Then ubiquitous calculators eroded arithmetic skills.
Arithmetic is a means to an end, not an end in itself. During this time, our math curriculum has also become more advanced than it was from before when there were no calculators. As a society, we have a greater statistical sense than ever before (and need to further improve, a lot more). As a side note, look up "A Mathematician's Lament" by Paul Lockhart.
Basic arithmetic is NOT a means to an end. It's actually required to live day to day life. After all, if apples are $2/kilo, and you only have $5, how much can you buy including sales tax?
Can you calculate what your shopping cart should cost you, or are you going to rely on the store's calculation? (Yes, taxable, non-taxable and partially-taxable items complicate matters). It doesn't have to be down to the cent, but would you notice if instead of charging you $50, they charged you $55 because they screwed up?
And trust me, screwups are more common than you might think.
Even handling money requires math - quickly add up the change to make sure it's correct, or to ensure you paid enough (the 1-2-5 system makes it easy, but it's still math). Or calculating the tip.
While these examples don't require exact figures, they require getting a feel for numbers so you can say your groceries should not cost more than $50 including tax, that your tip on a restaurant bill of $75 should not be $25, but should max out around $10-11 or so. Or your change for $12.35 worth of stuff is a bit more than $2.50 so you know to get 2 $1's and 2 quarters and then some.
Or even just calculating the best deal - is $1.25/each (regular $1.50) on sale a better deal than the pack of 5 for $7?
Yes, you can pull out your calculator and figure it out in the store, but I imagine tasks like these are dull and boring enough that most people want to get in and get out, and it's either wasting time punching it into a calculator (thus making the chore even more of a chore) or wasting money (stores often price stuff funny to get people too lazy to figure it out for themselves).
This. They are clearly making these claims to attract big commercial developers. This is a mistake as those developers will not come. They should be trying to attract indy developers with free to play content. For developers like this open, hackable systems are great, and the chance to move into the console market in a way that supports digital distribution direct to the consumer without the need for proprietary disc formats is very attractive. I would suggest that they collaborate with the Unity3d people, there is a goldmine of free to play content there and anyone can get in on it. A console with this business model could soon come to dominate the console indy corner of the market (given that there is zero competition). As an independent basement developer myself, I know I have no chance of earning money off my games until one becomes popular. I would jump at the chance to deploy for a console if it was as simple and hassle free as deploying windows/mac/browser clients on unity. You would not get the best games but you would get huge numbers of games. Some would be good and many would be innovative. Once you had a player base and a market share some of the bigger companies with a more progressive outlook like valve might consider releasing some of their free titles on the platform.
You're assuming that there will be lots of high quality indie developers. Guess what? Take a stroll around the Apple App Store, Google Play Market, and Xbox Indie Arcade sometime.
Especially the App Store and Indie Arcade as those require an annual commitment of money, while Google Play (and Ouya) require just a one-time commitment of money.
What you'll find is the stores are littered with piles of crap - for every Angry Birds, there's probably at least 100 games that are just piss-poor in every way imaginable. And probably 10 or so in that group would be a DLC-demanding bunch where they're "free" but require payment for smurfberries and such.
There'll be lots of developers, and probably tons of them are just intent of making quick bucks because of all the hype surrounding this console, which means even the big studio's offerings are going to be drowned out by the sheer volume of junk. And it's junk the developer invested a lot of time and money into (you think they're paying $99/year for fun in the Apple App Store?)
That's the real problem - keeping the signal-to-noise ratio high so people are encouraged to buy the console because there's lots of good games. Also nevermind all the game ripoffs in said markets as well.
That said - I think it's an extremely sad reflection on the state of software engineering that we simply accept that "memory corruption bugs in complex pieces of code are inevitable".
How is this an admission that memory corruption is inevitable?
I see it as defense in depth - the application is the first line of defense against memory corruption (usually caused intentionally). If that wall fails, the OS has a wall of its own to help protect the system as well.
A well-written program would check its inputs, but it's possible that it can fail (it's written by humans, after all), and it's far better to have the OS protect itself than not.
It's like how any network puts up firewalls - the individual servers should be hardened against attack, but it doesn't hurt to put up another layer of security on top of that.
And face it - most developers write crap now and again - either due to pressures of time or "get it working" blocker bugs and are vulnerable to taking a shortcut now and again. Want an illustration of this? See how many programs broke under Windows Vista (which actually enforced many rules that were already in place but most developers skirted and got away with breaking). Or anytime Apple releases a new OS - application breakages between OS X versions (or even Classic MacOS) are legendary. Hell, Microsoft has to often insert bugs in their code as some critical application or other rely on them to function. (Ever wonder why Explorer's top-level window is called "Program Manager" still? Or why "C:\Program Files" sometimes appears after installing a program on a non-English version of Windows?).
It's adapting to the reality of the world. Developers are far from perfect and often cheat. Users rarely if ever read dialogs (see Dancing Pigs aka Dancing Bunnies).
Now every time multi-bands support comes up, someone says "SDR" as the magic solution. But SDR applies to the modem baseband part only, and is actually quite common in many existing LTE devices. And it's irrelevant to this issue: the baseband, even if hardware centric, has no problem supporting any bands. Same for most recent RF chips: they're also multibands already.
Actually, SDRs are capable of receiving up to around 125MHz or so, and transmitting over 600MHz - you can get 250MS/s ADCs and 1.2GU/s (for ADCs, it's samples, and DACs it's updates) DACs. With a bit of careful clocking, you can easily gang 4 or more of them to get an effective 1GS/s ADC (up to 500MHz by Nyquist).
