What about California, where power generated in-state was transmitted out-of-state, and then transmitted back to california and sold at a HUGE markup?
The same thing happened in Ontario last summer, before the provincial government, desperate with an election looming the next year (this year) put a cap on rates.
That's true - Quebec's neighbor's were, at one time, leery of it's hydro system. Now, after huge upgrades in the last 10 years, Quebec's power is mostly (90%) hydro-electric and completely modernized. They sell huge amounts of surplus power to Ontario and the States at a tidy profit.
That's why the blackout stopped dead at the Quebec border, and that's why they pay a measly 6 cents ($CAD)per KWH on average.
Because the problem was fixed before 2000 there was no problem! Now people think it was wasted money because there wasn't a problem.
Are you sure about that? What about in Russia, where the entire system was in a shambles? They had no way to pay for any upgrades, so the official line was "Our systems will not be affected. Trust us."
Some of the southern US states spent almost zero on upgrades to the power system. Nothing happened.
Why?
There were indeed _some_ problems, but most of it was just hype, most of the 'fixes' were ripoffs, and a lot of people used it as a huge excuse to swindle the populace.
Here's a question that I haven't seen asked yet... everyone's comparing this whole thing to the blackout of 1965, but what about the backups that were supposedly put in place to deal with the much-feared and hyped Y2K bug?
Well, actually, the swordplay in Zelda for the cube is some of the best yet. True, you can just whack away at the sword button, but if you learn to finesse it a little, and use the shield, the attacks can get pretty sweet.
!!!CAUTION - SPOILER BELOW!!!
Also, the game cube Zelda has the most graphic death scene from any in the series yet...
Link takes the sword, and plunges it into Gannon's forehead, then lets go of the sword and drops to the ground. Cut to closeup of Gannon with sword sticking out of him. Link crouches on the ground panting in the background. Gannon says something, then turns to stone and explodes in a ball of light. Very dramatic, and almost shocking when taken in the context of the game.
Also, the whole game has a kind of 'revenge of the Gods' type theme to it. The land flooded by the Gods and the populace scattered to eke out an existence on tiny islands.
This is a wake up call all you Europe fan-boys who piss and moan about the United States: There's no safe-haven in the world from this type of B.S., face it. America ain't so bad.
You've got that backwards. This is fodder for people who piss and moan about the united states. These type of laws were pioneered in the US, and it is (to a large degree) US interests that have helped to push these laws overseas.
The US has, in the past, threatened to walk out of international talks because other participants refused to consider the implementation of DMCA-esque laws.
I used Opera and was AMAZED at how much more often it locked or crashed. Sometimes it just wouldn't display a page. It was annoying.
I used Opera for a good six months, and you're right... it did crash a lot on me too. The saving grace was that you could resume EXACTLY where you left off after a crash (or when you closed the program). Note to Mozila developers: put that in the next release!
I've been using a version of Netscape 7.x ever since it came out - the last Netscape I truly liked was 4.x. And Netscape 2? At the time, that was a work of art.
The upshot? One day, most 'new' media will only be playable on windows, and hence MS will control the consumer market.
What's to prevent a developer from supporting that same technology in Linux?
The DMCA in the USA, and proposed DMCA-like laws the world over. Hopefully, these never come to pass in the rest of the world, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that.
And what makes you think the media companies would use technology that limits their market to Windows users once they find out that their media is still piratable and pirated?
You're kidding, right? The same companies that have turned CDs into CADs (ie: corrupted audio discs). The same companies that are currently suing their own best customers over file sharing. Those companies, maybe...
Seems like this little insignifcant OS is making inroads despite what Bill thinks. Once products like OpenOffice become more mature the game is over and real desktop penetration, coporate side at least, will happen.
Yes, it will, and eventually there is a real chance that linux will supplant Windows as the OS of choice for business...BUT... by the time that happens, MS will most likely have tied a great deal of digital rights restrictions technology into windows.
The upshot? One day, most 'new' media will only be playable on windows, and hence MS will control the consumer market.
It may be that this is exactly what they are planning for. They may have recognized that they're slowly losing corporate mindshare, and are now grasping at straws in that arena. Look at the suspicious influx of money that they gave to SCO, look at their new corporate licensing policies (subscription model) - are these desperation moves?
Of course, this is all just opinion and conjecture. Don't mind me.
AIM doesn't seem to have made any great inroads here in Sweden
I think you're right about it being an american thing... everyone I know around here (Ontario) uses ICQ or MSN. I'd say that the split is about 50% MSN, 40% ICQ and other networks take the rest. It may just have something to do with the name. Many non-americans tend to resist overt examples of americana, but if you were just change the name...
That, plus almost no one here uses AOL to get online.:p
It striked me that what nintendo should do, now that the old gameboy upright form-factor has been brought back, is to release a version of the GBA SP with the "classic" grey-with-red-buttons colouration of the original gameboy.
