This simply goes to show that Moronism (the state of being a moron - although I admit it is very nearly a religion) is not a genetic trait. Sure, some level of intelligence is probably genetically programmed, but the true moron only achieves their exalted level of moronhood through faithful adherence to fundamental moron texts and precepts.
I've forgotten what the point I was trying to make was.
Let's see... In the living room, I've got no overhead light, but one five-bulbed light stand (plus a halogen torch, but I try not to use it much). Kitchen, four bulbs in the fan/fixture, plus two over the stove. One in the closet under the stairs. Two each in the lower and upper stairwell (4), plus two in each of the two fixtures in the upstairs hallway (another 4). In the bathroom, one in the overhead fixture, plus four over the mirror. Bedroom - three in the overhead fan/fixture, plus another one of those 5-way light stands (I use it for reading light - usually only two or three of the bulbs are on). Two more in the office overhead fixture. Oh yeah, plus one outside light. That adds up to 36 bulbs for my little apartment (not including the halogens - I forgot about the desktop halogens in the office, in addition to the torchiere downstairs).
I'll grant you the lights in the bedroom are a little overkill, but that's because I like reading in bed and so I rarely use the overhead lights (because then I'd actually have to drag myself all the way out of bed to turn the lights off; that, and even three 60 watt bulbs in an overhead fixture don't really provide comfortable reading light when I'm leaning against a wall). Also, because my apartment is a little old, every fixture in the place is designed for regular light bulbs - a more modern place might make more use of other types of light fixtures (no flouresecent tubes or halogen fixtures for me). The point is, light bulbs add up surprisingly quickly - before actually counting them up I would have guessed we only had fifteen or so in the apartment.
On a side note, the two 5-bulb lamps are both filled with 14 or 15 watt CFLs. Haven't had to replace any of them in 2 years. Of the other 26 bulbs in the place, I don't think I've replaced more than three or four bulbs in the same period.
Of course, for the vast majority of tasks done on a computer there is absolutely no advantage to a fully 3D environment. How does a fully 3d environment help me write a report? Track expenses? Find data (unless the data is 3d)? Unless you are working with 3d datasets (or games), there really isn't much (if any) advantage to a 3d environment.
I'd be happy to be proved wrong, but I don't see much real advantage for the vast majority of computer users from the examples you gave - or any other 3d environment.
That said, I've had an opportunity to use a CAVE system for a signficant amount of time, and there is no doubt in my mind that a true 3d environment makes it a thousand times easier to work with 3d data - I just don't think that most people would gain anything from this, and trying to force 2d applications into 3d is generally pointless and in fact counterproductive. Makes great eye candy, though.
Screw that, I'm waiting for whatever comes after LED. It'll be even more efficient, even harder to break, and it will actually make you smarter just by looking at it.
Or maybe it would make more sense to switch to the CFLs available right now, which are far more efficient than the alternative incandescent bulbs, and then in five or ten years when LEDs have progressed to the point where they are better than the CFLs (and the CFLs I buy now are dying) I could then switch to the newer, even more efficient bulbs. It's not like you have to choose between CFL and LED (LEDs just aren't ready yet, as you admit) - wouldn't it make more sense to take advantage of the efficiency of CFLs now, then when LEDs eventually become a credible alternative evaluate what is actually available?
I know this isn't necessarily what you were saying, but I've seen a lot of people recently continually holding out for the next generation of this or that device rather than adopting the current generation to replace their last-generation device; all that this results in is the person using increasingly outdated and unnecessarily inefficient equipment because they never actually commit to one technology or another - there is always something better on the horizon. At some point you have to realize that what you lose waiting for the "ideal" solution is far more than if you simply switched to the "better" solution currently available, and then switched again when the "ideal" solution finally materializes.
I don't know, in my 2-bedroom apartment I can think of at least 30 normal bulbs off the top of my head (not including a couple halogens and a few other odds and ends), and it isn't exactly a large place - a little under 1000 square feet. In a normal 3 bedroom house I could easily see at least 50 or more bulbs. 100 per household might be a little excessive, though.
To be clear, the article you linked to said absolutely nothing about the ACLU being opposed to the recall of Gray Davis. What the article you linked to said was that the ACLU argued that the vote should be delayed until counties still using the punch card system deemed unreliable after the 2000 vote were able to bring better systems online. According to your article, the ACLU's lawsuit was only concerned with ensuring that all votes would be recorded as accurately as possible.
