Egypt appears to be one country that prefers the typical hollywood fluff-type movie. Am I imagining things, or does the article basically say that the movie is being banned because it discusses interesting issues?
I just have to ask, have you considered trying an amazing machine called a bicycle? They are incredibly easy to use, very safe (assuming you use them responsibly), and I hear you can buy even a very good one for less than 1/5th the price of a Segway. I know, you have to actually move your legs a little bit to make them move, but to go at Segway-like speeds takes practically no energy at all. In addition, when you feel like going faster, the bicycle will allow you to go nearly as fast as you want. Why, I have heard that bicycles can travel at up to 160 mph, and for distances up to 200 miles. Amazingly, with all that utility, bicycles weigh less than half of what a Segway weighs (often times less than a quarter!), and there is extensive infrastructure in place in many cities that allow for easy storage during the day. So, just what is it about the Segway that attracted you? Low speed? High cost? Short range?
Seriously, what is it about a Segway that would attract anyone to using one?
Sure you could probably make a computer that runs entirely on a GPU, but what is the point? I much prefer having two powerful processors in my system to just one, especially when they are designed for different purposes. It only makes sense to make more use of the power of GPUs when they are otherwise sitting idle (as in pretty much everything that is not graphics-intensive). I think GPUs will become more and more flexible as time goes on, but that doesn't mean they will replace CPUs - they fulfill diferent jobs. GPUs today basically are cpus, just refined to run certain kinds of operations at very high speeds. Look at the complexity (and cost) of modern GPUs, and they are at pretty much the same level as CPUs. Using a GPU to run a whole system is like using a CPU to do graphics - sure it can do it (remember the days before 3D cards), but it would be slower. There isn't a conflict between CPUs and GPUs - just as I would prefer to have a dual-processor system (assuming I am running code that makes use of them), I prefer to have both a CPU and a GPU, where most software already makes use of both processors. It only makes sense to integrate GPUs into code more as they become more flexible, even if it is to do things unrelated to graphics. More and more I think programmers will realize that the CPU and GPU are two very powerful processors designed for different types of tasks, and make use of them as such. If a certain type of calculation runs faster on the architecture of the GPU, it only makes sense to use it; similarly, if a piece of code runs better on a CPU, it doesn't make any sense to write it to run on the GPU. Putting a video card with a GPU on it into your system is becoming more and more like adding a second CPU, one that is designed for different tasks - in the next few years, they will become increasingly used as such. Also, processing power is processing power - why would you get rid of the CPU, thereby reducing processing power, just because you can use the GPU to do everything? It makes much more sense to me to have, and use, both.
Yes, but only if they get to sell it. They would like everyone in the world to own an MS media center, as long as they pay through the nose to do so. Selling a console at a loss and then supporting free software that allows it to do all kinds of things does not seem to me to be a good strategy.
Re:Here's a wacked out idea...
on
Hacking the XBox
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Great idea. Lets waste our money so MS might lose some. Of course, considering they have $40 billion odd in cash lying around (at least, I think I remember hearing something like that), we're going to have to buy a hell of a lot of X-boxes. Lets see, something like 400,000,000 of them I think (assuming they lose $100 a console). Somehow I don't think that is going to work.
as much as I hate reality TV...
on
Spam, Milord
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
After reading this, I can't help but think what a great show The House of Lords might make. In any case, I might have to start reading transcripts of their discussions, this one was great - a mixture of humour and serious discussion, exactly the way things should be done.
And don't forget dubbing. God, I can't stand listening to dubbed movies! Is there anyone who actually listens to the english dub for Spirited Away, Crouching Tiger, or any other foreign language film? I don't care what language its in, I want to hear the original voices. Dubbed voices, even when done by talented voice actors, never seem to quite capture the feel of the characters properly. Dubbing sucks. Long live subtitles!
Didn't you read the part about impregnating the cardboard with a lead-zinc alloy, which not only improves shielding but can double as a backup power source?
