High performance tires don't "wear" as much as they "age" due to heat changing their chemistry and grip. Go to any roadracing course that is used by motorcycle racers and you will find a) racers selling R compound rubber with two races on it and plenty of tread, but no grip due to heat changing the rubber and b) plenty of street squids wanting to buy it to tell their fellow squids that they have R compound tires on their bike. As long as the wannabe never pushes the tire, he never knows the difference and it wears out in a couple of months anyway (most don't, so everyone wins). Really sticky tires just don't last long, for more than one reason.
Retreads are a much bigger concern if you are on a motorcycle behind a semi. Those tires are HEAVY, and most of that weight is in the tread. 75 to 100 lbs each and up (yes, I design semis for a living... some tires weigh a lot more and the more it weighs the more likely it is to come apart). The rule of thumb, as any experienced motorcycle rider will tell you, is that if you're behind a rig and smell rubber burning you have ten seconds to get out from behind it. Wait longer than that and there's a good chance that the oil/gasoline/brake fluid leaking out of your mangled bike in the ditch are going to be doing more environmental damage than the shed tire:) Allthough at that point you probably won't care. In all fairness, it's not usually a retread issue, it's usually poor inspection and maintaince procedures and low inflation that result in all of those tire carcasses littering the interstate. If you ride on two wheels, be careful tailgateing big trucks:)
Science is funny. This researcher says that plants and minnows reacted badly to something, but she doesn't know what. Not a clue. No "chemical X did this" or "compound Y did this". Just "something bad happened". And the obligatory "more research needed". Sometimes researchers find the results they expected, and don't really look at explanations other than their own. Anyone read Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring"? A classic among enviromentalists; it was the book that got DDT banned in this country. I admit, banning DDT did the eagles a lot of good, but it wasn't research on eagles that triggered the research that led to that book. It was a sudden drop in the songbird population at the University of Wisconsin, which led to a search for man-made pesticides that could hurt birds. And she found one. However, if you read the appendix of a recent edition of that book, what killed off the songbirds at that university was a sudden population explosion of STRAY HOUSECATS! This study on tire wear runoff is at best preliminary research, and doesn't offer much if any insight into how a complex ecosystem reacts to a particular solution. Not that it's research that shouldn't be done, but it's got the smell of someone looking for a soundbite to justify grant money.
There has been research for years on using urethane tires to cut wear and rolling friction, but they have a bad habit of expanding from heat. In other words, drive at 60 mph for a few minutes and it comes off the rim. An old professor worked on this for years... although it seemed like his main dissapointment in the failure was that "it would have been really cool to make tires in whatever color you want". Scientists:)
Yes, and it gets worse as the horsepower to contact patch ratio goes less in favor of the tire. I have an older Ninja 1000, which uses relatively narrow tires, and I replace the rear one every 2000-4000 miles (depending on how often I take it to the dragstrip). Tire spin on that bike is a bitch. Just because you don't notice it doesn't mean that it isn't there to some extent. You do save some on gas with a bike, but even that doesn't happen with a big one that's being ridden hard in traffic (not abused, mind you, I've got 55,000 miles on the original motor, it doesn't burn oil, and it runs the 1/8 mile in 9 flat, bone stock with NOTHING done to it) but it only gets 20-24 mpg around town. Bottom line, if you want to get a bike (or two wheeler in general) to help the environment get a moped, a small dual sport, or a mountain bike (pedal powered). Big, fast bikes aren't all that enviro-friendly, but that's not why most people have them, even if they use that excuse on their girlfriend:)
Military hardware is actually a pretty good explanation. I've seen a couple that were tested with odd/very bright lights on them to break up the outline of the plane/helicopter. Example: I was catfishing after midnight on a military base a few years back. A very brightly lit, unidentifiable, and very quiet object dropped in over the treeline, hovered over the lake, and hit our boat with a spotlight from about a hundred yards out. It surprised the shit out of me, and I didn't know what it was. The guy I was fishing with did, but he let me wonder for about five minutes:) Turns out it was an Apache being tested with some kind of "silent rotor" technology. It didn't sound like a chopper, so you don't think of that when you see it. And all you see are the lights, which are also arranged so that it doesn't look like an Apache. Those army pilots could have caused any number of UFO sightings in area trailer parks, and maybe they did. Bottom line? UFO means "what the fuck was that?" At least in that case somebody told me.
I think it's worth compiling the kernel at least once, whether you need to or not, just to learn HOW. Of course, I'm a tinkerer and don't mind if I break it a few times on a test system. Try it. You might learn something.