In slightly more depth; the ACLU did not "oppose" the recall election, they were instead attempting to ensure that each person who bothered to cast a vote had their vote counted. At that time it had been mandated that new voting machines be in place before the next general election, but 12 counties had not yet complied with the order (since they still had a significant amount of time before the next "regularly scheduled" election was to take place). The ACLU was pointing out that since the recall election would take place before the 12 counties wouold be able to get their act together, resulting in another election with wide-rannging impacts potenitally being decided by voting machines officially considered unreliable, the election should be delayed until those counties were able to comply.
Like usual, the right then jumped all over them (as you do) for getting involved in party politics, when in fact they were doing what they have done incredibly consistently in the past - attempting to protect the civil liberties that we enjoy, regardless of what narrow group it will harm or help in the short term. The ACLU is functioning perfectly well; the problem is that people like you consistently mis-interpret their fights to protect our basic rights and liberties in terms of who they are helping or hurting short-term; the same people who say how evil the ACLU is when they fight, for example, for the freedom of speech of groups that are widely despised.
Seems really pointless when you think of vending machines that sell soft drinks and snacks, but I guess there could be a use for more-secure vending machines for higher-dollar items (like the one selling iPods I saw a month or two back).
Even the audio feature comparisons are moot as far as I'm concerned. Except for deliberate choices (leaving out an audio track) or mistakes in the authoring, I don't expect there to be a difference because both formats generally allow the disc producer to use the same sets of audio codecs.
After reading the article and being surprised that they didn't include the "Dolby Digital Plus" (which I hadn't heard of before) on the Blue-ray releases, I quickly looked up DD+ which seems to suggest that the audio tracks on blu-ray discs are capped at about 1/4th the bitrate of the hd-dvd audio track. Anyone know if this is accurate, and if so, anyone have any idea why they would do this?
Of course to get that 1080p projector for your projection screen you're looking at spending around $10,000 minimum. You can get 1080p LCD projection TVs (for around $2500, or more for Sony's XRD), but the vast majority of televisions being sold as "HD" only actually offer up to 1280x720 (though there seem to be a large number offering something like 1366x768 - really weird), and with projectors it's even worse.
Wow there are a bunch of replies to the grandparent that completely miss the point. The point wasn't that they were using those powers, the pont was that if they can catch the people anyway, why do they need those powers?
"The Playstation made MUCH better use of it's 3d capabilities..."
I never liked the graphics on the vast majority of Playstation games. They always filled the screen with so many ugly, low-resolution textures that I couldn't tell what the hell was going on. The graphics on N64 games (particularly ones like Mario 64, Mario Kart 64) were just so much cleaner and clearer it made the games a lot more fun. On Playstation (action) games, the biggest challenge for me was always trying to figure out what that next blob of ugly textures was supposed to be. On the Nintendo, I was always able to focus much more on the gameplay (although the camera crap in Mario 64, which is STILL a huge problem in way too many console games, could be a real pain).
Wow, you managed to pick six shows that I've never seen more than one or two episodes of. But then, I've never been one to really watch a series (unless they are on DVD and I can watch large chunks at once). A lot of the more financially successful shows/movies/games are utter crap. Madden? Survivor? Titanic? There are many shows/games/movies that I consider high quality that are also extremely successful, but I'm not sure there is really a good correlation between success of a product and quality. I realize this isn't exactly the point you were making (that they depend more on a few popular products versus the hundreds of "other" products that are put out), I just don't think that there is much evidence supporting a contention that higher quality (media) products = higher revenue.
I played that - no enemies, but multiplayer worked! My intro to Quake was getting my ass handed to me on the test maps by my brother on our home network (coax, baby! Damn, where the fsck did that other terminator go...).
Heh, my first experience with 3D hardware was the Matrox Mystique my brother bought. Brought it home, couldn't get MDK to run decently, went back out the same day to get a Voodoo. The translucent rosy-pink-orange platforms from MDK are the first thing I remember really being impressed by in terms of 3D accelerated graphics.
So at a MAXIMUM best case scenario we could have recorded temps for the last 300 yrs, NOT 400 years. The conclusions about temps many years ago are taken from Antaritc ice cores, based on the rate of ice accumulation in the region. That method is pretty good but it's not rock solid FACT, it's still hypothesis.
