I believe unpleasantly. They would probably tack on an extended stay in an empty office answering boring questions, force you to reschedule your flight (at your expense), trash your luggage and generally make life unpleasant. It never pays to screw with law enforcement - they have too many ways to make your life miserable
What happened? Lots of articles came out about how some people were getting rich building iPhone apps. These people didn't have the time, temperment or skills necessary to build those apps - all they had was what they thought was a great idea. That being the case the price seems a bit high, but might not be out of line:
What kind of people would pay for this entertainment? Its a few bucks. I wouldn't but it, but I could see if I were into the genre and the game was a very good example of it I could definitely get more than $5 worth of entertainment from it. Seen a movie lately? There's $10 for an hour and a half - and don't buy popcorn. If you're caught in an airplane, taxi, bus or similar situation it might be nice to have.
>CD players were $1000 when they first came out. Only the rich had them. The price went down and down until today you can pick one up for $5
Simply put, No. The cost of the raw materials in CD players was always near nothing. This is fundamentally not true about batteries. There is no Moore's law for batteries. There is no reason they should suddenly become cheap outside of the slow decline caused by economies of scale and painstaking research. We need fundamental breakthroughs in nanotechnology, chemistry or the like and it doesn't happen by throwing money at the problem.
A better comparison is to gold. It was expensive and is expensive. Will be expensive until we figure out bette ways of digging.
Interesting article. I found out today that Godaddy had lost all of the email forwarding accounts I had set up for my friends, family and coworkers on March 6th. Not sure that its related to the server switch, but their tech support couldn't tell me why it happened. Their response - well, email forwarding is just the tiniest bit of web hosting and we don't really track it that much. Maybe so, but try telling that to the fifty people not getting their email.
Think about it. Credit card company tick you off? Send in that $300 payment as 30,000 checks. Yes you may have to buy a MICR printer to print your own, but hey its got to cost them more than a penny a piece to process them.
Of course you may want to make sure your bank doesn't charge you for excessive checkwriting.
Yes - that comment is weird. The only real reason for massive wires is high amperage. That implies that the AC/DC and voltage conversion is all done at one point and the power is sent around at five or twelve volts. If that's the case you need the big wiring to handle the amperage.
The other issue is big wires mean big circuit breakers and that implies if you hook up the wrong size wire between the wrong two points you rediscover arc welding. Ouch If the wire is a coil and you do it just right you might make yourself a happytime junior camper EMP device. In your datacenter.....
This is part of the reason we have standard voltages fed to all sorts of appliances.
While its obviously not the whole story, this move does have all the classic fingerprints of a sourcing effort shooting for savings through leveraged negotiations with vendors. With control of all the
"(1) procurement policies by commonwealth agencies, constitutional offices, and other government entities concerning computer hardware and software, cellular telephones, personal data accessories, and other information technology devices"
the single office in charge of contracting can force standardization and negotate discounted contracts. Combine that with implied savings from standardization of technologies and resulting reduction in support costs and you get a nice presentation at the end of the year that you can show all your bosses showing you saved the state $X million. With that level of spending the $X is going to be a mighty big number.
If its not something like that then somebody better make very sure any contract signed is arms length - the next most obvious rationale would be lining one's pockets.
Great name - making a movie?
on
The Los Alamos Bug
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Great name - sounds like something out of a movie based on a video game. 'Outraged at the price of new labcoats Dr. Such and Such loosed the Los Alamos Bug to destroy the world.'
Used to be called this. At that point Arnold Schwartzenegger (sp?) was going to attend, then someone in the office talked to the US Olympics committee. They immediately sued over using Olympics in the title. Net result - renamed the games (even last years) and no Arnold.
Interesting how they can sue over a trademark that has been around for 2500+ years.
Unfortunately the rules do forbid oxygen as a fuel/combustion accelerator and generally restrict the fuel for flamethrowers to butane. If it can torch the protective lexan box its banned. Explosives are specifically forbidden. So are nukes.
The judges know this and take the issue into account while scoring. General audience analysis concludes the best chance for a flamethrower to make progress is twofold: 1) Increase the level of general heat in the robot. Many matches are lost because of component failure due to heating during operation (those motors and speed controllers get HOT). Adding a bit more heat might be just enough to push them over the top. This works best against robots with exposed drive elements.
2) Fry sensitive electronic components. Wires do sometimes run outside the armor. Antennas almost always do. If the opposing designer has been casual about his wire runs or left an opening he can lose a receiver or partial function
Both these work best if you can get through the armor first or if the other design has questionable elements
You really want to stretch the point, what about robots operated via R/C from a computer nearby. What about robots with automated sequences - push one button and it does a series of operations.