Do clients with no real security but who are "debating the cost" have your e-mail address? Ever get hit by a nasty worm half an hour before the antivirus update came out? Ever have to kill the functionality of a piece of MS software to "patch" a bug, and then keep it that way for months? If you work in the industry, I would guess at least two out of those three. Or you have problems and don't know it. While I agree that I geek with a clue can keep Windows 2000 running with minimal problems, that's not the point. If you have the ability to keep MS software running with good uptime, you can obviously learn to do the same thing with Linux. Plus, you'll be less frustrated to boot (pun intended).
I've got a year and a half old box, dual Ghz PIII's and 2 gigs of ram, and a custom install (server software + KDE + a few extras) only takes fifteen minutes. Windows takes 45 min to an hour if you count all the reboots. If you tell Redhat to "install everything", for example, of course it's going to take a while. And you have a bunch of crap running that you don't need. Then again, if you're 'leet enough that you really know what all those editors are and actually need all of them, for example, it might take that long to install the OS. The cool thing about Linux is that you get lots of choices, but you don't have to INSTALL all of them!
Ok, this is the THIRD TIME I've seen this comment posted on Slashdot. It's probably been posted more often than that. It is funny, in a way, but please at least update it.
A friend of mine worked for a "dot com" sort of company a while back. They replaced machines after two or three years and PAID another company to pick them up for recycling. Of course, if employees took them before the recycler showed up they were quite happy. I wound up with quite a few of their hand-me-downs through my buddy. Did I need all of them? No. Did I use all of them? No. What I did was put them together into usable, stable machines and give them to friends who didn't have computers. Most of those boxes and laptops are still in use... yeah, they're PI and PII machines, but for most non-gamers that's plenty.
If we weren't talking about Microsoft, I'd reccomend that you take off the tinfoil hat. The cd in the mail idea is interesting, but they'd only snag AOL users anyway.
I agree... but on the other hand, what are high school councilors going to do? "No, don't become a programmer, don't become an engineer, take Burger King management classes." Policies that protect jobs have some merit. God knows it's hard to compete with what the liberal American academic institution puts out. I once met a high school graduate from Bosnia who had more Calculus in high school than I had in college, and I went through cal 4.
If you think IT is bad you should take a look at what's happening in blue-collar American manufacturing. If skills like programming are cheaper in India, what do you think happens when riveters are cheaper in Mexico? The company moves. A service industry based economy is a recipe for destruction, in my opinion.
That's true. First people are laid off, then the cost of health care gets transferred to the employees, then the core team left gets all the work. Members of that core team (that didn't bail) would feel guilty if they left and screwed their coworkers even more, so they keep looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. That's where I'm at. You know what? I'm willing to bet that the beancounters decide that "we did this with X number of people back in the bad old recession days, why do we need more?" once the economy comes back. Then they lose the core team, but they're just names on paper, right? Accountants look at salary and cost savings, not lost experience. Yeah, anyone can be replaced, but plan on them taking a year or two to get up to speed. I'm staying where I am if I can, but I give it 50/50 odds that I feel like a moron for doing so a couple of years down the road. Damn that ethics class!
Ok, my VP6 isn't leaking anything... but from now on I'm going to check it every couple of weeks while I shop for a dual Athlon board with an up-to-date AGP slot.
I had a microsoft natural elite keyboard do something similar. The keyboard was purchased with an Abit VP6 raid MB about a year ago (damn! gotta pull the cover and check for this!). I had never seen a keyboard literally smoke before. Spontaneous combustion, no spills, virtually brand new. I was typing when it did it. It got replaced with an old IBM "clicker". I don't think that'll go up in flames, at least, and the arrow key placement is better for Ksnakerace:)
I lived there for several years and I loved it. Please ignore all of the "third world", "you mean they have computers", etc. posts that are bound to pop up. Beautiful country... I want to retire there.
Yes... You should believe that... Because most people are stupid and timid and lazy and won't fight back, even if they are smart enought to realize that they are being fucked over. You place WAY too much faith in the general computing population.
A geek special interest group is an excellent idea. I'd like to see it happen, and I'm registered to vote. Since this would take more work than a/. post, however, I'd be interested to see how many people take you up on this. I'm in, anyway.
If MS hadn't announced Palladium, do you really think Intel would be working on this? Hardware needs software. Otherwise it's useless. They are building this FOR Palladium. If you disagree, please let me know what OTHER platform it's intended for at this point.
Maybe not/. ers, but how much of your software do you buy from Walmart? Or hardware, for that matter? You might be part of the elite, but if you're outnumbered and you can't get non-DRM hardware then you're fucked.
Will it break your current *nix OS? No, at least not if you trust the soundbytes coming out of Redmond these days. Will it break your next version? Maybe not, but there's a good chance that the developers will never make it, as they couldn't afford the fee. I think the concept is good, but given Microsofts track record and current fear of Linux we have a right to question their motives.
