I agree with Xabraxas. I got spanked or slapped a lot, and while I'm well adjusted I've managed to get excellent behavior out of my four year old boy and six year old boy without hitting them more than half a dozen times since they were 2.
Now, don't confuse "no spanking" with "no discipline". If my kids cause trouble I take toys away, shut the TV off, stop reading the book, and so forth and they get to sit without speaking for a few minutes. The rule of thumb is one minute per year of the child's age. If the kid won't sit still on their own, I pin them. When something especially bad happens I toss a favorite toy, movie, or piece of clothing into the garbage. If something moderately bad happens they lose access to it for a few days. If they make too much trouble in a store or restaurant they get to sit quietly in the car with one parent while the other parent finishes eating or shopping.
I'm sure there are some kids that only react to hitting. But I would bet a lot of kids would react just fine without it, and many others only react to hitting because they've been hit enough that nothing less even gets their attention. And I am certainly not saying that "no-hitting" or "rare hitting" parenthood is easy. I had a devil of a time getting into the habit of not smacking the kids when they upset me. It's still worth doing.
You can't displace coal use by making your appliances more efficient.
But further, when a resource becomes cheaper people often use more of it. When gas spiked two years ago, a number of car shoppers shifted to more economical vehicles. Between that and the economic slowdown, demand for oil dropped just a little. But it was enough for the price of oil to drop significantly... and a consumer trends almost immediately switched back to buying larger vehicles because they could afford them again.
Look at homes - with better practices in insulation, more efficient appliances, and more efficient heating systems, electrical and heating costs dropped. How did people react? By building bigger homes.
If you really want people to use energy efficiently and not expand their use, you need to use taxes, price floors, or some other methods to keep energy costs high. It might work, but it will be wildly unpopular and regressive (i.e. hurt poor people the most).
It's a waste of money either way. The Moura Pholtovoltaic power plant cost 250 million Euro (about $355 million US) and generates 93 GWh per year. The Nevada Solar One concentrated thermal power plant cost $266 million to build and generates 134 GWh per year. A typical nuclear power plant might cost at most 30 times as much to build but generate more than 90 times as much power per year.
The cost per unit of power generated is even worse with wind.
You can't get around a cost factor difference of more than three. Solar, wind, tidal, etc... it's all a waste of time while the real solution stares us in the face. But we US citizens sit here and twiddle our thumbs while we still consume over 1 billion US tons of coal per year (if all of that was anthracite, it would be a cube more than one half mile per side).
You wrote your response as though the previous person wrote "I also tried to teach my son to program, but he wasn't interested. So I beat him and made him learn it anyway." Since that's not what they actually wrote, you wrote an obnoxious response for no reason.
Secondly, believe it or not children don't know everything. If you take a kid with no interest in wrestling or playing piano and have him attend wrestling practice or piano practice, he may decide he dislikes both. But he may develop an enjoyment of one or both and want to continue by his own choice. There are plenty of interesting activities - technological or not - that the kid actually has to start doing before they decide if they like it. You can't just describe swimming, or origami, or debate, or playing guitar in general terms and believe your child has made an informed decision whether to participate.
To some degree I think that's an issue of natural aptitude, but I also think it has to do with the introduction to the material. An engaging tutor who picks interesting examples can foster genuine interest. A poor tutor with dry examples can take an enthusiastic student and burn them out.
I think this applies to just about every field of study. My last mathematics course in high school was Calculus, and I learned the material but the presentation was dry and tedious. My first mathematics course in college was on discrete math, with some elementary set theory, number theory, and similar introductory material. The professor was very engaging and the problems were all unique and interesting. I went from "I am studying mathematics because I do well in mathematics exams" to "I am studying mathematics because I find it interesting and enjoyable".
I don't think the analogy you chose illustrates the problem. I've found my software development skills, such as they are, improved in all of the programming languages I know when I learn a new language. Even if I never use Haskell or Python at work, learning bits of them helps me to be better with C and Java.
Sadly, the same analogy does not apply to dating. ("Natalie, I only went on those dates with Rachel McAdams and Anna Faris in order to become a better partner for you. Really.")
Now maybe you can argue that if I learned Python (or Ruby, or Lisp, or whatever languages you think are 'best') first, I would have no benefit from learning C, Java, or Pascal later. I don't know, in my own case I did not learn those languages first.