Nowhere near cellphone frequencies, and we're talking about ADCs that cost over $150 in 1000 lot quantities (the DAC is somewhat cheaper, being only around $50 or so in 1000 lots).
Direct-conversion SDRs consisting of only a low-noise preamp (Rx) and power amp (Tx) are not only in the realm of possibility, they're becoming available (FlexRadio 6000 series is a direct-conversion SDR - it has an FPGA to accellerate the digital downconversion (mixing) and can do 4 of them per ADC, and does direct conversion transmit as well. They call it digital at the antenna.).
But yeah, SDRs aren't a magic bullet - there's still tons of RF work - even a direct conversion SDR requires an RF frontend (a situation unlikely to change as super-sensitive ADCs are an even more niche product than a high-bandwidth ADC). But the baseband part is rapidly becoming obsolete.
How can developers who are active on apple's platforms even look at themselves in the mirror anymore? Come on guys, show some balls, and stop supporting this greedy lawfirm.
Easy, iOS still makes lots of money. To make money on Android (yes, it's possible) means having to put in a bunch of ads in your app, which then gets the Android community in a tizzy because now you need "Full internet connectivity," "Phone State," and "Contact List" access in order to support your ad platform.
Or you could, I guess, starve.
If Google really wanted to kill iOS (and they probably won't, since AdMob still produces a lot of money for them on iOS), all they really have to do is increase ad rate payouts and such on Android so developers make much more money on Android. Or find ways to get people into the play store and buying lots of apps so developers can rake in money.
The RaspberryPi actually seems to max at about 2MB/s per my tests at a 1500MTU, and over 4.4MB/s at 1492MTU.
Many protocols such as SSH have high overhead, but a low-overhead protocol can expect these numbers.
The problem is the "B" model's Ethernet port is really a USB-to-Ethernet adapter connected to the processor's USB host controller. Couple that with a relatively weak ARM11 processor (really that CPU is meant to drive the VideoCore 4 graphics processor - basically to feed the beast with data so customers using the board don't have to buy a separate SoC if they want to build say, a Roku or something - they have a lightweight ARM to do the necessary work in getting the data to the VC, while the VC is doing the graphics and video decode. That's the reason why it's got an ARM core on it - it saves customers a few bucks when building their device.
It's becoming Media-Con and people are letting it. Which is why I have no interest in attending. I'd rather go to a show closer to home which Hollywood isn't trying to take over. It's called Comic -Con and should seriously consider getting back to the business of Comics.
That's like saying we should all abandon the web and go back to gopher. Media evolves - and comic books cover all sorts of topics these days. From TV shows and movies having backstories filled in by comics, to cancelled programs living on through comics.
Then this year it seems it's the age of the comic book movie, with Avengers, Batman and others hitting the big screen. Now, admittedly, Marvel was annoyed at Hollywood so they created their own studios to make those films, but still.
Everything is going multi-platform - books becoming comics, comics becoming books, video games and comics, movies, etc. To focus strictly on comics would keep the vent small, and nothing more than a "gathering of smelly nerds in a dark basement".
Of course, Comic-Con also suffers from "it was good before it was popular" trope as well.
But I see Comic-Con as a way for all those "nerds" to get together in a fairly safe environment and be social, and better yet, prove to the general public that they're an economic force to be listened to.
Hell, I think people on/. could learn a thing or two about how Comic-Con works to help spread the word about open-source, legal issues, etc to th. The public notices Comic-Con more than any other comic-book convention out there, more so than practically all the other comic book conventions out there, so there's no reason why technology geeks can't do something similar.
All these other services lost their internet access, that is all. While I am sure in a perfect world all theses government services and companies would have had redundant internet connections, that is often prohibitively expensive.
Actually, Shaw's a media company - they do not only internet, but phones as well. Those went down as well (Shaw has business packages for phone service over cable, but downtown, I'd guess they also have fiber phone service too).
And it really isn't a screwup - they were doing something important - testing the backup generators. It's just the generators blew up, which took out the other backup generators (dual redundant power!), and knocked out power to all the equipment by knocking the utility power offline as well.
With Xbox Live you pay to receive ads. With PSN, you don't pay a dime and still get online gaming.
While I'm acting smug as a PS3 owner, who doesn't have to put up with Microsoft's bullshit, I have to wonder just how much longer Sony's offering will last.
My PS3 is annoying in that there's an annoying ad ticker that I can'd disable (it's was controllable in OS 2, but as of 3, it's always on if it's connected to the internet - you don't even have to be signed into PSN for that).
Now, granted, the Xbox ones have gotten a bit more pervasive lately. And I'm not talking about the game ads showing new offers and deals (PSN has lots of that - it seems to default to that screen when I turn on my PS3), but the other ads. I actually got a survey about them and told them to turn off those ad spots because they were getting distracting. The game ones at least I look at (usually about new DLC, new trailers and such - gaming related)
How do you spin away the fact that the iPhone and maxiPad batteries remain as glued in as ever? The only thing that changed is, Apple's self important enviroposers are now forced to admit that each time they buy an Apple product they make the world a little worse. I don't know about you, but Facebook messages went out to those guys from here:-)
You spin it as allowing end users to replace the batteries, the batteries end up in the landfill.
After all, you buy a replacement from iFixit, but iFixit doesn't take back the old battery and recycle it for you, so most users will just dump it in the trash and it ends up in the landfill. Most electronics recyclers won't take the battery by itself as well (whether by itself or if it was replacable).
Instead, if you want to dispose the battery, you have to take it to a battery dropoff specifically, which can be a PITA and something most people don't do. Hell, most people still toss regular non-rechargables in the trash rather than recycling them.
