While that would work, it is the sledgehammer approach. You're assuming there is no legitimate reason for someone to be sending mail directly from his home account. I think a less obtrusive method would be to monitor outgoing traffic for excessive SMTP (more than 5MB in 30 minutes for 1 full hour perhaps), and if it is detected block off that customer so that all web browser traffic is redirected to the ISPs "your computer is infected, here is how to clean it" page. I think if people were made aware of this sort of thing more often they would become smarter and more careful in the long run.
If their computer stops sending port 25 mail for 15 minutes (or perhaps they click a button on the webpage saying "I've fixed it"), then they're unblocked until they send excessive mail again. This is more work than the brute force approach of just blocking the port, but I think it is better for the internet in the long run. It also allows people who want to avoid their ISPs dog slow mail server (8-12 hours to process an email?!?) an option.
Well, that and the fact that there appear to be enough Wiis to go around, unlike the PS3. I suspect the lines wouldn't be quite as long if people didn't think each store was only going to get a small handful of units.
You know, there could be a short term marketing coup to be had with a UMA style setup. I've noticed that a lot of people compare cards based entirely on how much memory they have (you have a 128MB card? Bah, my 256MB card is twice a good!), and will even mention it in game requirements "requires a 64MB video card". With UMA you could theoretically count the entire system memory as your card memory "this new system has 1GB of video on it!". People will think it's the hottest new thing until they get home and discover that the amount of memory on a video card doesn't matter as much as many other aspects of the card.
Yeah, but the heatsink for the processor/graphics card combo system will be righteous.
Frankly, I'm betting this is going to turn out more like the next generation of integrated video. Basically, the only "fusion" chips you'll see will be ones designed for small/cheap boxes that people never upgrade the components on. I'm betting the graphics in general will be slow and the processor will be average. Super fast processors and fast graphics won't get the fusion treatment because the people who buy them tend to want to keep them separate (for upgrading later), not to mention the difficulty you'd have powering and cooling a chip that complex.
On the other hand, if I were buying a TV set today there is no way I'd stick with a SD set. Since both of you went with the Wegas, I'm betting you're the same way. That said, the failure rate on decent quality CRTs is very low, chances are you could still be happily using them in 10 or 20 years assuming you still have SD signals to feed them with.
Frankly, I'm in no rush to replace my TV, but it's clear that you'll never get HD if you wait for your TV to break before upgrading. On the other hand, having seen HD movies and SD movies side by side in the store, I can't say I'm rushing out to buy one myself. At the distance I watch TV at I could see the difference between the HD and SD sets, but neither looked particularly "better" until I got closer. Even up close the difference wasn't exactly earth shattering. Sure I can tell that the actors nose is made out of 20 pixels instead of 5, and you can make out the lines a bit better, but that didn't really help me enjoy the movie any more (of course they were playing a Knights Tale I think, so nothing would have helped).
That's what I've discovered to. The phone without the camera/mp3/gps/etc... is the "cut all corners" model that typically just sucks all the way around. It's designed to be given away for free, and because of that if you want to buy it normally you don't get the huge discounts associated with the fancy phones and end up paying full price. The good news is that you may not be locked into a service contract (unless they really suckered you) like you would have with the fancy phone.
That's a big assumption, especially for a heavy lift vehicle that is still going to be powered by chemical rockets. While the Shuttle isn't an optimal design even decades of improvement can't change the laws of physics.
It really is a pricing thing that keeps SMS popular in most of the world but largely ignored in the States. Typically, it's difficult to get a phone plan in the US that doesn't have some crazy number of daytime minutes and free nights/weekends for voice, however free unlimited SMS is unheard of. Typically it's $0.05 or $0.10 per message (which adds up real quick with SMS) or $5 to $10 extra a month. If you already have more minutes then you know what to do with, then it doesn't make sense to be charged extra for SMS.