The only GM product to include the big block V8 from the factory was heavy duty pickup trucks. This engine hasn't been for sale in a Caprice, Impala, Corvette, Firebird, or Camaro for several decades. While you're right in general terms that GM has screwed up its products, product reliability, and understanding customer needs for a very long time, your specific example here is inaccurate.
This huge old engine was excellent for towing, very nearly as strong as GM's large pickup truck diesel engine and far cheaper for both GM to build and purchasers to buy. High RPM performance was a joke, but this was built for running below 4000 RPMs, which is normal for an engine used to tow. This is a case where GM did something right, and sold something that customers in the target segment wanted to buy.
The problem with a tiered product lineup is that you divide your resources in research, marketing, advertising, and design too far. Toyota grew from nothing to a juggernaut of the US market with just two brands: Toyota and Lexus. They only added Scion recently. Honda bit off a big chunk of the domestic manufacturer's market share with just Honda and Acura. Nissan has just Nissan and Infiniti. Hyundai has just Hyundai and Kia, and only now that they're highly successful are they considering a separate luxury brand.
Ford has made an amazing turnaround in product competitiveness and desirability in the past four years, and they did it by selling Aston Martin, Jaguar, and Land Rover, cutting down their stake in Mazda, and reducing their number of Mercury models. Now they just have Ford, Lincoln, a bit of Mercury, and Volvo and Volvo is rumored to be for sale. GM is in the process of shutting down or selling Saturn, Hummer, Saab, and Pontiac and it has sold its pieces of Isuzu, Suzuki, and Subaru. The only reason Buick was kept is that it's GM's most successful brand in China. The only reason GMC trucks was kept is that most Buick dealerships are Buick/GMC dealerships.
GM management is finally focusing on building 30 decent products spread across four product lines (Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Caddillac) instead of 80 substandard products spread across twelve product lines, which was the mess they had in 2001.
In Europe where some very large portion of the automobiles in use are diesel, I bet most consumers would think to check the fuel requirements of a rental. But in the US, diesel engines are used in less than 1% of small passenger vehicles, so some significant percentage of renters would probably put gasoline in the tank without thinking to check the fuel requirements first. I wouldn't be surprised if U-Haul tried to use diesel engines in its trucks at some point, and experienced such a high failure rate from renter errors that they gave up on the idea.
That's fascinating, I did not know that about the emissions/horsepower hour comparison. But consider the fuel economy of the Mazda RX-8. It's a lightweight sports car with a relatively modest (for a modern sports car) 232 horsepower (173 kW) peak output rating, and the EPA fuel economy and real world fuel economy ratings for it are 16 city/22 highway. For comparison, the 2010 Ford Taurus SHO is 4400 pounds with all wheel drive and 365 peak horsepower (272 kW) and it is EPA rated 17 city/25 highway.
A more accurate depictions is that America has a big truck equals tough working man cultural image. (Or tough woman even - I've met women who drive large pickups just because they enjoy it too.) The same cultural view hasn't caught on in Europe, probably because your fuel taxes make the use of a large pickup or equivalent vehicle for commuting prohibitively expensive. Automakers selling vehicles in the US, both domestic and foreign, have cultivated this image because the larger vehicles are more profitable. From what little interaction I've had with Europeans, if anything there is an opposite social pressure in Europe - slim and efficient vehicles are prestigious while unnecessarily large ones are objects of scorn.
And I must admit, I'm drawn to the American view of big trucks and SUVs. I would love the opportunity to travel around in an enormous truck or perhaps a Ford Expedition. Fortunately for the environment and for those seeking to reduce US dependence on foreign oil, I can't afford it.
I understand it's more difficult for manufacturers to meet American diesel emissions requirements. So very few automakers make the attempt outside of the heavy duty pickup truck and heavy duty van market - currently only Volkswagen (and linked luxury brand Audi), Mercedes, and BMW offer diesel engines for passenger vehicles and only for a few models. Except for the Volkswagen sedans, the diesel models are quite costly.
Also, local taxes pay a role. I live in Pennsylvania, and here the fuel tax on diesel fuel is about 20% higher than on gasoline. That negates almost all of the cost savings I would receive from driving a more efficient diesel engine vehicle.
