Only idiots are fundamentally morally opposed to radioactive material or its production. The only rational basis on which to oppose it is safety. Not that this is a trivial basis =)
I don't think there is any significant number of people who are "fundamentally morally" opposed to the use of radioactive material, mostly everyone I know is opposed to it for safety reasons. I don't really know what you mean by "morally" opposed - I don't like nuclear power plants because I don't want the Uranium to be hurt?
It's not stealing because it's copyright violation, not theft. Doh. There's a more elaborate explanation as to what that means, but I'm sure somebody else wrote that somewhere in reply to this story.
I've been reading a couple of books (for instance, all of Asimov's foundation trilogy) on both a laptop and a CRT recently. It wasn't too bad. The laptop, especially, was about as comfortable as reading a paperback edition would have been.
I set the font to Times New Roman, 18pt, white or light gray on black. A white background strains the eyes after an hour or so of reading, but the white on black was extremely comfortable.
Using either cursor down, page down, or, usually, simply space or the mwheel to scroll was quite easy to use either, you do that just as automatically as you would turn pages in a book. And, in stark contrast to cheap paperback books, you don't have to use brute force to hold the book open - I hate that.
The LCD of the laptop was especially comfortable to use for two reasons. First, the sub-pixel rendering really does wonders when reading a book, the font is more smooth and easier to read. Second, of course a LCD's non-flickering display is always more comfortable to look at than a CRT, especially since my CRT only refreshes at 80hz (a refresh rate of 100 or 120hz might be much better, I don't know).
The weight wasn't a problem, really, I didn't mind holding the LOTR books either, which, of course are still far lighter than a laptop. But really, the size was a bigger problem. I just ended up having the laptop on my knees - oh right, I forgot to mention, I used the laptop to read in bed, of course.
In both cases, it was nice to be able to read without any other artificial light, and really, I read for hours and experienced no eye strain at all (I did watch out for it). Battery power and longevity wasn't a problem either, the laptop runs for about 3 hours, but I just had it plugged in anyway. I don't usually read a novel in places where there is no power sources, I also don't read books in a bathtub.
Not to repeat what was said in the slashdot thread to it, but man does the oQo look sweet. I really hope they can pull this off, this looks like the perfect eBook reader, to start with. Too bad games won't run well on it, though I'm sure older ones will work great - GBA emulation on a oQo sounds like another sweet idea. I pray it's not vaporware.
You do not need a 300W PSU in a modern PC. A decent 250W one is enough for most typical PCs, that is, one or two hard-drives, one or two optical drives, and one or two fans on top of the internal PSU fan. PSU are one more thing where buying quality stuff pays out in the end, a 250W high-quality PSU is easily more powerful than a typical 300W noname one, and virtually noiseless, as well.
Of course, YMMV.
Yep, because a firewire optical drive spinning at 4000 to 8000 rpm in a small flimsy case is inherently more silent than an internal IDE drive in a metal tower case.
Actually, in the recent years, IBMs hard drives weren't bleeding edge anymore, in no way. Seagate is more silent, Maxtor is bigger earlier, and Western Digital is faster. The new IBM series of hard drives is very nice, though, I was considering picking up one of them, so it's a shame to see them go.
I don't know about the PC lines or anything else, but the IBM HDs were by no means expensive. Prices were extremely competitive, I never would have gotten an IBM HD otherwise.
Tune your settings (prefs - history and cache) a bit to reduce resource useage. I've seen it work fine on computers with 32 MB RAM, way, way faster than either IE or NN, so it doesn't really need all those resources it takes, though of course they don't hurt.
Opera isn't really faster anymore than IE when you're viewing only one page at a time. If you're viewing half a dozen or more, IE really sucks while Opera is godlike. Switching between windows is virtually instant.
Oh and not to mention mouse gestures. I doubt I can ever use a browser without mouse gestures again.
As for DHTML support, yep, it sucks, but well, DHTML sucks, too. It's rarely used appropriately, much like Flash it's more of a proof of a web designers incompetence and reliance on flashy effects rather than solid content.
Yeah, that game really needs mod to prevent people playing it from falling asleep after a short while. Not that that's a problem, you don't really have to interact, your characters fight just as well on their own.
If our CO2 production was equal to the CO2 removed from the athmospehre by plants, then, yes, that could be considered natural, or rather sustainable. If we strip the athmosphere of CO2, at some point plant life will run out of air, though I guess that point is way off.
