The computer world use of K=1024, although perfectly logical from a binary addressing point of view, is a hack of the SI prefix notation. Back in the not so long ago, some marketing dweeb noticed that 64K was actually 65536 bytes, and started selling computers that had 65K instead of 64. "Lookie here, Brandine", the uninformed consumer would say, "This here machine's got isself a whole extrie K".
The situation worsened when hard drives and RAM started into the megabyte realm. Is a megabye 1024*1024, 1024*1000, or 1000*1000? And if a gigabyte is a thousand megabytes does it mean 1024*1024*1024, 1024*1024*1000, or... well you get the picture.
Now as computer memories grew, so did their communications speeds. The telecommunications industry has always measured information in bits, as opposed to bytes. Not constrained by having to address these bits with other bits (as RAM and ROM manufacturers are) they did not adopt the K=1024 "standard", and followed the usual K=1000 meaning. So for them, a 56KB/S channel, meant 56000 bits (not bytes) per second.
So, with no standard for whether the b in Gb meant bits or bytes, or whether it meant 2^30 or 10^9, people started to get fed up. In the late 90's the IEC standards people got together and layed out a new standard (the "bible" one might say, if one were into puns). Lower case b is for bits. Upper case B is for bytes. Kilo (K)=1000, and Kibi (Ki)=1024.
Of course, it will take a few years for the world to adopt these standards. Old warhorses like myself (who remembers when BASIC had line numbers) will still be calling things by the old names for rest of our lives. Those of you who have never seen a rotary phone, or 8-track, or have never known a time without blogs have it easy.
You have to keep track of your own purchases and pay the taxes on them monthly? That's barbaric! Over here in Ontario, the vendor collects the sales tax for each purchase up front. For example, a $10 item would cost $10+7%GST+8%PST = $11.50 (GST==Goods and Services Tax - the federal sales tax, PST==Provincial Sales Tax). It's the same way across all of Canada, as far as I know. I've never heard of this coupon book system for taxes, or for mortgages for that matter. The closest thing I've seen is dated coupons for oil changes for cars.
I'm a small business man, and I does what ya might call "$5 million in gross remote taxable sales" - that is, if we was to sell our "product" over the table instead of unders it - every time my South American pal Juan ships us a few kilos of his fine "merchandise". Sure, Vinny does the driving, and Guido and Big Tony handle "security", but they ain't got a head for figures. Angela's the only other person on my staff, and although she's got a terrific figure, she's far better at spending money than counting it. Her talents lie in what ya might call "other areas", you knows what I mean. So I'm gonna be avoidin' this law like I avoids the other laws.
"You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn't have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there." - Chiang (Jonathan Livingston Seagull)
There are several reasons why this doesn't happen as much as before:
A network can sell half the ad time to each of two clients for more than they can sell all the ad time to one client.
A network can sell ad time on the same show to two competing clients.
A network can continue to sell ad time long after the first client has spent all their advertising budget.
A network can sell the same ad time to different clients in different cities and/or countries.
A network can sell ad time even if the main client decides to drop out.
A network can sell ad time in countries where it might be illegal to advertise the embedded products
or, from the advertiser's point of view:
It gives them greater effectiveness. Instead of spending their advertising budget on a show that may be a flop, they can spend it on placing ads in the most popular shows.
It gives them greater control. They can place their ads in a particular time slot regardless of the show that's playing
It gives them flexibility. Once a show is recorded, that product remains there forever. They cannot introduce new products easily, or point out why their product is better than the competition.
Embedded ads would tend to commoditize a product name. Aspirin, zipper, kleenex, jeep, etc have effectively lost their brand affiliation through over-use.
The Canadian Arrow doesn't use a gimballed motor. It uses graphite vanes to direct the thrust - far less moving parts, far less opportunity for failure.
50 years ago, there were giant Geritol ads all over television, and they were ON the host podiums of game shows, on the dinner tables of sitcom families, on the front desk of news programs. Why is it so bad now?