Personally, I would purchase a diesel engine for my next vehicle if it was available within a $4,000 or so price window of an equivalent gasoline model. I'm contemplating a minivan purchase for our family of six - the cheapest equivalent vehicles are the Mercedes R320 diesel and Audi Q7 diesel, both nearly double the price of an entry level minivan. I do a lot of driving, but even if Pennsylvania did not tax diesel fuel higher and it consistently delivered 30% superior fuel economy it would take over a decade of ownership to recoup the difference in purchase price. Plus, the maintenance costs on an Audi or Mercedes are prohibitive while minivans are relatively cheap.
You're being grossly unfair to American automotive manufacturers, both domestically owned ones and also foreign companies selling products in the US.
Most modern vehicles sold in the US receive excellent fuel economy for their size, power output, and 87 octane (American rating - it would be 91 octane in Europe) gasoline. European vehicles consume less fuel on average due to lower size, lower power output, and use of diesel fuel or gasoline that is octane 95 (91 in American rating) or higher. The European automakers have no inherent engineering superiority.
For example, a rear wheel drive Mercedes E350 sedan sold in the US gets noticeably poorer fuel economy than a 2010 front wheel drive Ford Taurus sedan that is longer, wider, taller, significantly heavier, and rated for just 5 horsepower (~3 kW) less peak engine power output, and the Mercedes requires higher octane gasoline. The rear wheel drive BMW M3 high performance sedan is rated for dramatically worse fuel economy than the Chevy Camaro SS, even though their peak power output is similar and the Camaro is longer, wider, heavier, and faster in a straight line (the BMW handles tremendously better than the Camaro - but since it costs 75% more, it should). In both cases, the European model is a superior vehicle overall, but in terms of engine efficiency they have no edge.
When you come up with a cost effective way to replace all of the automobiles in use with something dramatically more efficient, you let us know.
Until then, we have to be satisfied with the incremental improvements to the designs that are actually in production. We don't live in an ideal world, and there are currently no feasible plans for replacing all of the cars in use with electric vehicles (and all of the coal power plants that charge them with renewable energy sources).
Further, supposedly this engine design can accept a wide number of fuels. That might allow the Lotus Omnivore engine you buy in 2015 support some new biofuel that is invented in 2021. As a consumer, it also lets you switch fuels based on pricing - use propane when it's cheapest per mile traveled and diesel when diesel is cheapest per mile traveled and gasoline when gasoline is cheapest per mile traveled.
Now whether this concept makes mass production, I have no idea.
While many Linux users don't (and shouldn't need to) care about installing and compiling a kernel from source code, it's not that difficult to do. If you want to try out the new kernel, that's a relatively easy way. It will still take you a few hours though - mostly for reading instructions on how to do it.
Keep in mind too that non-human meat eaters get the most nutritional value from their prey by consuming the entire body, or at least focusing on the organ meats first.
I would make the argument that my omnivorous diet was healthier than a vegetarian diet if I was consistently eating brains, livers, and kidneys from larger farm animals and the entire carcasses of fowl, fish, and insects. But how many modern humans do that?
I've been trying to gradually move to a lower meat intake, but since soy disagrees with me and I get sick of lentils in a hurry, I have not found protein sources to my liking yet. It's especially a problem since I adore the taste of beef.
Hey, the professors logic makes perfect sense. It takes many pounds of vegetables of input into cows and pigs to create a pound of meat. So vegetarian humans and herbivore animals require far less land use, and less artificial or organic fertilizer, and less irrigation, and less fuel for farm equipment than non-vegetarian humans and animals that eat a lot of meat.
Beef is my favorite food, and I have a large dog. That doesn't change the reality that the environmental impact of my lifestyle and the pet I choose to keep is far higher than a vegetarian with a pet hamster.
Unlike that propaganda piece [i]An Inconvenient Truth[/i], the facts here are pretty clear and difficult to dispute.
XP Home and Vista Basic and Vista Home Premium don't have remote desktop server by default. It may be easy to add it, I don't know... but that's one reason to keep VNC handy.
There's nothing stopping the Linux kernel team or a third party from implementing an equivalent feature for Linux. It may not happen overnight, but if the interest is there it will be done.
