Answers on the tests in high school science class are either right or wrong, never giving points for original thought.
Yeah, because the questions only cover things that science can explain.
Just because you learn about science in science class does not mean science can explain "everything". It's actually a pretty straighforward concept that questions in science class are about things that science can explain, why you have such a problem with it seems quite strange to me.
But that's NOT the way it's presented when you go to court to exclude other explainations from the classroom.
That's simple because science is universal.
Take for example rain. Science explains this with water evaporating. All scientists on all continents agree on this, no matter what language they speak, what religion they have or not have or which culture they belong to.
But one of the "other" explanations might be that God Poseidon makes the rain. Another might be that a Christian God lets it rain. And even another might be that Ogabamba causes the rain.
Of course unscientific explanations have to be excluded because otherwise everybody might offer some "other" explanation, like the Flying Spagetti Monster did it. We would end up with thousands or even millions of explanations.
What makes science universal is the principle of falsification: Because every theory has to make predictions, you can disprove wrong theories. This way usually only one theory remains - and that theory proves very worthy in real life because of the predictions.
Of course there are competing theories at the forefront of science and also many theories have been adapted or have been even dropped because of new experiments. However 1) those are at the forefront of science and are usually not teached in school 2) Even if there are competing theories, there are maybe 2 or 3 of them, never hundreds or thousands. 3) Most importantly, unlike religion no theory claims to be "the truth" - it is just an USEFUL explanation of things we measure or see. I say useful, because theories make predictions and those predictions are useful in real life. (Religion on the other hand makes no useful predictions)
Not quite true- because there was a competing scientific method that wasn't exclusive
Nonsense. This is a caricature of ID perpetuated by those who know nothing about it, haven't bothered to read the central works, etc. An ID advocate would (and no doubt will say), "Cool! We discovered the novel, innovative way that the Designer chose to make Bees fly!" The more religiously minded intelligent design sorts would say, "Ain't God grand?"
If that is so why do ID followers always try to dig up things that "science cannot explain"?
Where is the logic in that? Why don't they say "Cool! Ain't God grand?" when it comes to stuff that were discovered hundreds of years ago?
I tell you why:
Because the grandparent poster is dead-on target. The only way that ID makes sense if there are things that evolution cannot explain. If evolution can explain everything about living things, what is left of ID?
Science never claimed to explain everything. Never.
Not only that, science also has said what it will never be able to explain or predict - so not only did science not claim to explain everything, science mentions several things which it will never be able to explain: For example what happens in a black hole or what was before the big bang.
Science does claim to explain and predict a lot of things - and without it we wouldn't post here on Slashdot, we would still sit in cold caves worshipping sungod and moongod.
The 360 has sold fewer units to this point due to the limited supply rather than low demand.
In the USA that might be true (however according to rumors its only sold out in the big cities) in Europe and Japan it certainly is not.
The 360 will make money from Xbox Live rather than extra units.
This is just something that I don't understand. XBox Live isn't new, why should more XBox360 owners want it than XBox1 owners? Either you like online-play or you don't, I don't see how higher graphics resolution would make you want it more.
Gates: I mean, we're the hottest product there was at Christmas this year.
Not true, in this holiday season more units of the 6 year old PS2 were sold than of the brand new XBox360.
Gates: I don't think there's any doubt we'll have a substantially higher share in this generation than we had last generation.
XBox360 sold less during the launch-month than XBox1 (in USA about 300000 instead of 500000, in Japan about 50000 instead of 123000 in the first 3 days, and just 70000 in 2005 http://www.the-magicbox.com/topten.htm) so I have lots of doubt that XBox360 will have "substantially higher share".
And I think Bill has doubts, too.
Don't forget that Sony sold 100 million units in 5 years and 9 months. Even if Microsoft keeps their new target of 4 million in the first 8 months and we assume that they continue selling at that rate forever, it would take 17 years to reach 100 million units.
To reach "substantially higher share" with the XBox360, they would need to sell more than with XBox1, right?
Well, XBox1 was sold 22 million times worldwide. Even if they can keep up 4 million / 8 months, they would need 4 years to get over that number. (Doesn't sound "substantially higher" to me) Of course they will not be able to keep up the current rate of sales and will probably never reach even the XBox1 installed base with XBox360.
Good news for them is the PS3 launch is looking further and further out, possibly 2007.
Not really, Sony sold more units of PS2 than Microsoft sold XBox360 this season.
Sony could hold the PS3 launch until 2008 and still overtake the XBox360 within 3 months.
I mean: Just look at the numbers: Sony sold 100 Million of PS2s, (40 million of those in North America), that's roughly 14 million each year on average and still somewhere around 10 million per year.
Now Microsoft misses their target of 3 million worldwide during launch and during holiday season and downgrades their "5.5 million" projection to "4 to 5.5 million" (which we all know means 4 million) for the first half year?
