disk, which is OK for a desktop but bad for a laptop.
There are versioning filesystems in Linux, but they are more difficult to use and aren't enabled by default on any major distro.
Previous Versions protects me from the most likely source of data loss - my own mistakes. Hard drives are unreliable, but they aren't that unreliable. I have NEVER had a disk fail on me. That doesn't mean that I don't make backups (once a week) to an external drive. But it does mean that a transparent, automatic backup to the same disk as my OS is far more useful to me than a backup that requires an external drive.
The benefit of Previous Versions is that it's on by default. You don't even have to know about it and it could still save your ass.
H-P's acquisition of COMPAQ wasn't exactly a roaring success. The only good thing that came of it was that it led to the downfall of Her Worship, La Fiorina, who viewed the acquistion as her crowning achievement, even though it led to firing 30000 people. Today the COMPAQ brand is fading away and mostly is used for inexpensive PCs.
The Compaq acquisition was a great success. Pretty much every HP PC product today has more Compaq heritage than HP heritage.
Compaq had better desktops, better laptops, and better servers than HP. Seriously, try to service (or even use) an HP Vectra or NetServer. Now go look at Compaq's products of that era.
HP dumped the Compaq brand (for the most part) and dumped HP's PC hardware.
HP is, by far, #1 in servers - thanks to Compaq's hardware. HP is #1 in desktops and #1 in laptops, again, thanks to Compaq's hardware.
Was the Compaq buyout good for HP and Compaq employees? No. Was it good for the Compaq band? No. But I don't think you can call it a failure.
1. The 'air dams' as you call them actually assist in cooling because they prevent an airflow short-circuit between the front of the case and the rear fan. Try running the 360 without them. 2. Thermal paste is meant to prevent air gaps from acting as a thermal insulator. It is substantially inferior to metal-to-metal contact. That's why thermal paste should be used sparingly. 3. Heatspreaders assist when the die is small and/or has poor thermal contact with the heatsink. They also prevent dies from being cracked due to poor heatsink installation. They are not necessary to the proper operation of a cooling system. For example, ATI GPUs and nearly all laptops do not have a heatspreader. 4. Although Microsoft owns the IP for the 360's CPU and GPU, they were primarily designed by ATI (GPU) and IBM (CPU). 5. Lead-free-solder is standard industry practice and is required if you intend on selling your product in Europe.
The reality is that the 360's problems stem from a combination of inadequate airflow, undersized heatsinks, and a GPU that expands at a different rate than the PCB. All of the other 'factors' you cite are widely and successfully used in other computer systems.
Note that many NVIDIA laptop GPUs suffered from the same issues.
I don't think that anyone is arguing that the design of the 360 was sufficient to ensure the necessary operating reliability. This was a product that was developed and released a full year before the PS3; it was rushed and there have been repercussions. But as someone who's ThinkPad T61 broke because of a defective NVIDIA GPU, let me tell you that such issues are neither unique to Microsoft nor as easy to diagnose as you seem to believe.
You're wrong on several counts. First, URL shorterners were never designed to save bandwidth. The whole idea is absurd, since you're introducing (at least) several hundred bytes of HTTP headers for the 302 redirect every time someone clicks a link.
Second, abuse is certainly an issue that I deal with. But it's perfectly managable. Spammers submit a lot of links, because many of them stop working once the message boards they've spammed take their posts down. And they submit a lot of links from the same IP, because they don't have a lot of IPs. The combination of the two makes it very easy to nail spammers (and their links) with an IP ban.
Now, if someone starts botnetting this, then we've got a problem. But the solution there is to shut down the botnets. You can never disable every service that could potentially be useful to a zombie machine.
Where URL shortening sites are useful is when URLs need to be written down or spoken. Sometimes the person who needs the URL doesn't have access to their email. Or maybe they don't want to give you their email address. Or maybe they're trying to type the address into their iPhone. Or maybe they need to put it on a poster or another printed document.
I'll say. Back when I was interacting with Siebel, the two primary interfaces were:
- Web UI that required ActiveX controls and needed to be run as admin - SOAP web services, secured either by putting the password in the URL or using a draft version of WS-Security from 2001
It FEELS like you are gaining skill at the game, which is enjoyable, but in fact your character is just tougher. You didn't learn shit.