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High performance tires don't "wear" as much as they "age" due to heat changing their chemistry and grip. Go to any roadracing course that is used by motorcycle racers and you will find a) racers selling R compound rubber with two races on it and plenty of tread, but no grip due to heat changing the rubber and b) plenty of street squids wanting to buy it to tell their fellow squids that they have R compound tires on their bike. As long as the wannabe never pushes the tire, he never knows the difference and it wears out in a couple of months anyway (most don't, so everyone wins). Really sticky tires just don't last long, for more than one reason.
Retreads are a much bigger concern if you are on a motorcycle behind a semi. Those tires are HEAVY, and most of that weight is in the tread. 75 to 100 lbs each and up (yes, I design semis for a living... some tires weigh a lot more and the more it weighs the more likely it is to come apart). The rule of thumb, as any experienced motorcycle rider will tell you, is that if you're behind a rig and smell rubber burning you have ten seconds to get out from behind it. Wait longer than that and there's a good chance that the oil/gasoline/brake fluid leaking out of your mangled bike in the ditch are going to be doing more environmental damage than the shed tire :) Allthough at that point you probably won't care. In all fairness, it's not usually a retread issue, it's usually poor inspection and maintaince procedures and low inflation that result in all of those tire carcasses littering the interstate. If you ride on two wheels, be careful tailgateing big trucks :)
Science is funny. This researcher says that plants and minnows reacted badly to something, but she doesn't know what. Not a clue. No "chemical X did this" or "compound Y did this". Just "something bad happened". And the obligatory "more research needed". Sometimes researchers find the results they expected, and don't really look at explanations other than their own. Anyone read Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring"? A classic among enviromentalists; it was the book that got DDT banned in this country. I admit, banning DDT did the eagles a lot of good, but it wasn't research on eagles that triggered the research that led to that book. It was a sudden drop in the songbird population at the University of Wisconsin, which led to a search for man-made pesticides that could hurt birds. And she found one. However, if you read the appendix of a recent edition of that book, what killed off the songbirds at that university was a sudden population explosion of STRAY HOUSECATS! This study on tire wear runoff is at best preliminary research, and doesn't offer much if any insight into how a complex ecosystem reacts to a particular solution. Not that it's research that shouldn't be done, but it's got the smell of someone looking for a soundbite to justify grant money.
There has been research for years on using urethane tires to cut wear and rolling friction, but they have a bad habit of expanding from heat. In other words, drive at 60 mph for a few minutes and it comes off the rim. An old professor worked on this for years... although it seemed like his main dissapointment in the failure was that "it would have been really cool to make tires in whatever color you want". Scientists :)
Yes, and it gets worse as the horsepower to contact patch ratio goes less in favor of the tire. I have an older Ninja 1000, which uses relatively narrow tires, and I replace the rear one every 2000-4000 miles (depending on how often I take it to the dragstrip). Tire spin on that bike is a bitch. Just because you don't notice it doesn't mean that it isn't there to some extent. You do save some on gas with a bike, but even that doesn't happen with a big one that's being ridden hard in traffic (not abused, mind you, I've got 55,000 miles on the original motor, it doesn't burn oil, and it runs the 1/8 mile in 9 flat, bone stock with NOTHING done to it) but it only gets 20-24 mpg around town. Bottom line, if you want to get a bike (or two wheeler in general) to help the environment get a moped, a small dual sport, or a mountain bike (pedal powered). Big, fast bikes aren't all that enviro-friendly, but that's not why most people have them, even if they use that excuse on their girlfriend :)
Military hardware is actually a pretty good explanation. I've seen a couple that were tested with odd/very bright lights on them to break up the outline of the plane/helicopter. Example: I was catfishing after midnight on a military base a few years back. A very brightly lit, unidentifiable, and very quiet object dropped in over the treeline, hovered over the lake, and hit our boat with a spotlight from about a hundred yards out. It surprised the shit out of me, and I didn't know what it was. The guy I was fishing with did, but he let me wonder for about five minutes :) Turns out it was an Apache being tested with some kind of "silent rotor" technology. It didn't sound like a chopper, so you don't think of that when you see it. And all you see are the lights, which are also arranged so that it doesn't look like an Apache. Those army pilots could have caused any number of UFO sightings in area trailer parks, and maybe they did. Bottom line? UFO means "what the fuck was that?" At least in that case somebody told me.
I think it's worth compiling the kernel at least once, whether you need to or not, just to learn HOW. Of course, I'm a tinkerer and don't mind if I break it a few times on a test system. Try it. You might learn something.
Do clients with no real security but who are "debating the cost" have your e-mail address? Ever get hit by a nasty worm half an hour before the antivirus update came out? Ever have to kill the functionality of a piece of MS software to "patch" a bug, and then keep it that way for months? If you work in the industry, I would guess at least two out of those three. Or you have problems and don't know it. While I agree that I geek with a clue can keep Windows 2000 running with minimal problems, that's not the point. If you have the ability to keep MS software running with good uptime, you can obviously learn to do the same thing with Linux. Plus, you'll be less frustrated to boot (pun intended).
