Those three points violate rule #1 of sci-fi action for kids - Marketability outweighs quality.
My son is 6. He saw the original Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi shortly before he saw Phantom Menace. He prefers any of the three over Phantom Menace. (RotJ is actually his favorite, but he also likes Empire.) Maybe he's just a discerning kid, but...
Younger kids identify more and are responsible (indirectly) for many more toy sales.
Action figures.
And yet, boys like to fight. That's just the way it is. Anakin does very little of that, and kids my son plays with have battle droids, Darth Maul, Obi Wan, etc. - no Anakin. Most of the kids don't even really realize the movie was "about" Anakin, from what I can tell.
Video games.
Those sucked unless they involved fighting. And yes, a 6 year old can tell the difference between "fun" and "un-fun". Racing games were -never- the preferred games for kids.
Sure, those were probably the motivations used in making the damn film, but they were flawed reasoning: they evidently didn't see the original films as kids, and don't have children of their own.
I had a crush on Princess Leah in the metal bikini when I was 7. How about you? My daughter wants to be a "princess"; she doesn't relate to Jar Jar, she relates to Princess Leah/Amadilia all dressed up pretty.
Leave the cartoon animation to the cartoons, please.
I'm just glad Lucas is done making more Star Wars movies.
You're not considering the fact that there would be no product without PHP. So really, 7,500 servers for facebook, if they were using C++, is probably a bit of an over-estimation.:)
(That said, it's pretty evident that PHP was the wrong language for what they're doing. Python or Java, or even Perl would've been better choices. Arguably,.NET would be better, too, were it not for the likely architectural overhead in such a choice.)
# # Patching/maintenance. Would you rather maintain patches on 1000 desktops or 10 big boxes in the data centre?
This, and it's corollary, is what I always come back to as the main/biggest weakness to thin clients. That corollary is: would you rather have 1 user down due to his malware stupidity, or 50 users?
I'm all for thin clients, and i think the other disadvantages of thinclients are easily avoidable/marginalized by the benefits (given most environments).
I'm not saying it's a red flag for me, but it does give me pause. When Norton will hose a system (it it won't allow any logins, normally or in safe mode) infected with Internet Security 2010 or similar, I question how much 'system recovery' I'd end up having to do, vs. simply wipe-and-recover.
Now, if your infrastructure is large/organized enough that you've got all storage on a SAN, FC host, or similar, you've got another environment variable which aides the ease of a thinclient migration.
From what I've seen, hospitals are probably the organization type which could benefit the most from thinclients, both short and long term. The environmental factors alone should be enough to sell them even at an increase in cost, but there are a bunch of other reasons as well.
Well, one gear ratio, then. And only one gear sprocket, as the other one is a drive sprocket. Or no gears, depending on your definition of gears (ie you'd need a 2nd geared sprocket, with a different power ratio, to constitute 'gears').:)
On the other hand is WYSE is only selling low volumes of thin client machines (because most customers are buying regular desktops/laptops/notebooks/whatever), then they have to sell them at a higher price to recoup development costs, costs of setting up production lines, costs of buying components in smaller volumes, marketing costs and so on.
Nonsense. Who working in IT hasn't looked at their computing infrastructure (regardless of whether it's 10 or 10,000 workstations) and thought: gee, it sure would be nice to use thinclients instead of these large, hot, noisy, and relatively expensive desktops.
After all, you can buy a (very capable) beagleboard for $150. It's a small-number production, to be certain. It's definitely smaller production than anything WYSE does.
The "cost" of a thinclient, to the developer,is negligible: the hardware is dirt cheap, the protocols are fairly static, and licensing is likewise probably fairly cheap. The reason WYSE charges what they do, when it comes down to it, is demand: there aren't really all that many providers of inexpensive thinclient hardware. It's not a competitive market, in part due to continued drops in the "PC" market costs, but also because WYSE (and others) can still make a profit at low volume. Since product reliability (and general QOS/QA) tends to suffer with higher volume, naturally they're staying at lower numbers. (The curve to high-volume profit is likely not steep enough to justify the higher volumes.)
Without looking into it too much, I suspect the big problem is licensing. I know that as long ago as 4 years ago there was a company which made "thinclients" which would connect to hacked-up XP terminal services - 2 per XP machine, I seem to recall. They cost under $100 each and had a fair number of capabilities - certainly enough for your average user. They could even do video over the connection better than the 'stock' terminal services. (Anyone who bought such a thing would, of course, void the license on XP by using the product.)