As someone who plays on a WoW 3v3 team rated ~2350 (approx top 1%) I can tell you flat out that you do get better. You can tell who is incompetent and who is competent in raids, arenas, or BGs pretty much instantly.
Does the mage waste half his mana trying to spellsteal my buffs (only to have them dispelled instantly), or does he start right off by doing damage and waiting to nail me with counterspell in the middle of penance? Does the warrior keep MS on all of the time? Does the priest try to mana burn me while his partner is at 8k instead of healing? Does the druid let me dispel innervate? Does the warlock fear me too many times and hit DR?
The reality is that the majority of WoW players aren't very good. The fact that we beat 95% of 3v3 teams basically 100% of the time has very little to do with our gear. It has a lot to do with the fact that my 3v3 team has played 2000+ games in the last 6 months. It has a lot to do with the fact that, cumulatively, we have over 10,000 hours of playtime.
FYI, we play Druid/Rogue/Priest, not some FOTM comp.
The irony of course is the Veyron is probably better emissions wise than any 15 year old piece of shit the whining hippies drive.
So is EVERY new car on the road. Lower (smog-forming) emissions are one of the great success stories of the ecological movement. And it would never have happened if California hadn't been pressured to impose tougher standards. You can thank the "whining hippies" for that.
And you'd certainly do more damage ecologically in a Prius. (Whose toxic manufacturing processes make it an ecological disaster.)
All manufacturing produces waste, much of it toxic. Where do you think the rubber, plastics, and metal that your vehicle are made out of came from?
Unless you have specific claims about how the Prius produces additional waste compared to a similar new vehicle, I can't really refute them. Which is exactly what you want. By calling the Prius "toxic", you cast doubt without making any real assertions. That's exactly the kind of cheap tactics I'd expect from someone trashing "whining hippies".
Just bugs me to see such smug arrogance from people on here when I would have expected them to marvel at the engineering.
We're not arrogant. We're angry. Angry that such engineering talent went into solving a problem that didn't need to be solved instead of the very real problems that do need to be solved. Show me a car that's lighter and stronger than today's cars yet still cheap to manufacture. That's the kind of "impossible" problem that needs to be solved. Not how to engineer a convertible supercar.
Windows Search Helper is the indexing service. It's been there the whole time in Vista, it's there in 7, and it has absolutely nothing to do with web search.
There is ZERO chance that Windows Search Helper is messing with your Firefox search engine.
Our phones, for the most part, won't roam to Europe or Asia, but I've had people from Europe come here without any substantial problems.
Those of us with AT&T or T-Mobile have no problems. People on CDMA carriers like Sprint or Verizon do.
Verizon is starting the move to LTE in 2010, so the only major carrier left that won't be on GSM/UMTS will be Sprint.
I have never owned a mobile phone that was not GSM (now GSM/UMTS). So I'm not really sure what you're complaining about. GSM has been pretty common in the US since at least 1997. You just have to pick the right carrier.
Also the data is much less complete. Check out Google Squared's results for the escape velocities of the moons of Mars. Now check Wolfram|Alpha's. Yeah, there's a reason that WA is citable as a primary source.
You being a blatant shill for Wolfram notwithstanding, WA is not a primary source. Being a primary source means more than just not citing where you get your data (which I'll admit WA is excellent at). It means that you observed the data directly.
WA is not doing original research. It is no more an original source than a copy of Mathematica is.
Bad example, because new versions of Visual Studio are mostly written in managed code (.NET).
Java performs quite well in practice. In reality, the big problem with Java is that the UI libraries (e.g. Swing) have historically been very slow. Swing has gotten a lot faster lately, though, so this isn't as big of a deal anymore.
I find that odd coming from someone who's not very handy. If you don't want to buy the tools (iPod case tool, small screwdriver) or learn the skills to replace the battery, that's OK. But it's not Apple's fault.
New Hybrid car? no thanks I cant work on it as I cant buy the tools needed for the Electric side.