Most providers have a slightly cheaper plan that doesn't have as many regular minutes, but with those plans it can be difficult to get unmetered GPRS or other such services. The final nail in the coffin is if you have unlimited GPRS, then there isn't much point in sending SMS, you can just use an email->SMS gateway instead (I do this on my 7100t for the couple of friends I have who don't get charged for their SMS messages).
I was assuming we'd park it in LEO for easy access, that's the only way I could see it making any noticeable change in the tides. Even then it's a longshot. Of course that's another problem of scale: How do you keep it from falling into the atmosphere without going crazy and reboosting it every few years?
The equation wasn't to blame. It was an improperly calibrated piece of equipment--specifically a worn off endcap on the calibration scale for the Null Corrector.
Maybe the swamps of Dagobah are just slightly poisonous to Yoda? After 20 years the built up toxins would have taken their toll on his body.
An explanation I like better is that channeling large amounts of the force burns you up a little inside. After 880 years Yoda was already mostly toast, but then he has to go battle in the Senate and that pretty much finishes him off. For the next 20 years he's on his last legs waiting for Luke to finally show up (presumably from prophecy) so he can finally let himself go and join the Jedi Ghost Club. That would also explain why he suddenly decided to run off in the middle of the fight in the Senate. At least to me it seemed like the situation wasn't completely hopeless.
Heck, it's not entirely clear what they mean by "most stringent" either. If it reduces everything to the minimum (which is what I'd expect), you can bet that patch would come right off. There's nothing more annoying than the monitor turning off after 1 minute while you're reading a webpage.
That actually works for you? For me S.M.A.R.T. always reports "everything's fine!", unless the drive is already rock dead. I swear it could be on fire and S.M.A.R.T. would tell you it'll be good forever.
That depends. A year ago I finally replaced my 4GB root drive, not because it was failing (the bad sector count was still very small), but because it was taking space and power in my box and was heating up the new 200GB drive I installed next to it. I still have one server that's using the 800MB and 2GB drives I got with my original College PC back in 95, and those are staying because it doesn't need any more storage.
I've found that if you pay attention to cooling on your drives (sadly, most case manufacturers are terrible about this) and don't let them get above lukewarm, then they'll reward you with years of happy service. I haven't replaced a drive yet that wasn't improperly cooled. If you stick two drives next to each other in a standard 3.5" bay, then they will overheat.
I think Peal Oil proponents tend to take a lot of flak about one basic misconception about the theory. Peak Oil never states that we will run out of oil, rather it states that eventually oil will be to expensive to be a usable fuel source (when you're expending more energy getting the oil out of the ground than you would get from burning it). Oil has a ton of potential energy (which is why it's so useful) so this won't be for awhile, but it will happen eventually, and for various reasons it's best to get started working on alternative technologies sooner rather than later (the billions of tons of extra CO2 we release into the atmosphere each year by burning oil products being a big one)
I don't think the oil consumed in the production of the vehicle is anywhere close to the volume of oil it will consume in operation over its lifetime. Even on a Prius.
That's the same argument I hear occasionally about how even if we switch to H2 power, the car will still need oil to lubricate the moving parts and whatnot, even though they completely ignore the orders of magnitude involved. Oil used in an oil change will basically get 3000 miles to the gallon. Oil used for locomotion will be closer to 30 miles to the gallon. Even if you still have to change the oil ever 3000 miles, as long as you're not using Gasoline/Diesel anymore it's still a massive savings.
Oh man, not the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge again. Those guys just never quit. Even if we did fid oil there, it would be a pittance compared to world demand at this point. The only reason it's such a big deal is because the Indian tribes that live on the land are looking for the chance at those big Oil profits (even a pittance of world demand is a lot of money when you're only dividing it among few hundred people).
The fact of the matter is that oil companies in general have been lax in prospecting for new fields for almost 20 years now, largely because they went nuts in the 70s and 80s and were left with an overabundance for more than a decade. Now they're having to go out prospecting again with the tiny shriveled up geo science departments left in most big oil companies.