Honestly, there are enough inexpensive ARM based boards available now, I hope someone writes an "open" firmware for such boards which is simply a thinclient ROM. That'd be pretty awesome.
They do this by 'tweaking' their indexes to preference one thing over another thing in a results page, anyway. Granted, it's not as obvious or as overt, but it still happens. Many times, it seems they're doing it to de-emphasize "unpopular" data. People tend to not want to think about it, or even acknowledge it, though.
Well, I got a free E350 conversion van (with the raised roof) a while back in pretty good condition (good interior, no frame rust, minimal body rust). So I put a diesel engine in it (Cumins 4BT) with a second electrical (alternator + batteries) in the 'free' engine compartment space. (Then, I got some new tires. Oy those are getting pricey.) A full-size diesel van for about $3500 investment which gets around 32mpg average (highway/town)? Not bad!
And I then geeked the hell out of it. Shortwave radio with remote-operable antenna which is mounted in the driver's area next to the CB. Radar jammer.
There's a 17" LCD in the overhead area with a decent sound system, connected to a BeagleBoard. Plugged into the BB is a Wii for the kids. The BB is running QTembedded.
I also replaced the dashboard CD player (not a bad model) with a hacked up FriendlyARM 7" touchscreen computer. The FriendlyARM controls all accessories now, as well as the rear-view bumper webcams and the controls for the antenna. It's got 802.11b/g connectivity and (and a 3G GSM modem, which I've yet to get working - and have no decent local service for).
Total 'investment' is under $5k, I'd guess. I'm thinking of installing solar panels on the roof to trickle charge the accessories battery, but I've got to find some good/cheap ones. I'll probably be putting one of those Humvee heaters in it, or maybe a multifuel milsurp (vented) space heater, since we've got long winters here.
If CO2 is in any significant way related to climate change (temperature, over time, say) would we not see a system change which is not only in lock-step with the increase in CO2 into the atmosphere, by proportionate volume, but at a fairly exponential fashion due to the fact that CO2 doesn't simply "disappear".
How much CO2 does a Bengal tiger emit in a year? I'd bet "a lot". Or sperm whales? Good thing there aren't many left, or we might have to kill some to stop it...
Uh, I'm pretty sure that the sun's activity was highest in quite some time over the past 20 years (or so). It's recently started to subside, however.
I'm also sure most of what else you say is completely fabricated, or found in some fiction novel.
And while evidence isn't the plural for anecdote, I will also add this: myself, and many others, have been noticing how fucking cold it's been this winter, and how mild last summer was. Not just in a specific area, either, but nationwide. Record cold, early on in the year, during the summer.
Now can we stop calling CO2 a pollutant? The plants in my house disagree with such a statement.
The "changers" have been pushing, for 50 years, an agenda of decreased emissions, lower smog, lower power use, decrease/remove heavy metals from products - yadda yadda. And, for the most part, the results have been predictable: lower-quality automobiles which don't last as long, decreased emissions by a substantial amount (yet fuel economy on new vehicles remains mostly the same since the mid-80s), electronics which fail (and then get discarded) after a couple years due to whiskers on the crap tin solder, and so on.
Now, they're pushing to decrease our carbon footprints, whatever that means. Keep the house colder than the already-chilly 60F? Less driving (and eat more food due to the energy requirement increase from biking)? Less breathing?
You can not end "pollution". That's as brainfucked a quest as ending "hunger", in practice. What're you going to do, force-feed every person in the world? Because I could really use a ham sandwich right now. Pollution can't simply be summed up in a word, and doing so is like the hippies who said "make love, not war". They didn't know what the fuck they were talking about: the issue was much more complex.
IE, take your chemicals (you know, CO2, argon, etc.) and stick them in a container, and test the impact that sunlight has on them. Figure it out, contrive something. It's not science until you've done that, at least to some degree. This isn't economics, where shit can just be made up as we go along based on observations: the timeline for the global weather patterns is entirely too long to simply observe.
That's funny. From everything I've heard about cap and trade, it's going to stagnate our economy (read: bad for everybody).