Anyhow, buying new is usually not very environmentally friendly. It's reduce, reuse and recycle, so the first bit of being environmentally friendly is not buying it in the first place. If you *have* to buy it, then maybe get a used equivalent (reuse what's already been made). The final step is recycle... which Apple does allow you to do - they will take back any of their products for recycling.
It was closed before the hack. App developers just didn't bother to implement receipt authorization that's built into the store, allowing their apps to be tricked.
The question is why Apple didn't make authorization mandatory. But if they did then there'd be bitching about that too.
Because authorization means it's a one-off purchase - once you bought something, it's marked in your account as purchased (otherwise Apple can't produce the receipt). Which means if you attempt to buy it again, Apple basically doesn't charge you (the receipt says you already bought it).
For stuff like DLC, it makes sense - you won't lose the item you bought if you delete and reinstall the app later.
For stuff that's a purchase for something repeatedly, you can't check receipts (e.g., smurfberries, where you can pay $99 multiple times).
Plus, apps sometimes like to be able to give stuff for free, which they can implement any which way to check as Apple won't have a receipt (so it's a lose-it scenario if you uninstall and reinstall and the app doesn't back that information up).
It might be better to buy the software instead of leaving a trail of your theft with the Apple store.
It depends on the app. Apps have two choices with regards to in-app purchases. They can go through the official Apple Store receipt mechanism, or choose not to. Usually purchases for stuff that "expire" don't (because the receipt method prevents a user from buying it again, so your $99 smurfberry pack can only be bought once), while stuff that may need to be reloaded does (e.g., DLC, so if you reinstall your app, you can redownload your previous in-app purchases because the app verifies with Apple what DLC you already own).
It's possible to do a hybrid system were some DLC is offered using the former system (usually to offer it "free" instead of requiring payment) - I believe developers host the additional content so if they wanted to give it for free, they tell the app they can get access to it. Of course, without an Apple receipt for it, if the developer removes the access, you've lost it. It's how the Atari thing let people get all games, but it goes away on next install (Atari updated the game's flags to say you own all the games, but if the app checks against Apple, it says you own none which is the case on reinstall).
The former could be acquired "for free" by using a jailbroken device with IAPCracker installed. The ones that check don't because they do confirmations with Apple to ensure it really was purchased.
Anyway, if these banks are offering this service, would there remain a reason for Paypal?
Easy, paypal is the only company offering ONE service that NO ONE ELSE does. Allow random joes to accept a credit card without a merchant account.
If you're a business, Paypal offers you nothing more than what a regular merchant account does - to a business, it IS a regular merchant account.
If you're an individual, accepting credit cards is nigh-impossible as merchant accounts are extremely difficult to obtain for individuals, especially those not doing a minimum number of transactions a month.
And doing anything online without accepting credit (or debit) cards is a pretty good way to lose customers if they have to go and write a cheque (or get a money order) and mail it off, wait for it to arrive, wait for it to clear, and THEN have the item shipped out (anyone really want to go back to the "please wait 6-8 weeks for your order"?).
Of course, as a buyer, I had to use Paypal when a vendor decided they wanted to do a CYA and do "extra verifications" that required sending in scans of my credit card via e-mail or fax. They had the honesty to admit it would delay the order, but not to give you a "free" upgrade to expedited shipping. (They also argued it "was for your protection" - which is an utter lie - doing what they want is a great way to BE unprotected). If I didn't need the item (being practically only available from them), I would've gone elsewhere. On the flip side, I learned how to get 10% off the order by using those "10% off your next order" generic codes that show up after the order, so I did cost them the discount for their stupid policy.
Why do you need more than one? Can't you just install this before you split the signal? I doubt people actually have multiple cables entering their home.
Because this is about terrestrial television, not cable television.
So? I'm guessing most of the british don't use rabbit ears on their TVs - they stick the antenna on the roof, with a preamp on it and then it goes down and into the house where it's split up and distributed to indoor jacks as if it was cable.
So the house is "wired" for TV all to an antenna on the root - basically the building-sized version of cable. Many places do it this way - Asia for example, where an apartment block would have its own TV antenna and outlets put in the wall.
In this case, all you do need is one filter - not sure if you'd put it before or after the preamp - preferably before to avoid intermod, but filters do attenuate the signal somewhat.
I wasn't aware that a fee had ever been required for photocopying for school work? Isn't that a "fair use"?
It is now.
What happened was teachers and professors did this as they only used say, 1-2 pages of material out of one book because it was needed for the course, while the rest of the book was useless.
The publishers obviously got very mad at this since it deprived them of sales and convinced the copyright board that there should be something done about this.
If you go into a university library, take a look at the posters on the wall in the photocopier room - it'll usually describe what's happening.
On top of streetlights perhaps? Hard to get up there without getting caught and will increase range being higher off the ground..
Lights already have power, and many have some sort of network connection for monitoring...
Except most lampposts don't have any form of network connectivity already there (payphones have a line to the telco who can easily provision DSL to it). And people have been known to open the cover at the bottom to steal the wire for the copper, disabling the streetlight.
Kilobit and kilobyte and Kb (and kb) and KB are correct, and mean 1024 bits (or bytes). Kibibit and kibibyte and Kib and (kib) and KiB are incorrect, and mean you're a fucking dipshit.
FYI,, a 64kbps telecommunications channel is 64,000bits/sec, not 65536bits/sec (it derives from 8kHz (8000, not 8192) sampling at 8 bits/sample). Just like 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet is 10,000,000, 100,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 bits/sec, respectively.
Same as your 2.6GHz CPU - it's 2,600,000,000 Hz.
Not using the right prefix is the same as not using the right units - you're going to screw up something somewhere.