Try out the building system. That's the real meat to SL IMHO. Think of it not as a game, but more as a toy. There will be no rats to smite with your +1 Stick of Noobness when you first start out, but you will be able to head on over to a friendly neighborhood sand box and build weird stuff.
Caveat: If you were the kind of kid who thought Legos were dumb and boring as a kid, uninstall your SL client now.
Caveat 2: Unless you're into polygon sex
Frankly, these sorts of things have been around forever in SL, but Copybot was the first to gain a lot of notoriety. If people are closing their shops now (I doubt this is more than a small handful of vocal protesters) then they're just late on the train. Ultimately your client needs to be able to display the data, and the client is in the hands of the users, so as LL rightly pointed out, no technical means will ever make your creations 100% secure. If you can't handle the thought of that, then not only should you step out of Second Life, but you should probably step out of your Real Life, since that also holds true there as well.
Being able to report someone for using a Copybot and having his account suspended is probably the best solution to this problem. You'll just have to accept that a few people may slip through the cracks, but given that SL is a largely lawless society anyway I'm not sure why you'd expect strict enforcement on this one thing.
I know oil is a commodity and thus subject to price fluctuations, but it seems like a pretty safe bet at this point that oil is not going down below $30 again any time soon (probably never).
So Oil production plateaus for all time after that? Where is all of that oil coming from? It has to come from somewhere.
Either way, I've pushed off on worries about Peak Oil, it appears that our need to reduce carbon emissions will shoehorn nicely into reducing the world use of oil in the next 25 years or so. Basically, we'll ruin the environment before we run out of oil unless people get big on Carbon sequestering, but I don't see that happening.
Are NBA '07 and NBA 2k7 different games? I'm not much into sports games (which left me greatly underwhelmed with this list), but it looks like they've listed the same game twice.
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While that would work, it is the sledgehammer approach. You're assuming there is no legitimate reason for someone to be sending mail directly from his home account. I think a less obtrusive method would be to monitor outgoing traffic for excessive SMTP (more than 5MB in 30 minutes for 1 full hour perhaps), and if it is detected block off that customer so that all web browser traffic is redirected to the ISPs "your computer is infected, here is how to clean it" page. I think if people were made aware of this sort of thing more often they would become smarter and more careful in the long run.
If their computer stops sending port 25 mail for 15 minutes (or perhaps they click a button on the webpage saying "I've fixed it"), then they're unblocked until they send excessive mail again. This is more work than the brute force approach of just blocking the port, but I think it is better for the internet in the long run. It also allows people who want to avoid their ISPs dog slow mail server (8-12 hours to process an email?!?) an option.
Well, that and the fact that there appear to be enough Wiis to go around, unlike the PS3. I suspect the lines wouldn't be quite as long if people didn't think each store was only going to get a small handful of units.
You know, there could be a short term marketing coup to be had with a UMA style setup. I've noticed that a lot of people compare cards based entirely on how much memory they have (you have a 128MB card? Bah, my 256MB card is twice a good!), and will even mention it in game requirements "requires a 64MB video card". With UMA you could theoretically count the entire system memory as your card memory "this new system has 1GB of video on it!". People will think it's the hottest new thing until they get home and discover that the amount of memory on a video card doesn't matter as much as many other aspects of the card.
Yeah, but the heatsink for the processor/graphics card combo system will be righteous.
Frankly, I'm betting this is going to turn out more like the next generation of integrated video. Basically, the only "fusion" chips you'll see will be ones designed for small/cheap boxes that people never upgrade the components on. I'm betting the graphics in general will be slow and the processor will be average. Super fast processors and fast graphics won't get the fusion treatment because the people who buy them tend to want to keep them separate (for upgrading later), not to mention the difficulty you'd have powering and cooling a chip that complex.
On the other hand, if I were buying a TV set today there is no way I'd stick with a SD set. Since both of you went with the Wegas, I'm betting you're the same way. That said, the failure rate on decent quality CRTs is very low, chances are you could still be happily using them in 10 or 20 years assuming you still have SD signals to feed them with.