Actually, temperatures are reconstructed from ice cores based on stable oxygen isotopes. Basically, changes in temperature affect the fractionation - basically, the ratio of Oxygen-18 to Oxygen-16 - of these isotopes when the ice forms. Experimentation has been done to test fractionation at different temperatures, and portions of ice records representing time periods with good instrument temperature records have been examined to build an oxygen isotope "thermometer". Unfortunately, this only gives us temperatures at very high latitudes (Greenland ice sheet, Antarctic ice sheet) which are not necessarily representative of what is going on globally climate-wise (though it is probably a pretty good indication - lots of work is ongoing trying to determine how closely linked polar and tropical climate is). The longest records we have from ice cores go back ~740 thousand years (I've forgotten what the oldest one is - I think ~200,000 years for the Greenland ice sheet, and the higher number comes from the EPICA antarctic ice core).
Ice accumulation rate can also be measured (and has been), but it depends on more than just temperature, so it doesn't make a good paleothermometer (though it does give important paleoclimate information).
I think yo umissed the "important" point (though I'm not sure the grandparent got it either).
The point is that Apple is an American company. They sell this product called the iPod in (among other places) the United States. However, they do not make this product in the United States, because labour laws here (minimum wage, etc.) increase the cost to manufacture those items. Therefore, in order to increase profit margins, they bypass American labour laws by having their products manufactured in China, where the labor laws (good, bad, non-existant, doesn't matter) allow the items to be produced at a much lower cost. They then import the items into the U.S. to sell. The point (as far as I could tell) wasn't that the companies doing Apple's manufacturing break local laws, it was that those local labour laws are more favorable to Apple so they manufacture their products there to avoid American labor laws (they do it for the cost, really, but it essentially the same thing).
I'm not sure I agree with this point (I don't think it is labor laws alone that decide the cost of production), but that's what I got out of it.
Gimme Mario Kart 64 (somehow it was just more fun than Double Dash) and Super Bomberman and I'll be happy. And one of those fun old hockey games where you can body check people after goals/end of game ('cause we all know that's really what hockey is about).
Of course, secret missions kind of go against the idea of a 'show of strength' to promote peace. Maybe they meant piece-time missions, as in what will happen if the soldiers are having so much fun they forget to open their 'chutes?
That or the AG Duo. Two cores that appear to plug into each other, but no one is ever quite sure. This will cause the downfall of AMD as they will be so busy trying to figure out if the AG Duo is, well, you know... that they won't have time to design their next processor.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like somebody has a Dilbert calendar :)
I thought of the same thing when I saw the headline.
This simply goes to show that Moronism (the state of being a moron - although I admit it is very nearly a religion) is not a genetic trait. Sure, some level of intelligence is probably genetically programmed, but the true moron only achieves their exalted level of moronhood through faithful adherence to fundamental moron texts and precepts.
I've forgotten what the point I was trying to make was.
Let's see... In the living room, I've got no overhead light, but one five-bulbed light stand (plus a halogen torch, but I try not to use it much). Kitchen, four bulbs in the fan/fixture, plus two over the stove. One in the closet under the stairs. Two each in the lower and upper stairwell (4), plus two in each of the two fixtures in the upstairs hallway (another 4). In the bathroom, one in the overhead fixture, plus four over the mirror. Bedroom - three in the overhead fan/fixture, plus another one of those 5-way light stands (I use it for reading light - usually only two or three of the bulbs are on). Two more in the office overhead fixture. Oh yeah, plus one outside light. That adds up to 36 bulbs for my little apartment (not including the halogens - I forgot about the desktop halogens in the office, in addition to the torchiere downstairs).
I'll grant you the lights in the bedroom are a little overkill, but that's because I like reading in bed and so I rarely use the overhead lights (because then I'd actually have to drag myself all the way out of bed to turn the lights off; that, and even three 60 watt bulbs in an overhead fixture don't really provide comfortable reading light when I'm leaning against a wall). Also, because my apartment is a little old, every fixture in the place is designed for regular light bulbs - a more modern place might make more use of other types of light fixtures (no flouresecent tubes or halogen fixtures for me). The point is, light bulbs add up surprisingly quickly - before actually counting them up I would have guessed we only had fifteen or so in the apartment.
On a side note, the two 5-bulb lamps are both filled with 14 or 15 watt CFLs. Haven't had to replace any of them in 2 years. Of the other 26 bulbs in the place, I don't think I've replaced more than three or four bulbs in the same period.
Of course, for the vast majority of tasks done on a computer there is absolutely no advantage to a fully 3D environment. How does a fully 3d environment help me write a report? Track expenses? Find data (unless the data is 3d)? Unless you are working with 3d datasets (or games), there really isn't much (if any) advantage to a 3d environment.