You're a technical person, use precise language. If there's a chance of confusion, drop the prefix and use scientific notation, or define something across the board so places where the meanings can get messed up, are resolved and be consistent.
E.g., globally declare in your source code that "Kilo means 1024 throughout" so 1km in your program is 1024m, and if you use 64,000b/s channel, it's a 62.5kbps link.
MacOS 7 (System 7) apps were 68k, but they were stored as two "forks" - a resource fork (for icons/cursors/windows/menus and 68k code), and a data form (for free-form data - binary, text, or PowerPC code, but I doubt there's any PowerPC in it).
It's kinda interesting the website doesn't link to ResEdit as it's the way to tell if the binary is runnable by MacOS. (ResEdit also has a primitive disassembler for code resources).
And some old Apple documentaiton on how the Mac works would've been valuable as well - MacOS is a pretty strange OS (each resource can be up to 64k in size, and large programs are known to have multiple code segments).
Especially since knowing how the file must look like helps in its decryption since it has to be well-structured.
It would also be big for indie devs and smaller game houses. I bet it could run all the Tell Tale games for instance. Not a huge dev, but their franchises are pretty historic. Sam and Max, Monkey Island, etc.
The problem is the Ouya store will be just as bad as the Apple App Store, Google Play Store and Xbox Live Indie Arcade. Everyone and their dog will want to try to cash in on the action (and with a kickstarter like that... cha-ching) and release tons of crap ass games.
They'll have the numbers but if it's practically impossible to find the good ones in the pile among the junk (it's hard enough already for Apple and Google - Apple bought an app search company to help improve things, even),
And yes, Tell tale games should work on it. Of course, my experience has been their games run like crap - frame rate losses on simple scenes, stuttering, etc. They have lots of great retro licenses, but their execution seems poor.
Of course, this thing will see great success as an emulation platform - play all those old console games on your TV again.
Except ones that are already made are EPEAT certified so that would make no logical sense
Apple withdrew ALL their computers from EPEAT. Even the certified ones, and even the ones that are still certified AFTER the new rules (e.g., Mac Mini, non-Retina Macbook Pros, iMac, Mac Pro...).
It's not a case of "the computers are no longer EPEAT certifiable", it's more of "Apple feels EPEAT is no longer in their interests" and withdrew all computers fro mthe lineup. I'ts not like individual computers weren't making certification. Apple just took their ball and went home, and did so knowing full well the implications.
As for repairability - I'm not so sure if it's a big a "green" thing as it's made out to be. After all, I don't see on iFixit that they provide recycling services (with return shipping) for the used parts you replace, so after changing that battery yourself in an iPod, it probably would end up in the same place that other batteries from more replacable devices go - in the trash, rather than recycled. (Most electronics recyclers don't accept loose parts - only reasonably complete assemblies).
So you replaced the battery in your laptop - what do you do with the old one? Take it to the recycler? Find a place that accepts them? Or be lazy and dump it in the trash?
And even if you keep it, when it's time to move, it'll probably end up in the landfill that way.
Two monitors doesn't work for 1st/3rd person gaming because the bezel is In The Way.
That's the same reason why I never went with two monitors for any purpose. These days I'm happy with widescreen for doing stuff with multiple application windows or gaming, plus it saves a lot of desktop space.
That's true if you use multi=monitors the Wrong Way. Instead ofhaving two screens being equal and used interchangably, you need one to be a "primary" and the other a secondary. The primary one is where all your work takes place, while the secondary one is where ancillary information (documentation, etc) are. And maybe the occasional YouTube video. The information is handy and quickly accessible by turning your head.
Even in a triple setup you have the same thing - two on the sides are anceillary to the one in the front. (Cheapskates will usually use two small monitors for the sides and a nice bigger one (with higher resolution) in the front).
I highly doubt in 25 years the average climate in your region has changes from highs of 80 to highs of 95-99. That would be a cataclysmically drastic climate shift. Even the most alarmist of IPCC scientists is looking at global warming on the scale of 2-3 degrees in 40-50 years. I really wish people would stop blaming hot days on global warming, it just makes us all look stupid. Keep this in mind the next time you have an unseasonably cold day:P
Problem #1 - mixed units. You're using degress in Farenheit, while the scientists use metric, so 2-3 degrees is actually closer to 5-7F change.
Second, a degree is not a degree. The average world temperature is to move up a couple of degrees (including the very coldest parts of antartica to the hottest parts of the desert regions), averaged over an entire year.
The result of this is summers get hotter (much hotter), and winters get colder (much colder). No, previously cold areas like the northern regions do NOT get habitable. They may get nicer summers, but the winters will become even more bitterly cold, too.
And even if a degree was a degree, think of it this way - an EF5 hurricane cools the ocean about 2-3 degrees. Its considered a mechanism of how the oceans regulate temperature as the storms drain off excess heat.
So no, hot days and cold days are not purely the result of global warming or more correctly climate change. However, they are the cause of more extremely hot days in the summer, extremely cold days in the winter, and for making heatwaves and cold spells longer. Climate influences weather.
In fact, none of this is really up for debate - it's been well acknowledged and accepted. What is debated is anthropromorphic global warming - i.e., is it the result of human activity or a long natural cycle?
From the Wired article: "Thirty percent of revenue will go to Ouya, the rest to the developer." This is the same deal as the App Store and Xbox Live Indie Games. However, unlike with iOS and Xbox 360, the article appears to imply that there won't even be a $99 per year hurdle before developers can get their feet wet: "every Ouya box sold includes a software development kit at no extra cost."
And that... will be the death of it.
