People really need to get a grip. These people signed up for this shit. What's with this joy of deciding FOR people "It's dangerous for you, you can't do it" instead of giving them a choice.
Ask the other astronauts, "We're looking for someone to go up to try and rescue these guys." I doubt one of them would say no, regardless of the danger. They would hope that those other astronauts would do the same for them if the tables were reversed, eh? It's part of the job. Hell, it's part of the human spirit.
It's not just the space program that they like to enforce "safety" upon, but that's been the clearest indicator recently. All the "oh no it's dangerous can't do it" anal-retentives of the world need to loosen up. Little of the research that has gotten us this far could be classified as "safe". So stop making decisions for others based on their safety.
There are stupid risks, and then there are just risks. Leave it up to the people whose lives are on the line to decide. Except, of course, if the risk is clearly a very stupid one, you might not want to waste an orbiter on it. That's fair. But to go up to save astronauts from certain death? Yeah, that's worth an orbiter.
Regardless, other posts are correct -- this is all 20/20 hindsight now. Time to move on. I just wish the lesson learned from this wasn't "Space travel is dangerous, we'd better be much more careful to the point of making everything we're trying to do only marginally useful at best", while all the people who are willing to take risks utterly blow them out of the water.
Wazzup with that, is it as simple as they just make so much profit on their custom designed batt packs that they don't care?
Bingo. I think that's the majority of the reason. There are other things to think about though. First of all, the type of battery is a concern. NiCads are very heavy for the amount of capacity they give. Second only to Lead Acid, I think. NiCad batteries put out a very low voltage compared to other types of cells. I don't think they are very good at handling massive output, high-drain devices such as a laptop. They are also not very environmentally friendly -- cadmium is an extremely toxic metal. Given the number of problems we already have dealing with computer waste, I think it's good to try and avoid NiCad batteries.
Moving on to Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries instead: They're certainly feasable to use as laptop batteries, I think the major problem is that the way that the standard AA/C/D cells are laid out, you get a much much lower amount of energy storage for a given amount of space when you combine the roundness of the cells, plus the packaging and terminals, etc. And space in laptops is at a premium -- battery life is already too short, no need making it shorter.
With that said, I'm all for settling on a few standards for laptop batteries. And while we're at it, some standards for expansion bay equipment would be really nice... okay, okay, I'll quit my dreaming now.
Because the only plentiful source of hydrogen that we have access to is electrolysis of water, which by definition takes at least as much -- and in practice, much more -- energy as the conversion from hydrogen and oxygen back to water. It's a chemical process. You can't get more energy out than was originally put in. What's the point of a hydrogen fuel cell plant when we'll need a conventional power plant sitting beside the electrolysis facility?
Nevermind the fact that even if we did somehow find a plentiful source of hydrogen, we'd get at least an order of magnitude (if not many orders of magnitude) more energy by using it in a fusion reactor than we would in a fuel cell. Again, fuel cells are an entirely chemical process, you can only get a tiny fraction of the energy out of chemical reactions than you get from annihilation-of-mass reactions, such as fission and fusion.
A fusion reactor is many times cleaner and less dangerous than a fission reactor. And we have fission reactors all across North America. And even if you were to entirely discount the use of fusion as a common power source on earth, which I think would be idiotic, you cannot dispute the usefulness of fusion in space. Fuel is ridiculously expensive to get into orbit. The more juice we can get out of a given amount of fuel, the better. Fusion is the most viable power source for interstellar travel, when we come to that point.
For anyone who is actually considering Radio Shack as anything other than an emergency refuge for "awk, I ran out of solder and I need to finish this!"... Radio Shack does not even sell electronics stuff around here anymore. Maybe a bit of soldering equipment, and some connectors, but for actual electronics? Nah. They are morphing into a half-assed Electronics Boutique but with more annoying salespeople. I am fairly certain from other people's stories that this is a trend that is continuing everywhere in the Radio Shack chain.
You're better off finding a real electronics store, or going mail-order. DigiKey is a decent mail-order place for USA/Canada/UK. You will find their selection very refreshing.
But the correct solution to the problem of nuisance mail is not to break the implied contract between the sender and the mail system as a whole. "Your mail will be delivered to its recipient." That's the implied contract. (I'm speaking metaphorically. There's no actual contract here, of course.) Anything that bolts on an "except" or "unless" to that implied contract is a bug, not a feature.
