Shows up in Mail, pesters during setup, a few other places, preferences here preferences there etc. You know what? That's just like other crapware on windows!
Most of the beginner users I support on Macs wind up with it permanently in the finder sidebar, which is very confusing when they click on it by accident and don't understand what's happening. That = crapware as it's intrusive and useless.
I looked for a good 5 minutes in Mail and didn't see any references to MobileMe or iDisk. When I searched through Mail's Help all I found were the usual references on how to access your MobileMe mail account, about the same as accessing other services such as Microsoft Exchange, Google, and Yahoo Mail. If Mail has anything about MobileMe it certainly isn't in-your-face.
Yes, iDisk is on the sidebar by default and it can be a pain if you are a clueless user who doesn't know how to remove it. However, that sort of user most likely has a LOT more problems because the iDisk icon is so easily removed. In fact if you go to Help and type "remove idisk icon" the third item is "About the sidebar". Click on that and it gives detailed instructions on how to customize the sidebar. Google "remove idisk icon" and the first few links tell you how to remove it. Anyone who can't do this simple task has serious problems using many computer features.
Are there several references to iDisk and MobileMe built-into Mac OS? Sure there are, just like Google, Microsoft, and other big players all have references to other services they own. It's a matter of opinion, of course, but I feel that there are few enough references to iDisk and MobileMe to seriously qualify as "crapware".
The whole mobileme - idisk setup on Macs is definitely crapware to me, because that idisk icon is in the sidebar after you reject it
Um, drag it off the sidebar and it disappears without a whimper. You could also go Finder->Preferences->Sidebar and uncheck iDisk. It's not like you have to jump through hoops to get rid of the icon.
As for it appearing in other spots there are very few places that iDisk and MobileMe appear. I think there's a button in iPhoto and a PreferencePane in System Preferences. It's really not that in-your-face.
the first thing you'd probably do on a ship with rotating sections when you go into battle would be to stop the rotation to avoid having to change the angular momentum as you are maneuvering
They actually did this in many battles. I remember one scene from "In the Beginning" where a guy was killed on the bridge of a ship. Everyone was strapped in and drops of his blood was floating around the cabin. I think they even mentioned locking the rotation of ship sections at one point where they were preparing for a fight.
Any time I saw a ship still rotating sections in a fight I always assumed that they were doing it for tactical reasons (such as presenting a moving section of hull so that enemy fire couldn't focus on a single spot) or that they didn't have the time or the energy needed to spin down the section.
Replicators capable of creating any material object except gold pressed latinum.... Unlimited energy using matter-antimatter.... a capitalistic society is nearly impossible. There's nothing to buy or sell. As replicators themselves are replicated, anything of "value" can be had for virtually nothing.
A couple of problems here.
First off, it takes energy to run a replicator. Yes, perhaps a replicator can make the matter and the anti-matter and then react them to get energy but it's pretty clear that the laws of thermodynamics are still in effect in the Star Trek universe. The second law of thermodynamics prohibits perpetual motion types of scenarios like this. Energy is still a resource.
Another resource would be real estate. At some point most easily accessible places in the universe will be owned by someone. Yes, the universe is a large place but you are still limited by time constraints to a relatively small portion of it during your lifetime.
Yet another resource would be thought, invention, and innovation. Thinking beings would still demand some sort of value in exchange for plying their skills.
I'm sure there are other resources that can be brought up but you get the idea.
I gotta agree, the people over at Fastmail are great. Low cost, very reliable, lots of flexible plans. I've been with them for a long time, first using their free service and eventually becoming a paying customer.
The folks over at Fastmail are also pretty open with what they are doing. Regular updates on any service problems, discussions on ideas they have for new features, and they are pretty open to suggestions. They've also been doing the minimal, clean, and standards-compliant interface thing for a long time, just like Google.
I was really reminded of just how important it is for web services to be browser-agnostic when I was recently forced to use Microsoft's webmail for my school e-mail. You can't even access most of your settings or features without using Internet Explorer under Windows. This is especially bad since one of the features only allowed under Internet Explorer are the handicap accessibility settings! You better not have special visual needs and use Firefox or you are out of luck with Microsoft's webmail...
Services like Gmail and Fastmail are great simply because they work well with pretty much all standards-compliant browsers. Kudos to them!
This is 100% spot-on. I'm not a teacher but I have 5 teachers in my close family and I work at a youth organization that does after-school tutoring and works hand-in-hand with educators. By far these complaints mirror those that I hear from others in the field of education. The current system discourages good teaching and encourages a failing educational system
On top of all this is the fact that society has turned against teachers. It used to be that teachers were top dogs when it came to kids. Kids were told by their parents to do their homework and respect their teacher. If a teacher had a problem with a student the parent would most likely tell their child to listen to the teacher and do as the teacher said. School administration would support their educators when there was an issue between the teacher and a student or a parent.