Oh, it will, just like large government is bad for everybody: the only people making any profit are those who're in the bag. Just look at the whole sham of ethanol. The common man gets what? Plenty: more tax on their gasoline to pay for ethanol (production and growth) subsidy, fuel which is significantly more corrosive to their vehicle, and (in many cases) a drop in efficiency/increased failure on older equipment.
If we're to follow the Ethanol model, it will go/is going down like this: moneyed people invest in fringe technology/industrial product which has no financially viable market due to cost and resources necessary to utilize it. Government steps in to "help", and kick-starts the industry through subsidy, legislation, or both. Moneyed investors now become filthy fucking rich investors and sell their stock before the sham is realized and the artificial condition they were basing their "we must do something" argument pops (again, see ethanol and E85).
Yet tomorrow you might die of a heart attack or be hit by a rushed Paki cab driver. Big picture, a mass extinction event matters not at all. You go out one way or another.
Actually, I'd bank more on the idea that it's an engineering thing. Think about it, if you design a system that needs specific inputs do you want a battery that is designed to efficiently deliver power at that voltage, or do you want a battery that provides a higher voltage and then you get to waste energy (via heat) to bring it down to the appropriate level?
I take it you haven't disassembled a laptop battery before. Most are the exact same thing: 18650 (about the same size as 2x CR123s) and sometimes 14500 cells (2x AAs). They're about $5 a piece.
A "laptop battery" is just the circuitry for charge/discharge, along with the cells. It'd make much more sense, and save materials, if the circuitry were built into the laptop with a "standard battery" bay.
Unfortunately, laptops (and computers in general) have become a disposable item to many people - like a TV. They're easy enough to get for free, in mostly working order. Most people will replace their's with a new one before the original battery dies, and don't use a computer long enough to deplete the battery (if they use it unplugged at all in the first place).
Exactly. With a battery powered lawn mower, you're competing against $150 gas powered lawn mowers. Yes, the battery powered one will be quieter, but it will also be substantially more expensive
Considering the battery pack for a Robomower costs $240 or so on its own, they've got to basically sell the things at cost in order to get people even remotely interested in buying one (short of economic/ecology sanctions saying you can't use a gas mower). The battery mowers also have the whole "lifetime" issue to contend with: a gas mower will last years (my dad is still using the same Snapper riding mower that was used to mow the yard since before I was born), costs less to run (compare approx. $70/season for battery vs. less than half as much for gas, given a small/medium yard; I can mow my yard for $10 a season).
Side note: has anyone seen these battery-powered yard tools? From what I've seen, they're a joke: battery-powered chainsaws barely even compete with an A/C powered hedge trimmer.
Yet at the same time, some computer manufacturers (I'm thinking of Dell here, specifically) have standardized on both power plugs and batteries. I know a lot of laptops also tend to use the exact same (Lite-on) power brick these days, as well. Getting either from third parties, whether "OEM" or work-alike products, isn't all that difficult with the rise of Internet purchases. You have to put extra effort into buying the pricey ones.
So, yes, it wont kill off all the large land animals... it will only kill off most of them (studies show figures speculating 70-90%). Sadly, I have yet to see a study that shows how much more of the human population will be killed off by each other in the fight for resources.
Nevermind the number of other mammals which would go extinct in such an event. During the Great Depression, deer (whitetail and mule) almost went extinct due to over-hunting (in North America). If the over-population levels of many mammals were reduced to 30%, with a then-increased fight over the remaining food resources, I suspect that extinction of deer in North America might still come to pass.
The "type" of miscarriage in early-term pregnancy is different than that occurring later. This would include, I presume, the kind of pregnancies where women don't even know they're pregnant yet.
I would not be surprised to find that miscarriage results in, say, deer or wolves, is similar.
Now, I think it might be accurate to say that approximately 1/3 of all pregnancies end in a C-section (might be higher than that still, these days), but miscarriages? No. Birth is a natural process, and even inbred people tend to be OK performing it. Unless there is a complication - such as caused by poor diet, lack of exercise, etc. such as the mom being a lazy fatass, a diabetic, drug user, etc. - there should be no biological reason (short of genetics and things which can be known beforehand) why the birth shouldn't be able to go through unassisted.
The real cruel, insane thing is what we've been doing to mothers for over 100 years. The "medicine" practices of doctors for birthing women have been barbaric (all the way up to and including routine C-sections) for well over a century. Birth on your back? Keep the mother bed-bound for weeks before the birth? Talk about over-reactive responses to the possibility of the mother injuring herself/the child during late-term (resulting in even more drastic/harmful problems, like mother and baby death).