Yeah, and you never have to because it's extremely mechanically reliable. Change the oil, the air filters, and rotate (and possibly replace) the tires. That's all you have to do before 100,000 miles, and it can be done by anyone who is mechanically savvy.
He hated computer control on cars and would rip it out and switch it to a simple Fuel injection system or even Carbeurated.
The same computer control he rips out is what has lead to improved reliability, dramatically lower emissions, and more power on today's cars. The average new car has better fuel economy, is more powerful, is more reliable, cheaper, more comfortable, safer, and cleaner than even the best cars of the 1960s or 1970s.
The reality is that the majority of problems you have on a vehicle are just as easy to fix as ever. Replacing the battery is easy. Replacing tires is easy. Changing fluids is as easy as ever. Machining brakes is as easy as ever. Changing filters is as easy as ever.
Murky and Incomprehensible: Can anyone surf one of the Android sites and figure out WTF plans you actually need to run these phones and what it will cost per year? It's worse than buying a house. I'd rather try to figure out the federal deficit.
The ADB-1 is $399, has no contract, and is unlocked. It works with any GSM carrier in the world (which is most mobile carriers in the world); in the US it will work with AT&T and T-Mobile (Verizon/Sprint use CDMA2000, which is incompatible).
The ADB-1 has UMTS Band I and Band IV, which means that it will work with 3G on most worldwide carriers, and with T-Mobile in the US. AT&T uses different Band II and Band V, so in the US the ADP1 will only provide 2G (GSM/GPRS/EDGE) service with AT&T. 2G service is fine for making phone calls, texting, IMing, sending email, and other light usage, but it's obviously not as fast as 3G. Fortunately, the ADP1 also has built-in Wi-Fi.
So, bottom line - get an ADP1. No contract, no changes in your service fees. You don't even need mobile data service for development, since you can use Wi-Fi.
Risky: I keep reading these stories about people who traveled and came home to discover a phone bill larger than my annual salary. Sorry, but I am not going to risk my financial well-being to own a whizzy phone.
If you want to use your phone outside of the US, but don't want to pay the huge roaming fees, get an ADP-1 (unlocked) and switch to a prepaid SIM when you get to your destination. Prepaid GSM SIMs are all over most of the world, and they will enable you to make reasonably cheap local calls and send cheap text messages.
I don't get the people who are freaked out about huge bills with GSM roaming. If you had a CDMA phone, it wouldn't work outside of the US/Canada anyway. You can accomplish the EXACT SAME THING by leaving your GSM phone home.
Clearly you know about large roaming fees. Yet you don't seem to be willing to sidestep the issue by leaving the phone at home.
The problem is the word "appropriate". Appropriate means (m-w.com):
1. to take exclusive possession of
But you cannot take exclusive possession of "intellectual property", because it's not really property at all. In a world without scarcity, the concept of property has no meaning.
The third definition is extremely broad - winning the lottery is clearly not theft, but it clearly happens "by chance" and therefore meets the definition. So does buying a gift in secret.
I'm not here to argue that copyright infringement is acceptable. But the reality is that the rights granted to copyright holders are much more limited than the rights granted to property owners. Copyrighted works are not "property" because you can't own an intangible work. You can be granted a limited monopoly on the reproduction, exhibition/performance, and distribution of that work for a limited period of time.
Your 21st century seems a lot nicer than my 21st century. I haven't seen a flatpanel yet that in objective terms of quality comes anywhere near a CRT.
CRTs have better black levels and better colors. On the other hand, they have fussy geometry adjustments (and you can never get them as perfect as an LCD), moiré patterns, and are generally much fuzzier than LCDs.
My LCD provides a sharp, high-resolution image with low power consumption in a small package at a low price. All of those factors (sharpness, resolution, power cosumption, size, price) matter more to me than the areas where CRTs continue to lead (color reproduction, black level).
Slashdot Mirror
LTE (E-UTRA, specifically) supports both TDD and FDD.
My current belief is that current incumbent mobile providers (excluding Sprint) will deploy LTE, while new entrants will deploy WiMAX. LTE is more expensive, but includes interoperability with the GSM family (GSM/UMTS) and the CDMA2000 family - that makes it more valuable for providers who have large existing networks.