Let's ignore first the games cost issue. The problem will be piles of people see "make money fast! make games on this!" and release a pile of steaming turds for 99 cents. It's happened to the Apple App Store, Google Play, and other stores *(Xbox Indie Arcade, anyone?) and those already demand some level of commitment (Apple $99/year and people still do it). Sure it's all cool and all that, but people will just see "make money! free tools!" and crank out crap after crap after crap, making it impossible to find or discover the good stuff.
Also, at 99 cents, the people who do good games will probably split their game up into 5-10 "episodes" in order to charge the $5/10 they wanted in the first place.
It's an intriguing thing, but will probably be flooded with crap soon enough. And do the economics support such a system? The whole point of the 99 cent apps are something you can grab for the few dead minutes you have - in a lineup, waiting for something, etc, as something to do. A home console - well, players tend to have more time to invest in a game and consequently demand more involved games.
Perhaps the thing they hate isn't science, but corporatism
Exactly. Think GMO foods - and most of the anger towards it goes towards basically one company - Montsanto. Especially when it affects something that's basically a necessity, people get really emotional about it. Montsanto basically hasn't helped their case either with their onerous licensing terms that you don't have to sign to be affected by.
It's not anti-science, it's anti-corporation, and science just happens to be in the way because corporations stir up feelings of doing it purely to make a profit off people. And it stirs up such strong emotions because the corporations are seen as uncaring profit machines (rightly or wrongly, that's a different debate) hell-bent on turning people into slaves dependent on everything from food to luxuries.
Enough so it's impossible to have a truly honest debate about such topics like GMO food, climate change, oil, etc. People are cynical - the future promised by science and technology has instead become a dystopia - they're working harder and longer for less pay which seems to be caused by all the scientific and technological progress.
The real fun will happen when it algorithmically displays higher or lower prices on a per-user basis based on your purchase history; e.g. if you generally buy premium products, it charges you a higher amount for the same product because it assumes you have a higher willingness to pay.
Of course, the problem with dynamic pricing is it relies on the ignorance of the user. As discovered in that article, if you use a different browser or not logged on, it would display a different price than when you went to check out.
And with the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, it's possible someone might browse Amazon and buy on their PC, and realize the price is different. You'd basically need to give everyone a personal ID code to ensure whatever screen they look at shows their own price. Which breaks the moment someone else looks up the item and gets a different price.
Dynamic pricing only works when the user is treated in aggregate (e.g., a vending machine that alters prices based on outside temperature but everyone pays the same), or the user cannot inform themselves of alternative pricing.
It should also be differentiated from preferential sorting - where a person who buys premium products will do a search and be shown the premium products first, then the cheaper ones down the line. Done right, preferential sorting can make a search engine seem "good" at finding stuff the person wants without having to wade through listings of cheaper stuff they don't want.
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Basic arithmetic is NOT a means to an end. It's actually required to live day to day life. After all, if apples are $2/kilo, and you only have $5, how much can you buy including sales tax?
Can you calculate what your shopping cart should cost you, or are you going to rely on the store's calculation? (Yes, taxable, non-taxable and partially-taxable items complicate matters). It doesn't have to be down to the cent, but would you notice if instead of charging you $50, they charged you $55 because they screwed up?
And trust me, screwups are more common than you might think.
Even handling money requires math - quickly add up the change to make sure it's correct, or to ensure you paid enough (the 1-2-5 system makes it easy, but it's still math). Or calculating the tip.
While these examples don't require exact figures, they require getting a feel for numbers so you can say your groceries should not cost more than $50 including tax, that your tip on a restaurant bill of $75 should not be $25, but should max out around $10-11 or so. Or your change for $12.35 worth of stuff is a bit more than $2.50 so you know to get 2 $1's and 2 quarters and then some.
Or even just calculating the best deal - is $1.25/each (regular $1.50) on sale a better deal than the pack of 5 for $7?
Yes, you can pull out your calculator and figure it out in the store, but I imagine tasks like these are dull and boring enough that most people want to get in and get out, and it's either wasting time punching it into a calculator (thus making the chore even more of a chore) or wasting money (stores often price stuff funny to get people too lazy to figure it out for themselves).
You're assuming that there will be lots of high quality indie developers. Guess what? Take a stroll around the Apple App Store, Google Play Market, and Xbox Indie Arcade sometime.
Especially the App Store and Indie Arcade as those require an annual commitment of money, while Google Play (and Ouya) require just a one-time commitment of money.
What you'll find is the stores are littered with piles of crap - for every Angry Birds, there's probably at least 100 games that are just piss-poor in every way imaginable. And probably 10 or so in that group would be a DLC-demanding bunch where they're "free" but require payment for smurfberries and such.
There'll be lots of developers, and probably tons of them are just intent of making quick bucks because of all the hype surrounding this console, which means even the big studio's offerings are going to be drowned out by the sheer volume of junk. And it's junk the developer invested a lot of time and money into (you think they're paying $99/year for fun in the Apple App Store?)
That's the real problem - keeping the signal-to-noise ratio high so people are encouraged to buy the console because there's lots of good games. Also nevermind all the game ripoffs in said markets as well.
How is this an admission that memory corruption is inevitable?
I see it as defense in depth - the application is the first line of defense against memory corruption (usually caused intentionally). If that wall fails, the OS has a wall of its own to help protect the system as well.
A well-written program would check its inputs, but it's possible that it can fail (it's written by humans, after all), and it's far better to have the OS protect itself than not.
It's like how any network puts up firewalls - the individual servers should be hardened against attack, but it doesn't hurt to put up another layer of security on top of that.