Voice-Over (Marge) "It was the thirteenth hour of the thirteenth day of the thirteenth month... we were meeting to discuss the misprint in the school calendars"
This is what linux is best for, after all - low cost hardware made to run just as fast as the new stuff via the application of a good, stable, OS. Also the fact that this allows HP to cut M$ out of the picture completely. An OS is really the only computer component that can be had free, and I see no reason why this couldn't be done on this side of the ocean.
How long before Walmart (a company that I usually loathe) starts selling a super-low-cost lindows laptop? I'd sure buy it! (Or have they released one already?)
These were foreigners who do not have any rights under the US Constitution. What the hell is the problem?
Because they're still human beings, you jackass.
Have you ever travelled outside the US? Would you like to be subject to a number of body searches by foreign customs officers? Even if they found nothing the first time? And they had no real reason to believe that you're any kind of threat other than a small error on your visa?
If you can accept that, and you could accept that happening to you when you leave your warm, cozy, mushy, homogenous mass that is the US at this point in history - well, I pity you.
The US has done great things, and has the power to do yet more great things, but the state of fear and abuse of power that your contry and administration seem to be in now is getting in the way of the good that you could be doing for yourselves and for all of mankind.
It's the closed-minded thinking of people like you, Anonymous Dipshit, that keep your country in a state of fearful apathy.
That's true, but that tilt and tumble motion sensor was only used in about two games.
Second, I'd also point out that these games are incompatible with the new GBA SP, since the games load from the bottom (as opposed to the top) and therefore the directions are reversed when tilting the unit.
Well, they did! How hard is it to design a good little game box? Judging from the aimless floundering of those that would aspire to, it must be DAMN HARD! But really, come on!
Here's how to make a smash hit palm-based game unit.
1) Start with the new gameboy SP 2) Add touch-sensitive screen 3) Put two more buttons above A and B for game controls (I always wanted four buttons on the face of the game boy) and keep the L and R buttons. They're good too. 4) Add a "drop to OS" button, maybe near the SP's 'start' button 5) Graffitti area show/hides as needed 6) Add more RAM, make MP3 playing built-in, OPTIONS for hard drive, wifi, etc.
A faster proccie is always nice too.
(PS: Please excuse the relative inelegance of this post - I'm hung over. And no, this is not my sig...)
Even with a quantum mechanics background, the one thing I don't get is why not have a lot of these particles and observe one after another waiting for a change. A lot would be wasted, but I would imagine with error correction and such, you could get useful information by observing changes.
I sorry if this is about to come off as impolite, but I want to put this to bed once and for all. Every single stinking time that quantum teleportation comes up we hear some innately wrong theories about how to send info faster than light.
I strongly doubt that you have a "quantum mechanics background" if you don't get why this doesn't work.
Let's say I entangle two particles.
Anything I do to one affects the other. You've got that right. However, the act of observing the system changes the system. There is absolutely no way whatsoever to "observe one after another and wait for a change". By observing you have changed the system and thus collapsed the quantum states.
YOU CANNOT OBSERVE A CHANGE WITHOUT CHANGING THE SYSTEM.
Therefore, no information can be sent this way.
And because no information can be sent, then by definition no amount of error correction can help you solve the problem.
Turns out that there were no troops in the hospital at all. And the hospital staff befriended her. And her injuries were not battle-related, they were more likely from falling off of a truck.
And the hospital tried to deliver her to the US troops, but when the AMBULANCE got within 300 metres of the US troops, they were fired upon.
Slashdot Mirror
On a related note, here's a short story that appeared on Kuro5hin about paying an infinite game of Go with a horribly wounded angel.
Deals with the concept of NP-hard problems, too!
You don't remember Alta Vista, Yahoo, or the countless others before Google. I switched to Google exclusively when it was still in beta.
eh sonny? What's that?
I was on here when Yahoo was located at http://akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo/ (which is now a 404). Akebono's main page aknowledges that this was Yahoo's former home.
Let me get my cane...
What about California, where power generated in-state was transmitted out-of-state, and then transmitted back to california and sold at a HUGE markup?
The same thing happened in Ontario last summer, before the provincial government, desperate with an election looming the next year (this year) put a cap on rates.
That's true - Quebec's neighbor's were, at one time, leery of it's hydro system. Now, after huge upgrades in the last 10 years, Quebec's power is mostly (90%) hydro-electric and completely modernized. They sell huge amounts of surplus power to Ontario and the States at a tidy profit.
That's why the blackout stopped dead at the Quebec border, and that's why they pay a measly 6 cents ($CAD)per KWH on average.
Because the problem was fixed before 2000 there was no problem! Now people think it was wasted money because there wasn't a problem.