I'd be happy to be proved wrong, but I don't see much real advantage for the vast majority of computer users from the examples you gave - or any other 3d environment.
That said, I've had an opportunity to use a CAVE system for a signficant amount of time, and there is no doubt in my mind that a true 3d environment makes it a thousand times easier to work with 3d data - I just don't think that most people would gain anything from this, and trying to force 2d applications into 3d is generally pointless and in fact counterproductive. Makes great eye candy, though.
Screw that, I'm waiting for whatever comes after LED. It'll be even more efficient, even harder to break, and it will actually make you smarter just by looking at it.
Or maybe it would make more sense to switch to the CFLs available right now, which are far more efficient than the alternative incandescent bulbs, and then in five or ten years when LEDs have progressed to the point where they are better than the CFLs (and the CFLs I buy now are dying) I could then switch to the newer, even more efficient bulbs. It's not like you have to choose between CFL and LED (LEDs just aren't ready yet, as you admit) - wouldn't it make more sense to take advantage of the efficiency of CFLs now, then when LEDs eventually become a credible alternative evaluate what is actually available?
I know this isn't necessarily what you were saying, but I've seen a lot of people recently continually holding out for the next generation of this or that device rather than adopting the current generation to replace their last-generation device; all that this results in is the person using increasingly outdated and unnecessarily inefficient equipment because they never actually commit to one technology or another - there is always something better on the horizon. At some point you have to realize that what you lose waiting for the "ideal" solution is far more than if you simply switched to the "better" solution currently available, and then switched again when the "ideal" solution finally materializes.
I don't know, in my 2-bedroom apartment I can think of at least 30 normal bulbs off the top of my head (not including a couple halogens and a few other odds and ends), and it isn't exactly a large place - a little under 1000 square feet. In a normal 3 bedroom house I could easily see at least 50 or more bulbs. 100 per household might be a little excessive, though.
This is why I always keep my cell phone in a lead box.
To be clear, the article you linked to said absolutely nothing about the ACLU being opposed to the recall of Gray Davis. What the article you linked to said was that the ACLU argued that the vote should be delayed until counties still using the punch card system deemed unreliable after the 2000 vote were able to bring better systems online. According to your article, the ACLU's lawsuit was only concerned with ensuring that all votes would be recorded as accurately as possible.
In slightly more depth; the ACLU did not "oppose" the recall election, they were instead attempting to ensure that each person who bothered to cast a vote had their vote counted. At that time it had been mandated that new voting machines be in place before the next general election, but 12 counties had not yet complied with the order (since they still had a significant amount of time before the next "regularly scheduled" election was to take place). The ACLU was pointing out that since the recall election would take place before the 12 counties wouold be able to get their act together, resulting in another election with wide-rannging impacts potenitally being decided by voting machines officially considered unreliable, the election should be delayed until those counties were able to comply.
Like usual, the right then jumped all over them (as you do) for getting involved in party politics, when in fact they were doing what they have done incredibly consistently in the past - attempting to protect the civil liberties that we enjoy, regardless of what narrow group it will harm or help in the short term. The ACLU is functioning perfectly well; the problem is that people like you consistently mis-interpret their fights to protect our basic rights and liberties in terms of who they are helping or hurting short-term; the same people who say how evil the ACLU is when they fight, for example, for the freedom of speech of groups that are widely despised.
were killed to bring us this device.
Seems really pointless when you think of vending machines that sell soft drinks and snacks, but I guess there could be a use for more-secure vending machines for higher-dollar items (like the one selling iPods I saw a month or two back).
After reading the article and being surprised that they didn't include the "Dolby Digital Plus" (which I hadn't heard of before) on the Blue-ray releases, I quickly looked up DD+ which seems to suggest that the audio tracks on blu-ray discs are capped at about 1/4th the bitrate of the hd-dvd audio track. Anyone know if this is accurate, and if so, anyone have any idea why they would do this?
Of course to get that 1080p projector for your projection screen you're looking at spending around $10,000 minimum. You can get 1080p LCD projection TVs (for around $2500, or more for Sony's XRD), but the vast majority of televisions being sold as "HD" only actually offer up to 1280x720 (though there seem to be a large number offering something like 1366x768 - really weird), and with projectors it's even worse.
But about as safe per trip.
Just sayin'.