And unless someone has benchmarks, I suspect the performance edge of Grand Central Dispatch isn't going to obsolete Linux - or for that matter, Microsoft Server - overnight.
Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and the other console makers build their business model around selling the console at a loss and then making up the difference as a percentage of game sales.
So if we ditched the DMCA and similar legislation, and any buyer could do whatever they wanted with their console, then Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo would have to adjust their pricing to account for the unit sales that would never be offset by game sales. They would revise the price of consoles up to compensate, and then buyers looking to buy consoles as a cheap way to get good hardware for non-gaming purposes would look elsewhere.
Don't get me wrong, I dislike DRM. But there will never be a cheap console with a highly competitive price for its computing power that the buyer can mod to their heart's content. The business model does not work. You're getting angry about a sales segment that will never exist. Ignore consoles.
Most employers these days seem to favor specific experience over general skills. The chances that someone working on funky Javascript websites for a few years will find their next job writing server side C code is damned small.
I made the move from C++ to Java four years ago. I'd like to move back, or at least out of Java, simply for some variety. But I have a family to support, and the potential employers I've talked to that don't use Java would only be willing to bring me in at about half my current salary. I'm looking to contribute to an open source project that uses some language other than Java, both for fun and to boost my resume. Until then, I'm stuck with the kind of work I do today indefinitely.
That's not a bad idea, but I see two drawbacks immediately.
First, you'll probably want all of your data in each hosting center, so if one crashes, screws up, or jacks up the prices, you don't lose anything by shutting it down. That's a form of distributed data transfer you need to manage, and it also incurs its own bandwidth and storage costs.
Second, some of the services have particular restrictions on what features they have. Google App Engine appears pretty cheap, but you can't create your own Java Threads or use a database like PostgreSQL or MySQL. If you're lucky, your application can deal with the restrictions in all of the providers you select and you can code for a data storage model they all support.
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I agree with Xabraxas. I got spanked or slapped a lot, and while I'm well adjusted I've managed to get excellent behavior out of my four year old boy and six year old boy without hitting them more than half a dozen times since they were 2.
Now, don't confuse "no spanking" with "no discipline". If my kids cause trouble I take toys away, shut the TV off, stop reading the book, and so forth and they get to sit without speaking for a few minutes. The rule of thumb is one minute per year of the child's age. If the kid won't sit still on their own, I pin them. When something especially bad happens I toss a favorite toy, movie, or piece of clothing into the garbage. If something moderately bad happens they lose access to it for a few days. If they make too much trouble in a store or restaurant they get to sit quietly in the car with one parent while the other parent finishes eating or shopping.
I'm sure there are some kids that only react to hitting. But I would bet a lot of kids would react just fine without it, and many others only react to hitting because they've been hit enough that nothing less even gets their attention. And I am certainly not saying that "no-hitting" or "rare hitting" parenthood is easy. I had a devil of a time getting into the habit of not smacking the kids when they upset me. It's still worth doing.
Right. But if you swap your coal power plant for a nuclear one then your demand for coal is reduced 100%, instead of 50%.
You can't displace coal use by making your appliances more efficient.
But further, when a resource becomes cheaper people often use more of it. When gas spiked two years ago, a number of car shoppers shifted to more economical vehicles. Between that and the economic slowdown, demand for oil dropped just a little. But it was enough for the price of oil to drop significantly... and a consumer trends almost immediately switched back to buying larger vehicles because they could afford them again.
Look at homes - with better practices in insulation, more efficient appliances, and more efficient heating systems, electrical and heating costs dropped. How did people react? By building bigger homes.
If you really want people to use energy efficiently and not expand their use, you need to use taxes, price floors, or some other methods to keep energy costs high. It might work, but it will be wildly unpopular and regressive (i.e. hurt poor people the most).
It's a waste of money either way. The Moura Pholtovoltaic power plant cost 250 million Euro (about $355 million US) and generates 93 GWh per year. The Nevada Solar One concentrated thermal power plant cost $266 million to build and generates 134 GWh per year. A typical nuclear power plant might cost at most 30 times as much to build but generate more than 90 times as much power per year.
The cost per unit of power generated is even worse with wind.
