Every economist will tell you that a recession/economic downturn is the BEST time to bring out a new tax (yes it's called sarcasm). Hey, ask Maggie Thatcher - it sure helped to put a lot of British out of work in the 80's. Recession? RAISE tax and reduce the people's disposable income even further. Joe Sixpack is struggling to pay his gas, credit cards and probably can't afford to keep/refinance his mortgage. Let's make him give the government some of his internet moneh.
Another great idea from the people you idiots keep voting for. And I'm not your guy, friend.
Thermodynamics, heat engines (which is as efficient as energy transfer gets), and Carnot. If you can beat 40% efficiency transferring one form of energy into another, you win a Nobel Prize. I would cast serious doubt on whoever claims to have gotten 42.7% efficiency. But it's not up to me to teach you high school physics.
Erm, one does not need to "harness" the energy from downhill.
No, but you can if you want to keep your velocity constant on a downhill run. What, you've never had to use compression going downhill? Must be all those automatic transmissions american cars have.
And drag isn't effected by weight, so the only downside to adding more weight is the initial cost of getting the thing moving.
On a flat Earth I would agree with you. However since the real world outside the lab has hills, I would say that adding more weight has a bit more downside than you think. Oh I agree there are devices that try to "harness" the energy from the downhill runs (and deceleration) via hydraulics or pneumatics, and "boost" the engine when needed (startup, uphill). And all self respecting scientists know that you will never approach 100% efficiency (40% being the theoretical max).
But you can't escape the m part of the F = ma formula.
But CMB fills the entire universe, it doesn't come from one localized area. See the part of his post:
What you want is a specific "point" at which the big bang happened. That's not the case. When it happened - it WAS the universe - ie it was every single point at once. As the universe expands - anywhere you look from or to you'll be able to see this background radiation. Of course there will be fluctuations if the expansion of the universe isn't completely uniform - and why should it be? Matter distorts space and time, contributing to this non-uniformity.
No, it doesn't. You're assuming a perfect "free market" with perfect competition. The oil market is nothing like that. There will always be a need for oil at ANY price. Just like some people will smoke at ANY price/cigarette.
One of my first computers was a Dell. A 4MHz PC-AT that had a turbo button that could send it to a blazing 8MHz! It was a fine machine, and I never had a single problem with it for several years. Of course Dell was one of the most expensive PC's you could buy, second only to an "original" IBM machine. However since the mid 90's I have heard nothing but complaints from Dell owners - apparently they sacrificed quality when they decided to drop the price. There's no reason at all for an electronic device to fail for YEARS after the initial burn in period, unless it's poorly designed or made with dodgy components (or your electric company sucks or you get a lightning strike). Yet most Dell owners I know, including the computer lab at my alma mater - regretted their choice.
Meh, I wish them luck redesigning their business, but the only people who buy "Dell" nowadays are the ones swayed by the media hype.
I still build my own PC's, ever since the day of the 386, and have never had ANY problems.
Economic slowdown is not equal to recession. Recession is ZERO or NEGATIVE economic growth for TWO CONSECUTIVE quarters. Unemployment is still low, consumer spending is still happening, the economy is still growing marginally positively, only at a lower rate. Yeah, the stock market fell at most 20% (and I made money on the way down), BUT THIS DOES NOT MEAN RECESSION. Stop believing all the crap the alarmist media is shoving down your throat. Otherwise people like you will CAUSE a REAL recession. Just like rumor-mongers caused Bear Stearns to almost belly up overnight.
I think I read somewhere in the fine print that Apple is also claiming that the i 3 NY logo is too similar to their "i" logos (iTunes, iPods, iMacs, etc), or are they saving this for the next bunch of law suits?
Seriously, talk about one bad Apple soiling the bunch.
No, if every soldier swears to uphold the constitution and their "Commander in Chief" disregards the constitution, it's time to march a couple divisions around the White House and the "Congress" which has LET this happen by failing to do anything, stage a coup, or at least force an election.
But because the "revolutionary" spirit in America was killed by Nintendo and plasma tv's and nice cars, it just ain't going to happen. Just keep shopping and everything will be ok so long as the mall is open.
Kudos to the the guy for writing a book. But honestly ubuntu is so damned easy one is not exactly necessary. But then again neither are all those other "Getting the most out of Windows (version whatever)" books. Nice to see linux getting some shelf space. Even if it is just one space.