Apply that paragraph to the postal mail service. So, if someone sends you anthrax, or a rod of plutonium, then the post office should be required to deliver it and it's up to each individual to put it in containment and safely dispose of it, nevermind the danger of transporting it in the first place? What if you don't put a stamp on your mail and try to send it? Is the post office still obligated to deliver it?
That just doesn't make any sense. It is entirely within the rights of the mailman to say "Sorry, I'm not delivering this, because you have a rabid dog.", and email does the exact same thing with bounce messages.
The email system is allowed to have rules just as any other system is. If you don't follow those rules, then the system is not obligated to (and would be expected not to) do what you asked, even if that's its explicit purpose. Some of the rules in the email system are written rules, such as those in the RFC. Others are ad-hoc rules such as denying mail if you don't have a PTR record.
As far as email being a system for communicating, you may not get enough spam to make a difference, but signal-to-noise ratio is an important part of communicating, and don't assume everyone gets the same amount of spam you do. Deal with it. We are.
Oh, you mean when they had to concentrate on making the games balanced, fun and enjoyable, rather than who can make the prettiest facial graphics for the gloating-after-the-goal cinematic...?
Sign me up for NES "Ice Hockey" any day.;) No, that's not an example of a *good* hockey game, but it was enjoyable. Blades of Steel was a bit better.
Yes, I definitely have this problem.
on
12" PowerBook Wobble?
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· Score: 3, Informative
I've found that propping the left rear corner with a nickel works just about perfectly. Not under the rubber foot, just slid in until it presses against the side of the rubber foot.
I am surprised to find that this is actually a problem with the laptop, I had just assumed that it was my cheapo desk that was warped. Although I hadn't noticed this problem with my last laptop, it had much bigger, more flexible feet that I assumed had compensated for the sucky desk.
While we're on the topic of Powerbook annoyances, I am disappointed that they removed the battery backup capacitor from the 12" Powerbook. My friend has a 15" Powerbook, and he can put his computer to sleep, remove the battery, to put in a fully charged one, and the computer does not have to be shut off. They apparently removed this feature from the 12" Powerbook, what a shame. That was one of those tiny but oh-so-nice features that made me want to buy an Apple rather than a PC.
Personally, I'm going to have a cool, refreshing drink of cola and take a seat in my adjustable recliner, and not have to fly on a jetliner out of the country.
They only have exclusive rights to words they invented in the first place. Except Microsoft Windows/Word/Excel/etc, which I think are bogus anyway. If you want to specify a specific brand, fine. The cases where you'd want to specify a certain brand specifically (reviews, parodies, etc) are all protected. Otherwise, why would you need to when a more generic term works just as well, without giving more mindshare to any specific company.
number of movies you have previously rented is not the same as number of movies you have in your rental plan.
You even quoted it yourself. The rental plan he's referring to is whether you are PAYING for 5 discs. He's saying that it has no effect on the results whether you use 1 movie and pay for 1 movie, or use 1 movie and pay for 5 movies, it will have the same effect on their allocation scheme.
The 18 wheeler can haul a lot more, but the F1 race car will get you to the local Wal-Mart a lot faster. For small tasks, the Xeon will feel a lot faster. Yes, that's actually a very good analogy. Keep going, though. Is there really any computing task that involves 'hauling' more data, than rendering 3D video? Would you propose using an F1 to move a truckload of stock to the warehouse? Hm, the benefits of the F1's speed just went down the toilet, eh?
Frankly, most video rendering companies only use an 18-wheeler because they can't fit (or afford) a supertanker in their server room.
I can't provide any evidence, but I know that personally, the lines can throw my visual processing for a loop when I'm playing a twitch-game like the Sniper class in TeamFortress (and TF-clones). I'm expecting the scene to move fluidly, and instead there are these two, only marginally visible lines hanging around in a completely out of character (for the game I'm immersed in) way, not really clearly visible, just enough to subtly throw me off.
Anyway, this article is far gone enough that no one will probably read this now, but I just wanted to explain what I meant, hopefully.
This engine was developed primarily by people at the University of Calgary, not SAIT. He only teaches at SAIT, they didn't have much at all to do with the development of the engine as far as I can see.