Because nobody wants to see a Pepsi logo on the Enterprise, or see Captain Picard say, "Just Do It" instead of "engage".
Final Fantasy was the first fully cgi movie, wasn't it? As for "video game RPGs", are we talking about graphic adventure games? If so, they must be using the Blockbuster Classification System (tm) - you know, the one that considers Friday 13th, The Magnificent Seven, and Terminator II to be the same genre - if they are calling those role playing games. They're probably the same people that call poker a sport.
Maybe I missed something somewhere along the line, but doesn't RPG stand for Role Playing Game? The article discusses video games, yet makes no mention of any role playing games - no Traveller, no D&D, no Twilight 2000, nothing. Help me out here.
Without patents, we wouldn't have the light bulb, the telephone, the computer (transistors were a patented invention) or pretty much anything that anyone ever sunk R&D money into.
Bunk! Utter Hogwash! If something is useful, then someone somewhere will invent it. Elisha Grey also developed a telephone. Actually the first telephone was invented by an Italian by the name of Meucci. Morse didn't invent the telegraph. Edison didn't invent the light bulb. Innovation isn't made by patent, fortunes are.
What is worse, is that this someone "who has root access on god knows how many Unix and Linux boxes, and whose job it is to support these boxes", had absolutely no idea what SSH was.
It would, of course, be very cool. However, they aren't even close. For all their travelling, the Spirit and Opportunity have probably not even left the dot that marks their location.
Modern day kids hold the stick like a sword and make light sabre noises.
WWI and II era kids would sight along the length of the stick and say "bang".
Kids from the middle ages would hold the stick vertically by the middle and say "twang"
Pre-historic kids would hold the stick by the end, and say "club".
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The computer world use of K=1024, although perfectly logical from a binary addressing point of view, is a hack of the SI prefix notation. Back in the not so long ago, some marketing dweeb noticed that 64K was actually 65536 bytes, and started selling computers that had 65K instead of 64. "Lookie here, Brandine", the uninformed consumer would say, "This here machine's got isself a whole extrie K".
The situation worsened when hard drives and RAM started into the megabyte realm. Is a megabye 1024*1024, 1024*1000, or 1000*1000? And if a gigabyte is a thousand megabytes does it mean 1024*1024*1024, 1024*1024*1000, or... well you get the picture.
Now as computer memories grew, so did their communications speeds. The telecommunications industry has always measured information in bits, as opposed to bytes. Not constrained by having to address these bits with other bits (as RAM and ROM manufacturers are) they did not adopt the K=1024 "standard", and followed the usual K=1000 meaning. So for them, a 56KB/S channel, meant 56000 bits (not bytes) per second.
So, with no standard for whether the b in Gb meant bits or bytes, or whether it meant 2^30 or 10^9, people started to get fed up. In the late 90's the IEC standards people got together and layed out a new standard (the "bible" one might say, if one were into puns). Lower case b is for bits. Upper case B is for bytes. Kilo (K)=1000, and Kibi (Ki)=1024.
Of course, it will take a few years for the world to adopt these standards. Old warhorses like myself (who remembers when BASIC had line numbers) will still be calling things by the old names for rest of our lives. Those of you who have never seen a rotary phone, or 8-track, or have never known a time without blogs have it easy.
What channel is this "Lost" show on? I can't seem to find it.
This is not the way optical drives are supported now, and it hasn't been since DOS and Windows 3.x.
Pass me some of that holiday nog! Optical drives weren't standardized until Windows98 hit the scene.
Seriously - when you get to the end of your life, are you going to wish you spent More Time Watching TV ?
Um... YES!
I am not familiar with this "Wolfe" character in Andromeda. Do you mean the Kodiak pride Nietzschean, Tyr Anasazi by Barbarosa out of Victoria?
Oh, wait a minute... Nevermind
Babylon 5 and Farscape trump Andromeda in my books, and are in turn trumped by BSG and Dr Who.
