If a brand-new system just barely works (and the fact that Microsoft themselves put up many restrictions of where to put the unit/powersupply plus the problems people had who ignored the restrictions prove that the system is pretty much on the limit and even slight misuse will push it over the limit) will fail as soon as enough dust/durt collects and/or the bearings of the fans wear out so the fans become less efficient.
This is a big problem in the US (because after the ridiculous short warranty period people may buy a new unit (= losses for MS) or will ignore XBox360 (= bad for the platform))
But it could be an even bigger problem in the EU, because device makers are required to have a warranty of 2 years, which could be very expensive for Microsoft.
Well, first they weren't "consistently" sold out. Only in big cities in the US and UK they were sold out, in rural areas, continental Europa and of course Japan they were available, especially if you were willing to shop around a bit.
Secondly, if you look at ebay, you will see XBox360s sold at around retail price (give or take $ 50). That means that most ebay-gamblers have given up making a profit on ebay and are trying to get rid of it.
Taking a financial loss to get them out the door is painful but acceptable, losing the market to Microsoft is not.
LOL.
The 6 year old PS2 sold over 20 million times last year, Microsoft will be happy when they sell 6 or 7 million in the first year with their brand-new XBox360.
Sony could wait until 2009 with the release of the PS3 - or even not release PS3 at all and still outsell XBox360.
Only if you exclude Linux, then Windows is at the top-spot.
If you don't look at dollars changing hands, but actual USAGE, Unix and Linux combined are far ahead of Windows. (Just look at Netcraft)
Linux is at a big disadvantage at such surveys because more often than not Linux is not sold with the computer but later installed.
Nevertheless, Linux is the fastest-growing segment of the market even in this heavily biased way of counting.
For heavens sake, why is everyone so arrogant to think that our species is capable of uprooting the climate cycle of a [b]planet[/b]?
For heavens sake, why are somebody so ignorant to see that even comparably primitive societies (like easter islanders and the Mayas) have fucked up their environment so much that over 80% of their population died at some point in history?
How is this different from, oh, say, any other period in human history?
Today, in most nanny-states you won't have any need to adapt at all, the state will take care for you.
Of course that cannot go on forever. Most social systems have barely managed to stay afloat for about a generation (25 yrs) and will almost certanly fail during the next 20 years.
Maybe so, but [Linux] is never distributed already installed and configured properly.
Well, just like it's the administrator's job to configure and install Windows properly at a university or government, it will be the administrator's job to configure and install Linux properly at a university or government.
It's true, that being preinstalled is a major advantage of Windows in the HOME market, but in the context of this story there is absolutely no difference.
Actually, the reason we see famine in Africa is a combination of bad government, instability, and economics.
This all may be true.
However the core problem is overpopulation.
Just think and imagine Africa with a good government: Maybe it would be twice as effective as the current one. The population doubles in 20 years, so 20 years later you are exactly where you were before.
There is no way to supply an exponentially growing population forever.
Heck, just look at Ethiopia: At around 1920, 8 million, around 2000 80 million, and that was WITH famines and a couple of wars. Without war and without famine, there would have been EVEN MORE people in 2000 in Ethiopia.
But let's try to look into the future. At that growth rate, the population would amount to 800 million in Ethiopia alone in 2080 (if we send enough food so that no famine occurs and there is no reason for war, even earlier than that)
I think it's pretty clear that even the best government could not sustain this growth rate for very long.
Africas population density is 65 people per square mile, as compared to Europes 134, and the USAs 76.
Yeah, that's because there is a huge amount of desert in Africa (the Sahara, Namib and Kalahari deserts) that are virtually unpopulated.
It just doesn't matter how many people live somewhere. The Sahara would be severely overpopulated with 10 people per square mile, while Europe would be underpopulated with 10 people per square mile.
The yardstick is wether the region is able to sustain it's inhabitants. If it cannot, it is overpopulated.
Personally, I just with the aid given to Africa was more intelligent.
Yeah, they need contraceptives. Anything else is just pushing the problem away for some time (when it will be even worse).
I would hardly call any coutry that has a huge trade deficit and public debt "stable".
Even without peak oil, the US economy won't go on like it does today.
Because today, the US exports goods of much less value than it imports. To simplify the situation somewhat you could say that the Chinese are producing a lot of goods (= real value) in exchange of stock, government bonds, etc. (= victional value).