These concepts are largely gone in our society. If a student and a teacher have a problem then nearly all parents will side with their children. School administrators often cater to the parents and assure them the teacher will be reprimanded. Many parents don't make their children sit down and complete assignments or check their progress in school. It's an insane environment that does NOT foster learning.
If we want children to do better in school what we need to do is change our society, not just the methods of teaching. A society that values educators, learning, and hard work is a society in which the youth will have a future.
I think the main problem with the idea of "unschooling" is that you can only get so far without some sort of regimented learning. Think of it this way, there's a lot of "unnatural" ideas out there that are very valuable to know and they have only come about because they have been built up over hundreds or even thousands of years of thinking and experimentation. Sure you can teach some of these concepts as part of the normal, "How does this work, daddy?" but a lot of ideas pretty much require you to have regular, involved, formal training over the years before you can have the framework to understand the more complex concepts.
I'm a proponent of a more mixed teaching style, some formal schooling and some "unschooling". Kids should have some degree of structured learning and they should also be allowed time to explore and find things they want to know more about on their own. I remember all the time I spent as a kid with Erector sets, Capsela, electronic kits, and chemistry kits. I learned a lot of things on my own using those tools and the local public library.
The other thing to note is that just because you can be a parent that doesn't mean you are a good teacher. Most teachers go through a ton of training on learning styles, how to present information, and how to guide students from simple ideas to more complex ones. They also are trained in the subject matter whereas a parent might not know, or be able to comprehend, the concepts that a child needs to learn about a subject. Yes, there are parents who are good at teaching and teachers who shouldn't be educating students but overall most students are better off learning some things from professionals.
I'll continue to buy it on CD and rip it to MP3, thanks.
I agree that keeping it in an easily-readable format is key. I don't mind buying online so long as I can buy it or easily convert it to a DRM-free form that I can be sure of being able to be in control of my purchase in perpetuity. What I won't do is rent my music. Yeah with streaming you get access to more music and more flexibility but the minute the service goes under or you stop paying the fee you lose all the cash you've spent so far. At least if I own my music I'm not out everything when I stop paying the fees.
Maybe some sort of mixed service would be nice. Pay $10 a month or whatever, listen to any music you want, every month you get to permanently keep so many songs. It'd be kind of a rent-to-own situation. I dunno if I'd go for it but it's better than paying to own nothing.
My SUV is designed so that it's frame doesn't distort when pulling with a winch. A side effect of that is that it has a rigid frame. Too bad for me, but its a decision I made when selecting it.
Rigid under tension is not the same as rigid under compression. Most SUV's are designed with hardened points for towing (tension) but they still have crush zones for accidents (compression). In fact, because of the size, the crush zones in an SUV are often larger and more effective than those in a smaller car.
Overall, you are safer in an accident when you are in an SUV than when you are in a smaller car. Of course, this does vary according to the type of accident and overall safety design of the vehicle. You also have to factor in that SUV's are more susceptible to some kinds of accidents than other cars.
So the only question worth asking is, "How much is the climate changing, and what can we do about it?" It could be that the climate isn't changing at all, and we can just do nothing. I suspect that there's sufficient evidence that that's not the case. It could be that the changes are all naturally induced, and there is something we can do about it to mitigate the effects. In that case, we're really stupid to say, "Not my fault!" and do nothing, because whatever the cause, when low-lying areas get inundated and crop failures start, it doesn't matter whose fault it is, it's going to be a mess.
There's also the question, "Are all climate changes bad and can there be more positive change than negative change?"
Think about it, warmer temperatures could mean that areas that were previously too cold for crops could now be farmable. The warmer areas would also mean that people would have less need to spend energy and resources in keeping warm. Increased carbon dioxide boosts growth in many plants, allowing crops and wild plants to thrive. A wetter climate might lead to more water available for irrigation and consumption. Changes in weather patterns might change deserts to livable land. Yes, there are also possible negative effects but right now can we really say which effects would be greater?
We need to tread lightly until we can get a better grasp on what climate change means, the mechanisms for how it occurs, and just what the TOTAL effects might be. Nothing is worse than knee-jerk reactions to incomplete data and unverified theories. Also remember that scientists are people too, they are susceptible to bias and short-sightedness. Sometimes you need an independent review of all the theories and data in order to separate wishful thinking from true science.
Read the article. 2.3 kW is the test version, they want to scale it up to 40 kW for the base:
The recent tests examined technologies that would see a nuclear reactor coupled with a Stirling engine capable of producing 40 kilowatts of energy--enough to power a future lunar or Mars outpost.