The incumbent providers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon) already offer full Internet access, although it has low transfer caps (5GB).
It's fun to piss on the US, but Verizon appears to be taking the lead in LTE deployment, T-Mobile (US) has announced HSPA+ by the end of 2010, and AT&T serves more HSDPA customers than any other wireless provider in the world.
So, yeah, OK. Whatever. I guess I'll have to choose between two different HSDPA networks and three different CDMA2000 EV-DO networks here in the "highly populated area" of Boulder, CO.
Go look at this map and then tell me that there isn't 3G coverage "outside the highly populated areas by 4-5 miles":
http://vzwmap.verizonwireless.com/dotcom/coveragelocator/images/maps/comparison_9_09.pdf
The question is whether any of this is relevant in netbooks. The reality is Atom is crippled right now by an outdated power-hungry chipset. Typical idle power consumption on an Atom-based netbook is around 8W, which breaks out (approximately) as follows:
- 0.5W CPU
- 3.5W Northbridge (i945)
- 0.5W Southbridge (ICH7)
- 0.5W DDR2
- 0.5W HDD
- 0.5W 802.11
- 2W Display
The problem with these ARM netbooks is that they only address the power consumption of the CPU and the chipset. Once you consider the total platform power consumption, it's more like 4W, which is half as much, not 5x less.
OK, half as much power consumption is still great. But Intel is launching a die-shrunk, lower power, integrated die-shrunk NB (it's an MCM) Atom platform this fall. Expect that to shave 2-3W off of total platform power consumption. So now ARM-based netbooks have a 1-2W advantage.
Architect weenies like to comment on how complex and awful the x86 decoder is. And you're entirely right - Intel is going to have a hell of a time trying to cram x86 into anything cellphone-sized. But in a netbook, where a 30Wh battery is perfectly reasonable given the size of the device (which is limited by the need to have a big keyboard and screen), and where other elements (storage, memory, display) are more power-hungry, the half-watt advantage you have from having a simpler ISA isn't going to matter as much.
Funny that you should use "Oracle" as an example of something that is not Linux.
"Oracle Database" is obviously not an operating system at all.
"Oracle Enterprise Linux", though, clearly is a Linux distro. It's a ripoff of RHEL.
Not to defend WinMo, which in my opinion is crap, but there has been Bluetooth PAN sharing support (basically NAT running on the phone) since at least Windows Mobile 5. My T-Mobile Dash definitely had support for it, out of the box.
Ben Folds was pretty awesome, especially when he ad-libbed a song for the interns.
I was in 4, which wasn't exactly brand-new. 36 was much nicer. Not as nice as 7, though.
Right. I was there (in 2008), and I dealt with WA-520 traffic for a summer (I lived on Avondale Rd, which turns into WA-520).
You don't take 30 buses on WA-520 and I-5 at the same time without causing a major traffic disruption. It's like trying to get 150 cars to merge, all at once. The chances of an accident are significant, which would result in hour-plus delays during rush hour. Even if everything goes smoothly, that much merging invariably disrupts traffic - that's why they have those flow control lights.
The better option is to work with the State Patrol to manage traffic. The State Patrol shuts down the highway temporarily (about 2-5 minutes), allows the buses to merge, then allows traffic to flow again. The amount of disruption is minimized.
This is done routinely for sports events, concerts, and other events that produce large traffic volumes.
Note that the State Patrol did not provide an escort *back* to Microsoft after the event I went to, nor did they provide an escort during the other intern events (baseball games and the like).
I interned for Microsoft in 2008 and for Google last summer.
At Microsoft, we got a police escort to the zoo. But, to be honest, while the story casts it as a VIP thing, it's actually set up to minimize traffic disruption.
Microsoft has 800+ interns in the Redmond area, which means about 20 buses if they need to go anywhere at once. Attempting to push 20 buses through already congested streets is a nightmare. Better to shut down the roads for a couple of minutes than risk an accident or clog up the streets.
The housing benefit isn't exactly a steal. You can share an apartment (with another MS intern) for about $600/mo, or they will give you $3000 to find housing on your own. I chose the latter.
Relocation costs are effectively plane fare plus a couple of days of car rental, or mileage if you drive.