As Moore's law begins to slow, and the difference between a 2 gHz Duron and a 4 gHz Duron become imperceptible to most normal people ( a few socially challenged gamers and overclockers aside), people will no longer flock to domestic manufacturers known for high performance boxes like IBM, Dell and Gateway, but will instead look for a box that will last them 3 years, and go with thier domestic decorating scheme.
High performance boxes? Umm, no. Sorry. Anyone who thinks Dell and Gateway make high performance boxes is already lost. Mass-market boxes, sure. But not high performance.
What they failed to mention in the article is that the vast majority of the time they were projecting a black screen the lamp was on, but the mirrors were set not to let any light through. No mirror switching, no nothing. Of course, this isn't real stressful for the DLP, but for the LCD projectors it slowly degrades the system. (Yeah, so I have no evidence for this, but the article doesn't say what they WERE displaying on the projectors - it just says they were running continuously).
I think it was IGN or one of the giant networks... not a pop-up, but an interstitial page that appears between pages.
Yeah, IGN does this, and lately Fileplanet has started doing it too. Not too bad so far, because the link to bypass the add is always the first thing that shows up. A little annoying, but not too bad. Beats a pop-up, anyway (sort of).
Re:[insert supreme being/philosophy etc.] called..
on
Digital DNA Circuits
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· Score: 1
He wanted to remind you that he has held the copyright for DNA for billions of years now..
He's been in contact with his lawyers and is tallying your bill as we speak.
UPDATE: He/She/They/It has sued for control of her/his/their/its intellectual property, which the judge granted. He/She/They/It may order return of all IP active immediately, or up to 100 years from this date at the parties discretion. Due to the omnipotent power of the suing party, no other legal enforcement has been deemed necessary.
The point is, that chemical reactions are very slow. If they were faster, your brain (and your neurons in your arm) wouldn't have to guess. Because they're so slow they'd be very poor at brute force attacks, regardless of the sheer number of cells.
In this case, it isn't really an issue of the speed of chemical reactions (which oftentimes are not slow at all - they can be nearly instantaneous). The electrical impulse that moves along each nerve is very fast, of course, but the slowdown occurs between nerves - when one neuron talks to another. This is done by the first nerve releasing chemicals, which are then picked up by receptors on the second neuron. It isn' the speed of the chemical reaction that is slow, it is the physical movement of the chemicals from release to uptake that slows the system down. At least, thats what I remember from my Biopsychology class a couple years ago (that was a really cool class, all about nerves and neurons and the chemicals that affect their action and by extension the brain).
Probably for cost reasons, and transmission losses. It would probably be much easier for PG&E (or any other power produciton company) to locate all of their power generation in one place for ease of service and management, but the fact is they would be losing a large amount of energy in transmitting that energy over long distances.
The abundance of geothermal energy in Iceland is probably a large part of making this shift to hydrogen energy possible. They have an abundant source of clean electrical generation capacity, something that pretty much no other nation in the world comes close to. For years ore has been shipped all the way from Australia to Iceland for smelting because of the incredibly cheap electricity rates there - it takes a lot of energy to smelt bauxite (to create aluminum), so it turns out to be cheaper to transport the bulk ore thousands of miles by ship rather than smelt in Australia. Thanks to the abundant, cheap energy available in Iceland, hydrogen production should be no problem.
Why just Carbon 12? Very few things hold onto (or release) C12 selectively over C14 or any other form of carbon, and they have the same large-scale effects. Was it just to make the comment sound more science-like (I would definitely believe that, especially if you picked this up from Discovery)? Oh, and no cause of the Permian extinction (or any other mass extinction in the past) has been proven. The explanation you mentioned may just happen to be the theory that currently fits the data best, but it is not proven (as we were told in a geology class, it is sometimes difficult to call this type of geology a science - you can't really test your hypothesis. All people can do is postulate theories for how or why something happened that fits available data, and continue to analyze it as additional data is uncovered).
What about geotherms from the earth's magma. Why can't we use it (they do in Iceland) as a carbon substitute.