40 kW is approximately 17 outlets that can handle 20 A at 115 V. Yeah, it's still not a ton but it's a start and you could potentially put up several of these reactors as you expand the facility. This would also add fault-tolerance to the entire system.
Give em the newest rpg(or jrpg grinder if you like). Make the story and game so it updates their world with earth's servers on par with the delays and there you go.
Pfft, have you SEEN the drama that some guilds go through in RPGs? They'll get stuck on some boss and then one of the guys will mysteriously get a stomach bug or his cat will spontaneously combust and he'll have to bail. Next thing you know they'll split into small groups who will shout insults at each other and try to recruit more people to finish the raid from the Chinese space ship a few million kilometers away. It will just disintegrate into chaos!
What I'd love to see is that each gear set also has several design families which you can choose from and which continue from set to set. Lets say that warriors have two types of tier gear: dps and tanking. They should also be able to choose a design family within those gear types and the look of gear in each family would be consistant from tier to teir.
For example, a warrior's tier 1 tanking set could have two designs: protector and defender. Each design would be colored differently and maybe have a different look for the helm and the shoulders, so lets say the protector would be red and the defender would be blue. On the tier 2 tanking set you also offer a protector and defender option with a similar color and look to the tier 1 set. You still want to make the tier 2 gear look different from the tier 1 but the gear in the same design family would obviously be related.
It would be a bit more work for the design team which is why I would say that the uniqueness should only be on the two most unique pieces, shoulders and helm. This would cut down the work needed to produce the additional looks.
The cool thing about this is you could have a consistent look for your character while leveling. You could always choose stuff from the protector design family and even though you are upgrading gear you would always have a similar feel to your character.
And, yes, I know you did mention that he spends this money on food, etc. My point is that the $9.00 itself doesn't increase the economy, it's some small fraction thereof that actually increases the economy. The $9.00 profit made in an hour is actually a measure of the velocity of the economy, not a measure of the increase of the total value of the economy.
Let's say a carpenter buys a piece of wood for $1.00. He carves it into a pair of clogging shoes, which takes him one hour. He sells those shoes for $10.00. He made $9.00 profit. Where did that extra $9.00 come from? Where does it go now? The extra nine bucks (profit) is how economies grow. He took $1.00 worth of wood plus an hour of his time and turned them into shoes worth $10.00. He has increased the economy by $9.00 at the cost of 1 hour.
It's a bit more complex than that. The $9.00 wasn't the actual amount of the increase because that 1 hour wasn't free. You neglected to account for the food the man buys to give him energy for that 1 hour of work, the money he spends on a workspace and tools, the price of housing, insurance, training, and other non-immediate costs.
Yes, it's likely that there is some growth to the economy even after all these costs but it certainly is not a 900% profit like you are making it out to be. In all likelihood the overall profit is somewhere around the rate of inflation, around 2-4%. After all, it is the growth of the economy that inflation really tracks.
Not to mention that Snow Leopard is just an upgrade (hence the 10.6 in the version), where Windows 7 is a completely new release.
You might not know this but Apple's versioning is different from Microsoft's. For Apple, every 10.x version is a completely new release. A 10.x.x version is an update.
The distinction being, I suppose, that Windows will let you use the upgrade from XP in addition to Vista.
Even if you can upgrade from XP it's still been less expensive to use Mac OS X. XP Pro cost $199 on release and the update to Windows 7 is $129. Mac OS X 10.0 cost $129 on release, 10.1 was a free update, and 10.2 through 10.6 are $29 upgrades. The total for XP to Windows 7 is $328, the total for Mac OS X 10.0 to 10.6 is $274.
Yes, Apple has paid updates for its operating system more often than Microsoft does but the price difference is so great that Mac OS X still comes out being less expensive overall.
Upgrading from Vista to Vista SP1 to Vista SP2 to 7 should still be cheaper than from OS X to 10.2 to 10.2 to 10.3 to 10.4 to 10.5.
Hmm, let's see. Vista was released January 2007, at that time Mac OS X 10.4 was out. If you bought both Vista and Mac OS X at that time and then upgraded to Windows 7 and Snow Leopard the cost would be:
Vista Pro: $199 Windows 7 upgrade: $129 Total: $328
Mac OS X 10.4: $129 Mac OS X 10.5 upgrade: $29 Mac OS X 10.6 upgrade: $29 Total: $187
Woah, wait a second there, Mac OS X would be $141 LESS expensive! Imagine that...