I was offered a full-time job, but I turned it down because I was more interested in graduate school. The full time job is contingent on working for the same group that you interned with. I must admit that the package they offer is pretty tempting.
Google paid me considerably more than Microsoft. I worked in my home city (Boulder CO), so I didn't need relocation or housing. I did get to spend a week in Mountain View (paid for by Google) for orientation and training.
Google didn't have any major events in Boulder, but I'm not sure about Mountain View.
Google's interview process was considerably easier than Microsoft's, but that's because at Microsoft interns go through the full interview process (for me, two phone interviews plus 4 interviews onsite at Microsoft). Google does not offer interns full-time jobs unless they go through a conversion process that includes the full interview track.
Both Microsoft and Google had me doing real work that went into actual products. My code was reviewed, just like a normal employee. I went to meetings, had performance evaluations, and worked an 8-9 hour day, just like a normal employee.
By the way, if anyone wants to know about the interview process:
- Neither company asks 'brain-teaser' questions anymore. It's straight-up CS fundamentals, algorithms, and data structures.
- I was interviewed by actual developers from the teams that I ended up working for. These people know their shit and will see through BS.
There's no magic trick or great mystery here. Either you know your shit and can get hired, or you don't and it will be apparent.
Previous Versions is THE reason to use Vista (and now 7). No other OS takes delta snapshots of your disk daily (sometimes more often, like when you install software), by default, and exposes them in a user-friendly interface.
Time Machine requires a second disk, which is OK for a desktop but bad for a laptop.
There are versioning filesystems in Linux, but they are more difficult to use and aren't enabled by default on any major distro.
Previous Versions protects me from the most likely source of data loss - my own mistakes. Hard drives are unreliable, but they aren't that unreliable. I have NEVER had a disk fail on me. That doesn't mean that I don't make backups (once a week) to an external drive. But it does mean that a transparent, automatic backup to the same disk as my OS is far more useful to me than a backup that requires an external drive.
The benefit of Previous Versions is that it's on by default. You don't even have to know about it and it could still save your ass.
The Compaq acquisition was a great success. Pretty much every HP PC product today has more Compaq heritage than HP heritage.
Compaq had better desktops, better laptops, and better servers than HP. Seriously, try to service (or even use) an HP Vectra or NetServer. Now go look at Compaq's products of that era.
HP dumped the Compaq brand (for the most part) and dumped HP's PC hardware.
HP is, by far, #1 in servers - thanks to Compaq's hardware. HP is #1 in desktops and #1 in laptops, again, thanks to Compaq's hardware.
Was the Compaq buyout good for HP and Compaq employees? No. Was it good for the Compaq band? No. But I don't think you can call it a failure.
It seems that no one here understands TiVo's patent.
TiVo's main patent (6233389) covers a method for offloading the main MPEG-2 parsing requirement from the CPU to a dedicated DMA/parsing IC.
The separate IC operates independently of the main CPU, using DMA to store the MPEG2 stream in memory.
It also handles indexing the content so that seeks can occur quickly to any point, without requiring the stream to be parsed.
All of this means that you can use a cheap, slow CPU instead of a more expensive faster CPU.
That seems pretty innovative to me.
OK, let me respond to your BS:
1. The 'air dams' as you call them actually assist in cooling because they prevent an airflow short-circuit between the front of the case and the rear fan. Try running the 360 without them.
2. Thermal paste is meant to prevent air gaps from acting as a thermal insulator. It is substantially inferior to metal-to-metal contact. That's why thermal paste should be used sparingly.
3. Heatspreaders assist when the die is small and/or has poor thermal contact with the heatsink. They also prevent dies from being cracked due to poor heatsink installation. They are not necessary to the proper operation of a cooling system. For example, ATI GPUs and nearly all laptops do not have a heatspreader.
4. Although Microsoft owns the IP for the 360's CPU and GPU, they were primarily designed by ATI (GPU) and IBM (CPU).
5. Lead-free-solder is standard industry practice and is required if you intend on selling your product in Europe.
The reality is that the 360's problems stem from a combination of inadequate airflow, undersized heatsinks, and a GPU that expands at a different rate than the PCB. All of the other 'factors' you cite are widely and successfully used in other computer systems.