After my initial problems with ubuntu (mostly having to do with a buggy BIOS and figuring out I needed to use the "noapic nolapic" commands - now fixed after reflashing my BIOS to a newer version), I have had no complaints. My favorite games run under Wine and/or Cedega in a stable manner. Office is much more than I need. The only thing I miss is multi-monitor support (not DUAL monitor, I am talking 8 or more monitors - I trade stocks and look at a lot of graphs at the same time), but I hear better multi-monitor support is coming in Hardy Heron. I guess if I really wanted to I could play around with the xorg.conf file, but I really don't want to, any more than I would want to edit windows registry keys.
Linux has improved a GREAT deal in terms of user friendliness and being able to do almost anything with simple mouse clicks from the GUI.
The ubuntu forums are quite friendly, and it's not that hard to find the info to say get Evolution working with hotmail, or get ubuntu to play Hollywood encrypted DVD's (although that is laughably illegal in the US even if you bought the DVD). Better yet, download the AVI/DivX file and can claim that you're still only breaking one law.
Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself. This book is a great idea. The inclusion of a CD is a great idea, and hopefully more people will think about linux as an alternative to pirating/being extorted into paying for Windows crapware.
If all you do is defense, then eventually the enemy is likely to figure out, how to break you.
Attack is the best defense.
Spoken like someone who has no understanding of the art of war.
The first rule of war is: don't go to war.
The second rule of war is if you have to go to war make yourself invulnerable before you attack.
"Attack is the best defense" did not work for Germany in the 2nd world war. It didn't work in Vietnam or Korea. It's certainly not working for the US at the moment.
If your defenses are so strong that your enemy will require all his concentration in order to understand/penetrate them, he won't see that guy sneaking behind him and about to bite him in the ass.
I have recently become aware (through the power that the internet grants to the average person) of your company's attitude and treatment of the Brazilian programmer, Daniel Kawakami. As far as I am concerned this person is not in the United States or covered by US law and thus can tinker and fiddle with his computer and HIS hardware - yes when he purchased it from you it became HIS, whatever your legal department would have you believe - in any manner he sees fit.
I have owned several products from Creative in the past, from the original "Sound Blaster" products up to and including your "Audigy" product line. However I was not aware of the immaturity with which your company was prepared to deal with this situation. A situation where a talented individual empowers me to optimize the use of MY (yes, if I buy it it becomes MY) hardware on MY computer.
It's as if Ford suddenly objected to the color I decide to paint my car, or the company that made my mouse objected because I use it to control a robot I built.
I have to inform you that because of this decision of yours I frankly will no longer be doing business with your company. Your "rights" under the DMCA stop at the US border, and patent protections are designed to prevent someone reverse engineering your products and rebuilding them to compete with you. Someone writing a driver that enhances your products, activates features (without warranty) which you "chose" to cripple is not HARMING your company they are HELPING.
Now you may not care about the paltry hundred or so dollars I may have spent on Creative products in the future, but do ask yourself if ONE person can feel strongly enough to be moved to write to you over this issue, exactly how much business are you going to lose through this bad press?
I hope that your company can remember that people don't exist simply as statistics, demographics, and consumers of your products. We will tinker with things. We will alter things. If your products are flawed those flaws WILL be discovered. And if your products can be improved - they will. You might think about hiring this obviously brilliant guy, instead of threatening him.
ride the sales of that until they can get Windows 7 out the door.
But Windows 7 will require AT LEAST 8x core machines with 20 GB of ram and 150GB of hard disk space, and run 4 times slower than Vista... but it will have a catchy new jingle and a really nice looking box.
Slashdot Mirror
Every economist will tell you that a recession/economic downturn is the BEST time to bring out a new tax (yes it's called sarcasm). Hey, ask Maggie Thatcher - it sure helped to put a lot of British out of work in the 80's. Recession? RAISE tax and reduce the people's disposable income even further. Joe Sixpack is struggling to pay his gas, credit cards and probably can't afford to keep/refinance his mortgage. Let's make him give the government some of his internet moneh.
Another great idea from the people you idiots keep voting for. And I'm not your guy, friend.