I personally know dozens of people who have birthed their children at home. Some are even a little fat (ok, some are huge). I've only heard of one miscarriage by doing so, and that was due to an overly long birth (her next child was a c-section out of necessity). But, they had 3 kids before that, already.
My wife barely made it to the hospital in time for our first child to be born. She was up and walking around within 20 minutes of said child coming out. My second was born at home; I "delivered" her, or "caught" her. There wasn't much involved other than paying attention to my wife, helping her through it (and not passing out). We knew the child wasn't goign to be breached, and I'd read (and re-read several times) a delivery handbook which is given to emergency responders (outlining the cause/condition of various potentially disastrous symptoms). My daughter was born, and my wife, our daughter, and I were asleep within an hour (or two? time flies when stuff like that is happening) in our own bed.
A person can live in a communist community (a 'commune') within a capitalist society. The same can not be said for a capitalist community within a communist society. A communist society will not, and does not, work - particularly when the will of the individual is in direct conflict with the system, wanting to do its own thing. Short of violence acts, a communist can do as he pleases within a capitalist society. (For instance, charities, which redistribute wealth, have existed since the conception of this country - the USA - and have not had all that much opposition from the state.)
It's not the ideas, per se - except within their own domain of political power/structure/ideology/practice. Take socialist/communist ideas into the arena of voluntary cooperation, and you've got the possibility of a good thing - provided everyone contributes willingly and anyone can leave at any time. Take away the "willing" part, and what you have is totalitarian slavery.
Unfortunately, since it's somewhat difficult to leave your state for another, what amounts from Marxist-derived ideas applied at the state level is just that: totalitarian slavery.
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Those three points violate rule #1 of sci-fi action for kids - Marketability outweighs quality.
My son is 6. He saw the original Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi shortly before he saw Phantom Menace. He prefers any of the three over Phantom Menace. (RotJ is actually his favorite, but he also likes Empire.) Maybe he's just a discerning kid, but...
Younger kids identify more and are responsible (indirectly) for many more toy sales.
Action figures.
And yet, boys like to fight. That's just the way it is. Anakin does very little of that, and kids my son plays with have battle droids, Darth Maul, Obi Wan, etc. - no Anakin. Most of the kids don't even really realize the movie was "about" Anakin, from what I can tell.
Video games.
Those sucked unless they involved fighting. And yes, a 6 year old can tell the difference between "fun" and "un-fun". Racing games were -never- the preferred games for kids.
Sure, those were probably the motivations used in making the damn film, but they were flawed reasoning: they evidently didn't see the original films as kids, and don't have children of their own.
I had a crush on Princess Leah in the metal bikini when I was 7. How about you? My daughter wants to be a "princess"; she doesn't relate to Jar Jar, she relates to Princess Leah/Amadilia all dressed up pretty.
Leave the cartoon animation to the cartoons, please.
I'm just glad Lucas is done making more Star Wars movies.
You're not considering the fact that there would be no product without PHP. So really, 7,500 servers for facebook, if they were using C++, is probably a bit of an over-estimation. :)
(That said, it's pretty evident that PHP was the wrong language for what they're doing. Python or Java, or even Perl would've been better choices. Arguably, .NET would be better, too, were it not for the likely architectural overhead in such a choice.)
#
# Patching/maintenance. Would you rather maintain patches on 1000 desktops or 10 big boxes in the data centre?
This, and it's corollary, is what I always come back to as the main/biggest weakness to thin clients. That corollary is: would you rather have 1 user down due to his malware stupidity, or 50 users?
I'm all for thin clients, and i think the other disadvantages of thinclients are easily avoidable/marginalized by the benefits (given most environments).
I'm not saying it's a red flag for me, but it does give me pause. When Norton will hose a system (it it won't allow any logins, normally or in safe mode) infected with Internet Security 2010 or similar, I question how much 'system recovery' I'd end up having to do, vs. simply wipe-and-recover.
Now, if your infrastructure is large/organized enough that you've got all storage on a SAN, FC host, or similar, you've got another environment variable which aides the ease of a thinclient migration.
From what I've seen, hospitals are probably the organization type which could benefit the most from thinclients, both short and long term. The environmental factors alone should be enough to sell them even at an increase in cost, but there are a bunch of other reasons as well.