Note that many NVIDIA laptop GPUs suffered from the same issues.
I don't think that anyone is arguing that the design of the 360 was sufficient to ensure the necessary operating reliability. This was a product that was developed and released a full year before the PS3; it was rushed and there have been repercussions. But as someone who's ThinkPad T61 broke because of a defective NVIDIA GPU, let me tell you that such issues are neither unique to Microsoft nor as easy to diagnose as you seem to believe.
OK, I run a (small) URL shortening site: http://shortify.com/
You're wrong on several counts. First, URL shorterners were never designed to save bandwidth. The whole idea is absurd, since you're introducing (at least) several hundred bytes of HTTP headers for the 302 redirect every time someone clicks a link.
Second, abuse is certainly an issue that I deal with. But it's perfectly managable. Spammers submit a lot of links, because many of them stop working once the message boards they've spammed take their posts down. And they submit a lot of links from the same IP, because they don't have a lot of IPs. The combination of the two makes it very easy to nail spammers (and their links) with an IP ban.
Now, if someone starts botnetting this, then we've got a problem. But the solution there is to shut down the botnets. You can never disable every service that could potentially be useful to a zombie machine.
Where URL shortening sites are useful is when URLs need to be written down or spoken. Sometimes the person who needs the URL doesn't have access to their email. Or maybe they don't want to give you their email address. Or maybe they're trying to type the address into their iPhone. Or maybe they need to put it on a poster or another printed document.
I'll say. Back when I was interacting with Siebel, the two primary interfaces were:
- Web UI that required ActiveX controls and needed to be run as admin
- SOAP web services, secured either by putting the password in the URL or using a draft version of WS-Security from 2001
As someone who plays on a WoW 3v3 team rated ~2350 (approx top 1%) I can tell you flat out that you do get better. You can tell who is incompetent and who is competent in raids, arenas, or BGs pretty much instantly.
Does the mage waste half his mana trying to spellsteal my buffs (only to have them dispelled instantly), or does he start right off by doing damage and waiting to nail me with counterspell in the middle of penance? Does the warrior keep MS on all of the time? Does the priest try to mana burn me while his partner is at 8k instead of healing? Does the druid let me dispel innervate? Does the warlock fear me too many times and hit DR?
The reality is that the majority of WoW players aren't very good. The fact that we beat 95% of 3v3 teams basically 100% of the time has very little to do with our gear. It has a lot to do with the fact that my 3v3 team has played 2000+ games in the last 6 months. It has a lot to do with the fact that, cumulatively, we have over 10,000 hours of playtime.
FYI, we play Druid/Rogue/Priest, not some FOTM comp.
So is EVERY new car on the road. Lower (smog-forming) emissions are one of the great success stories of the ecological movement. And it would never have happened if California hadn't been pressured to impose tougher standards. You can thank the "whining hippies" for that.
All manufacturing produces waste, much of it toxic. Where do you think the rubber, plastics, and metal that your vehicle are made out of came from?
Unless you have specific claims about how the Prius produces additional waste compared to a similar new vehicle, I can't really refute them. Which is exactly what you want. By calling the Prius "toxic", you cast doubt without making any real assertions. That's exactly the kind of cheap tactics I'd expect from someone trashing "whining hippies".
We're not arrogant. We're angry. Angry that such engineering talent went into solving a problem that didn't need to be solved instead of the very real problems that do need to be solved. Show me a car that's lighter and stronger than today's cars yet still cheap to manufacture. That's the kind of "impossible" problem that needs to be solved. Not how to engineer a convertible supercar.
I don't know where you live, but here DSL is 896kbps up whereas cable is 2Mbps up.
Windows Search Helper is the indexing service. It's been there the whole time in Vista, it's there in 7, and it has absolutely nothing to do with web search.
There is ZERO chance that Windows Search Helper is messing with your Firefox search engine.
Those of us with AT&T or T-Mobile have no problems. People on CDMA carriers like Sprint or Verizon do.
Verizon is starting the move to LTE in 2010, so the only major carrier left that won't be on GSM/UMTS will be Sprint.