Wow there are a bunch of replies to the grandparent that completely miss the point. The point wasn't that they were using those powers, the pont was that if they can catch the people anyway, why do they need those powers?
I never liked the graphics on the vast majority of Playstation games. They always filled the screen with so many ugly, low-resolution textures that I couldn't tell what the hell was going on. The graphics on N64 games (particularly ones like Mario 64, Mario Kart 64) were just so much cleaner and clearer it made the games a lot more fun. On Playstation (action) games, the biggest challenge for me was always trying to figure out what that next blob of ugly textures was supposed to be. On the Nintendo, I was always able to focus much more on the gameplay (although the camera crap in Mario 64, which is STILL a huge problem in way too many console games, could be a real pain).
Wow, you managed to pick six shows that I've never seen more than one or two episodes of. But then, I've never been one to really watch a series (unless they are on DVD and I can watch large chunks at once).
A lot of the more financially successful shows/movies/games are utter crap. Madden? Survivor? Titanic? There are many shows/games/movies that I consider high quality that are also extremely successful, but I'm not sure there is really a good correlation between success of a product and quality. I realize this isn't exactly the point you were making (that they depend more on a few popular products versus the hundreds of "other" products that are put out), I just don't think that there is much evidence supporting a contention that higher quality (media) products = higher revenue.
I played that - no enemies, but multiplayer worked! My intro to Quake was getting my ass handed to me on the test maps by my brother on our home network (coax, baby! Damn, where the fsck did that other terminator go...).
Heh, my first experience with 3D hardware was the Matrox Mystique my brother bought. Brought it home, couldn't get MDK to run decently, went back out the same day to get a Voodoo. The translucent rosy-pink-orange platforms from MDK are the first thing I remember really being impressed by in terms of 3D accelerated graphics.
Actually, temperatures are reconstructed from ice cores based on stable oxygen isotopes. Basically, changes in temperature affect the fractionation - basically, the ratio of Oxygen-18 to Oxygen-16 - of these isotopes when the ice forms. Experimentation has been done to test fractionation at different temperatures, and portions of ice records representing time periods with good instrument temperature records have been examined to build an oxygen isotope "thermometer". Unfortunately, this only gives us temperatures at very high latitudes (Greenland ice sheet, Antarctic ice sheet) which are not necessarily representative of what is going on globally climate-wise (though it is probably a pretty good indication - lots of work is ongoing trying to determine how closely linked polar and tropical climate is). The longest records we have from ice cores go back ~740 thousand years (I've forgotten what the oldest one is - I think ~200,000 years for the Greenland ice sheet, and the higher number comes from the EPICA antarctic ice core).
Ice accumulation rate can also be measured (and has been), but it depends on more than just temperature, so it doesn't make a good paleothermometer (though it does give important paleoclimate information).
I think yo umissed the "important" point (though I'm not sure the grandparent got it either).
The point is that Apple is an American company. They sell this product called the iPod in (among other places) the United States. However, they do not make this product in the United States, because labour laws here (minimum wage, etc.) increase the cost to manufacture those items. Therefore, in order to increase profit margins, they bypass American labour laws by having their products manufactured in China, where the labor laws (good, bad, non-existant, doesn't matter) allow the items to be produced at a much lower cost. They then import the items into the U.S. to sell. The point (as far as I could tell) wasn't that the companies doing Apple's manufacturing break local laws, it was that those local labour laws are more favorable to Apple so they manufacture their products there to avoid American labor laws (they do it for the cost, really, but it essentially the same thing).
I'm not sure I agree with this point (I don't think it is labor laws alone that decide the cost of production), but that's what I got out of it.
Gimme Mario Kart 64 (somehow it was just more fun than Double Dash) and Super Bomberman and I'll be happy. And one of those fun old hockey games where you can body check people after goals/end of game ('cause we all know that's really what hockey is about).
Of course, secret missions kind of go against the idea of a 'show of strength' to promote peace. Maybe they meant piece-time missions, as in what will happen if the soldiers are having so much fun they forget to open their 'chutes?
To get deep inside enemy territory.
Hyuck hyuck hyuck.
Seriously, looks like a hell of a lot of fun.
(source)
Just look at all those sickeningly violent games...
Ah yes, the new intel AG Duo, codename: Rouge.
(I'm hoping you mean the Rogue river)
That or the AG Duo. Two cores that appear to plug into each other, but no one is ever quite sure. This will cause the downfall of AMD as they will be so busy trying to figure out if the AG Duo is, well, you know... that they won't have time to design their next processor.