You have to keep track of your own purchases and pay the taxes on them monthly? That's barbaric! Over here in Ontario, the vendor collects the sales tax for each purchase up front. For example, a $10 item would cost $10+7%GST+8%PST = $11.50 (GST==Goods and Services Tax - the federal sales tax, PST==Provincial Sales Tax). It's the same way across all of Canada, as far as I know. I've never heard of this coupon book system for taxes, or for mortgages for that matter. The closest thing I've seen is dated coupons for oil changes for cars.
SO Funny! naming a language off a lame british tv show. Damn, that is so cool. I got it, I'll create a new language and call it Alf.
Stupid nerds.
Well... Some Mothers do 'Ave 'Em.
Guido and Nunzio are cousins (I believe). They work as security for Skeeve the Wizard. Ah, yes. Time to re-read the Myth-Adventures of Robert Aspirin.
No, two or three years ago when they started coding for vista is when they should have changed. It is far too late now.
Coupon books? Why would you care about coupon books? Do coupons have some sort of different meaning in the US than they do in the rest of the world?
I'm a small business man, and I does what ya might call "$5 million in gross remote taxable sales" - that is, if we was to sell our "product" over the table instead of unders it - every time my South American pal Juan ships us a few kilos of his fine "merchandise". Sure, Vinny does the driving, and Guido and Big Tony handle "security", but they ain't got a head for figures. Angela's the only other person on my staff, and although she's got a terrific figure, she's far better at spending money than counting it. Her talents lie in what ya might call "other areas", you knows what I mean. So I'm gonna be avoidin' this law like I avoids the other laws.
No problem. We'll just tax things imported to our State.
"You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn't have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there." - Chiang (Jonathan Livingston Seagull)
or, from the advertiser's point of view:
The Canadian Arrow doesn't use a gimballed motor. It uses graphite vanes to direct the thrust - far less moving parts, far less opportunity for failure.
Don't worry. Plans are underway.
50 years ago, there were giant Geritol ads all over television, and they were ON the host podiums of game shows, on the dinner tables of sitcom families, on the front desk of news programs. Why is it so bad now?
Because nobody wants to see a Pepsi logo on the Enterprise, or see Captain Picard say, "Just Do It" instead of "engage".
Final Fantasy was the first fully cgi movie, wasn't it? As for "video game RPGs", are we talking about graphic adventure games? If so, they must be using the Blockbuster Classification System (tm) - you know, the one that considers Friday 13th, The Magnificent Seven, and Terminator II to be the same genre - if they are calling those role playing games. They're probably the same people that call poker a sport.
Maybe I missed something somewhere along the line, but doesn't RPG stand for Role Playing Game? The article discusses video games, yet makes no mention of any role playing games - no Traveller, no D&D, no Twilight 2000, nothing. Help me out here.
Without patents, we wouldn't have the light bulb, the telephone, the computer (transistors were a patented invention) or pretty much anything that anyone ever sunk R&D money into.
Bunk! Utter Hogwash! If something is useful, then someone somewhere will invent it. Elisha Grey also developed a telephone. Actually the first telephone was invented by an Italian by the name of Meucci. Morse didn't invent the telegraph. Edison didn't invent the light bulb. Innovation isn't made by patent, fortunes are.
What is worse, is that this someone "who has root access on god knows how many Unix and Linux boxes, and whose job it is to support these boxes", had absolutely no idea what SSH was.
It would, of course, be very cool. However, they aren't even close. For all their travelling, the Spirit and Opportunity have probably not even left the dot that marks their location.
Modern day kids hold the stick like a sword and make light sabre noises.
WWI and II era kids would sight along the length of the stick and say "bang".
Kids from the middle ages would hold the stick vertically by the middle and say "twang"
Pre-historic kids would hold the stick by the end, and say "club".
It's a good thing that they're adding these to humvees. That way, soldiers don't have to see the sniper, the system tells them where the sniper is.
Give them a break. They're only using a Mark 2 Bolo. A Mark XXX Continental Siege Unit would clean up in Iraq: radiation schmadiation.