Frankly, I'm in no rush to replace my TV, but it's clear that you'll never get HD if you wait for your TV to break before upgrading. On the other hand, having seen HD movies and SD movies side by side in the store, I can't say I'm rushing out to buy one myself. At the distance I watch TV at I could see the difference between the HD and SD sets, but neither looked particularly "better" until I got closer. Even up close the difference wasn't exactly earth shattering. Sure I can tell that the actors nose is made out of 20 pixels instead of 5, and you can make out the lines a bit better, but that didn't really help me enjoy the movie any more (of course they were playing a Knights Tale I think, so nothing would have helped).
That's what I've discovered to. The phone without the camera/mp3/gps/etc... is the "cut all corners" model that typically just sucks all the way around. It's designed to be given away for free, and because of that if you want to buy it normally you don't get the huge discounts associated with the fancy phones and end up paying full price. The good news is that you may not be locked into a service contract (unless they really suckered you) like you would have with the fancy phone.
That's a big assumption, especially for a heavy lift vehicle that is still going to be powered by chemical rockets. While the Shuttle isn't an optimal design even decades of improvement can't change the laws of physics.
It really is a pricing thing that keeps SMS popular in most of the world but largely ignored in the States. Typically, it's difficult to get a phone plan in the US that doesn't have some crazy number of daytime minutes and free nights/weekends for voice, however free unlimited SMS is unheard of. Typically it's $0.05 or $0.10 per message (which adds up real quick with SMS) or $5 to $10 extra a month. If you already have more minutes then you know what to do with, then it doesn't make sense to be charged extra for SMS.
Most providers have a slightly cheaper plan that doesn't have as many regular minutes, but with those plans it can be difficult to get unmetered GPRS or other such services. The final nail in the coffin is if you have unlimited GPRS, then there isn't much point in sending SMS, you can just use an email->SMS gateway instead (I do this on my 7100t for the couple of friends I have who don't get charged for their SMS messages).
I was assuming we'd park it in LEO for easy access, that's the only way I could see it making any noticeable change in the tides. Even then it's a longshot. Of course that's another problem of scale: How do you keep it from falling into the atmosphere without going crazy and reboosting it every few years?
Just out of curiosity, how big of an asteroid are you envisioning here? Are you seriously considering us picking up something the size of Phobos?
The equation wasn't to blame. It was an improperly calibrated piece of equipment--specifically a worn off endcap on the calibration scale for the Null Corrector.
Maybe the swamps of Dagobah are just slightly poisonous to Yoda? After 20 years the built up toxins would have taken their toll on his body.
An explanation I like better is that channeling large amounts of the force burns you up a little inside. After 880 years Yoda was already mostly toast, but then he has to go battle in the Senate and that pretty much finishes him off. For the next 20 years he's on his last legs waiting for Luke to finally show up (presumably from prophecy) so he can finally let himself go and join the Jedi Ghost Club. That would also explain why he suddenly decided to run off in the middle of the fight in the Senate. At least to me it seemed like the situation wasn't completely hopeless.
Heck, it's not entirely clear what they mean by "most stringent" either. If it reduces everything to the minimum (which is what I'd expect), you can bet that patch would come right off. There's nothing more annoying than the monitor turning off after 1 minute while you're reading a webpage.
That actually works for you? For me S.M.A.R.T. always reports "everything's fine!", unless the drive is already rock dead. I swear it could be on fire and S.M.A.R.T. would tell you it'll be good forever.
That depends. A year ago I finally replaced my 4GB root drive, not because it was failing (the bad sector count was still very small), but because it was taking space and power in my box and was heating up the new 200GB drive I installed next to it. I still have one server that's using the 800MB and 2GB drives I got with my original College PC back in 95, and those are staying because it doesn't need any more storage.