Sony will probably sell 10 million PS2 this year, too - maybe a little less. But it looks like Microsoft will stay well below 10 million, even if we assume a 2007-PS3 launch.
If I were Sony, I would release in America first, that would cripple Microsoft's only reasonable market and would be the final nail in XBox' coffin. (The XBox360 doesn't do that well in Europe neither.)
You have only 2 million cone cells per color in each of your eye.
5760x3240 are 18.66 million pixels, 9 times as much as you are physically able to see even if you stick your head so close to the screen that you see only the screen and nothing else.
I am really amazed your stupid, baseless, factually incorrect rant got modded up.
The advantage of DVD over VHS wasn't really the better resolution but a picture that doesn't jitter.
We only have 100 million rod cells in our eyes, which corresponds to a resolution of 10000x10000 - if we sit so close that we see nothing than the screen. (Also the rod cells are black/white receptive)
If we look at cone cells, which sense colors, we have only 6 million of those - 2 million per color which corresponds to about 1400x1400 (again we have to sit extremely close at the screen)
If we assume a smaller viewing angle (for example if you place the TV across the room) DVD is already pretty close to the limit of the eye and while you probably can see the difference to HD if you move closer or during dark scenes (rod cells only get activated during darkness because cone cells not only sense colors but also faster), it's questionable wether it's worth it.
Actually it would make MUCH MORE SENSE to display more pictures per second than to up the resolution.
Nonsense. If copying is possible (and with a digital camera and enough free time you can defeat any encryption) then it will sooner or later land on P2P networks where it's easy to get for everybody.
They want a fully closed system (which is impossible except in a police state).
DVD is already 10 years old - and it still hasn't killed off VHS.
BluRay/HD-DVD isn't even out yet.
Also it will take much longer than DVD to adobt because resolution is pretty much the only advantage it offers (which is irrelevant for most existing TVs)
A format-war will delay any widespread adoption further.
So I'd say DVD will live for at least 20 years.
And BluRays success isn't sure at all, it could go the way of DVD-audio (which is pretty much the same in the audio-world.)
With stock Xbox 360 cooling, after an hour of Quake 4, the back of the motherboard temperature was 150.8F ( 66C ).
The temperatures on the electronic components themselves is higher than that (most notably CPU and GPU, but other components also create heat)
It looks like XBox360 is designed at the limit of all components (even the power brick) and one small "issue" can put it over the edge. (And "issue" can mean anything from user error to dust collecting)
That all falls under "esoteric belief", nothing else. The system is not "broken" in any way if you ignore everything you listed and it will actually make no audible difference. (except isolating the room the right way and setting the boxes in correct positions, that does make a difference - but special cables and power supplies is just esoteric nonsense bordering fraud.)
Typical Slashdot piss-on-Microsoft attitude. Microsoft likely had no part in designing the power brick;
Typical Microsoft-fanboyism.
The moment Microsoft puts any component into a box that has the label "Microsoft" on it, they are responsible.
Yeah, I know, for the typical "it's not Microsoft's fault" - apologist, reponsibility is a strange and alien concept.
But essentially it comes down to this:
It doesn't matter wether Microsoft had a part in designing the power brick.
They are responsible to make sure the thing works. Yes, that means if some supplier screwed up it's still Microsoft's repsonsibility to do some minimal quality control so that the broken units don't get shipped.
It is an interesting question. If the alternative is Google coming up with a competitive OS, Google might be offered a very sweet deal.
Maybe, but that is not the point, IMO.
I don't think Google wants to sell yet another Windows-preloaded box that essentially is the same as everybody else's.
I think Google wants to market it as a "no hassles" (= no viruses, worms, etc.) surf station, which rules out Windows, no matter at what price.
Also Linux suffers from bad marketing and FUD of being user-unfriendly. Google is a strong enough brand name that they could take any Linux distro and sell it as the next coming of user-friendlyness. (Especially if everything is preinstalled - heck, most non-games will never notice any significant difference.) If Google is smart they will sell only preinstalled boxes - this way they avoid all the "my hardware doesn't work"-FUD.
This kind of product has a lot of potential in the non-technical, non-gamer market, IMO.
Really, a Windows licence isn't the major part of the cost of a new PC. So just using their own OS (with all the development costs) isn't going to save a huge amount of money per unit sold.
First of all, if we assume 200 - 300 Dollars, the Windows tax is easily more than 10%, which is a major part or the cost.
Then, secondly, (if Google really does it) those machines will probably be marketed as surfing stations immune against viruses and worms, which makes them attractive for non-technical people.
Sure, Google won't become the larges PC-maker anytime soon, but they surely have the potential to move a couple of million boxes if sold at or under $300.
Actiavation raises an unnecessesary barrier to run the system. If everything goes fine, it's no trouble but at the moment something goes wrong it might kick in.