And face it - most developers write crap now and again - either due to pressures of time or "get it working" blocker bugs and are vulnerable to taking a shortcut now and again. Want an illustration of this? See how many programs broke under Windows Vista (which actually enforced many rules that were already in place but most developers skirted and got away with breaking). Or anytime Apple releases a new OS - application breakages between OS X versions (or even Classic MacOS) are legendary. Hell, Microsoft has to often insert bugs in their code as some critical application or other rely on them to function. (Ever wonder why Explorer's top-level window is called "Program Manager" still? Or why "C:\Program Files" sometimes appears after installing a program on a non-English version of Windows?).
It's adapting to the reality of the world. Developers are far from perfect and often cheat. Users rarely if ever read dialogs (see Dancing Pigs aka Dancing Bunnies).
Actually, SDRs are capable of receiving up to around 125MHz or so, and transmitting over 600MHz - you can get 250MS/s ADCs and 1.2GU/s (for ADCs, it's samples, and DACs it's updates) DACs. With a bit of careful clocking, you can easily gang 4 or more of them to get an effective 1GS/s ADC (up to 500MHz by Nyquist).
Nowhere near cellphone frequencies, and we're talking about ADCs that cost over $150 in 1000 lot quantities (the DAC is somewhat cheaper, being only around $50 or so in 1000 lots).
Direct-conversion SDRs consisting of only a low-noise preamp (Rx) and power amp (Tx) are not only in the realm of possibility, they're becoming available (FlexRadio 6000 series is a direct-conversion SDR - it has an FPGA to accellerate the digital downconversion (mixing) and can do 4 of them per ADC, and does direct conversion transmit as well. They call it digital at the antenna.).
But yeah, SDRs aren't a magic bullet - there's still tons of RF work - even a direct conversion SDR requires an RF frontend (a situation unlikely to change as super-sensitive ADCs are an even more niche product than a high-bandwidth ADC). But the baseband part is rapidly becoming obsolete.
Easy, iOS still makes lots of money. To make money on Android (yes, it's possible) means having to put in a bunch of ads in your app, which then gets the Android community in a tizzy because now you need "Full internet connectivity," "Phone State," and "Contact List" access in order to support your ad platform.
Or you could, I guess, starve.
If Google really wanted to kill iOS (and they probably won't, since AdMob still produces a lot of money for them on iOS), all they really have to do is increase ad rate payouts and such on Android so developers make much more money on Android. Or find ways to get people into the play store and buying lots of apps so developers can rake in money.
The problem is the "B" model's Ethernet port is really a USB-to-Ethernet adapter connected to the processor's USB host controller. Couple that with a relatively weak ARM11 processor (really that CPU is meant to drive the VideoCore 4 graphics processor - basically to feed the beast with data so customers using the board don't have to buy a separate SoC if they want to build say, a Roku or something - they have a lightweight ARM to do the necessary work in getting the data to the VC, while the VC is doing the graphics and video decode. That's the reason why it's got an ARM core on it - it saves customers a few bucks when building their device.
That's like saying we should all abandon the web and go back to gopher. Media evolves - and comic books cover all sorts of topics these days. From TV shows and movies having backstories filled in by comics, to cancelled programs living on through comics.
Then this year it seems it's the age of the comic book movie, with Avengers, Batman and others hitting the big screen. Now, admittedly, Marvel was annoyed at Hollywood so they created their own studios to make those films, but still.
Everything is going multi-platform - books becoming comics, comics becoming books, video games and comics, movies, etc. To focus strictly on comics would keep the vent small, and nothing more than a "gathering of smelly nerds in a dark basement".
Of course, Comic-Con also suffers from "it was good before it was popular" trope as well.
But I see Comic-Con as a way for all those "nerds" to get together in a fairly safe environment and be social, and better yet, prove to the general public that they're an economic force to be listened to.
Hell, I think people on /. could learn a thing or two about how Comic-Con works to help spread the word about open-source, legal issues, etc to th. The public notices Comic-Con more than any other comic-book convention out there, more so than practically all the other comic book conventions out there, so there's no reason why technology geeks can't do something similar.
Actually, Shaw's a media company - they do not only internet, but phones as well. Those went down as well (Shaw has business packages for phone service over cable, but downtown, I'd guess they also have fiber phone service too).
And it really isn't a screwup - they were doing something important - testing the backup generators. It's just the generators blew up, which took out the other backup generators (dual redundant power!), and knocked out power to all the equipment by knocking the utility power offline as well.
My PS3 is annoying in that there's an annoying ad ticker that I can'd disable (it's was controllable in OS 2, but as of 3, it's always on if it's connected to the internet - you don't even have to be signed into PSN for that).
Now, granted, the Xbox ones have gotten a bit more pervasive lately. And I'm not talking about the game ads showing new offers and deals (PSN has lots of that - it seems to default to that screen when I turn on my PS3), but the other ads. I actually got a survey about them and told them to turn off those ad spots because they were getting distracting. The game ones at least I look at (usually about new DLC, new trailers and such - gaming related)
You spin it as allowing end users to replace the batteries, the batteries end up in the landfill.
After all, you buy a replacement from iFixit, but iFixit doesn't take back the old battery and recycle it for you, so most users will just dump it in the trash and it ends up in the landfill. Most electronics recyclers won't take the battery by itself as well (whether by itself or if it was replacable).
Instead, if you want to dispose the battery, you have to take it to a battery dropoff specifically, which can be a PITA and something most people don't do. Hell, most people still toss regular non-rechargables in the trash rather than recycling them.
Anyhow, buying new is usually not very environmentally friendly. It's reduce, reuse and recycle, so the first bit of being environmentally friendly is not buying it in the first place. If you *have* to buy it, then maybe get a used equivalent (reuse what's already been made). The final step is recycle... which Apple does allow you to do - they will take back any of their products for recycling.