Well if you don't have 10.5 already then Snow Leopard is $120 for the non-upgrade FULL VERSION pricing. Compare that to the equivalent Windows 7 Professional at $299. And yes, you compare the regular version of Snow Leopard to Windows 7 Professional. Unlike Microsoft, Apple doesn't cripple their product for the home user. All the "professional" features in Windows 7 Professional are pretty much the same as what's in regular version of Snow Leopard.
Apple has 3 pricing levels for their consumer (non-server) operating systems: $29 upgrade $120 home (same as Windows Professional) $199 family (5 license version of home)
You can get discounts on these if you are a student, an educator, or a developer.
It seems like it would be less costly to keep it warm rather than letting it cool down and heating it back up everyday.
Not at all true. Remember that a body radiates heat in proportion to the difference between the hot and the cold areas. A hot body will lose heat quicker than a cold body so you will use a more energy per unit of time that the pool is warm as opposed to when it is cool.
Look at it this way, a warm pool is losing a certain amount of energy per second. As the pool cools it loses less energy per second. Once the pool is at ambient temperature it is no longer losing energy. To re-heat it you add in energy equal to what was lost in the first place. The end result is at worst you lost the same amount of energy that the pool contains when it is warm, but at best you save energy during the time the pool is at ambient temperature.
To sum this up: You only lose energy when the pool is warm, when it is cool it doesn't lose energy any more. When the pool is not in use let it cool down and you save energy.
Another factor is a warmer pool grows algae and bacteria faster and loses water and chemicals faster. By cooling the pool you save money on water and chemicals. You can also shut down the circulating pumps and save energy from that.
Further, most of the things mislabeled as virii are actualy worms.
Mac's have those too. Bluetooth-based worms, as well as firewire-based worms. In fact, firewire has virus and worm written all over it, since the firewire port can read and write to arbitrary memory without the OS ever knowing it happened. Thanks for popularizing the most horrible standard ever, Apple.
1) Inqtana.A, the bluetooth virus (or worm if we are being pedantic), was proof-of-concept, was never out in the wild, and was patched quickly. 2) Leap.A is a trojan, not a virus. 3) Mac.Simpson is a trojan, not a virus. 4) Melissa.W is a Microsoft Office macro virus. They are called "macro virus" but they are really trojans. I think it's fair to say that Melissa.W has nothing to do with Mac OS X or Apple and instead is limited to a third-party program.
If you look at the security reports on these malware you'll note that the number of infections in the wild is estimated to be from 0 to 49. In other words, essentially none given how many Macintosh computers are in use. All of these malware programs are proof-of-concept at best and all of them have failed to gain a foothold and spread. A new, un-patched installation of MacOS has virtually no chance of being exploited, the same can't be said for other operating systems out there.
Firewire as a virus transmission factor? Are you serious? So someone with physical access to the machine can compromise it, that's suddenly a novel concept? I'll give you a clue: ANYONE with physical access to a machine can gain control of the machine even if it doesn't have any ports on it at all, there are a ton of methods just as easy as exploiting the Firewire DMA mechanism. Any serious security expert is not worried about local exploits, they are worried about remote exploits. Controlling local exploits is as simple as a good security system.
Thus, it's safe to say that there are no Mac OS X viruses out there. This, of course, can change since no operating system is 100% safe against malware but Mac OS X makes it very difficult for a virus to get in and then infect other computers. You'll certainly never eliminate the danger of trojans and other malware because that's simple social engineering. For a computer to be useful people have to be able to install and run stuff, some of that stuff will be bad since people often install without knowing exactly what they are doing. This has very little to do with the operating system, there is only so much warning you can give people before you annoy them to death and they become numb to your alert dialogs.
It doesn't imply that Macs are immune, it flat-out says that there aren't any viruses out for Macs and this is completely true. The ad truthfully states there are a ton of viruses for Windows and none for the Mac.
Is there malware out for the Mac? Sure there is, there's always been malware for the Mac in some form or another, but so far there is nothing that can be installed without the user's cooperation. User-installed malware is called a trojan horse, remote-installed malware is called a virus. If the ad claimed there is no malware for the Mac then I'd definitely agree that Apple is making false claims.
There are idiots on all platforms that will blindly install malware and you really can't point a finger at any operating system manufacturer. People have to be able to install software that does useful things like connect to the internet and that means that they will also be able to install malware. What's important is that the operating system provide as much protection from remote attacks and make it easy to recover from a malware infection.
Slashdot Mirror
Shows up in Mail, pesters during setup, a few other places, preferences here preferences there etc. You know what? That's just like other crapware on windows!
Most of the beginner users I support on Macs wind up with it permanently in the finder sidebar, which is very confusing when they click on it by accident and don't understand what's happening. That = crapware as it's intrusive and useless.