You can't get around a cost factor difference of more than three. Solar, wind, tidal, etc... it's all a waste of time while the real solution stares us in the face. But we US citizens sit here and twiddle our thumbs while we still consume over 1 billion US tons of coal per year (if all of that was anthracite, it would be a cube more than one half mile per side).
You wrote your response as though the previous person wrote "I also tried to teach my son to program, but he wasn't interested. So I beat him and made him learn it anyway." Since that's not what they actually wrote, you wrote an obnoxious response for no reason.
Secondly, believe it or not children don't know everything. If you take a kid with no interest in wrestling or playing piano and have him attend wrestling practice or piano practice, he may decide he dislikes both. But he may develop an enjoyment of one or both and want to continue by his own choice. There are plenty of interesting activities - technological or not - that the kid actually has to start doing before they decide if they like it. You can't just describe swimming, or origami, or debate, or playing guitar in general terms and believe your child has made an informed decision whether to participate.
To some degree I think that's an issue of natural aptitude, but I also think it has to do with the introduction to the material. An engaging tutor who picks interesting examples can foster genuine interest. A poor tutor with dry examples can take an enthusiastic student and burn them out.
I think this applies to just about every field of study. My last mathematics course in high school was Calculus, and I learned the material but the presentation was dry and tedious. My first mathematics course in college was on discrete math, with some elementary set theory, number theory, and similar introductory material. The professor was very engaging and the problems were all unique and interesting. I went from "I am studying mathematics because I do well in mathematics exams" to "I am studying mathematics because I find it interesting and enjoyable".
Vim, Emacs (the GUI versions of both give menus with the commands so you don't need to memorize keystrokes), and Notepad++
I don't think the analogy you chose illustrates the problem. I've found my software development skills, such as they are, improved in all of the programming languages I know when I learn a new language. Even if I never use Haskell or Python at work, learning bits of them helps me to be better with C and Java.
Sadly, the same analogy does not apply to dating. ("Natalie, I only went on those dates with Rachel McAdams and Anna Faris in order to become a better partner for you. Really.")
Now maybe you can argue that if I learned Python (or Ruby, or Lisp, or whatever languages you think are 'best') first, I would have no benefit from learning C, Java, or Pascal later. I don't know, in my own case I did not learn those languages first.
The only GM product to include the big block V8 from the factory was heavy duty pickup trucks. This engine hasn't been for sale in a Caprice, Impala, Corvette, Firebird, or Camaro for several decades. While you're right in general terms that GM has screwed up its products, product reliability, and understanding customer needs for a very long time, your specific example here is inaccurate.
This huge old engine was excellent for towing, very nearly as strong as GM's large pickup truck diesel engine and far cheaper for both GM to build and purchasers to buy. High RPM performance was a joke, but this was built for running below 4000 RPMs, which is normal for an engine used to tow. This is a case where GM did something right, and sold something that customers in the target segment wanted to buy.
The problem with a tiered product lineup is that you divide your resources in research, marketing, advertising, and design too far. Toyota grew from nothing to a juggernaut of the US market with just two brands: Toyota and Lexus. They only added Scion recently. Honda bit off a big chunk of the domestic manufacturer's market share with just Honda and Acura. Nissan has just Nissan and Infiniti. Hyundai has just Hyundai and Kia, and only now that they're highly successful are they considering a separate luxury brand.
Ford has made an amazing turnaround in product competitiveness and desirability in the past four years, and they did it by selling Aston Martin, Jaguar, and Land Rover, cutting down their stake in Mazda, and reducing their number of Mercury models. Now they just have Ford, Lincoln, a bit of Mercury, and Volvo and Volvo is rumored to be for sale. GM is in the process of shutting down or selling Saturn, Hummer, Saab, and Pontiac and it has sold its pieces of Isuzu, Suzuki, and Subaru. The only reason Buick was kept is that it's GM's most successful brand in China. The only reason GMC trucks was kept is that most Buick dealerships are Buick/GMC dealerships.
GM management is finally focusing on building 30 decent products spread across four product lines (Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Caddillac) instead of 80 substandard products spread across twelve product lines, which was the mess they had in 2001.
Still surprised these aren't diesel.