Consider it like this, chop off a tree and burn it and the CO2 you create will at some point be the "food" of another tree. Chop it down and store the CO2 away and that tree won't have any food. Oil reserves are only trees chopped down a long time ago. Still, I doubt this would be a problem for a very long time, and likely solvable.
Of course, even if this works - a healthy potion of scepticism is appropriate - it won't be an end to the whole problem. Just for instance, at flying level, the H2O the planes create (out of Kerosine and O2) is just as damaging to the athmosphere as the CO2.
Ender's Game is really beyond praise for me. I can only commend each and everyone to read it. The sequels were nice, too, but in a totally different way.
Beware, though, check compatibility lists if the Firewire port works with your device. IIRC there were some problems with devices drawing a lot of power that actually damaged your sound card...
Um and how is that different from what he said? Sure, "precursor" might be interpreted to mean the two are related or compatible, but if you just take the chronological of the world meaning, that's pretty alright. IIRC USB 2.0 is a wee bit faster than Firewire, so FW might be called a technical precursor as well, though I'm sure there's a Religious War fought over that.
Not for me. And at the rare occurance that it does, it takes all of 5 seconds to start it again and be right where you were, since it saves window location.
The point remains, in XP you don't have to RTFM or STFW to figure out how to activate sub-pixel rendering. That's because selecting it from a drop-down-menu is comparatively intuitive, all other restrictions of Windows notwithstanding.:)
Gosh. They might treat other people unfairly, but christ, you so got the replies you deserved. The mere notion of mailing an abuse (or whatever you want to call it) mail after a pointless "fight" (in which you, quite obviously, were wrong) in IRC is so pathetic.
Dunno, I can't agree with your perception of Opera 5. It's extremely rare that I can't actually view a page because of incompatibilies - and in those rare cases, kicking up IE for once doesn't hurt either. I'm not criticising you at all - I can't follow you, however, maybe due to a different taste in websites.
Slashdot Mirror
Only idiots are fundamentally morally opposed to radioactive material or its production. The only rational basis on which to oppose it is safety. Not that this is a trivial basis =) I don't think there is any significant number of people who are "fundamentally morally" opposed to the use of radioactive material, mostly everyone I know is opposed to it for safety reasons. I don't really know what you mean by "morally" opposed - I don't like nuclear power plants because I don't want the Uranium to be hurt?
It's not stealing because it's copyright violation, not theft. Doh. There's a more elaborate explanation as to what that means, but I'm sure somebody else wrote that somewhere in reply to this story.
I've been reading a couple of books (for instance, all of Asimov's foundation trilogy) on both a laptop and a CRT recently. It wasn't too bad. The laptop, especially, was about as comfortable as reading a paperback edition would have been.
I set the font to Times New Roman, 18pt, white or light gray on black. A white background strains the eyes after an hour or so of reading, but the white on black was extremely comfortable.
Using either cursor down, page down, or, usually, simply space or the mwheel to scroll was quite easy to use either, you do that just as automatically as you would turn pages in a book. And, in stark contrast to cheap paperback books, you don't have to use brute force to hold the book open - I hate that.
The LCD of the laptop was especially comfortable to use for two reasons. First, the sub-pixel rendering really does wonders when reading a book, the font is more smooth and easier to read. Second, of course a LCD's non-flickering display is always more comfortable to look at than a CRT, especially since my CRT only refreshes at 80hz (a refresh rate of 100 or 120hz might be much better, I don't know).
The weight wasn't a problem, really, I didn't mind holding the LOTR books either, which, of course are still far lighter than a laptop. But really, the size was a bigger problem. I just ended up having the laptop on my knees - oh right, I forgot to mention, I used the laptop to read in bed, of course.
In both cases, it was nice to be able to read without any other artificial light, and really, I read for hours and experienced no eye strain at all (I did watch out for it). Battery power and longevity wasn't a problem either, the laptop runs for about 3 hours, but I just had it plugged in anyway. I don't usually read a novel in places where there is no power sources, I also don't read books in a bathtub.
Well, at least in this case, bigger might not always be better, but it certainly doesn't hurt! :)
Nah, I mean you're flying at 300 mph, that kind of speed must be reflected in the latency.
Not to repeat what was said in the slashdot thread to it, but man does the oQo look sweet. I really hope they can pull this off, this looks like the perfect eBook reader, to start with. Too bad games won't run well on it, though I'm sure older ones will work great - GBA emulation on a oQo sounds like another sweet idea. I pray it's not vaporware.