I looked for a good 5 minutes in Mail and didn't see any references to MobileMe or iDisk. When I searched through Mail's Help all I found were the usual references on how to access your MobileMe mail account, about the same as accessing other services such as Microsoft Exchange, Google, and Yahoo Mail. If Mail has anything about MobileMe it certainly isn't in-your-face.
Yes, iDisk is on the sidebar by default and it can be a pain if you are a clueless user who doesn't know how to remove it. However, that sort of user most likely has a LOT more problems because the iDisk icon is so easily removed. In fact if you go to Help and type "remove idisk icon" the third item is "About the sidebar". Click on that and it gives detailed instructions on how to customize the sidebar. Google "remove idisk icon" and the first few links tell you how to remove it. Anyone who can't do this simple task has serious problems using many computer features.
Are there several references to iDisk and MobileMe built-into Mac OS? Sure there are, just like Google, Microsoft, and other big players all have references to other services they own. It's a matter of opinion, of course, but I feel that there are few enough references to iDisk and MobileMe to seriously qualify as "crapware".
The whole mobileme - idisk setup on Macs is definitely crapware to me, because that idisk icon is in the sidebar after you reject it
Um, drag it off the sidebar and it disappears without a whimper. You could also go Finder->Preferences->Sidebar and uncheck iDisk. It's not like you have to jump through hoops to get rid of the icon.
As for it appearing in other spots there are very few places that iDisk and MobileMe appear. I think there's a button in iPhoto and a PreferencePane in System Preferences. It's really not that in-your-face.
I HATED this in Stargate SG-1. Where Carter would have to explain everything to Jack, in every episode
MAGNETS!
the first thing you'd probably do on a ship with rotating sections when you go into battle would be to stop the rotation to avoid having to change the angular momentum as you are maneuvering
They actually did this in many battles. I remember one scene from "In the Beginning" where a guy was killed on the bridge of a ship. Everyone was strapped in and drops of his blood was floating around the cabin. I think they even mentioned locking the rotation of ship sections at one point where they were preparing for a fight.
Any time I saw a ship still rotating sections in a fight I always assumed that they were doing it for tactical reasons (such as presenting a moving section of hull so that enemy fire couldn't focus on a single spot) or that they didn't have the time or the energy needed to spin down the section.
Replicators capable of creating any material object except gold pressed latinum. ... ...
Unlimited energy using matter-antimatter.
a capitalistic society is nearly impossible. There's nothing to buy or sell. As replicators themselves are replicated, anything of "value" can be had for virtually nothing.
A couple of problems here.
First off, it takes energy to run a replicator. Yes, perhaps a replicator can make the matter and the anti-matter and then react them to get energy but it's pretty clear that the laws of thermodynamics are still in effect in the Star Trek universe. The second law of thermodynamics prohibits perpetual motion types of scenarios like this. Energy is still a resource.
Another resource would be real estate. At some point most easily accessible places in the universe will be owned by someone. Yes, the universe is a large place but you are still limited by time constraints to a relatively small portion of it during your lifetime.
Yet another resource would be thought, invention, and innovation. Thinking beings would still demand some sort of value in exchange for plying their skills.
I'm sure there are other resources that can be brought up but you get the idea.
I gotta agree, the people over at Fastmail are great. Low cost, very reliable, lots of flexible plans. I've been with them for a long time, first using their free service and eventually becoming a paying customer.
The folks over at Fastmail are also pretty open with what they are doing. Regular updates on any service problems, discussions on ideas they have for new features, and they are pretty open to suggestions. They've also been doing the minimal, clean, and standards-compliant interface thing for a long time, just like Google.
I was really reminded of just how important it is for web services to be browser-agnostic when I was recently forced to use Microsoft's webmail for my school e-mail. You can't even access most of your settings or features without using Internet Explorer under Windows. This is especially bad since one of the features only allowed under Internet Explorer are the handicap accessibility settings! You better not have special visual needs and use Firefox or you are out of luck with Microsoft's webmail...
Services like Gmail and Fastmail are great simply because they work well with pretty much all standards-compliant browsers. Kudos to them!
This is 100% spot-on. I'm not a teacher but I have 5 teachers in my close family and I work at a youth organization that does after-school tutoring and works hand-in-hand with educators. By far these complaints mirror those that I hear from others in the field of education. The current system discourages good teaching and encourages a failing educational system
On top of all this is the fact that society has turned against teachers. It used to be that teachers were top dogs when it came to kids. Kids were told by their parents to do their homework and respect their teacher. If a teacher had a problem with a student the parent would most likely tell their child to listen to the teacher and do as the teacher said. School administration would support their educators when there was an issue between the teacher and a student or a parent.