Most places don't have access to the abundant geothermal energy that Iceland has access to, located on a spreading center as it is. Spreading centers (places where two plates are moving away from eachother, creating new crust) bring magma very close to the surface of the Earth, much closer than pretty much anywhere else (except volcanoes, but those are a little tricky to harness the thermal energy from). I can't think of a single place (dry place, that is) besides Iceland that sits right on top of an active spreading center, so they are in a pretty unique situation (sure, there are failed rifts in Africa, but those are not active. Also possibly failed rifting in the U.S., but again, not active) So unless you find a way to get energy from dozens to hundreds of kilometers underground, much deeper than we have ever even drilled, then we will have to be stuck with our few spots of high geothermal activity for producing energy in that way. Oh yeah, and depending on geothermal energy just delays the problem - the Earth is cooling, albeit very slowly.
Oh, why does it matter? If more carbon is being removed by the carbon cycle than is being released -- we'll run out of carbon dioxide. No plant respiration. No oxygen production.
Long before we run out of carbon dioxide the climate of the Earth would probably get MUCH colder, reducing the amount of photosynthesis occurring. I'm not sure if a causal relationship has tuly been established, but it has been observed in many paleoclimate studies that higher oxygen levels (and lower carbon dioxide levels) are tied to colder climates, and vice versa.
I know you are joking, but if you read the article, it says that despite the low production levels in ocean areas, due to the very large area of the oceans they actually are about even with land in total production.
With SBC I get about 1.2Mbps (150KB/sec) downstream but only about 128Kbps up (~15KB/sec). Plenty fast downstream for practically everything (about 2 hours per gigabyte), but it would be nice to have faster upstream. A hell of a lot better than cable in my area; the only cable operator in my town doesn't offer cable internet service (despite the city being home to one of the UC's, so 20,000+ college types living there. Seems like ideal customers to me). All that for only $50 a month (for the next step up in service it is $80 a month).
It seems to me that the most likely outcome will be that video rental establishments will increasingly be the ones to purchase the "regular" versions (with the hours of special features on many special edition movies, there simply isn't time to watch it all on a normal rental agreement - so it makes less sense for rental outlets to purchase special editions), while people who actually want to purchase a movie for their personal collection will most likely wait for a "special" edition to come out. Not too much of a problem in my opinion, it just means I have to wait a little longer to buy a movie that I really want. Back in the days of VHS, video rental stores always seemed to be able to get hold of movies before they were available for general purchase. It may just be that this trend will come back, but more because of consumer's choice rather than not having the option of buying the movie.
Slashdot Mirror
whoah.
Egypt appears to be one country that prefers the typical hollywood fluff-type movie. Am I imagining things, or does the article basically say that the movie is being banned because it discusses interesting issues?
I just have to ask, have you considered trying an amazing machine called a bicycle? They are incredibly easy to use, very safe (assuming you use them responsibly), and I hear you can buy even a very good one for less than 1/5th the price of a Segway. I know, you have to actually move your legs a little bit to make them move, but to go at Segway-like speeds takes practically no energy at all. In addition, when you feel like going faster, the bicycle will allow you to go nearly as fast as you want. Why, I have heard that bicycles can travel at up to 160 mph, and for distances up to 200 miles. Amazingly, with all that utility, bicycles weigh less than half of what a Segway weighs (often times less than a quarter!), and there is extensive infrastructure in place in many cities that allow for easy storage during the day.
So, just what is it about the Segway that attracted you? Low speed? High cost? Short range?
Seriously, what is it about a Segway that would attract anyone to using one?