Exactly my point. I ended up with a beautiful looking monitor, that simply *screams* at certain combinations of resolution and refresh rate (not always the highest ones, either). It's enough to drive people out of my house, except for those fortunate souls who lack the high-frequency hearing required. It's particularly annoying with games that like to set their own resolutions and refresh rates.
I disagree. Games and web browsing are where the lines are most noticable. In graphics, the color accuracy, sharpness, brightness, and typically better pixel geometry of a Trinitron win out, and you can generally scroll the image around if you're dealing with a particular part that happens to fall under one of the guide wires.
I'm a big Trinitron fan personally, though my best friend and I have had heated arguments about which is better. It's clearly a very subjective thing. Some of us can't tune out the guide wires on a Trinitron, others (like me) have trouble tuning out the subtle pattern of the mask on shadow mask tubes. To each his own I guess.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but by saying "I don't want an interpretation" when the courts and enforcement most certainly will interpret the law doesn't make any sense. (um, what else do you expect them to do? how can you *not* interpret it?)
It's like a math textbook telling you that to square a number you multiply it by itself, and then you claiming that being asked to evaluate 4 squared is unfair because nowhere in the book does it say that 4 squared is 4 x 4.
Now, whether the law would actually be interpreted that way is a whole other story. Still, if it's possible that it might, then the law should be re-worded so that it's no longer possible to have it interpreted that way, or the law should not be passed. Laws are laws. They should not be trusted to be used "only when appropriate." They will be used whenever the letter of the law permits it. It's a fact of life. If the letter of the law leaves a hole, just because it's against the spirit doesn't mean that people won't abuse it, and win. See the DMCA.
On a lighter note, I'm actually suprised the military has never (to my knowledge?) investigated the "dropping rocks out of airplanes" destructive technology.:)
And what, exactly, do you think the "xyz pound gravity bombs" they used in Afghanistan are? Slightly more efficient than a rock, but the idea is the same.
If you go to their website it says NOTE - Display drivers and multimedia applications for Laptops and Notebooks are NOT available for download from ATI CustomerCare.
I have a GeForce2 Go in my laptop also. nVIDIA's website told me the same thing when I first went to look for drivers. It doesn't anymore, but really, big deal. Welcome to the world of laptops. You go to the laptop vendor to get your drivers. Period.
If you happened to once own an nVIDIA-based laptop that worked with the reference drivers, good for you, you're lucky. Turning it into a childish rant about how much ATI sucks is ridiculous. Laptop vendors are free to tweak the configuration of the chipset as much as they want once they put it in their machine. There is no guarantee that they will work at all, much less completely, with anything other than drivers appropriately modified by the same vendor.
I won't argue that ATI's drivers have been garbage in the past. They still are not as good as nVIDIA's, but they are improving. The important thing here is that drivers can be upgraded as they continue to improve, and hardware cannot. And the Radeon 9700 Pro's hardware is beyond even the GeForce FX. Held back by crappy drivers, it still holds its own against the GeForce FX.
As far as what you say about wasting money on high end graphics cards, I couldn't agree more. For what it's worth, that GeForce 2 Go in my laptop runs Neverwinter Nights quite fine. Oh no, I have to turn some of the detail down, and I'm not getting 200 frames per second! Alas. The gameplay is still the same, and the graphics are acceptably snappy and pretty.
I'm content with my GeForce 2 Go (on the same level as a GeForce 2 MX, for those who are wondering) for now, though I will be upgrading in not too long. To a Radeon.
I don't think that's right. The Graviton beam does 3x structure damage when (and only when) it penetrates the armor of the ship. Perhaps you're thinking of the Ion Pulse Cannon? It bypasses both armor and structure, and will destroy a ship's systems (shields, weapons, and engines) once it has penetrated the shields. They're also very large, expensive, and wimpy, though, it's best to bring something else to punch a hole in their shields, then let the Ion Pulse Cannons have their fun.:)
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People really need to get a grip. These people signed up for this shit. What's with this joy of deciding FOR people "It's dangerous for you, you can't do it" instead of giving them a choice.
Ask the other astronauts, "We're looking for someone to go up to try and rescue these guys." I doubt one of them would say no, regardless of the danger. They would hope that those other astronauts would do the same for them if the tables were reversed, eh? It's part of the job. Hell, it's part of the human spirit.