These concepts are largely gone in our society. If a student and a teacher have a problem then nearly all parents will side with their children. School administrators often cater to the parents and assure them the teacher will be reprimanded. Many parents don't make their children sit down and complete assignments or check their progress in school. It's an insane environment that does NOT foster learning.
If we want children to do better in school what we need to do is change our society, not just the methods of teaching. A society that values educators, learning, and hard work is a society in which the youth will have a future.
I think the main problem with the idea of "unschooling" is that you can only get so far without some sort of regimented learning. Think of it this way, there's a lot of "unnatural" ideas out there that are very valuable to know and they have only come about because they have been built up over hundreds or even thousands of years of thinking and experimentation. Sure you can teach some of these concepts as part of the normal, "How does this work, daddy?" but a lot of ideas pretty much require you to have regular, involved, formal training over the years before you can have the framework to understand the more complex concepts.
I'm a proponent of a more mixed teaching style, some formal schooling and some "unschooling". Kids should have some degree of structured learning and they should also be allowed time to explore and find things they want to know more about on their own. I remember all the time I spent as a kid with Erector sets, Capsela, electronic kits, and chemistry kits. I learned a lot of things on my own using those tools and the local public library.
The other thing to note is that just because you can be a parent that doesn't mean you are a good teacher. Most teachers go through a ton of training on learning styles, how to present information, and how to guide students from simple ideas to more complex ones. They also are trained in the subject matter whereas a parent might not know, or be able to comprehend, the concepts that a child needs to learn about a subject. Yes, there are parents who are good at teaching and teachers who shouldn't be educating students but overall most students are better off learning some things from professionals.
I'll continue to buy it on CD and rip it to MP3, thanks.
I agree that keeping it in an easily-readable format is key. I don't mind buying online so long as I can buy it or easily convert it to a DRM-free form that I can be sure of being able to be in control of my purchase in perpetuity. What I won't do is rent my music. Yeah with streaming you get access to more music and more flexibility but the minute the service goes under or you stop paying the fee you lose all the cash you've spent so far. At least if I own my music I'm not out everything when I stop paying the fees.
Maybe some sort of mixed service would be nice. Pay $10 a month or whatever, listen to any music you want, every month you get to permanently keep so many songs. It'd be kind of a rent-to-own situation. I dunno if I'd go for it but it's better than paying to own nothing.
My SUV is designed so that it's frame doesn't distort when pulling with a winch. A side effect of that is that it has a rigid frame. Too bad for me, but its a decision I made when selecting it.
Rigid under tension is not the same as rigid under compression. Most SUV's are designed with hardened points for towing (tension) but they still have crush zones for accidents (compression). In fact, because of the size, the crush zones in an SUV are often larger and more effective than those in a smaller car.
Overall, you are safer in an accident when you are in an SUV than when you are in a smaller car. Of course, this does vary according to the type of accident and overall safety design of the vehicle. You also have to factor in that SUV's are more susceptible to some kinds of accidents than other cars.
So the only question worth asking is, "How much is the climate changing, and what can we do about it?" It could be that the climate isn't changing at all, and we can just do nothing. I suspect that there's sufficient evidence that that's not the case. It could be that the changes are all naturally induced, and there is something we can do about it to mitigate the effects. In that case, we're really stupid to say, "Not my fault!" and do nothing, because whatever the cause, when low-lying areas get inundated and crop failures start, it doesn't matter whose fault it is, it's going to be a mess.
There's also the question, "Are all climate changes bad and can there be more positive change than negative change?"
Think about it, warmer temperatures could mean that areas that were previously too cold for crops could now be farmable. The warmer areas would also mean that people would have less need to spend energy and resources in keeping warm. Increased carbon dioxide boosts growth in many plants, allowing crops and wild plants to thrive. A wetter climate might lead to more water available for irrigation and consumption. Changes in weather patterns might change deserts to livable land. Yes, there are also possible negative effects but right now can we really say which effects would be greater?
We need to tread lightly until we can get a better grasp on what climate change means, the mechanisms for how it occurs, and just what the TOTAL effects might be. Nothing is worse than knee-jerk reactions to incomplete data and unverified theories. Also remember that scientists are people too, they are susceptible to bias and short-sightedness. Sometimes you need an independent review of all the theories and data in order to separate wishful thinking from true science.
Some reading:
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
EPA: Climate Change - Agriculture and Food Supply
Read the article. 2.3 kW is the test version, they want to scale it up to 40 kW for the base:
The recent tests examined technologies that would see a nuclear reactor coupled with a Stirling engine capable of producing 40 kilowatts of energy--enough to power a future lunar or Mars outpost.
