You're right, it is false advertising. Unfortunately, the media doesn't really give a rat's ass about false advertising, and it's virtually impossible to punish them for it.
Come on now. Large companies here have many areas of interest also. GE makes more than washing machines. Motorola (yes, that's an American company) makes a lot more than just Cell phones. Most of the Fortune 500 companies here deal in many different industries.
I think you missed the point. The article was saying that less energy is used than is gained by the people actually running the system. The Sun, an infinite power source in respect to the span of a human life, provides the rest of the energy. So in total, yes, more energy is used than is gained, a lot more. But as far as we care, we've gained a lot more than we've used.
Would this "laser" sent to earth have destructive powers? I'm guessing yes. Someone who knows about this stuff... what would be similar to this beam of light hitting a target? A hand grenade? A stick of TNT?
Preface: I have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm just proposing a theory to provoke thought, that's all.
This whole idea sounds really cool and I'd love to live in a world of hydrogen energy, but I've thought for a long time that alternate energy sources have been developed more extensively than we are allowed to know. The political ties between OPEC, car manufacturers, governments around the world, power plants, etc. seem to me to be so entangling that they could easily, and in my opinion have easily, squashed new ideas for alternate power sources. I've heard of everything from water powered cars to solar panel arrays that are 50 times more effecient than those in use today... yet none of these technologies has been allowed to flourish, and I suspect it has something to do with the trillions of dollars that are hauled in by oil companies and any company associated with them. When you think about it in terms of history, oil is the gold of the modern day. People who have it want to make money off of it, so they want to keep supply down (just enough to get by) and demand up, way up. I have no doubts that the people in the oil industry would do anything and everything to keep it the most valuable substance today, just look at some of the evil that came out of the pursuit of gold.
"NASDA and the Institute for Laser Technology in Tokyo set about joint research development of this system. And it is under application for a patent in cooperation with NASDA, ILT and Mitsubishi Research Institute Inc, which is a private think tank company," Dr. Mori wrote SPACE.com in an email interview.
Now, doesn't it strike you as odd that Mitsubishi has their hands in this? OK so it says "a private think tank company," but really, I think this "private" think tank company named "Mitsubishi" wouldn't resist some "inspiration" by the automotive industry (heavily linked to Big Oil) and somehow sabotage or discredit this research.
Anyway, I'll stop ranting, but I'd like to know if anyone has any facts that go along with what I'm saying or if I've just been reading the Drudge Report too much.
I sure do appreciate the nice history lesson... yawn.
It's not like anybody's posting anything worth reading today... or are they? I posted an article earlier about psycho's trying to blow up nuclear facilities... but that's not newsworthy I guess.
Redundant? Excuse me, but I posted this very early on in the discussion, and noone before me had asked these questions. From the replies it seems I've gotten some interesting answers to those questions (which I appreciate) which must mean that my post wasn't so redundant that people didn't find it interesting. So kiss my ass you piece of shit moderators!!!
Seriously, they still make those? Well not now I guess. Has anybody ever used one? I sure haven't, but I've only been working with computers for 15 years or so.
The last line of the article: Microsoft may have shot itself in the foot this time, but future efforts may be a little more subtle.
Definitely. This was just a probe to see what the reaction would be. This will probably blow over and nobody (at least not a large number) of people will care, and so Microsoft will continue to do things like this in their usual amoral fashion.
Think about it, is this illegal? No. Do millions of people really care about the results of a ZDNet poll? Not really. Will anyone change their preference based on this data? Nope. So why did they put such an effort into it? They did this to "test the defenses," as people say.
Of course we could all be wrong and this could be some pimple faced haxor trying to make MS look bad...
I graduated Comp. Engineering and Math Minor. I used the TI-85 because it was much easier, despite what you claim. I guess once you use something for a while and really try to get good at it, you can do it quickly no matter what the device is. Me personally, I didn't feel like spending my free time learning how to use a calculator, I'd rather be out doing something, so I stuck with the TI-85.
PS - as for doing multiple calculations, the TI-85 would let you copy and paste, or you could write a program in like 2 minutes that would go through everything automatically.
Well you're right about programs. The TI-85 had an extensive amount of functions, and many people didn't know how to use them or bother reading the manual to find out, but the good thing was that it was extremely easy to program. I used an HP more than I hinted in the original post, most of the time just out of curiosity or to play games while bored in class, and I didn't find it very easy to program. Maybe I just didn't talk to someone who knew enough about it. I definitely didn't take the time to look in the manual.
... and that silly reverse-polish (no that terminology isn't offensive) notation. I remember back in the day I thought I was hot stuff in High School for knowing the TI-85 like the back of my hand when everyone else was using the TI-81 I think (the ugly blue one.) Then when I went off to college to become a computer engineer the school said "everyone must have a HP GX" or some crap like that. Well I borrowed my cousin's (an older student at the school) for a couple of days then I just said "forget it, I'll just figure out how to do this on the TI," and I did.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that these things sure have come a long way and I don't think they're trying to be a PDA at all. They might try to include some common functions as PDAs into the scientific calculator they have, but they're not going to make it a strict PDA.