Well, one gear ratio, then. And only one gear sprocket, as the other one is a drive sprocket. Or no gears, depending on your definition of gears (ie you'd need a 2nd geared sprocket, with a different power ratio, to constitute 'gears'). :)
On the other hand is WYSE is only selling low volumes of thin client machines (because most customers are buying regular desktops/laptops/notebooks/whatever), then they have to sell them at a higher price to recoup development costs, costs of setting up production lines, costs of buying components in smaller volumes, marketing costs and so on.
Nonsense. Who working in IT hasn't looked at their computing infrastructure (regardless of whether it's 10 or 10,000 workstations) and thought: gee, it sure would be nice to use thinclients instead of these large, hot, noisy, and relatively expensive desktops.
After all, you can buy a (very capable) beagleboard for $150. It's a small-number production, to be certain. It's definitely smaller production than anything WYSE does.
The "cost" of a thinclient, to the developer,is negligible: the hardware is dirt cheap, the protocols are fairly static, and licensing is likewise probably fairly cheap. The reason WYSE charges what they do, when it comes down to it, is demand: there aren't really all that many providers of inexpensive thinclient hardware. It's not a competitive market, in part due to continued drops in the "PC" market costs, but also because WYSE (and others) can still make a profit at low volume. Since product reliability (and general QOS/QA) tends to suffer with higher volume, naturally they're staying at lower numbers. (The curve to high-volume profit is likely not steep enough to justify the higher volumes.)
Without looking into it too much, I suspect the big problem is licensing. I know that as long ago as 4 years ago there was a company which made "thinclients" which would connect to hacked-up XP terminal services - 2 per XP machine, I seem to recall. They cost under $100 each and had a fair number of capabilities - certainly enough for your average user. They could even do video over the connection better than the 'stock' terminal services. (Anyone who bought such a thing would, of course, void the license on XP by using the product.)
Honestly, there are enough inexpensive ARM based boards available now, I hope someone writes an "open" firmware for such boards which is simply a thinclient ROM. That'd be pretty awesome.
They do this by 'tweaking' their indexes to preference one thing over another thing in a results page, anyway. Granted, it's not as obvious or as overt, but it still happens. Many times, it seems they're doing it to de-emphasize "unpopular" data. People tend to not want to think about it, or even acknowledge it, though.
Well, I got a free E350 conversion van (with the raised roof) a while back in pretty good condition (good interior, no frame rust, minimal body rust). So I put a diesel engine in it (Cumins 4BT) with a second electrical (alternator + batteries) in the 'free' engine compartment space. (Then, I got some new tires. Oy those are getting pricey.) A full-size diesel van for about $3500 investment which gets around 32mpg average (highway/town)? Not bad!
And I then geeked the hell out of it. Shortwave radio with remote-operable antenna which is mounted in the driver's area next to the CB. Radar jammer.
There's a 17" LCD in the overhead area with a decent sound system, connected to a BeagleBoard. Plugged into the BB is a Wii for the kids. The BB is running QTembedded.
I also replaced the dashboard CD player (not a bad model) with a hacked up FriendlyARM 7" touchscreen computer. The FriendlyARM controls all accessories now, as well as the rear-view bumper webcams and the controls for the antenna. It's got 802.11b/g connectivity and (and a 3G GSM modem, which I've yet to get working - and have no decent local service for).
Total 'investment' is under $5k, I'd guess. I'm thinking of installing solar panels on the roof to trickle charge the accessories battery, but I've got to find some good/cheap ones. I'll probably be putting one of those Humvee heaters in it, or maybe a multifuel milsurp (vented) space heater, since we've got long winters here.
I should take pictures.
If CO2 is in any significant way related to climate change (temperature, over time, say) would we not see a system change which is not only in lock-step with the increase in CO2 into the atmosphere, by proportionate volume, but at a fairly exponential fashion due to the fact that CO2 doesn't simply "disappear".
How much CO2 does a Bengal tiger emit in a year? I'd bet "a lot". Or sperm whales? Good thing there aren't many left, or we might have to kill some to stop it...
Uh, I'm pretty sure that the sun's activity was highest in quite some time over the past 20 years (or so). It's recently started to subside, however.
I'm also sure most of what else you say is completely fabricated, or found in some fiction novel.