Sure you could probably make a computer that runs entirely on a GPU, but what is the point? I much prefer having two powerful processors in my system to just one, especially when they are designed for different purposes. It only makes sense to make more use of the power of GPUs when they are otherwise sitting idle (as in pretty much everything that is not graphics-intensive). I think GPUs will become more and more flexible as time goes on, but that doesn't mean they will replace CPUs - they fulfill diferent jobs. GPUs today basically are cpus, just refined to run certain kinds of operations at very high speeds. Look at the complexity (and cost) of modern GPUs, and they are at pretty much the same level as CPUs. Using a GPU to run a whole system is like using a CPU to do graphics - sure it can do it (remember the days before 3D cards), but it would be slower. There isn't a conflict between CPUs and GPUs - just as I would prefer to have a dual-processor system (assuming I am running code that makes use of them), I prefer to have both a CPU and a GPU, where most software already makes use of both processors. It only makes sense to integrate GPUs into code more as they become more flexible, even if it is to do things unrelated to graphics. More and more I think programmers will realize that the CPU and GPU are two very powerful processors designed for different types of tasks, and make use of them as such. If a certain type of calculation runs faster on the architecture of the GPU, it only makes sense to use it; similarly, if a piece of code runs better on a CPU, it doesn't make any sense to write it to run on the GPU. Putting a video card with a GPU on it into your system is becoming more and more like adding a second CPU, one that is designed for different tasks - in the next few years, they will become increasingly used as such. Also, processing power is processing power - why would you get rid of the CPU, thereby reducing processing power, just because you can use the GPU to do everything? It makes much more sense to me to have, and use, both.
Yes, but only if they get to sell it. They would like everyone in the world to own an MS media center, as long as they pay through the nose to do so. Selling a console at a loss and then supporting free software that allows it to do all kinds of things does not seem to me to be a good strategy.
Great idea. Lets waste our money so MS might lose some. Of course, considering they have $40 billion odd in cash lying around (at least, I think I remember hearing something like that), we're going to have to buy a hell of a lot of X-boxes. Lets see, something like 400,000,000 of them I think (assuming they lose $100 a console). Somehow I don't think that is going to work.
After reading this, I can't help but think what a great show The House of Lords might make. In any case, I might have to start reading transcripts of their discussions, this one was great - a mixture of humour and serious discussion, exactly the way things should be done.
And don't forget dubbing. God, I can't stand listening to dubbed movies! Is there anyone who actually listens to the english dub for Spirited Away, Crouching Tiger, or any other foreign language film? I don't care what language its in, I want to hear the original voices. Dubbed voices, even when done by talented voice actors, never seem to quite capture the feel of the characters properly. Dubbing sucks. Long live subtitles!
Didn't you read the part about impregnating the cardboard with a lead-zinc alloy, which not only improves shielding but can double as a backup power source?
I use paper drive bays to lower unsprung weight.
High performance boxes? Umm, no. Sorry. Anyone who thinks Dell and Gateway make high performance boxes is already lost. Mass-market boxes, sure. But not high performance.
What they failed to mention in the article is that the vast majority of the time they were projecting a black screen the lamp was on, but the mirrors were set not to let any light through. No mirror switching, no nothing. Of course, this isn't real stressful for the DLP, but for the LCD projectors it slowly degrades the system. (Yeah, so I have no evidence for this, but the article doesn't say what they WERE displaying on the projectors - it just says they were running continuously).
Just hire a guy to run around with a wheelbarrow full of CDs. The bandwidth is way higher.
Yeah, IGN does this, and lately Fileplanet has started doing it too. Not too bad so far, because the link to bypass the add is always the first thing that shows up. A little annoying, but not too bad. Beats a pop-up, anyway (sort of).
He's been in contact with his lawyers and is tallying your bill as we speak.
UPDATE:
He/She/They/It has sued for control of her/his/their/its intellectual property, which the judge granted. He/She/They/It may order return of all IP active immediately, or up to 100 years from this date at the parties discretion. Due to the omnipotent power of the suing party, no other legal enforcement has been deemed necessary.
In this case, it isn't really an issue of the speed of chemical reactions (which oftentimes are not slow at all - they can be nearly instantaneous). The electrical impulse that moves along each nerve is very fast, of course, but the slowdown occurs between nerves - when one neuron talks to another. This is done by the first nerve releasing chemicals, which are then picked up by receptors on the second neuron. It isn' the speed of the chemical reaction that is slow, it is the physical movement of the chemicals from release to uptake that slows the system down. At least, thats what I remember from my Biopsychology class a couple years ago (that was a really cool class, all about nerves and neurons and the chemicals that affect their action and by extension the brain).