Or whatever device you wanted to use to hook everything together. USB is great the way it is now, but if you wanted to start accessing CPU, RAM, and HD with USB... the computer would be so slow it would be practically useless. What you're talking about seems like a conceptually good idea though.
Broadband in many cases is both Cable TV and internet, as well as Voice over IP (telephone) and other services. Most of the time when people are talking about data and broadband, they mean internet service.
...something to liven up your drab dull existence today.
Look, us Engineers and math types can't help it if we make more money than you CS and CIS people, it's just the way the world works. Go back to school and get a real degree.
...you can pick up 200$ 15" tft displays at Fry's and lets get real, the G4 (Excepting the velocity engine stuff) isn't that fast of a chip at any available speed compared to the x86 world.
Ugh. How many times do we have to see comments like this? There are hundreds of reasons why this machine can go toe to toe with a Pentium 4 at 1.5 Ghz or whatever. Most of them have nothing to do with the CLOCK SPEED of the Processor. The G4 runs circles around the P4, unless you're taking the lowest end G4 up against the highest P4. "This Velocity Engine stuff"... look, that's just a marketing term for a new version of the controller or something like that. All it means is that the G4 takes instructions in a little differently before it actually starts chugging away at them, and it improves efficiency by a little bit. Like I said before though, the TOTAL MACHINE SPEED is what matters, and Apple is really good at making fast machines. Of course, if you only use a Mac just to start it up and run a Windows emulator or something equally stupid, you won't see that speed advantage.
The way everyone's been complaining about internet providers, I'm surprised it wasn't sooner. This sounds like a good idea, but let's just hope that it doesn't go the way of most other government projects: the final result is crappy, hard to use, tightly controlled, and causes a tax hike.
Then again, as underhanded as some ISP's are, Chicago would be hard pressed to do any worse.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right, it is false advertising. Unfortunately, the media doesn't really give a rat's ass about false advertising, and it's virtually impossible to punish them for it.
"Unlike in the States"?
Come on now. Large companies here have many areas of interest also. GE makes more than washing machines. Motorola (yes, that's an American company) makes a lot more than just Cell phones. Most of the Fortune 500 companies here deal in many different industries.
I think you missed the point. The article was saying that less energy is used than is gained by the people actually running the system. The Sun, an infinite power source in respect to the span of a human life, provides the rest of the energy. So in total, yes, more energy is used than is gained, a lot more. But as far as we care, we've gained a lot more than we've used.
Would this "laser" sent to earth have destructive powers? I'm guessing yes. Someone who knows about this stuff... what would be similar to this beam of light hitting a target? A hand grenade? A stick of TNT?
Preface: I have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm just proposing a theory to provoke thought, that's all.
This whole idea sounds really cool and I'd love to live in a world of hydrogen energy, but I've thought for a long time that alternate energy sources have been developed more extensively than we are allowed to know. The political ties between OPEC, car manufacturers, governments around the world, power plants, etc. seem to me to be so entangling that they could easily, and in my opinion have easily, squashed new ideas for alternate power sources. I've heard of everything from water powered cars to solar panel arrays that are 50 times more effecient than those in use today... yet none of these technologies has been allowed to flourish, and I suspect it has something to do with the trillions of dollars that are hauled in by oil companies and any company associated with them. When you think about it in terms of history, oil is the gold of the modern day. People who have it want to make money off of it, so they want to keep supply down (just enough to get by) and demand up, way up. I have no doubts that the people in the oil industry would do anything and everything to keep it the most valuable substance today, just look at some of the evil that came out of the pursuit of gold.
"NASDA and the Institute for Laser Technology in Tokyo set about joint research development of this system. And it is under application for a patent in cooperation with NASDA, ILT and Mitsubishi Research Institute Inc, which is a private think tank company," Dr. Mori wrote SPACE.com in an email interview.
Now, doesn't it strike you as odd that Mitsubishi has their hands in this? OK so it says "a private think tank company," but really, I think this "private" think tank company named "Mitsubishi" wouldn't resist some "inspiration" by the automotive industry (heavily linked to Big Oil) and somehow sabotage or discredit this research.
Anyway, I'll stop ranting, but I'd like to know if anyone has any facts that go along with what I'm saying or if I've just been reading the Drudge Report too much.
I sure do appreciate the nice history lesson... yawn.
It's not like anybody's posting anything worth reading today... or are they? I posted an article earlier about psycho's trying to blow up nuclear facilities... but that's not newsworthy I guess.