And while evidence isn't the plural for anecdote, I will also add this: myself, and many others, have been noticing how fucking cold it's been this winter, and how mild last summer was. Not just in a specific area, either, but nationwide. Record cold, early on in the year, during the summer.
OK, agreed.
Now can we stop calling CO2 a pollutant? The plants in my house disagree with such a statement.
The "changers" have been pushing, for 50 years, an agenda of decreased emissions, lower smog, lower power use, decrease/remove heavy metals from products - yadda yadda. And, for the most part, the results have been predictable: lower-quality automobiles which don't last as long, decreased emissions by a substantial amount (yet fuel economy on new vehicles remains mostly the same since the mid-80s), electronics which fail (and then get discarded) after a couple years due to whiskers on the crap tin solder, and so on.
Now, they're pushing to decrease our carbon footprints, whatever that means. Keep the house colder than the already-chilly 60F? Less driving (and eat more food due to the energy requirement increase from biking)? Less breathing?
You can not end "pollution". That's as brainfucked a quest as ending "hunger", in practice. What're you going to do, force-feed every person in the world? Because I could really use a ham sandwich right now. Pollution can't simply be summed up in a word, and doing so is like the hippies who said "make love, not war". They didn't know what the fuck they were talking about: the issue was much more complex.
Forget 'explaining' it. Did they test it?
IE, take your chemicals (you know, CO2, argon, etc.) and stick them in a container, and test the impact that sunlight has on them. Figure it out, contrive something. It's not science until you've done that, at least to some degree. This isn't economics, where shit can just be made up as we go along based on observations: the timeline for the global weather patterns is entirely too long to simply observe.
That's funny. From everything I've heard about cap and trade, it's going to stagnate our economy (read: bad for everybody).
Oh, it will, just like large government is bad for everybody: the only people making any profit are those who're in the bag. Just look at the whole sham of ethanol. The common man gets what? Plenty: more tax on their gasoline to pay for ethanol (production and growth) subsidy, fuel which is significantly more corrosive to their vehicle, and (in many cases) a drop in efficiency/increased failure on older equipment.
If we're to follow the Ethanol model, it will go/is going down like this: moneyed people invest in fringe technology/industrial product which has no financially viable market due to cost and resources necessary to utilize it. Government steps in to "help", and kick-starts the industry through subsidy, legislation, or both. Moneyed investors now become filthy fucking rich investors and sell their stock before the sham is realized and the artificial condition they were basing their "we must do something" argument pops (again, see ethanol and E85).
A radioactive meteor would do the trick. And zombies. Can't forget the zombies.
Yet tomorrow you might die of a heart attack or be hit by a rushed Paki cab driver. Big picture, a mass extinction event matters not at all. You go out one way or another.
Actually, I'd bank more on the idea that it's an engineering thing. Think about it, if you design a system that needs specific inputs do you want a battery that is designed to efficiently deliver power at that voltage, or do you want a battery that provides a higher voltage and then you get to waste energy (via heat) to bring it down to the appropriate level?
I take it you haven't disassembled a laptop battery before. Most are the exact same thing: 18650 (about the same size as 2x CR123s) and sometimes 14500 cells (2x AAs). They're about $5 a piece.
A "laptop battery" is just the circuitry for charge/discharge, along with the cells. It'd make much more sense, and save materials, if the circuitry were built into the laptop with a "standard battery" bay.
Unfortunately, laptops (and computers in general) have become a disposable item to many people - like a TV. They're easy enough to get for free, in mostly working order. Most people will replace their's with a new one before the original battery dies, and don't use a computer long enough to deplete the battery (if they use it unplugged at all in the first place).
Exactly. With a battery powered lawn mower, you're competing against $150 gas powered lawn mowers. Yes, the battery powered one will be quieter, but it will also be substantially more expensive
Considering the battery pack for a Robomower costs $240 or so on its own, they've got to basically sell the things at cost in order to get people even remotely interested in buying one (short of economic/ecology sanctions saying you can't use a gas mower). The battery mowers also have the whole "lifetime" issue to contend with: a gas mower will last years (my dad is still using the same Snapper riding mower that was used to mow the yard since before I was born), costs less to run (compare approx. $70/season for battery vs. less than half as much for gas, given a small/medium yard; I can mow my yard for $10 a season).