Sooner or later, the Chinese will want to get something out of their investments, which will mean that the huge flow of real value going from China to the US will decrease or even go the other way. - And that will diminish the standard of living because the standard of living is based on real value, not vicitional value.
Oh, you mean dependent on outside wealth? Well, that's an economic problem, not a problem of "there are inherently too many people living here".
Of course it is a problem of too many people living there, because the wealth produced in any famine-ridden region would be plenty if - say - only 1/3 of the population would live there.
Only 12 percent of the oil The US imports comes from the Mideast.
That's pretty irrelevant.
If the middle east runs dry, the EU and China will buy more oil from Venezuela and Nigeria and the US will also have to pay higher prices and will get less oil overall.
Sorry, but by that logic, it would always be a "distribution issue" unless we are ALL on the edge of starvation.
As a matter of fact, ANY region that is permanently dependent on outside help is just plain overpopulated, no matter how much food is produced or even wasted in other regions.
The reason we see famine in Africa is that Africa has increased its population by 10 in the last 70-80 years.
If North America or Europe would have done the same, about 2-3 billion people would live in Europe and we would see the same famine there.
Countries like Haiti and Jamaika have AIDS-rates of well over 5%.
Re:People are Obese regarless of Income or Geograp
on
Obesity Contagious?
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· Score: 1
Try purchasing bread which isn't laden with salt and/or sugar, fresh lettuce which isn't covered in pesticides and chlorine, fresh tomato, lean ground mince which isn't adulterated with water or other supplements, etc. and you'll quickly find that the couple of $ it costs for a burger is quickly outweighed by the cost of lean healthy meat alone.
Of course if you want everything to be perfect, it may be expensive.
However, normal, healthy "mainstream" food is available (like apples, oranges, bananas, carrots, etc.) for cheap. Yeah some of those may not be perfect and contain pesticides or whatever, but it's still a lot better than most fast food. (However the "pesticide" argument is usually moot anyway as they go away when you wash it with water)
Now if you create a "good enough - common sense" healthy diet (which may still contain some fast-food, but not entirely) you will be much more healthy and still save money.
When it comes to drinking, the difference is even more clear: A very healthy drink is actually water and it's also the cheapest. You really don't want to claim that anybody has to drink coke because he can't afford water, do you?
I know it's not politically correct to say that, but blacks in North America and the Carribean have similar AIDS rates as Africa.
Re:People are Obese regarless of Income or Geograp
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Obesity Contagious?
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· Score: 1
Nice hypothesis, but if you actually go outside (yeah, the big room with the blue ceiling) and check out stores you will see that healthy food is actually cheaper than fast food:
For one Big Mac you can get about 4 to 5 kg of Apples (which are equally fast food) where I live.
Bananas, Oranges, etc. are similarily cheap, some exotic stuff like Mangos might be equally expensive as fast food.
And it's logic, too. To feed a cow for years has to be more expensive than just harvest something.
That would only reduce the "really sold" units by 3%, hardly relevant for the sake of this argument.
Also if there are really 3 million units in the stores, then it would just show how many of them are still sold, because no store wants to keep any product long on the shelfes.
If science is universal, then it can explain everything in the universe- everything that exists. Only if science is NOT universal can it claim not to explain everything.
Wrong, universal means that the rules etc. apply everywhere.
For example the theory of gravity is often said to be universal. That means it applies in the whole universe, not that the theory of gravity can explain everything.
I'm not afraid of that. I'm more afraid of the single explaination- that only one way of looking at the world is considered "correct" and all others are excluded.
As long as there is a possibility to disprove that explanation (otherwise it would not be scientific), I don't see your point.
What do you want anyway? Equal rights for all explanations? That would be the same as no explanations at all.
Completely correct except for that last- Religion has to make useful predictions, else nobody would choose to believe it.
Really? What pre-death predictions do religions make?
But your #1 and #3 are inherantly contradictory with each other- if you're teaching science, you should teach all the alternatives.
You think school children should learn Super-String theory?
And #2 just shows that science is being taught as a reliigion- if it were truly being taught as science, it WOULD have hundreds or thousands of competing theories.
You still don't understand what science is.
(Apart from that you have trouble with logic: You say science is taught as a religion because it is not like religion and has to become like religion to become "true science"? That just doesn't make ANY sense at all)
The reason why there are only few (usually just one) accepted theories for a given phenomenon is that science is constantly weeding out incorrect theories. That is the only way to actually *LEARN* something.