At some point no robot is autonomous - someone has to switch the thing on, even if there is a program that takes over from there. The difference between that and 'I move one control and the robot spins in a circle' is at that point just the complexity of the actions programmed in.
Yep, the idea behind the matrix doesn't work - except they mentioned 'in conjunction with a kind of fusion' when describing the process. Here is a completely bogus explanation of the process that at least makes the physics/biology/thermodynamics work out (or at least be more complex)
Premise 1) The only thing that really differentiates humanity from animals is the ability to think. We already know that some elements of the brain operate at molecular levels and the whole issue of the observer in quantum experiments creates more questions.
So here it is - the machines need human beings to supply power through fusion via observation of quantum interactions (implying a requirement for free will). The fusion reaction is small in power output and happens within the body (requiring many bodies, making each body convert mass into power and be a net power generator, requiring plugs all over the body to harvest the heat and implying that the process may be continued outside the matrix to do things like creating personal emp blasts).
Have always wanted to see a version of this built inside an RTS game. Its the only reasonable way I see to solve the stupid AI pathing issues that seem to plague the games.
These days people wouldn't stand for violent behaviour as described in the header. Employing devices of mass destruction against cities? You're expelled!
>Much has to do with the resistance in ohms of your skin when you have the electrical shock applied;
>It takes about 0.183A (IIRC) to cause your heart to go into an irregular pattern, resulting in a heart attack.
Interesting. So does this mean that if you loaded a watch battery (milliAh = up to 500) into a 38 shell and shot someone (in the right place I guess) they'd have a heart attack? If so why do tasers have wires?
Heck - free highspeed internet access for anyone who buys a card? Why waste it on your laptop - plug in a server or two and start really using that bandwidth
246 hours with 200GB on mine as of last Friday. Did it myself too - very easy given even less than a rudimentary level of Linux knowledge and the ability to read FAQs.
Given the ability to connect Tivo to ethernet (www.9thtee.com) and a bit more Linux knowledge someone could probably build a script to archive and restore shows at will, effectively making the storage infinite -
Slashdot Mirror
I believe unpleasantly. They would probably tack on an extended stay in an empty office answering boring questions, force you to reschedule your flight (at your expense), trash your luggage and generally make life unpleasant. It never pays to screw with law enforcement - they have too many ways to make your life miserable
Just saying.
VAMPIRES IN SPACE
Are any of the astronauts oversexed teens? All those '50s sci-fi movies will come true one day, you just watch.
What happened? Lots of articles came out about how some people were getting rich building iPhone apps. These people didn't have the time, temperment or skills necessary to build those apps - all they had was what they thought was a great idea. That being the case the price seems a bit high, but might not be out of line:
http://blogs.oreilly.com/iphone/mobile/2008/11/turning_ideas_into_application.html
What kind of people would pay for this entertainment? Its a few bucks. I wouldn't but it, but I could see if I were into the genre and the game was a very good example of it I could definitely get more than $5 worth of entertainment from it. Seen a movie lately? There's $10 for an hour and a half - and don't buy popcorn. If you're caught in an airplane, taxi, bus or similar situation it might be nice to have.
>CD players were $1000 when they first came out. Only the rich had them. The price went down and down until today you can pick one up for $5
Simply put, No. The cost of the raw materials in CD players was always near nothing. This is fundamentally not true about batteries. There is no Moore's law for batteries. There is no reason they should suddenly become cheap outside of the slow decline caused by economies of scale and painstaking research. We need fundamental breakthroughs in nanotechnology, chemistry or the like and it doesn't happen by throwing money at the problem.
A better comparison is to gold. It was expensive and is expensive. Will be expensive until we figure out bette ways of digging.
Sir you are a god
Interesting article. I found out today that Godaddy had lost all of the email forwarding accounts I had set up for my friends, family and coworkers on March 6th. Not sure that its related to the server switch, but their tech support couldn't tell me why it happened. Their response - well, email forwarding is just the tiniest bit of web hosting and we don't really track it that much. Maybe so, but try telling that to the fifty people not getting their email.
Think about it. Credit card company tick you off? Send in that $300 payment as 30,000 checks. Yes you may have to buy a MICR printer to print your own, but hey its got to cost them more than a penny a piece to process them.
Of course you may want to make sure your bank doesn't charge you for excessive checkwriting.
Yes - that comment is weird. The only real reason for massive wires is high amperage. That implies that the AC/DC and voltage conversion is all done at one point and the power is sent around at five or twelve volts. If that's the case you need the big wiring to handle the amperage.
The other issue is big wires mean big circuit breakers and that implies if you hook up the wrong size wire between the wrong two points you rediscover arc welding. Ouch
If the wire is a coil and you do it just right you might make yourself a happytime junior camper EMP device. In your datacenter.....