Redundant? Excuse me, but I posted this very early on in the discussion, and noone before me had asked these questions. From the replies it seems I've gotten some interesting answers to those questions (which I appreciate) which must mean that my post wasn't so redundant that people didn't find it interesting. So kiss my ass you piece of shit moderators!!!
Seriously, they still make those? Well not now I guess. Has anybody ever used one? I sure haven't, but I've only been working with computers for 15 years or so.
The last line of the article:
Microsoft may have shot itself in the foot this time, but future efforts may be a little more subtle.
Definitely. This was just a probe to see what the reaction would be. This will probably blow over and nobody (at least not a large number) of people will care, and so Microsoft will continue to do things like this in their usual amoral fashion.
Think about it, is this illegal? No. Do millions of people really care about the results of a ZDNet poll? Not really. Will anyone change their preference based on this data? Nope. So why did they put such an effort into it? They did this to "test the defenses," as people say.
Of course we could all be wrong and this could be some pimple faced haxor trying to make MS look bad...
True, True, I've even heard it referred to as "snowflake"
Don't give Billy any ideas... I mean the Butterfly thing is fading out, they're probably looking for a new one...
Haha, good one, or we could even just nickname him "PETA"!!!
Way to be original
You're right, they are pretty bad, but your signature rocks!
As in "SELECT *" (spoken "star" by some)
...er, wait, Nintendo already took that path...
(intended as humor, please don't flame me oh mighty moderators)
I graduated Comp. Engineering and Math Minor. I used the TI-85 because it was much easier, despite what you claim. I guess once you use something for a while and really try to get good at it, you can do it quickly no matter what the device is. Me personally, I didn't feel like spending my free time learning how to use a calculator, I'd rather be out doing something, so I stuck with the TI-85.
PS - as for doing multiple calculations, the TI-85 would let you copy and paste, or you could write a program in like 2 minutes that would go through everything automatically.
Well you're right about programs. The TI-85 had an extensive amount of functions, and many people didn't know how to use them or bother reading the manual to find out, but the good thing was that it was extremely easy to program. I used an HP more than I hinted in the original post, most of the time just out of curiosity or to play games while bored in class, and I didn't find it very easy to program. Maybe I just didn't talk to someone who knew enough about it. I definitely didn't take the time to look in the manual.
... and that silly reverse-polish (no that terminology isn't offensive) notation. I remember back in the day I thought I was hot stuff in High School for knowing the TI-85 like the back of my hand when everyone else was using the TI-81 I think (the ugly blue one.) Then when I went off to college to become a computer engineer the school said "everyone must have a HP GX" or some crap like that. Well I borrowed my cousin's (an older student at the school) for a couple of days then I just said "forget it, I'll just figure out how to do this on the TI," and I did.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that these things sure have come a long way and I don't think they're trying to be a PDA at all. They might try to include some common functions as PDAs into the scientific calculator they have, but they're not going to make it a strict PDA.
Or whatever device you wanted to use to hook everything together. USB is great the way it is now, but if you wanted to start accessing CPU, RAM, and HD with USB... the computer would be so slow it would be practically useless. What you're talking about seems like a conceptually good idea though.
Broadband in many cases is both Cable TV and internet, as well as Voice over IP (telephone) and other services. Most of the time when people are talking about data and broadband, they mean internet service.
...something to liven up your drab dull existence today.
Look, us Engineers and math types can't help it if we make more money than you CS and CIS people, it's just the way the world works. Go back to school and get a real degree.
...you can pick up 200$ 15" tft displays at Fry's and lets get real, the G4 (Excepting the velocity engine stuff) isn't that fast of a chip at any available speed compared to the x86 world.
Ugh. How many times do we have to see comments like this? There are hundreds of reasons why this machine can go toe to toe with a Pentium 4 at 1.5 Ghz or whatever. Most of them have nothing to do with the CLOCK SPEED of the Processor. The G4 runs circles around the P4, unless you're taking the lowest end G4 up against the highest P4. "This Velocity Engine stuff"... look, that's just a marketing term for a new version of the controller or something like that. All it means is that the G4 takes instructions in a little differently before it actually starts chugging away at them, and it improves efficiency by a little bit. Like I said before though, the TOTAL MACHINE SPEED is what matters, and Apple is really good at making fast machines. Of course, if you only use a Mac just to start it up and run a Windows emulator or something equally stupid, you won't see that speed advantage.
The way everyone's been complaining about internet providers, I'm surprised it wasn't sooner. This sounds like a good idea, but let's just hope that it doesn't go the way of most other government projects: the final result is crappy, hard to use, tightly controlled, and causes a tax hike.
Then again, as underhanded as some ISP's are, Chicago would be hard pressed to do any worse.
Yes, that was funny. Yes, IE is dominant, but Netscape is still around. No, that was not relevant, in any way, to the discussion about game consoles.