Aristotle, Galileo, and Newton all believed in something called "Natural Philosophy".
Natural philosophy is merely a transition period between medieval Scholasticism and modern science.
Ironically what distinguishes natural philosophy from science (at least the most important distinction) is that natural philosophers didn't test their theories a lot.
Ironically because you critique that it's taught like religion: True for natural philosophy (which is for the most part guessing), false for modern science (which is based on testing).
Again, what do you want? That scientists stop testing their theories and just teach them?
What is so bad about testing anyway?
I contend that the modern scientific method is a corruption of this. A useful corruption possibly- but still a corruption.
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If a brand-new system just barely works (and the fact that Microsoft themselves put up many restrictions of where to put the unit/powersupply plus the problems people had who ignored the restrictions prove that the system is pretty much on the limit and even slight misuse will push it over the limit) will fail as soon as enough dust/durt collects and/or the bearings of the fans wear out so the fans become less efficient.
This is a big problem in the US (because after the ridiculous short warranty period people may buy a new unit (= losses for MS) or will ignore XBox360 (= bad for the platform))
But it could be an even bigger problem in the EU, because device makers are required to have a warranty of 2 years, which could be very expensive for Microsoft.
Secondly, if you look at ebay, you will see XBox360s sold at around retail price (give or take $ 50). That means that most ebay-gamblers have given up making a profit on ebay and are trying to get rid of it.
How is that possible?
LOL.
The 6 year old PS2 sold over 20 million times last year, Microsoft will be happy when they sell 6 or 7 million in the first year with their brand-new XBox360.
Sony could wait until 2009 with the release of the PS3 - or even not release PS3 at all and still outsell XBox360.
Is this Microsoft's new sales strategy? Did I miss something?
Only if you exclude Linux, then Windows is at the top-spot. If you don't look at dollars changing hands, but actual USAGE, Unix and Linux combined are far ahead of Windows. (Just look at Netcraft) Linux is at a big disadvantage at such surveys because more often than not Linux is not sold with the computer but later installed. Nevertheless, Linux is the fastest-growing segment of the market even in this heavily biased way of counting.
For heavens sake, why are somebody so ignorant to see that even comparably primitive societies (like easter islanders and the Mayas) have fucked up their environment so much that over 80% of their population died at some point in history?
Today, in most nanny-states you won't have any need to adapt at all, the state will take care for you.
Of course that cannot go on forever. Most social systems have barely managed to stay afloat for about a generation (25 yrs) and will almost certanly fail during the next 20 years.
Well, just like it's the administrator's job to configure and install Windows properly at a university or government, it will be the administrator's job to configure and install Linux properly at a university or government.
It's true, that being preinstalled is a major advantage of Windows in the HOME market, but in the context of this story there is absolutely no difference.
This all may be true.
However the core problem is overpopulation.
Just think and imagine Africa with a good government: Maybe it would be twice as effective as the current one. The population doubles in 20 years, so 20 years later you are exactly where you were before.
There is no way to supply an exponentially growing population forever.
Heck, just look at Ethiopia: At around 1920, 8 million, around 2000 80 million, and that was WITH famines and a couple of wars. Without war and without famine, there would have been EVEN MORE people in 2000 in Ethiopia.
But let's try to look into the future. At that growth rate, the population would amount to 800 million in Ethiopia alone in 2080 (if we send enough food so that no famine occurs and there is no reason for war, even earlier than that)
I think it's pretty clear that even the best government could not sustain this growth rate for very long.
Africas population density is 65 people per square mile, as compared to Europes 134, and the USAs 76.
Yeah, that's because there is a huge amount of desert in Africa (the Sahara, Namib and Kalahari deserts) that are virtually unpopulated.
It just doesn't matter how many people live somewhere. The Sahara would be severely overpopulated with 10 people per square mile, while Europe would be underpopulated with 10 people per square mile.
The yardstick is wether the region is able to sustain it's inhabitants. If it cannot, it is overpopulated.
Personally, I just with the aid given to Africa was more intelligent.
Yeah, they need contraceptives. Anything else is just pushing the problem away for some time (when it will be even worse).
Even without peak oil, the US economy won't go on like it does today.
Because today, the US exports goods of much less value than it imports. To simplify the situation somewhat you could say that the Chinese are producing a lot of goods (= real value) in exchange of stock, government bonds, etc. (= victional value).