I am curious about this 40 percent figure
Thermodynamics, heat engines (which is as efficient as energy transfer gets), and Carnot. If you can beat 40% efficiency transferring one form of energy into another, you win a Nobel Prize. I would cast serious doubt on whoever claims to have gotten 42.7% efficiency. But it's not up to me to teach you high school physics.
I saw that program on the Discovery channel too last year. Wow, slashdot, really on the cutting edge of tech news.
Erm, one does not need to "harness" the energy from downhill.
No, but you can if you want to keep your velocity constant on a downhill run. What, you've never had to use compression going downhill? Must be all those automatic transmissions american cars have.
And drag isn't effected by weight, so the only downside to adding more weight is the initial cost of getting the thing moving.
On a flat Earth I would agree with you. However since the real world outside the lab has hills, I would say that adding more weight has a bit more downside than you think. Oh I agree there are devices that try to "harness" the energy from the downhill runs (and deceleration) via hydraulics or pneumatics, and "boost" the engine when needed (startup, uphill). And all self respecting scientists know that you will never approach 100% efficiency (40% being the theoretical max).
But you can't escape the m part of the F = ma formula.
Nah it's just the US army coding that says "anything I shoot at is a terrorist", therefore it assumed that US troops were also terrorists.
But CMB fills the entire universe, it doesn't come from one localized area. See the part of his post:
What you want is a specific "point" at which the big bang happened. That's not the case. When it happened - it WAS the universe - ie it was every single point at once. As the universe expands - anywhere you look from or to you'll be able to see this background radiation. Of course there will be fluctuations if the expansion of the universe isn't completely uniform - and why should it be? Matter distorts space and time, contributing to this non-uniformity.
Remember, you gotta shoot em in the head.
What? Oh yeah, and the zombies too.
What about CPUs - aren't they fast enough?
Also don't forget that 640k should be enough for anybody.
As prices rise, it encourages people to conserve.
No, it doesn't. You're assuming a perfect "free market" with perfect competition. The oil market is nothing like that. There will always be a need for oil at ANY price. Just like some people will smoke at ANY price/cigarette.
This isn't happening very much yet
QED
One of my first computers was a Dell. A 4MHz PC-AT that had a turbo button that could send it to a blazing 8MHz! It was a fine machine, and I never had a single problem with it for several years. Of course Dell was one of the most expensive PC's you could buy, second only to an "original" IBM machine. However since the mid 90's I have heard nothing but complaints from Dell owners - apparently they sacrificed quality when they decided to drop the price. There's no reason at all for an electronic device to fail for YEARS after the initial burn in period, unless it's poorly designed or made with dodgy components (or your electric company sucks or you get a lightning strike). Yet most Dell owners I know, including the computer lab at my alma mater - regretted their choice.
Meh, I wish them luck redesigning their business, but the only people who buy "Dell" nowadays are the ones swayed by the media hype.
I still build my own PC's, ever since the day of the 386, and have never had ANY problems.
until the recession is over.
News media hype aside - WHAT recession?
Economic slowdown is not equal to recession. Recession is ZERO or NEGATIVE economic growth for TWO CONSECUTIVE quarters. Unemployment is still low, consumer spending is still happening, the economy is still growing marginally positively, only at a lower rate. Yeah, the stock market fell at most 20% (and I made money on the way down), BUT THIS DOES NOT MEAN RECESSION. Stop believing all the crap the alarmist media is shoving down your throat. Otherwise people like you will CAUSE a REAL recession. Just like rumor-mongers caused Bear Stearns to almost belly up overnight.
Either way, I'll still make money.
A platform on which an amazing new set of features can be implemented.
I challenge you to back this up. Please provide a detailed list of new features that can ONLY be implemented in Vista.
I think I read somewhere in the fine print that Apple is also claiming that the i 3 NY logo is too similar to their "i" logos (iTunes, iPods, iMacs, etc), or are they saving this for the next bunch of law suits?
Seriously, talk about one bad Apple soiling the bunch.
Now I'm going to be moderated a troll by someone who writes parodies of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. Sigh.
No, because by slashdot standards, your post was actually quite funny.
The TEACHER is the one who should have to sign the EULA, since after all I am paying HIM.
No, if every soldier swears to uphold the constitution and their "Commander in Chief" disregards the constitution, it's time to march a couple divisions around the White House and the "Congress" which has LET this happen by failing to do anything, stage a coup, or at least force an election.