It's not just the space program that they like to enforce "safety" upon, but that's been the clearest indicator recently. All the "oh no it's dangerous can't do it" anal-retentives of the world need to loosen up. Little of the research that has gotten us this far could be classified as "safe". So stop making decisions for others based on their safety.
There are stupid risks, and then there are just risks. Leave it up to the people whose lives are on the line to decide. Except, of course, if the risk is clearly a very stupid one, you might not want to waste an orbiter on it. That's fair. But to go up to save astronauts from certain death? Yeah, that's worth an orbiter.
Regardless, other posts are correct -- this is all 20/20 hindsight now. Time to move on. I just wish the lesson learned from this wasn't "Space travel is dangerous, we'd better be much more careful to the point of making everything we're trying to do only marginally useful at best", while all the people who are willing to take risks utterly blow them out of the water.
Wazzup with that, is it as simple as they just make so much profit on their custom designed batt packs that they don't care?
Bingo. I think that's the majority of the reason. There are other things to think about though. First of all, the type of battery is a concern. NiCads are very heavy for the amount of capacity they give. Second only to Lead Acid, I think. NiCad batteries put out a very low voltage compared to other types of cells. I don't think they are very good at handling massive output, high-drain devices such as a laptop. They are also not very environmentally friendly -- cadmium is an extremely toxic metal. Given the number of problems we already have dealing with computer waste, I think it's good to try and avoid NiCad batteries.
Moving on to Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries instead: They're certainly feasable to use as laptop batteries, I think the major problem is that the way that the standard AA/C/D cells are laid out, you get a much much lower amount of energy storage for a given amount of space when you combine the roundness of the cells, plus the packaging and terminals, etc. And space in laptops is at a premium -- battery life is already too short, no need making it shorter.
With that said, I'm all for settling on a few standards for laptop batteries. And while we're at it, some standards for expansion bay equipment would be really nice... okay, okay, I'll quit my dreaming now.
Because the only plentiful source of hydrogen that we have access to is electrolysis of water, which by definition takes at least as much -- and in practice, much more -- energy as the conversion from hydrogen and oxygen back to water. It's a chemical process. You can't get more energy out than was originally put in. What's the point of a hydrogen fuel cell plant when we'll need a conventional power plant sitting beside the electrolysis facility?
Nevermind the fact that even if we did somehow find a plentiful source of hydrogen, we'd get at least an order of magnitude (if not many orders of magnitude) more energy by using it in a fusion reactor than we would in a fuel cell. Again, fuel cells are an entirely chemical process, you can only get a tiny fraction of the energy out of chemical reactions than you get from annihilation-of-mass reactions, such as fission and fusion.
A fusion reactor is many times cleaner and less dangerous than a fission reactor. And we have fission reactors all across North America. And even if you were to entirely discount the use of fusion as a common power source on earth, which I think would be idiotic, you cannot dispute the usefulness of fusion in space. Fuel is ridiculously expensive to get into orbit. The more juice we can get out of a given amount of fuel, the better. Fusion is the most viable power source for interstellar travel, when we come to that point.
For anyone who is actually considering Radio Shack as anything other than an emergency refuge for "awk, I ran out of solder and I need to finish this!"... Radio Shack does not even sell electronics stuff around here anymore. Maybe a bit of soldering equipment, and some connectors, but for actual electronics? Nah. They are morphing into a half-assed Electronics Boutique but with more annoying salespeople. I am fairly certain from other people's stories that this is a trend that is continuing everywhere in the Radio Shack chain.
You're better off finding a real electronics store, or going mail-order. DigiKey is a decent mail-order place for USA/Canada/UK. You will find their selection very refreshing.
But the correct solution to the problem of nuisance mail is not to break the implied contract between the sender and the mail system as a whole. "Your mail will be delivered to its recipient." That's the implied contract. (I'm speaking metaphorically. There's no actual contract here, of course.) Anything that bolts on an "except" or "unless" to that implied contract is a bug, not a feature.
Apply that paragraph to the postal mail service. So, if someone sends you anthrax, or a rod of plutonium, then the post office should be required to deliver it and it's up to each individual to put it in containment and safely dispose of it, nevermind the danger of transporting it in the first place? What if you don't put a stamp on your mail and try to send it? Is the post office still obligated to deliver it?
That just doesn't make any sense. It is entirely within the rights of the mailman to say "Sorry, I'm not delivering this, because you have a rabid dog.", and email does the exact same thing with bounce messages.