I've got a year and a half old box, dual Ghz PIII's and 2 gigs of ram, and a custom install (server software + KDE + a few extras) only takes fifteen minutes. Windows takes 45 min to an hour if you count all the reboots. If you tell Redhat to "install everything", for example, of course it's going to take a while. And you have a bunch of crap running that you don't need. Then again, if you're 'leet enough that you really know what all those editors are and actually need all of them, for example, it might take that long to install the OS. The cool thing about Linux is that you get lots of choices, but you don't have to INSTALL all of them!
Ok, this is the THIRD TIME I've seen this comment posted on Slashdot. It's probably been posted more often than that. It is funny, in a way, but please at least update it.
A friend of mine worked for a "dot com" sort of company a while back. They replaced machines after two or three years and PAID another company to pick them up for recycling. Of course, if employees took them before the recycler showed up they were quite happy. I wound up with quite a few of their hand-me-downs through my buddy. Did I need all of them? No. Did I use all of them? No. What I did was put them together into usable, stable machines and give them to friends who didn't have computers. Most of those boxes and laptops are still in use... yeah, they're PI and PII machines, but for most non-gamers that's plenty.
If we weren't talking about Microsoft, I'd reccomend that you take off the tinfoil hat. The cd in the mail idea is interesting, but they'd only snag AOL users anyway.
I agree... but on the other hand, what are high school councilors going to do? "No, don't become a programmer, don't become an engineer, take Burger King management classes." Policies that protect jobs have some merit. God knows it's hard to compete with what the liberal American academic institution puts out. I once met a high school graduate from Bosnia who had more Calculus in high school than I had in college, and I went through cal 4.
If you think IT is bad you should take a look at what's happening in blue-collar American manufacturing. If skills like programming are cheaper in India, what do you think happens when riveters are cheaper in Mexico? The company moves. A service industry based economy is a recipe for destruction, in my opinion.
That's true. First people are laid off, then the cost of health care gets transferred to the employees, then the core team left gets all the work. Members of that core team (that didn't bail) would feel guilty if they left and screwed their coworkers even more, so they keep looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. That's where I'm at. You know what? I'm willing to bet that the beancounters decide that "we did this with X number of people back in the bad old recession days, why do we need more?" once the economy comes back. Then they lose the core team, but they're just names on paper, right? Accountants look at salary and cost savings, not lost experience. Yeah, anyone can be replaced, but plan on them taking a year or two to get up to speed. I'm staying where I am if I can, but I give it 50/50 odds that I feel like a moron for doing so a couple of years down the road. Damn that ethics class!
Ok, my VP6 isn't leaking anything... but from now on I'm going to check it every couple of weeks while I shop for a dual Athlon board with an up-to-date AGP slot.
I had a microsoft natural elite keyboard do something similar. The keyboard was purchased with an Abit VP6 raid MB about a year ago (damn! gotta pull the cover and check for this!). I had never seen a keyboard literally smoke before. Spontaneous combustion, no spills, virtually brand new. I was typing when it did it. It got replaced with an old IBM "clicker". I don't think that'll go up in flames, at least, and the arrow key placement is better for Ksnakerace :)
I lived there for several years and I loved it. Please ignore all of the "third world", "you mean they have computers", etc. posts that are bound to pop up. Beautiful country... I want to retire there.
Yes... You should believe that... Because most people are stupid and timid and lazy and won't fight back, even if they are smart enought to realize that they are being fucked over. You place WAY too much faith in the general computing population.
A geek special interest group is an excellent idea. I'd like to see it happen, and I'm registered to vote. Since this would take more work than a /. post, however, I'd be interested to see how many people take you up on this. I'm in, anyway.
If MS hadn't announced Palladium, do you really think Intel would be working on this? Hardware needs software. Otherwise it's useless. They are building this FOR Palladium. If you disagree, please let me know what OTHER platform it's intended for at this point.
Maybe not /. ers, but how much of your software do you buy from Walmart? Or hardware, for that matter? You might be part of the elite, but if you're outnumbered and you can't get non-DRM hardware then you're fucked.
No, call your congresscritter and let them know what Bill G is up to... assuming they care, but at least it's proactive.
Will it break your current *nix OS? No, at least not if you trust the soundbytes coming out of Redmond these days. Will it break your next version? Maybe not, but there's a good chance that the developers will never make it, as they couldn't afford the fee. I think the concept is good, but given Microsofts track record and current fear of Linux we have a right to question their motives.
They'll sell it in the U.S.