In Europe where some very large portion of the automobiles in use are diesel, I bet most consumers would think to check the fuel requirements of a rental. But in the US, diesel engines are used in less than 1% of small passenger vehicles, so some significant percentage of renters would probably put gasoline in the tank without thinking to check the fuel requirements first. I wouldn't be surprised if U-Haul tried to use diesel engines in its trucks at some point, and experienced such a high failure rate from renter errors that they gave up on the idea.
That's all speculation on my part.
General Motors hasn't sold this engine in anything lighter than a heavy duty pickup in decades.
That's fascinating, I did not know that about the emissions/horsepower hour comparison. But consider the fuel economy of the Mazda RX-8. It's a lightweight sports car with a relatively modest (for a modern sports car) 232 horsepower (173 kW) peak output rating, and the EPA fuel economy and real world fuel economy ratings for it are 16 city/22 highway. For comparison, the 2010 Ford Taurus SHO is 4400 pounds with all wheel drive and 365 peak horsepower (272 kW) and it is EPA rated 17 city/25 highway.
Do you know why that is?
A more accurate depictions is that America has a big truck equals tough working man cultural image. (Or tough woman even - I've met women who drive large pickups just because they enjoy it too.) The same cultural view hasn't caught on in Europe, probably because your fuel taxes make the use of a large pickup or equivalent vehicle for commuting prohibitively expensive. Automakers selling vehicles in the US, both domestic and foreign, have cultivated this image because the larger vehicles are more profitable. From what little interaction I've had with Europeans, if anything there is an opposite social pressure in Europe - slim and efficient vehicles are prestigious while unnecessarily large ones are objects of scorn.
And I must admit, I'm drawn to the American view of big trucks and SUVs. I would love the opportunity to travel around in an enormous truck or perhaps a Ford Expedition. Fortunately for the environment and for those seeking to reduce US dependence on foreign oil, I can't afford it.
I understand it's more difficult for manufacturers to meet American diesel emissions requirements. So very few automakers make the attempt outside of the heavy duty pickup truck and heavy duty van market - currently only Volkswagen (and linked luxury brand Audi), Mercedes, and BMW offer diesel engines for passenger vehicles and only for a few models. Except for the Volkswagen sedans, the diesel models are quite costly.
Also, local taxes pay a role. I live in Pennsylvania, and here the fuel tax on diesel fuel is about 20% higher than on gasoline. That negates almost all of the cost savings I would receive from driving a more efficient diesel engine vehicle.
Personally, I would purchase a diesel engine for my next vehicle if it was available within a $4,000 or so price window of an equivalent gasoline model. I'm contemplating a minivan purchase for our family of six - the cheapest equivalent vehicles are the Mercedes R320 diesel and Audi Q7 diesel, both nearly double the price of an entry level minivan. I do a lot of driving, but even if Pennsylvania did not tax diesel fuel higher and it consistently delivered 30% superior fuel economy it would take over a decade of ownership to recoup the difference in purchase price. Plus, the maintenance costs on an Audi or Mercedes are prohibitive while minivans are relatively cheap.
You're being grossly unfair to American automotive manufacturers, both domestically owned ones and also foreign companies selling products in the US.
Most modern vehicles sold in the US receive excellent fuel economy for their size, power output, and 87 octane (American rating - it would be 91 octane in Europe) gasoline. European vehicles consume less fuel on average due to lower size, lower power output, and use of diesel fuel or gasoline that is octane 95 (91 in American rating) or higher. The European automakers have no inherent engineering superiority.
For example, a rear wheel drive Mercedes E350 sedan sold in the US gets noticeably poorer fuel economy than a 2010 front wheel drive Ford Taurus sedan that is longer, wider, taller, significantly heavier, and rated for just 5 horsepower (~3 kW) less peak engine power output, and the Mercedes requires higher octane gasoline. The rear wheel drive BMW M3 high performance sedan is rated for dramatically worse fuel economy than the Chevy Camaro SS, even though their peak power output is similar and the Camaro is longer, wider, heavier, and faster in a straight line (the BMW handles tremendously better than the Camaro - but since it costs 75% more, it should). In both cases, the European model is a superior vehicle overall, but in terms of engine efficiency they have no edge.
When you come up with a cost effective way to replace all of the automobiles in use with something dramatically more efficient, you let us know.
Until then, we have to be satisfied with the incremental improvements to the designs that are actually in production. We don't live in an ideal world, and there are currently no feasible plans for replacing all of the cars in use with electric vehicles (and all of the coal power plants that charge them with renewable energy sources).