The email system is allowed to have rules just as any other system is. If you don't follow those rules, then the system is not obligated to (and would be expected not to) do what you asked, even if that's its explicit purpose. Some of the rules in the email system are written rules, such as those in the RFC. Others are ad-hoc rules such as denying mail if you don't have a PTR record.
As far as email being a system for communicating, you may not get enough spam to make a difference, but signal-to-noise ratio is an important part of communicating, and don't assume everyone gets the same amount of spam you do. Deal with it. We are.
Um, GPS devices do not even have a transmitter of any sort. They receive only.
And yes, they work fine, although it's difficult for them to get a lock on satellites through the tiny windows.
If they didn't make it USA-only. I give them an A for effort though.
Instead, I'll use CD Baby and get songs for approximately the same price, but at CD-quality, and from non-RIAA artists.
Oh, you mean when they had to concentrate on making the games balanced, fun and enjoyable, rather than who can make the prettiest facial graphics for the gloating-after-the-goal cinematic...?
;) No, that's not an example of a *good* hockey game, but it was enjoyable. Blades of Steel was a bit better.
Sign me up for NES "Ice Hockey" any day.
I've found that propping the left rear corner with a nickel works just about perfectly. Not under the rubber foot, just slid in until it presses against the side of the rubber foot.
I am surprised to find that this is actually a problem with the laptop, I had just assumed that it was my cheapo desk that was warped. Although I hadn't noticed this problem with my last laptop, it had much bigger, more flexible feet that I assumed had compensated for the sucky desk.
While we're on the topic of Powerbook annoyances, I am disappointed that they removed the battery backup capacitor from the 12" Powerbook. My friend has a 15" Powerbook, and he can put his computer to sleep, remove the battery, to put in a fully charged one, and the computer does not have to be shut off. They apparently removed this feature from the 12" Powerbook, what a shame. That was one of those tiny but oh-so-nice features that made me want to buy an Apple rather than a PC.
Personally, I'm going to have a cool, refreshing drink of cola and take a seat in my adjustable recliner, and not have to fly on a jetliner out of the country.
They only have exclusive rights to words they invented in the first place. Except Microsoft Windows/Word/Excel/etc, which I think are bogus anyway. If you want to specify a specific brand, fine. The cases where you'd want to specify a certain brand specifically (reviews, parodies, etc) are all protected. Otherwise, why would you need to when a more generic term works just as well, without giving more mindshare to any specific company.
number of movies you have previously rented is not the same as number of movies you have in your rental plan.
You even quoted it yourself. The rental plan he's referring to is whether you are PAYING for 5 discs. He's saying that it has no effect on the results whether you use 1 movie and pay for 1 movie, or use 1 movie and pay for 5 movies, it will have the same effect on their allocation scheme.
Then see how you feel about them.
The 18 wheeler can haul a lot more, but the F1 race car will get you to the local Wal-Mart a lot faster. For small tasks, the Xeon will feel a lot faster.
Yes, that's actually a very good analogy. Keep going, though. Is there really any computing task that involves 'hauling' more data, than rendering 3D video? Would you propose using an F1 to move a truckload of stock to the warehouse? Hm, the benefits of the F1's speed just went down the toilet, eh?
Frankly, most video rendering companies only use an 18-wheeler because they can't fit (or afford) a supertanker in their server room.
Oh. Clearly it was the silly people who thought democracy was about having a voice and a choice, they are to blame.
Hooray for misdirected anger.
I can't provide any evidence, but I know that personally, the lines can throw my visual processing for a loop when I'm playing a twitch-game like the Sniper class in TeamFortress (and TF-clones). I'm expecting the scene to move fluidly, and instead there are these two, only marginally visible lines hanging around in a completely out of character (for the game I'm immersed in) way, not really clearly visible, just enough to subtly throw me off.
Anyway, this article is far gone enough that no one will probably read this now, but I just wanted to explain what I meant, hopefully.
This engine was developed primarily by people at the University of Calgary, not SAIT. He only teaches at SAIT, they didn't have much at all to do with the development of the engine as far as I can see.
Anyway, it's an interesting piece of technology.
I imagine it's the same as the people who tint their headlights.
That's one car 'enhancement' that I've never figured out.