40 kW is approximately 17 outlets that can handle 20 A at 115 V. Yeah, it's still not a ton but it's a start and you could potentially put up several of these reactors as you expand the facility. This would also add fault-tolerance to the entire system.
Give em the newest rpg(or jrpg grinder if you like). Make the story and game so it updates their world with earth's servers on par with the delays and there you go.
Pfft, have you SEEN the drama that some guilds go through in RPGs? They'll get stuck on some boss and then one of the guys will mysteriously get a stomach bug or his cat will spontaneously combust and he'll have to bail. Next thing you know they'll split into small groups who will shout insults at each other and try to recruit more people to finish the raid from the Chinese space ship a few million kilometers away. It will just disintegrate into chaos!
What I'd love to see is that each gear set also has several design families which you can choose from and which continue from set to set. Lets say that warriors have two types of tier gear: dps and tanking. They should also be able to choose a design family within those gear types and the look of gear in each family would be consistant from tier to teir.
For example, a warrior's tier 1 tanking set could have two designs: protector and defender. Each design would be colored differently and maybe have a different look for the helm and the shoulders, so lets say the protector would be red and the defender would be blue. On the tier 2 tanking set you also offer a protector and defender option with a similar color and look to the tier 1 set. You still want to make the tier 2 gear look different from the tier 1 but the gear in the same design family would obviously be related.
It would be a bit more work for the design team which is why I would say that the uniqueness should only be on the two most unique pieces, shoulders and helm. This would cut down the work needed to produce the additional looks.
The cool thing about this is you could have a consistent look for your character while leveling. You could always choose stuff from the protector design family and even though you are upgrading gear you would always have a similar feel to your character.
And, yes, I know you did mention that he spends this money on food, etc. My point is that the $9.00 itself doesn't increase the economy, it's some small fraction thereof that actually increases the economy. The $9.00 profit made in an hour is actually a measure of the velocity of the economy, not a measure of the increase of the total value of the economy.
This is a good (if a bit technical in some parts) read: Quantity theory of money
Let's say a carpenter buys a piece of wood for $1.00. He carves it into a pair of clogging shoes, which takes him one hour. He sells those shoes for $10.00. He made $9.00 profit. Where did that extra $9.00 come from? Where does it go now? The extra nine bucks (profit) is how economies grow. He took $1.00 worth of wood plus an hour of his time and turned them into shoes worth $10.00. He has increased the economy by $9.00 at the cost of 1 hour.
It's a bit more complex than that. The $9.00 wasn't the actual amount of the increase because that 1 hour wasn't free. You neglected to account for the food the man buys to give him energy for that 1 hour of work, the money he spends on a workspace and tools, the price of housing, insurance, training, and other non-immediate costs.
Yes, it's likely that there is some growth to the economy even after all these costs but it certainly is not a 900% profit like you are making it out to be. In all likelihood the overall profit is somewhere around the rate of inflation, around 2-4%. After all, it is the growth of the economy that inflation really tracks.
Not to mention that Snow Leopard is just an upgrade (hence the 10.6 in the version), where Windows 7 is a completely new release.
You might not know this but Apple's versioning is different from Microsoft's. For Apple, every 10.x version is a completely new release. A 10.x.x version is an update.
The distinction being, I suppose, that Windows will let you use the upgrade from XP in addition to Vista.
Even if you can upgrade from XP it's still been less expensive to use Mac OS X. XP Pro cost $199 on release and the update to Windows 7 is $129. Mac OS X 10.0 cost $129 on release, 10.1 was a free update, and 10.2 through 10.6 are $29 upgrades. The total for XP to Windows 7 is $328, the total for Mac OS X 10.0 to 10.6 is $274.
Yes, Apple has paid updates for its operating system more often than Microsoft does but the price difference is so great that Mac OS X still comes out being less expensive overall.
Upgrading from Vista to Vista SP1 to Vista SP2 to 7 should still be cheaper than from OS X to 10.2 to 10.2 to 10.3 to 10.4 to 10.5.
Hmm, let's see. Vista was released January 2007, at that time Mac OS X 10.4 was out. If you bought both Vista and Mac OS X at that time and then upgraded to Windows 7 and Snow Leopard the cost would be:
Vista Pro: $199
Windows 7 upgrade: $129
Total: $328
Mac OS X 10.4: $129
Mac OS X 10.5 upgrade: $29
Mac OS X 10.6 upgrade: $29
Total: $187
Woah, wait a second there, Mac OS X would be $141 LESS expensive! Imagine that...
Yeah, and if I could buy snow leopard for my PC, I might actually consider it.
If you look around you might find a few ways to do that...