You do not need a 300W PSU in a modern PC. A decent 250W one is enough for most typical PCs, that is, one or two hard-drives, one or two optical drives, and one or two fans on top of the internal PSU fan. PSU are one more thing where buying quality stuff pays out in the end, a 250W high-quality PSU is easily more powerful than a typical 300W noname one, and virtually noiseless, as well.
Of course, YMMV.
Yep, because a firewire optical drive spinning at 4000 to 8000 rpm in a small flimsy case is inherently more silent than an internal IDE drive in a metal tower case.
Memory, yes, LCD monitors and hard drives? Hell, at least not where I live.
Actually, in the recent years, IBMs hard drives weren't bleeding edge anymore, in no way. Seagate is more silent, Maxtor is bigger earlier, and Western Digital is faster. The new IBM series of hard drives is very nice, though, I was considering picking up one of them, so it's a shame to see them go.
I don't know about the PC lines or anything else, but the IBM HDs were by no means expensive. Prices were extremely competitive, I never would have gotten an IBM HD otherwise.
Tune your settings (prefs - history and cache) a bit to reduce resource useage. I've seen it work fine on computers with 32 MB RAM, way, way faster than either IE or NN, so it doesn't really need all those resources it takes, though of course they don't hurt.
Opera isn't really faster anymore than IE when you're viewing only one page at a time. If you're viewing half a dozen or more, IE really sucks while Opera is godlike. Switching between windows is virtually instant.
Oh and not to mention mouse gestures. I doubt I can ever use a browser without mouse gestures again.
As for DHTML support, yep, it sucks, but well, DHTML sucks, too. It's rarely used appropriately, much like Flash it's more of a proof of a web designers incompetence and reliance on flashy effects rather than solid content.
For every Quake3 there are a dozen Cossacks or Baldur's Gates.
There are, actually, BG mods and addons.
Yeah, that game really needs mod to prevent people playing it from falling asleep after a short while. Not that that's a problem, you don't really have to interact, your characters fight just as well on their own.
If our CO2 production was equal to the CO2 removed from the athmospehre by plants, then, yes, that could be considered natural, or rather sustainable. If we strip the athmosphere of CO2, at some point plant life will run out of air, though I guess that point is way off.
Consider it like this, chop off a tree and burn it and the CO2 you create will at some point be the "food" of another tree. Chop it down and store the CO2 away and that tree won't have any food. Oil reserves are only trees chopped down a long time ago. Still, I doubt this would be a problem for a very long time, and likely solvable.
Of course, even if this works - a healthy potion of scepticism is appropriate - it won't be an end to the whole problem. Just for instance, at flying level, the H2O the planes create (out of Kerosine and O2) is just as damaging to the athmosphere as the CO2.
They have taken 4 years to get back where they started.
LOL!
Ender's Game is really beyond praise for me. I can only commend each and everyone to read it. The sequels were nice, too, but in a totally different way.
Pay $2500 for browser-free surfing when the same or something equivalent can be realised on a PC using free or very cheap software? I'll pass.
Beware, though, check compatibility lists if the Firewire port works with your device. IIRC there were some problems with devices drawing a lot of power that actually damaged your sound card ...
Um and how is that different from what he said? Sure, "precursor" might be interpreted to mean the two are related or compatible, but if you just take the chronological of the world meaning, that's pretty alright. IIRC USB 2.0 is a wee bit faster than Firewire, so FW might be called a technical precursor as well, though I'm sure there's a Religious War fought over that.
Not for me. And at the rare occurance that it does, it takes all of 5 seconds to start it again and be right where you were, since it saves window location.
I just had breakfast there. Thought I'd give them a chance. *shrug*
The point remains, in XP you don't have to RTFM or STFW to figure out how to activate sub-pixel rendering. That's because selecting it from a drop-down-menu is comparatively intuitive, all other restrictions of Windows notwithstanding. :)
Gosh. They might treat other people unfairly, but christ, you so got the replies you deserved. The mere notion of mailing an abuse (or whatever you want to call it) mail after a pointless "fight" (in which you, quite obviously, were wrong) in IRC is so pathetic.
Dunno, I can't agree with your perception of Opera 5. It's extremely rare that I can't actually view a page because of incompatibilies - and in those rare cases, kicking up IE for once doesn't hurt either. I'm not criticising you at all - I can't follow you, however, maybe due to a different taste in websites.