Further, supposedly this engine design can accept a wide number of fuels. That might allow the Lotus Omnivore engine you buy in 2015 support some new biofuel that is invented in 2021. As a consumer, it also lets you switch fuels based on pricing - use propane when it's cheapest per mile traveled and diesel when diesel is cheapest per mile traveled and gasoline when gasoline is cheapest per mile traveled.
Now whether this concept makes mass production, I have no idea.
While many Linux users don't (and shouldn't need to) care about installing and compiling a kernel from source code, it's not that difficult to do. If you want to try out the new kernel, that's a relatively easy way. It will still take you a few hours though - mostly for reading instructions on how to do it.
It is true that some sheep and cattle are grazed on lands that can never grow major food crops for human consumption.
But millions of acres of land that could grow food crops for people are devoted to foodstuffs for farm animals.
Keep in mind too that non-human meat eaters get the most nutritional value from their prey by consuming the entire body, or at least focusing on the organ meats first.
I would make the argument that my omnivorous diet was healthier than a vegetarian diet if I was consistently eating brains, livers, and kidneys from larger farm animals and the entire carcasses of fowl, fish, and insects. But how many modern humans do that?
I've been trying to gradually move to a lower meat intake, but since soy disagrees with me and I get sick of lentils in a hurry, I have not found protein sources to my liking yet. It's especially a problem since I adore the taste of beef.
Hey, the professors logic makes perfect sense. It takes many pounds of vegetables of input into cows and pigs to create a pound of meat. So vegetarian humans and herbivore animals require far less land use, and less artificial or organic fertilizer, and less irrigation, and less fuel for farm equipment than non-vegetarian humans and animals that eat a lot of meat.
Beef is my favorite food, and I have a large dog. That doesn't change the reality that the environmental impact of my lifestyle and the pet I choose to keep is far higher than a vegetarian with a pet hamster.
Unlike that propaganda piece [i]An Inconvenient Truth[/i], the facts here are pretty clear and difficult to dispute.
XP Home and Vista Basic and Vista Home Premium don't have remote desktop server by default. It may be easy to add it, I don't know... but that's one reason to keep VNC handy.
There's nothing stopping the Linux kernel team or a third party from implementing an equivalent feature for Linux. It may not happen overnight, but if the interest is there it will be done.
And unless someone has benchmarks, I suspect the performance edge of Grand Central Dispatch isn't going to obsolete Linux - or for that matter, Microsoft Server - overnight.
Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and the other console makers build their business model around selling the console at a loss and then making up the difference as a percentage of game sales.
So if we ditched the DMCA and similar legislation, and any buyer could do whatever they wanted with their console, then Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo would have to adjust their pricing to account for the unit sales that would never be offset by game sales. They would revise the price of consoles up to compensate, and then buyers looking to buy consoles as a cheap way to get good hardware for non-gaming purposes would look elsewhere.
Don't get me wrong, I dislike DRM. But there will never be a cheap console with a highly competitive price for its computing power that the buyer can mod to their heart's content. The business model does not work. You're getting angry about a sales segment that will never exist. Ignore consoles.
Most employers these days seem to favor specific experience over general skills. The chances that someone working on funky Javascript websites for a few years will find their next job writing server side C code is damned small.
I made the move from C++ to Java four years ago. I'd like to move back, or at least out of Java, simply for some variety. But I have a family to support, and the potential employers I've talked to that don't use Java would only be willing to bring me in at about half my current salary. I'm looking to contribute to an open source project that uses some language other than Java, both for fun and to boost my resume. Until then, I'm stuck with the kind of work I do today indefinitely.
That's not a bad idea, but I see two drawbacks immediately.
First, you'll probably want all of your data in each hosting center, so if one crashes, screws up, or jacks up the prices, you don't lose anything by shutting it down. That's a form of distributed data transfer you need to manage, and it also incurs its own bandwidth and storage costs.
Second, some of the services have particular restrictions on what features they have. Google App Engine appears pretty cheap, but you can't create your own Java Threads or use a database like PostgreSQL or MySQL. If you're lucky, your application can deal with the restrictions in all of the providers you select and you can code for a data storage model they all support.