$120 home (same as Windows Professional)
I meant that to say:
$120 home (same FEATURES as Windows Professional)
Snow Leopard is going to be sold for $30 [...]
...If you already have 10.5.
Well if you don't have 10.5 already then Snow Leopard is $120 for the non-upgrade FULL VERSION pricing. Compare that to the equivalent Windows 7 Professional at $299. And yes, you compare the regular version of Snow Leopard to Windows 7 Professional. Unlike Microsoft, Apple doesn't cripple their product for the home user. All the "professional" features in Windows 7 Professional are pretty much the same as what's in regular version of Snow Leopard.
Apple has 3 pricing levels for their consumer (non-server) operating systems:
$29 upgrade
$120 home (same as Windows Professional)
$199 family (5 license version of home)
You can get discounts on these if you are a student, an educator, or a developer.
It seems like it would be less costly to keep it warm rather than letting it cool down and heating it back up everyday.
Not at all true. Remember that a body radiates heat in proportion to the difference between the hot and the cold areas. A hot body will lose heat quicker than a cold body so you will use a more energy per unit of time that the pool is warm as opposed to when it is cool.
Look at it this way, a warm pool is losing a certain amount of energy per second. As the pool cools it loses less energy per second. Once the pool is at ambient temperature it is no longer losing energy. To re-heat it you add in energy equal to what was lost in the first place. The end result is at worst you lost the same amount of energy that the pool contains when it is warm, but at best you save energy during the time the pool is at ambient temperature.
To sum this up: You only lose energy when the pool is warm, when it is cool it doesn't lose energy any more. When the pool is not in use let it cool down and you save energy.
Another factor is a warmer pool grows algae and bacteria faster and loses water and chemicals faster. By cooling the pool you save money on water and chemicals. You can also shut down the circulating pumps and save energy from that.
Further, most of the things mislabeled as virii are actualy worms.
Mac's have those too. Bluetooth-based worms, as well as firewire-based worms. In fact, firewire has virus and worm written all over it, since the firewire port can read and write to arbitrary memory without the OS ever knowing it happened. Thanks for popularizing the most horrible standard ever, Apple.
1) Inqtana.A, the bluetooth virus (or worm if we are being pedantic), was proof-of-concept, was never out in the wild, and was patched quickly.
2) Leap.A is a trojan, not a virus.
3) Mac.Simpson is a trojan, not a virus.
4) Melissa.W is a Microsoft Office macro virus. They are called "macro virus" but they are really trojans. I think it's fair to say that Melissa.W has nothing to do with Mac OS X or Apple and instead is limited to a third-party program.
If you look at the security reports on these malware you'll note that the number of infections in the wild is estimated to be from 0 to 49. In other words, essentially none given how many Macintosh computers are in use. All of these malware programs are proof-of-concept at best and all of them have failed to gain a foothold and spread. A new, un-patched installation of MacOS has virtually no chance of being exploited, the same can't be said for other operating systems out there.
Firewire as a virus transmission factor? Are you serious? So someone with physical access to the machine can compromise it, that's suddenly a novel concept? I'll give you a clue: ANYONE with physical access to a machine can gain control of the machine even if it doesn't have any ports on it at all, there are a ton of methods just as easy as exploiting the Firewire DMA mechanism. Any serious security expert is not worried about local exploits, they are worried about remote exploits. Controlling local exploits is as simple as a good security system.
Thus, it's safe to say that there are no Mac OS X viruses out there. This, of course, can change since no operating system is 100% safe against malware but Mac OS X makes it very difficult for a virus to get in and then infect other computers. You'll certainly never eliminate the danger of trojans and other malware because that's simple social engineering. For a computer to be useful people have to be able to install and run stuff, some of that stuff will be bad since people often install without knowing exactly what they are doing. This has very little to do with the operating system, there is only so much warning you can give people before you annoy them to death and they become numb to your alert dialogs.
It doesn't imply that Macs are immune, it flat-out says that there aren't any viruses out for Macs and this is completely true. The ad truthfully states there are a ton of viruses for Windows and none for the Mac.
Is there malware out for the Mac? Sure there is, there's always been malware for the Mac in some form or another, but so far there is nothing that can be installed without the user's cooperation. User-installed malware is called a trojan horse, remote-installed malware is called a virus. If the ad claimed there is no malware for the Mac then I'd definitely agree that Apple is making false claims.
There are idiots on all platforms that will blindly install malware and you really can't point a finger at any operating system manufacturer. People have to be able to install software that does useful things like connect to the internet and that means that they will also be able to install malware. What's important is that the operating system provide as much protection from remote attacks and make it easy to recover from a malware infection.