And the really annoying part is that Microsoft and their supports will say it's a non-issue because it doesn't affect the "average" customer.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, because the questions only cover things that science can explain.
Just because you learn about science in science class does not mean science can explain "everything". It's actually a pretty straighforward concept that questions in science class are about things that science can explain, why you have such a problem with it seems quite strange to me.
But that's NOT the way it's presented when you go to court to exclude other explainations from the classroom.
That's simple because science is universal.
Take for example rain. Science explains this with water evaporating. All scientists on all continents agree on this, no matter what language they speak, what religion they have or not have or which culture they belong to.
But one of the "other" explanations might be that God Poseidon makes the rain. Another might be that a Christian God lets it rain. And even another might be that Ogabamba causes the rain.
Of course unscientific explanations have to be excluded because otherwise everybody might offer some "other" explanation, like the Flying Spagetti Monster did it. We would end up with thousands or even millions of explanations.
What makes science universal is the principle of falsification: Because every theory has to make predictions, you can disprove wrong theories. This way usually only one theory remains - and that theory proves very worthy in real life because of the predictions.
Of course there are competing theories at the forefront of science and also many theories have been adapted or have been even dropped because of new experiments. However 1) those are at the forefront of science and are usually not teached in school 2) Even if there are competing theories, there are maybe 2 or 3 of them, never hundreds or thousands. 3) Most importantly, unlike religion no theory claims to be "the truth" - it is just an USEFUL explanation of things we measure or see. I say useful, because theories make predictions and those predictions are useful in real life. (Religion on the other hand makes no useful predictions)
Not quite true- because there was a competing scientific method that wasn't exclusive
Which would be?
If that is so why do ID followers always try to dig up things that "science cannot explain"?
Where is the logic in that? Why don't they say "Cool! Ain't God grand?" when it comes to stuff that were discovered hundreds of years ago?
I tell you why:
Because the grandparent poster is dead-on target. The only way that ID makes sense if there are things that evolution cannot explain. If evolution can explain everything about living things, what is left of ID?
Nothing.
Science never claimed to explain everything. Never.
Not only that, science also has said what it will never be able to explain or predict - so not only did science not claim to explain everything, science mentions several things which it will never be able to explain: For example what happens in a black hole or what was before the big bang.
Science does claim to explain and predict a lot of things - and without it we wouldn't post here on Slashdot, we would still sit in cold caves worshipping sungod and moongod.
In the USA that might be true (however according to rumors its only sold out in the big cities) in Europe and Japan it certainly is not.
The 360 will make money from Xbox Live rather than extra units.
This is just something that I don't understand. XBox Live isn't new, why should more XBox360 owners want it than XBox1 owners? Either you like online-play or you don't, I don't see how higher graphics resolution would make you want it more.
http://www.google.at/search?hl=de&ie=ISO-8859-1&q= ps2+100+million+sold&btnG=Suche&meta=
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2
The PS2 has shipped over 75 million consoles since it's release, there are no concrete statistics on how many it has sold.
You honestly believe that there are millions of PS2s in the sales channel? Honestly? I mean, a few hundred thousand I can believe, but millions?
Not true, in this holiday season more units of the 6 year old PS2 were sold than of the brand new XBox360.
Gates: I don't think there's any doubt we'll have a substantially higher share in this generation than we had last generation.
XBox360 sold less during the launch-month than XBox1 (in USA about 300000 instead of 500000, in Japan about 50000 instead of 123000 in the first 3 days, and just 70000 in 2005 http://www.the-magicbox.com/topten.htm) so I have lots of doubt that XBox360 will have "substantially higher share".
And I think Bill has doubts, too.
Don't forget that Sony sold 100 million units in 5 years and 9 months. Even if Microsoft keeps their new target of 4 million in the first 8 months and we assume that they continue selling at that rate forever, it would take 17 years to reach 100 million units.
To reach "substantially higher share" with the XBox360, they would need to sell more than with XBox1, right?
Well, XBox1 was sold 22 million times worldwide. Even if they can keep up 4 million / 8 months, they would need 4 years to get over that number. (Doesn't sound "substantially higher" to me) Of course they will not be able to keep up the current rate of sales and will probably never reach even the XBox1 installed base with XBox360.
Not really, Sony sold more units of PS2 than Microsoft sold XBox360 this season.
Sony could hold the PS3 launch until 2008 and still overtake the XBox360 within 3 months.
I mean: Just look at the numbers: Sony sold 100 Million of PS2s, (40 million of those in North America), that's roughly 14 million each year on average and still somewhere around 10 million per year.
Now Microsoft misses their target of 3 million worldwide during launch and during holiday season and downgrades their "5.5 million" projection to "4 to 5.5 million" (which we all know means 4 million) for the first half year?