I have never owned a mobile phone that was not GSM (now GSM/UMTS). So I'm not really sure what you're complaining about. GSM has been pretty common in the US since at least 1997. You just have to pick the right carrier.
You being a blatant shill for Wolfram notwithstanding, WA is not a primary source. Being a primary source means more than just not citing where you get your data (which I'll admit WA is excellent at). It means that you observed the data directly.
WA is not doing original research. It is no more an original source than a copy of Mathematica is.
Bad example, because new versions of Visual Studio are mostly written in managed code (.NET).
Java performs quite well in practice. In reality, the big problem with Java is that the UI libraries (e.g. Swing) have historically been very slow. Swing has gotten a lot faster lately, though, so this isn't as big of a deal anymore.
I find that odd coming from someone who's not very handy. If you don't want to buy the tools (iPod case tool, small screwdriver) or learn the skills to replace the battery, that's OK. But it's not Apple's fault.
Yeah, and you never have to because it's extremely mechanically reliable. Change the oil, the air filters, and rotate (and possibly replace) the tires. That's all you have to do before 100,000 miles, and it can be done by anyone who is mechanically savvy.
The same computer control he rips out is what has lead to improved reliability, dramatically lower emissions, and more power on today's cars. The average new car has better fuel economy, is more powerful, is more reliable, cheaper, more comfortable, safer, and cleaner than even the best cars of the 1960s or 1970s.
The reality is that the majority of problems you have on a vehicle are just as easy to fix as ever. Replacing the battery is easy. Replacing tires is easy. Changing fluids is as easy as ever. Machining brakes is as easy as ever. Changing filters is as easy as ever.
The ADB-1 is $399, has no contract, and is unlocked. It works with any GSM carrier in the world (which is most mobile carriers in the world); in the US it will work with AT&T and T-Mobile (Verizon/Sprint use CDMA2000, which is incompatible).
The ADB-1 has UMTS Band I and Band IV, which means that it will work with 3G on most worldwide carriers, and with T-Mobile in the US. AT&T uses different Band II and Band V, so in the US the ADP1 will only provide 2G (GSM/GPRS/EDGE) service with AT&T. 2G service is fine for making phone calls, texting, IMing, sending email, and other light usage, but it's obviously not as fast as 3G. Fortunately, the ADP1 also has built-in Wi-Fi.
So, bottom line - get an ADP1. No contract, no changes in your service fees. You don't even need mobile data service for development, since you can use Wi-Fi.
If you want to use your phone outside of the US, but don't want to pay the huge roaming fees, get an ADP-1 (unlocked) and switch to a prepaid SIM when you get to your destination. Prepaid GSM SIMs are all over most of the world, and they will enable you to make reasonably cheap local calls and send cheap text messages.
I don't get the people who are freaked out about huge bills with GSM roaming. If you had a CDMA phone, it wouldn't work outside of the US/Canada anyway. You can accomplish the EXACT SAME THING by leaving your GSM phone home.
Clearly you know about large roaming fees. Yet you don't seem to be willing to sidestep the issue by leaving the phone at home.
That just means that you are a troll.
The problem is the word "appropriate". Appropriate means (m-w.com):
1. to take exclusive possession of
But you cannot take exclusive possession of "intellectual property", because it's not really property at all. In a world without scarcity, the concept of property has no meaning.
The third definition is extremely broad - winning the lottery is clearly not theft, but it clearly happens "by chance" and therefore meets the definition. So does buying a gift in secret.
I'm not here to argue that copyright infringement is acceptable. But the reality is that the rights granted to copyright holders are much more limited than the rights granted to property owners. Copyrighted works are not "property" because you can't own an intangible work. You can be granted a limited monopoly on the reproduction, exhibition/performance, and distribution of that work for a limited period of time.
CRTs have better black levels and better colors. On the other hand, they have fussy geometry adjustments (and you can never get them as perfect as an LCD), moiré patterns, and are generally much fuzzier than LCDs.
My LCD provides a sharp, high-resolution image with low power consumption in a small package at a low price. All of those factors (sharpness, resolution, power cosumption, size, price) matter more to me than the areas where CRTs continue to lead (color reproduction, black level).