Are you sure about that? What about in Russia, where the entire system was in a shambles? They had no way to pay for any upgrades, so the official line was "Our systems will not be affected. Trust us."
Some of the southern US states spent almost zero on upgrades to the power system. Nothing happened.
Why?
There were indeed _some_ problems, but most of it was just hype, most of the 'fixes' were ripoffs, and a lot of people used it as a huge excuse to swindle the populace.
Here's a question that I haven't seen asked yet... everyone's comparing this whole thing to the blackout of 1965, but what about the backups that were supposedly put in place to deal with the much-feared and hyped Y2K bug?
Wired 7.04 published an issues entitled 'Lights Out' that detailed many problems, including the problem of a single failure spreading across the entire continent.
Billions were spent in the USA and Canada on solving this... so where did that money go?
Well, actually, the swordplay in Zelda for the cube is some of the best yet. True, you can just whack away at the sword button, but if you learn to finesse it a little, and use the shield, the attacks can get pretty sweet.
!!!CAUTION - SPOILER BELOW!!!
Also, the game cube Zelda has the most graphic death scene from any in the series yet...
Link takes the sword, and plunges it into Gannon's forehead, then lets go of the sword and drops to the ground. Cut to closeup of Gannon with sword sticking out of him. Link crouches on the ground panting in the background. Gannon says something, then turns to stone and explodes in a ball of light. Very dramatic, and almost shocking when taken in the context of the game.
Also, the whole game has a kind of 'revenge of the Gods' type theme to it. The land flooded by the Gods and the populace scattered to eke out an existence on tiny islands.
Damn good game.
The idea of a single-molecule macroscopic structure is just so freaky that I *want* to see one! :)
Here's one you've seen before: A diamond.
Any diamond - a pure one - is a crystalline structure of carbon atoms, and hence any diamond, no matter how large is a single molecule.
Doesn't seem so freaky anymore, does it?
I hereby give my blessing to anyone who wants to sue a guy with the balls to be known as: hottdude0587@Kazaa.
It's probably some sixteen-year-old highschool kid, judging from his screen name. "0587" would imply a date of birth of May, 1987.
So what happens in the US when they sue a minor?
Well well well, I was just reading kuro5hin earlier today, and this appears to be a classic adequacy-style troll.
Nice.
This is a wake up call all you Europe fan-boys who piss and moan about the United States:
There's no safe-haven in the world from this type of B.S., face it. America ain't so bad.
You've got that backwards. This is fodder for people who piss and moan about the united states. These type of laws were pioneered in the US, and it is (to a large degree) US interests that have helped to push these laws overseas.
The US has, in the past, threatened to walk out of international talks because other participants refused to consider the implementation of DMCA-esque laws.
I used Opera and was AMAZED at how much more often it locked or crashed. Sometimes it just wouldn't display a page. It was annoying.
I used Opera for a good six months, and you're right... it did crash a lot on me too. The saving grace was that you could resume EXACTLY where you left off after a crash (or when you closed the program). Note to Mozila developers: put that in the next release!
I've been using a version of Netscape 7.x ever since it came out - the last Netscape I truly liked was 4.x. And Netscape 2? At the time, that was a work of art.
The upshot? One day, most 'new' media will only be playable on windows, and hence MS will control the consumer market.
What's to prevent a developer from supporting that same technology in Linux?
The DMCA in the USA, and proposed DMCA-like laws the world over. Hopefully, these never come to pass in the rest of the world, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that.
And what makes you think the media companies would use technology that limits their market to Windows users once they find out that their media is still piratable and pirated?
You're kidding, right? The same companies that have turned CDs into CADs (ie: corrupted audio discs). The same companies that are currently suing their own best customers over file sharing.
Those companies, maybe...
Seems like this little insignifcant OS is making inroads despite what Bill thinks. Once products like OpenOffice become more mature the game is over and real desktop penetration, coporate side at least, will happen.
Yes, it will, and eventually there is a real chance that linux will supplant Windows as the OS of choice for business...BUT... by the time that happens, MS will most likely have tied a great deal of digital rights restrictions technology into windows.
The upshot? One day, most 'new' media will only be playable on windows, and hence MS will control the consumer market.
It may be that this is exactly what they are planning for. They may have recognized that they're slowly losing corporate mindshare, and are now grasping at straws in that arena. Look at the suspicious influx of money that they gave to SCO, look at their new corporate licensing policies (subscription model) - are these desperation moves?
Of course, this is all just opinion and conjecture. Don't mind me.
Serious question: where do they get the electricity from? Do they have fossil-fuel burning generating stations on the island, or ... or what?
According to this entry in the CIA Factbook, 100% of their electricity is generated via fossil fuel generating stations.
However, there are apparently plans for a large wind farm.