Exactly my point. I ended up with a beautiful looking monitor, that simply *screams* at certain combinations of resolution and refresh rate (not always the highest ones, either). It's enough to drive people out of my house, except for those fortunate souls who lack the high-frequency hearing required. It's particularly annoying with games that like to set their own resolutions and refresh rates.
Good advice.
I disagree. Games and web browsing are where the lines are most noticable. In graphics, the color accuracy, sharpness, brightness, and typically better pixel geometry of a Trinitron win out, and you can generally scroll the image around if you're dealing with a particular part that happens to fall under one of the guide wires.
I'm a big Trinitron fan personally, though my best friend and I have had heated arguments about which is better. It's clearly a very subjective thing. Some of us can't tune out the guide wires on a Trinitron, others (like me) have trouble tuning out the subtle pattern of the mask on shadow mask tubes. To each his own I guess.
Terabits are thousands of gigabits. Petabits are millions of gigabits. Exobits are billions of gigabits (ie, 1 quintillion or 1e15 bits per second)
Just in case it wasn't clear what level of ridiculous claims he was actually making.
I suggest GoldWave. It's nagware, but that's it. Plus if you want to buy it, it's not as expensive as Sound Forge, that's for sure.
Very complete, too, IMHO. Worth the money.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but by saying "I don't want an interpretation" when the courts and enforcement most certainly will interpret the law doesn't make any sense. (um, what else do you expect them to do? how can you *not* interpret it?)
It's like a math textbook telling you that to square a number you multiply it by itself, and then you claiming that being asked to evaluate 4 squared is unfair because nowhere in the book does it say that 4 squared is 4 x 4.
Now, whether the law would actually be interpreted that way is a whole other story. Still, if it's possible that it might, then the law should be re-worded so that it's no longer possible to have it interpreted that way, or the law should not be passed. Laws are laws. They should not be trusted to be used "only when appropriate." They will be used whenever the letter of the law permits it. It's a fact of life. If the letter of the law leaves a hole, just because it's against the spirit doesn't mean that people won't abuse it, and win. See the DMCA.
On a lighter note, I'm actually suprised the military has never (to my knowledge?) investigated the "dropping rocks out of airplanes" destructive technology. :)
And what, exactly, do you think the "xyz pound gravity bombs" they used in Afghanistan are? Slightly more efficient than a rock, but the idea is the same.
If you go to their website it says NOTE - Display drivers and multimedia applications for Laptops and Notebooks are NOT available for download from ATI CustomerCare.
I have a GeForce2 Go in my laptop also. nVIDIA's website told me the same thing when I first went to look for drivers. It doesn't anymore, but really, big deal. Welcome to the world of laptops. You go to the laptop vendor to get your drivers. Period.
If you happened to once own an nVIDIA-based laptop that worked with the reference drivers, good for you, you're lucky. Turning it into a childish rant about how much ATI sucks is ridiculous. Laptop vendors are free to tweak the configuration of the chipset as much as they want once they put it in their machine. There is no guarantee that they will work at all, much less completely, with anything other than drivers appropriately modified by the same vendor.
I won't argue that ATI's drivers have been garbage in the past. They still are not as good as nVIDIA's, but they are improving. The important thing here is that drivers can be upgraded as they continue to improve, and hardware cannot. And the Radeon 9700 Pro's hardware is beyond even the GeForce FX. Held back by crappy drivers, it still holds its own against the GeForce FX.
As far as what you say about wasting money on high end graphics cards, I couldn't agree more. For what it's worth, that GeForce 2 Go in my laptop runs Neverwinter Nights quite fine. Oh no, I have to turn some of the detail down, and I'm not getting 200 frames per second! Alas. The gameplay is still the same, and the graphics are acceptably snappy and pretty.
I'm content with my GeForce 2 Go (on the same level as a GeForce 2 MX, for those who are wondering) for now, though I will be upgrading in not too long. To a Radeon.
I don't think that's right. The Graviton beam does 3x structure damage when (and only when) it penetrates the armor of the ship. Perhaps you're thinking of the Ion Pulse Cannon? It bypasses both armor and structure, and will destroy a ship's systems (shields, weapons, and engines) once it has penetrated the shields. They're also very large, expensive, and wimpy, though, it's best to bring something else to punch a hole in their shields, then let the Ion Pulse Cannons have their fun. :)