But because the "revolutionary" spirit in America was killed by Nintendo and plasma tv's and nice cars, it just ain't going to happen. Just keep shopping and everything will be ok so long as the mall is open.
People PAY for pirated software? LOL. Glad I'm not funding terrorism, because I don't pay.
I think they need to roll back the whole frigging site about a year.
To what? OMG PWNIEZ?
Actually, that was TWO years ago. Time sure flies, doesn't it?
Thank you.
Kudos to the the guy for writing a book. But honestly ubuntu is so damned easy one is not exactly necessary. But then again neither are all those other "Getting the most out of Windows (version whatever)" books. Nice to see linux getting some shelf space. Even if it is just one space.
After my initial problems with ubuntu (mostly having to do with a buggy BIOS and figuring out I needed to use the "noapic nolapic" commands - now fixed after reflashing my BIOS to a newer version), I have had no complaints. My favorite games run under Wine and/or Cedega in a stable manner. Office is much more than I need. The only thing I miss is multi-monitor support (not DUAL monitor, I am talking 8 or more monitors - I trade stocks and look at a lot of graphs at the same time), but I hear better multi-monitor support is coming in Hardy Heron. I guess if I really wanted to I could play around with the xorg.conf file, but I really don't want to, any more than I would want to edit windows registry keys.
Linux has improved a GREAT deal in terms of user friendliness and being able to do almost anything with simple mouse clicks from the GUI.
The ubuntu forums are quite friendly, and it's not that hard to find the info to say get Evolution working with hotmail, or get ubuntu to play Hollywood encrypted DVD's (although that is laughably illegal in the US even if you bought the DVD). Better yet, download the AVI/DivX file and can claim that you're still only breaking one law.
Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself. This book is a great idea. The inclusion of a CD is a great idea, and hopefully more people will think about linux as an alternative to pirating/being extorted into paying for Windows crapware.
If all you do is defense, then eventually the enemy is likely to figure out, how to break you.
Attack is the best defense.
Spoken like someone who has no understanding of the art of war.
The first rule of war is: don't go to war.
The second rule of war is if you have to go to war make yourself invulnerable before you attack.
"Attack is the best defense" did not work for Germany in the 2nd world war. It didn't work in Vietnam or Korea. It's certainly not working for the US at the moment.
If your defenses are so strong that your enemy will require all his concentration in order to understand/penetrate them, he won't see that guy sneaking behind him and about to bite him in the ass.
I have recently become aware (through the power that the internet grants to the average person) of your company's attitude and treatment of the Brazilian programmer, Daniel Kawakami. As far as I am concerned this person is not in the United States or covered by US law and thus can tinker and fiddle with his computer and HIS hardware - yes when he purchased it from you it became HIS, whatever your legal department would have you believe - in any manner he sees fit.
I have owned several products from Creative in the past, from the original "Sound Blaster" products up to and including your "Audigy" product line. However I was not aware of the immaturity with which your company was prepared to deal with this situation. A situation where a talented individual empowers me to optimize the use of MY (yes, if I buy it it becomes MY) hardware on MY computer.
It's as if Ford suddenly objected to the color I decide to paint my car, or the company that made my mouse objected because I use it to control a robot I built.
I have to inform you that because of this decision of yours I frankly will no longer be doing business with your company. Your "rights" under the DMCA stop at the US border, and patent protections are designed to prevent someone reverse engineering your products and rebuilding them to compete with you. Someone writing a driver that enhances your products, activates features (without warranty) which you "chose" to cripple is not HARMING your company they are HELPING.
Now you may not care about the paltry hundred or so dollars I may have spent on Creative products in the future, but do ask yourself if ONE person can feel strongly enough to be moved to write to you over this issue, exactly how much business are you going to lose through this bad press?
I hope that your company can remember that people don't exist simply as statistics, demographics, and consumers of your products. We will tinker with things. We will alter things. If your products are flawed those flaws WILL be discovered. And if your products can be improved - they will. You might think about hiring this obviously brilliant guy, instead of threatening him.
Sincerely,
An ex Creative customer.
ride the sales of that until they can get Windows 7 out the door.
But Windows 7 will require AT LEAST 8x core machines with 20 GB of ram and 150GB of hard disk space, and run 4 times slower than Vista... but it will have a catchy new jingle and a really nice looking box.
omg ponies?