AIM doesn't seem to have made any great inroads here in Sweden
:p
I think you're right about it being an american thing... everyone I know around here (Ontario) uses ICQ or MSN. I'd say that the split is about 50% MSN, 40% ICQ and other networks take the rest. It may just have something to do with the name. Many non-americans tend to resist overt examples of americana, but if you were just change the name...
That, plus almost no one here uses AOL to get online.
It striked me that what nintendo should do, now that the old gameboy upright form-factor has been brought back, is to release a version of the GBA SP with the "classic" grey-with-red-buttons colouration of the original gameboy.
I'd buy it just for the nostalgia...
No! Smarch!
Voice-Over (Marge) "It was the thirteenth hour of the thirteenth day of the thirteenth month... we were meeting to discuss the misprint in the school calendars"
Homer (Grumbling): "...Lousy smarch weather..."
It's about bloody time.
This is what linux is best for, after all - low cost hardware made to run just as fast as the new stuff via the application of a good, stable, OS. Also the fact that this allows HP to cut M$ out of the picture completely. An OS is really the only computer component that can be had free, and I see no reason why this couldn't be done on this side of the ocean.
How long before Walmart (a company that I usually loathe) starts selling a super-low-cost lindows laptop? I'd sure buy it! (Or have they released one already?)
These were foreigners who do not have any rights under the US Constitution. What the hell is the problem?
Because they're still human beings, you jackass.
Have you ever travelled outside the US? Would you like to be subject to a number of body searches by foreign customs officers? Even if they found nothing the first time? And they had no real reason to believe that you're any kind of threat other than a small error on your visa?
If you can accept that, and you could accept that happening to you when you leave your warm, cozy, mushy, homogenous mass that is the US at this point in history - well, I pity you.
The US has done great things, and has the power to do yet more great things, but the state of fear and abuse of power that your contry and administration seem to be in now is getting in the way of the good that you could be doing for yourselves and for all of mankind.
It's the closed-minded thinking of people like you, Anonymous Dipshit, that keep your country in a state of fearful apathy.
That's true, but that tilt and tumble motion sensor was only used in about two games.
Second, I'd also point out that these games are incompatible with the new GBA SP, since the games load from the bottom (as opposed to the top) and therefore the directions are reversed when tilting the unit.
I can still hum a boatload of songs from that game
Darn right! Remember this:
"Oh my hero/so far away now/will I ever see your face? When light fades away/from night into day..."
Or so I remember. Correct me if I'm wrong. It HAS been a while.
Personally, though, I enjoyed the ending to Zelda: A Link to the Past the most of any game ending (ever). You just can't beat that. I'm sorry.
Well, they did! How hard is it to design a good little game box? Judging from the aimless floundering of those that would aspire to, it must be DAMN HARD! But really, come on!
Here's how to make a smash hit palm-based game unit.
1) Start with the new gameboy SP
2) Add touch-sensitive screen
3) Put two more buttons above A and B for game controls (I always wanted four buttons on the face of the game boy) and keep the L and R buttons. They're good too.
4) Add a "drop to OS" button, maybe near the SP's 'start' button
5) Graffitti area show/hides as needed
6) Add more RAM, make MP3 playing built-in, OPTIONS for hard drive, wifi, etc.
A faster proccie is always nice too.
(PS: Please excuse the relative inelegance of this post - I'm hung over. And no, this is not my sig...)
Even with a quantum mechanics background, the one thing I don't get is why not have a lot of these particles and observe one after another waiting for a change. A lot would be wasted, but I would imagine with error correction and such, you could get useful information by observing changes.
I sorry if this is about to come off as impolite, but I want to put this to bed once and for all. Every single stinking time that quantum teleportation comes up we hear some innately wrong theories about how to send info faster than light.
I strongly doubt that you have a "quantum mechanics background" if you don't get why this doesn't work.
Let's say I entangle two particles.
Anything I do to one affects the other. You've got that right. However, the act of observing the system changes the system. There is absolutely no way whatsoever to "observe one after another and wait for a change". By observing you have changed the system and thus collapsed the quantum states.
YOU CANNOT OBSERVE A CHANGE WITHOUT CHANGING THE SYSTEM.
Therefore, no information can be sent this way.
And because no information can be sent, then by definition no amount of error correction can help you solve the problem.
Period.
What people HATE is the self-righteousness FUD that your government spews, smearing everyone else in the process.
Here's a good example. Remember Jessica Lynch the female US private that was 'rescued' by US forces from iraqi 'imprisonment'?
The Toronto Star has the real story.
Turns out that there were no troops in the hospital at all. And the hospital staff befriended her. And her injuries were not battle-related, they were more likely from falling off of a truck.
And the hospital tried to deliver her to the US troops, but when the AMBULANCE got within 300 metres of the US troops, they were fired upon.
Once again, the link