This is part of the reason we have standard voltages fed to all sorts of appliances.
While its obviously not the whole story, this move does have all the classic fingerprints of a sourcing effort shooting for savings through leveraged negotiations with vendors. With control of all the
"(1) procurement policies by commonwealth agencies, constitutional offices, and other government entities concerning computer hardware and software, cellular telephones, personal data accessories, and other information technology devices"
the single office in charge of contracting can force standardization and negotate discounted contracts. Combine that with implied savings from standardization of technologies and resulting reduction in support costs and you get a nice presentation at the end of the year that you can show all your bosses showing you saved the state $X million. With that level of spending the $X is going to be a mighty big number.
If its not something like that then somebody better make very sure any contract signed is arms length - the next most obvious rationale would be lining one's pockets.
Great name - sounds like something out of a movie based on a video game. 'Outraged at the price of new labcoats Dr. Such and Such loosed the Los Alamos Bug to destroy the world.'
Hmm and Doom came out this weekend - coincidence?
Used to be called this. At that point Arnold Schwartzenegger (sp?) was going to attend, then someone in the office talked to the US Olympics committee. They immediately sued over using Olympics in the title. Net result - renamed the games (even last years) and no Arnold.
Interesting how they can sue over a trademark that has been around for 2500+ years.
Unfortunately the rules do forbid oxygen as a fuel/combustion accelerator and generally restrict the fuel for flamethrowers to butane. If it can torch the protective lexan box its banned. Explosives are specifically forbidden. So are nukes.
The judges know this and take the issue into account while scoring. General audience analysis concludes the best chance for a flamethrower to make progress is twofold:
1) Increase the level of general heat in the robot. Many matches are lost because of component failure due to heating during operation (those motors and speed controllers get HOT). Adding a bit more heat might be just enough to push them over the top. This works best against robots with exposed drive elements.
2) Fry sensitive electronic components. Wires do sometimes run outside the armor. Antennas almost always do. If the opposing designer has been casual about his wire runs or left an opening he can lose a receiver or partial function
Both these work best if you can get through the armor first or if the other design has questionable elements
You really want to stretch the point, what about robots operated via R/C from a computer nearby. What about robots with automated sequences - push one button and it does a series of operations.
At some point no robot is autonomous - someone has to switch the thing on, even if there is a program that takes over from there. The difference between that and 'I move one control and the robot spins in a circle' is at that point just the complexity of the actions programmed in.
Don't drive angry!
I can't be the only one who sees the potential this has for powering cars -
Yep, I've got over 10,000 ratpower...
Its a muscle car (ouch)
Yep, the idea behind the matrix doesn't work - except they mentioned 'in conjunction with a kind of fusion' when describing the process. Here is a completely bogus explanation of the process that at least makes the physics/biology/thermodynamics work out (or at least be more complex)
Premise 1) The only thing that really differentiates humanity from animals is the ability to think. We already know that some elements of the brain operate at molecular levels and the whole issue of the observer in quantum experiments creates more questions.
So here it is - the machines need human beings to supply power through fusion via observation of quantum interactions (implying a requirement for free will). The fusion reaction is small in power output and happens within the body (requiring many bodies, making each body convert mass into power and be a net power generator, requiring plugs all over the body to harvest the heat and implying that the process may be continued outside the matrix to do things like creating personal emp blasts).
Have always wanted to see a version of this built inside an RTS game. Its the only reasonable way I see to solve the stupid AI pathing issues that seem to plague the games.
Focus the light to a point and project that on the building. Ever fried ants with a magnifying glass?
These days people wouldn't stand for violent behaviour as described in the header. Employing devices of mass destruction against cities? You're expelled!
>Much has to do with the resistance in ohms of your skin when you have the electrical shock applied;
>It takes about 0.183A (IIRC) to cause your heart to go into an irregular pattern, resulting in a heart attack.
Interesting. So does this mean that if you loaded a watch battery (milliAh = up to 500) into a 38 shell and shot someone (in the right place I guess) they'd have a heart attack? If so why do tasers have wires?
Heck - free highspeed internet access for anyone who buys a card? Why waste it on your laptop - plug in a server or two and start really using that bandwidth
246 hours with 200GB on mine as of last Friday. Did it myself too - very easy given even less than a rudimentary level of Linux knowledge and the ability to read FAQs.
Given the ability to connect Tivo to ethernet (www.9thtee.com) and a bit more Linux knowledge someone could probably build a script to archive and restore shows at will, effectively making the storage infinite -
Anything available at CompUSA is a disgraceful subject for 'new technology' at Slashdot. I'm embarrassed for us all
http://www.compusa.com/media/ad_pdfs/pg8.pdf
I burned up a calluna 540mb drive just through normal use a few months ago. It got incredibly hot just through normal use