I know someone else must have asked this, but What in the Hell is a self install kitchen???
Probably for cost reasons, and transmission losses. It would probably be much easier for PG&E (or any other power produciton company) to locate all of their power generation in one place for ease of service and management, but the fact is they would be losing a large amount of energy in transmitting that energy over long distances.
The abundance of geothermal energy in Iceland is probably a large part of making this shift to hydrogen energy possible. They have an abundant source of clean electrical generation capacity, something that pretty much no other nation in the world comes close to. For years ore has been shipped all the way from Australia to Iceland for smelting because of the incredibly cheap electricity rates there - it takes a lot of energy to smelt bauxite (to create aluminum), so it turns out to be cheaper to transport the bulk ore thousands of miles by ship rather than smelt in Australia. Thanks to the abundant, cheap energy available in Iceland, hydrogen production should be no problem.
Why just Carbon 12? Very few things hold onto (or release) C12 selectively over C14 or any other form of carbon, and they have the same large-scale effects. Was it just to make the comment sound more science-like (I would definitely believe that, especially if you picked this up from Discovery)? Oh, and no cause of the Permian extinction (or any other mass extinction in the past) has been proven. The explanation you mentioned may just happen to be the theory that currently fits the data best, but it is not proven (as we were told in a geology class, it is sometimes difficult to call this type of geology a science - you can't really test your hypothesis. All people can do is postulate theories for how or why something happened that fits available data, and continue to analyze it as additional data is uncovered).
Most places don't have access to the abundant geothermal energy that Iceland has access to, located on a spreading center as it is. Spreading centers (places where two plates are moving away from eachother, creating new crust) bring magma very close to the surface of the Earth, much closer than pretty much anywhere else (except volcanoes, but those are a little tricky to harness the thermal energy from). I can't think of a single place (dry place, that is) besides Iceland that sits right on top of an active spreading center, so they are in a pretty unique situation (sure, there are failed rifts in Africa, but those are not active. Also possibly failed rifting in the U.S., but again, not active)
So unless you find a way to get energy from dozens to hundreds of kilometers underground, much deeper than we have ever even drilled, then we will have to be stuck with our few spots of high geothermal activity for producing energy in that way. Oh yeah, and depending on geothermal energy just delays the problem - the Earth is cooling, albeit very slowly.
Long before we run out of carbon dioxide the climate of the Earth would probably get MUCH colder, reducing the amount of photosynthesis occurring. I'm not sure if a causal relationship has tuly been established, but it has been observed in many paleoclimate studies that higher oxygen levels (and lower carbon dioxide levels) are tied to colder climates, and vice versa.
I know you are joking, but if you read the article, it says that despite the low production levels in ocean areas, due to the very large area of the oceans they actually are about even with land in total production.
With SBC I get about 1.2Mbps (150KB/sec) downstream but only about 128Kbps up (~15KB/sec). Plenty fast downstream for practically everything (about 2 hours per gigabyte), but it would be nice to have faster upstream. A hell of a lot better than cable in my area; the only cable operator in my town doesn't offer cable internet service (despite the city being home to one of the UC's, so 20,000+ college types living there. Seems like ideal customers to me). All that for only $50 a month (for the next step up in service it is $80 a month).
It seems to me that the most likely outcome will be that video rental establishments will increasingly be the ones to purchase the "regular" versions (with the hours of special features on many special edition movies, there simply isn't time to watch it all on a normal rental agreement - so it makes less sense for rental outlets to purchase special editions), while people who actually want to purchase a movie for their personal collection will most likely wait for a "special" edition to come out. Not too much of a problem in my opinion, it just means I have to wait a little longer to buy a movie that I really want. Back in the days of VHS, video rental stores always seemed to be able to get hold of movies before they were available for general purchase. It may just be that this trend will come back, but more because of consumer's choice rather than not having the option of buying the movie.