Because authorization means it's a one-off purchase - once you bought something, it's marked in your account as purchased (otherwise Apple can't produce the receipt). Which means if you attempt to buy it again, Apple basically doesn't charge you (the receipt says you already bought it).
For stuff like DLC, it makes sense - you won't lose the item you bought if you delete and reinstall the app later.
For stuff that's a purchase for something repeatedly, you can't check receipts (e.g., smurfberries, where you can pay $99 multiple times).
Plus, apps sometimes like to be able to give stuff for free, which they can implement any which way to check as Apple won't have a receipt (so it's a lose-it scenario if you uninstall and reinstall and the app doesn't back that information up).
It depends on the app. Apps have two choices with regards to in-app purchases. They can go through the official Apple Store receipt mechanism, or choose not to. Usually purchases for stuff that "expire" don't (because the receipt method prevents a user from buying it again, so your $99 smurfberry pack can only be bought once), while stuff that may need to be reloaded does (e.g., DLC, so if you reinstall your app, you can redownload your previous in-app purchases because the app verifies with Apple what DLC you already own).
It's possible to do a hybrid system were some DLC is offered using the former system (usually to offer it "free" instead of requiring payment) - I believe developers host the additional content so if they wanted to give it for free, they tell the app they can get access to it. Of course, without an Apple receipt for it, if the developer removes the access, you've lost it. It's how the Atari thing let people get all games, but it goes away on next install (Atari updated the game's flags to say you own all the games, but if the app checks against Apple, it says you own none which is the case on reinstall).
The former could be acquired "for free" by using a jailbroken device with IAPCracker installed. The ones that check don't because they do confirmations with Apple to ensure it really was purchased.
Easy, paypal is the only company offering ONE service that NO ONE ELSE does. Allow random joes to accept a credit card without a merchant account.
If you're a business, Paypal offers you nothing more than what a regular merchant account does - to a business, it IS a regular merchant account.
If you're an individual, accepting credit cards is nigh-impossible as merchant accounts are extremely difficult to obtain for individuals, especially those not doing a minimum number of transactions a month.
And doing anything online without accepting credit (or debit) cards is a pretty good way to lose customers if they have to go and write a cheque (or get a money order) and mail it off, wait for it to arrive, wait for it to clear, and THEN have the item shipped out (anyone really want to go back to the "please wait 6-8 weeks for your order"?).
Of course, as a buyer, I had to use Paypal when a vendor decided they wanted to do a CYA and do "extra verifications" that required sending in scans of my credit card via e-mail or fax. They had the honesty to admit it would delay the order, but not to give you a "free" upgrade to expedited shipping. (They also argued it "was for your protection" - which is an utter lie - doing what they want is a great way to BE unprotected). If I didn't need the item (being practically only available from them), I would've gone elsewhere. On the flip side, I learned how to get 10% off the order by using those "10% off your next order" generic codes that show up after the order, so I did cost them the discount for their stupid policy.
So? I'm guessing most of the british don't use rabbit ears on their TVs - they stick the antenna on the roof, with a preamp on it and then it goes down and into the house where it's split up and distributed to indoor jacks as if it was cable.
So the house is "wired" for TV all to an antenna on the root - basically the building-sized version of cable. Many places do it this way - Asia for example, where an apartment block would have its own TV antenna and outlets put in the wall.
In this case, all you do need is one filter - not sure if you'd put it before or after the preamp - preferably before to avoid intermod, but filters do attenuate the signal somewhat.
It is now.
What happened was teachers and professors did this as they only used say, 1-2 pages of material out of one book because it was needed for the course, while the rest of the book was useless.
The publishers obviously got very mad at this since it deprived them of sales and convinced the copyright board that there should be something done about this.
If you go into a university library, take a look at the posters on the wall in the photocopier room - it'll usually describe what's happening.
Except most lampposts don't have any form of network connectivity already there (payphones have a line to the telco who can easily provision DSL to it). And people have been known to open the cover at the bottom to steal the wire for the copper, disabling the streetlight.
FYI,, a 64kbps telecommunications channel is 64,000bits/sec, not 65536bits/sec (it derives from 8kHz (8000, not 8192) sampling at 8 bits/sample). Just like 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet is 10,000,000, 100,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 bits/sec, respectively.
Same as your 2.6GHz CPU - it's 2,600,000,000 Hz.
Not using the right prefix is the same as not using the right units - you're going to screw up something somewhere.
You're a technical person, use precise language. If there's a chance of confusion, drop the prefix and use scientific notation, or define something across the board so places where the meanings can get messed up, are resolved and be consistent.
E.g., globally declare in your source code that "Kilo means 1024 throughout" so 1km in your program is 1024m, and if you use 64,000b/s channel, it's a 62.5kbps link.
MacOS 7 (System 7) apps were 68k, but they were stored as two "forks" - a resource fork (for icons/cursors/windows/menus and 68k code), and a data form (for free-form data - binary, text, or PowerPC code, but I doubt there's any PowerPC in it).
It's kinda interesting the website doesn't link to ResEdit as it's the way to tell if the binary is runnable by MacOS. (ResEdit also has a primitive disassembler for code resources).
And some old Apple documentaiton on how the Mac works would've been valuable as well - MacOS is a pretty strange OS (each resource can be up to 64k in size, and large programs are known to have multiple code segments).
Especially since knowing how the file must look like helps in its decryption since it has to be well-structured.
The problem is the Ouya store will be just as bad as the Apple App Store, Google Play Store and Xbox Live Indie Arcade. Everyone and their dog will want to try to cash in on the action (and with a kickstarter like that... cha-ching) and release tons of crap ass games.