Sooner or later, the Chinese will want to get something out of their investments, which will mean that the huge flow of real value going from China to the US will decrease or even go the other way. - And that will diminish the standard of living because the standard of living is based on real value, not vicitional value.
Of course I wanted to say the the population multiplied by 10.
Of course it is a problem of too many people living there, because the wealth produced in any famine-ridden region would be plenty if - say - only 1/3 of the population would live there.
That's pretty irrelevant.
If the middle east runs dry, the EU and China will buy more oil from Venezuela and Nigeria and the US will also have to pay higher prices and will get less oil overall.
As a matter of fact, ANY region that is permanently dependent on outside help is just plain overpopulated, no matter how much food is produced or even wasted in other regions.
The reason we see famine in Africa is that Africa has increased its population by 10 in the last 70-80 years.
If North America or Europe would have done the same, about 2-3 billion people would live in Europe and we would see the same famine there.
And because old computers are "good enough" for most tasks and the market is pretty saturated already, it actually takes longer and longer.
If Vista is released in 2007, it will at least need 4 years to get 50% among Windows (probably even longer).
To get to 70%, we would probably have to wait until 2013 or 2014 (for Vista and all subsequent versions)
Green means "good enough", red means the involved functions need work.
Countries like Haiti and Jamaika have AIDS-rates of well over 5%.
Of course if you want everything to be perfect, it may be expensive.
However, normal, healthy "mainstream" food is available (like apples, oranges, bananas, carrots, etc.) for cheap. Yeah some of those may not be perfect and contain pesticides or whatever, but it's still a lot better than most fast food. (However the "pesticide" argument is usually moot anyway as they go away when you wash it with water)
Now if you create a "good enough - common sense" healthy diet (which may still contain some fast-food, but not entirely) you will be much more healthy and still save money.
When it comes to drinking, the difference is even more clear: A very healthy drink is actually water and it's also the cheapest. You really don't want to claim that anybody has to drink coke because he can't afford water, do you?
I know it's not politically correct to say that, but blacks in North America and the Carribean have similar AIDS rates as Africa.
For one Big Mac you can get about 4 to 5 kg of Apples (which are equally fast food) where I live.
Bananas, Oranges, etc. are similarily cheap, some exotic stuff like Mangos might be equally expensive as fast food.
And it's logic, too. To feed a cow for years has to be more expensive than just harvest something.
Yes, AFAIK only the good (original) version is sold as DVD while the crappy version was aired on US-TV.
Also if there are really 3 million units in the stores, then it would just show how many of them are still sold, because no store wants to keep any product long on the shelfes.
Wrong, universal means that the rules etc. apply everywhere.
For example the theory of gravity is often said to be universal. That means it applies in the whole universe, not that the theory of gravity can explain everything.
You can also check for the word's meaning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal
I'm not afraid of that. I'm more afraid of the single explaination- that only one way of looking at the world is considered "correct" and all others are excluded.
As long as there is a possibility to disprove that explanation (otherwise it would not be scientific), I don't see your point.
What do you want anyway? Equal rights for all explanations? That would be the same as no explanations at all.
Completely correct except for that last- Religion has to make useful predictions, else nobody would choose to believe it.
Really? What pre-death predictions do religions make?
But your #1 and #3 are inherantly contradictory with each other- if you're teaching science, you should teach all the alternatives.
You think school children should learn Super-String theory?
And #2 just shows that science is being taught as a reliigion- if it were truly being taught as science, it WOULD have hundreds or thousands of competing theories.
You still don't understand what science is.
(Apart from that you have trouble with logic: You say science is taught as a religion because it is not like religion and has to become like religion to become "true science"? That just doesn't make ANY sense at all)
The reason why there are only few (usually just one) accepted theories for a given phenomenon is that science is constantly weeding out incorrect theories. That is the only way to actually *LEARN* something.
Aristotle, Galileo, and Newton all believed in something called "Natural Philosophy".
Natural philosophy is merely a transition period between medieval Scholasticism and modern science.
Ironically what distinguishes natural philosophy from science (at least the most important distinction) is that natural philosophers didn't test their theories a lot.
Ironically because you critique that it's taught like religion: True for natural philosophy (which is for the most part guessing), false for modern science (which is based on testing).
Again, what do you want? That scientists stop testing their theories and just teach them?
What is so bad about testing anyway?
I contend that the modern scientific method is a corruption of this. A useful corruption possibly- but still a corruption.
Testing is corruption?
Huh?
It just seems to be 100% greed.
So you did understand it after all.