Side note: has anyone seen these battery-powered yard tools? From what I've seen, they're a joke: battery-powered chainsaws barely even compete with an A/C powered hedge trimmer.
Yet at the same time, some computer manufacturers (I'm thinking of Dell here, specifically) have standardized on both power plugs and batteries. I know a lot of laptops also tend to use the exact same (Lite-on) power brick these days, as well. Getting either from third parties, whether "OEM" or work-alike products, isn't all that difficult with the rise of Internet purchases. You have to put extra effort into buying the pricey ones.
Any other design? Try to screw a flathead screw into, well, anything before?
Star, hex/torx, flathead... anything is better.
Forget the size standard. Just standardize on a COTS cell, like 18650 (which is in most laptop cells, anyway).
It'd have its trade-offs, but you wouldn't be confined to specific dimensions, per se.
Laptops are probably on their way out as the de-facto computing device in a couple years, anyway.
So, yes, it wont kill off all the large land animals... it will only kill off most of them (studies show figures speculating 70-90%). Sadly, I have yet to see a study that shows how much more of the human population will be killed off by each other in the fight for resources.
Nevermind the number of other mammals which would go extinct in such an event. During the Great Depression, deer (whitetail and mule) almost went extinct due to over-hunting (in North America). If the over-population levels of many mammals were reduced to 30%, with a then-increased fight over the remaining food resources, I suspect that extinction of deer in North America might still come to pass.
The "type" of miscarriage in early-term pregnancy is different than that occurring later. This would include, I presume, the kind of pregnancies where women don't even know they're pregnant yet.
I would not be surprised to find that miscarriage results in, say, deer or wolves, is similar.
You completely made that shit up! Idiot.
Now, I think it might be accurate to say that approximately 1/3 of all pregnancies end in a C-section (might be higher than that still, these days), but miscarriages? No. Birth is a natural process, and even inbred people tend to be OK performing it. Unless there is a complication - such as caused by poor diet, lack of exercise, etc. such as the mom being a lazy fatass, a diabetic, drug user, etc. - there should be no biological reason (short of genetics and things which can be known beforehand) why the birth shouldn't be able to go through unassisted.
The real cruel, insane thing is what we've been doing to mothers for over 100 years. The "medicine" practices of doctors for birthing women have been barbaric (all the way up to and including routine C-sections) for well over a century. Birth on your back? Keep the mother bed-bound for weeks before the birth? Talk about over-reactive responses to the possibility of the mother injuring herself/the child during late-term (resulting in even more drastic/harmful problems, like mother and baby death).
I personally know dozens of people who have birthed their children at home. Some are even a little fat (ok, some are huge). I've only heard of one miscarriage by doing so, and that was due to an overly long birth (her next child was a c-section out of necessity). But, they had 3 kids before that, already.
My wife barely made it to the hospital in time for our first child to be born. She was up and walking around within 20 minutes of said child coming out. My second was born at home; I "delivered" her, or "caught" her. There wasn't much involved other than paying attention to my wife, helping her through it (and not passing out). We knew the child wasn't goign to be breached, and I'd read (and re-read several times) a delivery handbook which is given to emergency responders (outlining the cause/condition of various potentially disastrous symptoms). My daughter was born, and my wife, our daughter, and I were asleep within an hour (or two? time flies when stuff like that is happening) in our own bed.
Isn't there some sort of grounds on patents that you've got to defend your patent or you lose any right to it?
So, waiting 15 years (let's call it 10 and still be fairly conservative) before pressing litigation against infringers might qualify, yes?
Wrong.
A person can live in a communist community (a 'commune') within a capitalist society. The same can not be said for a capitalist community within a communist society. A communist society will not, and does not, work - particularly when the will of the individual is in direct conflict with the system, wanting to do its own thing. Short of violence acts, a communist can do as he pleases within a capitalist society. (For instance, charities, which redistribute wealth, have existed since the conception of this country - the USA - and have not had all that much opposition from the state.)
It's not the ideas, per se - except within their own domain of political power/structure/ideology/practice. Take socialist/communist ideas into the arena of voluntary cooperation, and you've got the possibility of a good thing - provided everyone contributes willingly and anyone can leave at any time. Take away the "willing" part, and what you have is totalitarian slavery.
Unfortunately, since it's somewhat difficult to leave your state for another, what amounts from Marxist-derived ideas applied at the state level is just that: totalitarian slavery.