They'll have the numbers but if it's practically impossible to find the good ones in the pile among the junk (it's hard enough already for Apple and Google - Apple bought an app search company to help improve things, even),
And yes, Tell tale games should work on it. Of course, my experience has been their games run like crap - frame rate losses on simple scenes, stuttering, etc. They have lots of great retro licenses, but their execution seems poor.
Of course, this thing will see great success as an emulation platform - play all those old console games on your TV again.
Apple withdrew ALL their computers from EPEAT. Even the certified ones, and even the ones that are still certified AFTER the new rules (e.g., Mac Mini, non-Retina Macbook Pros, iMac, Mac Pro...).
It's not a case of "the computers are no longer EPEAT certifiable", it's more of "Apple feels EPEAT is no longer in their interests" and withdrew all computers fro mthe lineup. I'ts not like individual computers weren't making certification. Apple just took their ball and went home, and did so knowing full well the implications.
As for repairability - I'm not so sure if it's a big a "green" thing as it's made out to be. After all, I don't see on iFixit that they provide recycling services (with return shipping) for the used parts you replace, so after changing that battery yourself in an iPod, it probably would end up in the same place that other batteries from more replacable devices go - in the trash, rather than recycled. (Most electronics recyclers don't accept loose parts - only reasonably complete assemblies).
So you replaced the battery in your laptop - what do you do with the old one? Take it to the recycler? Find a place that accepts them? Or be lazy and dump it in the trash?
And even if you keep it, when it's time to move, it'll probably end up in the landfill that way.
That's true if you use multi=monitors the Wrong Way. Instead ofhaving two screens being equal and used interchangably, you need one to be a "primary" and the other a secondary. The primary one is where all your work takes place, while the secondary one is where ancillary information (documentation, etc) are. And maybe the occasional YouTube video. The information is handy and quickly accessible by turning your head.
Even in a triple setup you have the same thing - two on the sides are anceillary to the one in the front. (Cheapskates will usually use two small monitors for the sides and a nice bigger one (with higher resolution) in the front).
Problem #1 - mixed units. You're using degress in Farenheit, while the scientists use metric, so 2-3 degrees is actually closer to 5-7F change.
Second, a degree is not a degree. The average world temperature is to move up a couple of degrees (including the very coldest parts of antartica to the hottest parts of the desert regions), averaged over an entire year.
The result of this is summers get hotter (much hotter), and winters get colder (much colder). No, previously cold areas like the northern regions do NOT get habitable. They may get nicer summers, but the winters will become even more bitterly cold, too.
And even if a degree was a degree, think of it this way - an EF5 hurricane cools the ocean about 2-3 degrees. Its considered a mechanism of how the oceans regulate temperature as the storms drain off excess heat.
So no, hot days and cold days are not purely the result of global warming or more correctly climate change. However, they are the cause of more extremely hot days in the summer, extremely cold days in the winter, and for making heatwaves and cold spells longer. Climate influences weather.
In fact, none of this is really up for debate - it's been well acknowledged and accepted. What is debated is anthropromorphic global warming - i.e., is it the result of human activity or a long natural cycle?
And that... will be the death of it.
Let's ignore first the games cost issue. The problem will be piles of people see "make money fast! make games on this!" and release a pile of steaming turds for 99 cents. It's happened to the Apple App Store, Google Play, and other stores *(Xbox Indie Arcade, anyone?) and those already demand some level of commitment (Apple $99/year and people still do it). Sure it's all cool and all that, but people will just see "make money! free tools!" and crank out crap after crap after crap, making it impossible to find or discover the good stuff.
Also, at 99 cents, the people who do good games will probably split their game up into 5-10 "episodes" in order to charge the $5/10 they wanted in the first place.
It's an intriguing thing, but will probably be flooded with crap soon enough. And do the economics support such a system? The whole point of the 99 cent apps are something you can grab for the few dead minutes you have - in a lineup, waiting for something, etc, as something to do. A home console - well, players tend to have more time to invest in a game and consequently demand more involved games.
Basically "playtime" vs "spare moment time".
Exactly. Think GMO foods - and most of the anger towards it goes towards basically one company - Montsanto. Especially when it affects something that's basically a necessity, people get really emotional about it. Montsanto basically hasn't helped their case either with their onerous licensing terms that you don't have to sign to be affected by.
It's not anti-science, it's anti-corporation, and science just happens to be in the way because corporations stir up feelings of doing it purely to make a profit off people. And it stirs up such strong emotions because the corporations are seen as uncaring profit machines (rightly or wrongly, that's a different debate) hell-bent on turning people into slaves dependent on everything from food to luxuries.
Enough so it's impossible to have a truly honest debate about such topics like GMO food, climate change, oil, etc. People are cynical - the future promised by science and technology has instead become a dystopia - they're working harder and longer for less pay which seems to be caused by all the scientific and technological progress.
That's called dynamic pricing, and Amazon did it at one point.
Of course, the problem with dynamic pricing is it relies on the ignorance of the user. As discovered in that article, if you use a different browser or not logged on, it would display a different price than when you went to check out.
And with the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, it's possible someone might browse Amazon and buy on their PC, and realize the price is different. You'd basically need to give everyone a personal ID code to ensure whatever screen they look at shows their own price. Which breaks the moment someone else looks up the item and gets a different price.
Dynamic pricing only works when the user is treated in aggregate (e.g., a vending machine that alters prices based on outside temperature but everyone pays the same), or the user cannot inform themselves of alternative pricing.
It should also be differentiated from preferential sorting - where a person who buys premium products will do a search and be shown the premium products first, then the cheaper ones down the line. Done right, preferential sorting can make a search engine seem "good" at finding stuff the person wants without having to wade through listings of cheaper stuff they don't want.