Sony will probably sell 10 million PS2 this year, too - maybe a little less. But it looks like Microsoft will stay well below 10 million, even if we assume a 2007-PS3 launch.
If I were Sony, I would release in America first, that would cripple Microsoft's only reasonable market and would be the final nail in XBox' coffin. (The XBox360 doesn't do that well in Europe neither.)
Oh yeah, they don't make such films anymore. :-(
Robocop 1 and 2 are one of the most sarcastic and ironic movies ever.
You have only 2 million cone cells per color in each of your eye.
5760x3240 are 18.66 million pixels, 9 times as much as you are physically able to see even if you stick your head so close to the screen that you see only the screen and nothing else.
I am really amazed your stupid, baseless, factually incorrect rant got modded up.
I'm amazed at your superhuman viewing abilities.
We only have 100 million rod cells in our eyes, which corresponds to a resolution of 10000x10000 - if we sit so close that we see nothing than the screen. (Also the rod cells are black/white receptive)
If we look at cone cells, which sense colors, we have only 6 million of those - 2 million per color which corresponds to about 1400x1400 (again we have to sit extremely close at the screen)
If we assume a smaller viewing angle (for example if you place the TV across the room) DVD is already pretty close to the limit of the eye and while you probably can see the difference to HD if you move closer or during dark scenes (rod cells only get activated during darkness because cone cells not only sense colors but also faster), it's questionable wether it's worth it.
Actually it would make MUCH MORE SENSE to display more pictures per second than to up the resolution.
They want a fully closed system (which is impossible except in a police state).
BluRay/HD-DVD isn't even out yet.
Also it will take much longer than DVD to adobt because resolution is pretty much the only advantage it offers (which is irrelevant for most existing TVs)
A format-war will delay any widespread adoption further.
So I'd say DVD will live for at least 20 years.
And BluRays success isn't sure at all, it could go the way of DVD-audio (which is pretty much the same in the audio-world.)
Famous last words...
With stock Xbox 360 cooling, after an hour of Quake 4, the back of the motherboard temperature was 150.8F ( 66C ).
The temperatures on the electronic components themselves is higher than that (most notably CPU and GPU, but other components also create heat)
It looks like XBox360 is designed at the limit of all components (even the power brick) and one small "issue" can put it over the edge. (And "issue" can mean anything from user error to dust collecting)
That all falls under "esoteric belief", nothing else. The system is not "broken" in any way if you ignore everything you listed and it will actually make no audible difference. (except isolating the room the right way and setting the boxes in correct positions, that does make a difference - but special cables and power supplies is just esoteric nonsense bordering fraud.)
Typical Microsoft-fanboyism.
The moment Microsoft puts any component into a box that has the label "Microsoft" on it, they are responsible.
Yeah, I know, for the typical "it's not Microsoft's fault" - apologist, reponsibility is a strange and alien concept.
But essentially it comes down to this:
It doesn't matter wether Microsoft had a part in designing the power brick.
They are responsible to make sure the thing works. Yes, that means if some supplier screwed up it's still Microsoft's repsonsibility to do some minimal quality control so that the broken units don't get shipped.
This is for people who:
Yes, I think there are several million that fit that category, and typical Slashdot posters are not among them.
Maybe, but that is not the point, IMO.
I don't think Google wants to sell yet another Windows-preloaded box that essentially is the same as everybody else's.
I think Google wants to market it as a "no hassles" (= no viruses, worms, etc.) surf station, which rules out Windows, no matter at what price.
Also Linux suffers from bad marketing and FUD of being user-unfriendly. Google is a strong enough brand name that they could take any Linux distro and sell it as the next coming of user-friendlyness. (Especially if everything is preinstalled - heck, most non-games will never notice any significant difference.) If Google is smart they will sell only preinstalled boxes - this way they avoid all the "my hardware doesn't work"-FUD.
This kind of product has a lot of potential in the non-technical, non-gamer market, IMO.
First of all, if we assume 200 - 300 Dollars, the Windows tax is easily more than 10%, which is a major part or the cost.
Then, secondly, (if Google really does it) those machines will probably be marketed as surfing stations immune against viruses and worms, which makes them attractive for non-technical people.
Sure, Google won't become the larges PC-maker anytime soon, but they surely have the potential to move a couple of million boxes if sold at or under $300.
> If making "bloat configurable" really made "everyone happy", ... then Microsoft Office would be market leader.
Actiavation raises an unnecessesary barrier to run the system. If everything goes fine, it's no trouble but at the moment something goes wrong it might kick in.
And the really annoying part is that Microsoft and their supports will say it's a non-issue because it doesn't affect the "average" customer.
Sure but computer users have the right not to play along and use something else.
According to various posters in this thread it takes 15-20 minutes of waiting just to get through.
Already having 90% and gaining is a very different thing from still having 90% and losing.