I've found that if you pay attention to cooling on your drives (sadly, most case manufacturers are terrible about this) and don't let them get above lukewarm, then they'll reward you with years of happy service. I haven't replaced a drive yet that wasn't improperly cooled. If you stick two drives next to each other in a standard 3.5" bay, then they will overheat.
I remember when /. used to always post Amazon links instead of B&N links and someone always chimed up with "It's cheaper at B&N!".
I think Peal Oil proponents tend to take a lot of flak about one basic misconception about the theory. Peak Oil never states that we will run out of oil, rather it states that eventually oil will be to expensive to be a usable fuel source (when you're expending more energy getting the oil out of the ground than you would get from burning it). Oil has a ton of potential energy (which is why it's so useful) so this won't be for awhile, but it will happen eventually, and for various reasons it's best to get started working on alternative technologies sooner rather than later (the billions of tons of extra CO2 we release into the atmosphere each year by burning oil products being a big one)
I don't think the oil consumed in the production of the vehicle is anywhere close to the volume of oil it will consume in operation over its lifetime. Even on a Prius.
That's the same argument I hear occasionally about how even if we switch to H2 power, the car will still need oil to lubricate the moving parts and whatnot, even though they completely ignore the orders of magnitude involved. Oil used in an oil change will basically get 3000 miles to the gallon. Oil used for locomotion will be closer to 30 miles to the gallon. Even if you still have to change the oil ever 3000 miles, as long as you're not using Gasoline/Diesel anymore it's still a massive savings.
Oh man, not the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge again. Those guys just never quit. Even if we did fid oil there, it would be a pittance compared to world demand at this point. The only reason it's such a big deal is because the Indian tribes that live on the land are looking for the chance at those big Oil profits (even a pittance of world demand is a lot of money when you're only dividing it among few hundred people).
The fact of the matter is that oil companies in general have been lax in prospecting for new fields for almost 20 years now, largely because they went nuts in the 70s and 80s and were left with an overabundance for more than a decade. Now they're having to go out prospecting again with the tiny shriveled up geo science departments left in most big oil companies.
Try out the building system. That's the real meat to SL IMHO. Think of it not as a game, but more as a toy. There will be no rats to smite with your +1 Stick of Noobness when you first start out, but you will be able to head on over to a friendly neighborhood sand box and build weird stuff.
Caveat: If you were the kind of kid who thought Legos were dumb and boring as a kid, uninstall your SL client now.
Caveat 2: Unless you're into polygon sex
So LL said "if we catch you using Copybot we'll cancel your account" and you took that to mean "acceptance"?
Frankly, these sorts of things have been around forever in SL, but Copybot was the first to gain a lot of notoriety. If people are closing their shops now (I doubt this is more than a small handful of vocal protesters) then they're just late on the train. Ultimately your client needs to be able to display the data, and the client is in the hands of the users, so as LL rightly pointed out, no technical means will ever make your creations 100% secure. If you can't handle the thought of that, then not only should you step out of Second Life, but you should probably step out of your Real Life, since that also holds true there as well.
Being able to report someone for using a Copybot and having his account suspended is probably the best solution to this problem. You'll just have to accept that a few people may slip through the cracks, but given that SL is a largely lawless society anyway I'm not sure why you'd expect strict enforcement on this one thing.
I know oil is a commodity and thus subject to price fluctuations, but it seems like a pretty safe bet at this point that oil is not going down below $30 again any time soon (probably never).
So Oil production plateaus for all time after that? Where is all of that oil coming from? It has to come from somewhere.
Either way, I've pushed off on worries about Peak Oil, it appears that our need to reduce carbon emissions will shoehorn nicely into reducing the world use of oil in the next 25 years or so. Basically, we'll ruin the environment before we run out of oil unless people get big on Carbon sequestering, but I don't see that happening.
I think the reason Atari was in such trouble was because their management was batshit crazy at that point.
Are NBA '07 and NBA 2k7 different games? I'm not much into sports games (which left me greatly underwhelmed with this list), but it looks like they've listed the same game twice.