Microsoft - believe it or not - had massive usability testing programs long before OS X came out, as did many other pieces of software.
One of those pieces was the original Mac OS. Remember 1984? Apple's been doing this for longer than just about everyone.
It's not innovation.
Apple was the first to create a version of Unix that was acceptable to Joe Average. That may have been 'just an optimization' but it's a significant achievement nonetheless, and goes way deeper than eye candy.
I'm not saying OS X is perfect, but dismissing it as eye candy does not do it justice.
The claim probably comes from this incident: (quote) A simulation of Colossus which Sale ran on a top-of-the-range Pentium PC took twice as long as the real thing.
or this: If you wanted to program a modern computer to do what Colossus does, you'd need a 2GHz Pentium to match it.
Don't forget Colossus was massively parallel: At 5,000 cps the interval between sprocket holes is 200 microsecs. In this time Colossus will do up to 100 Boolean calculations simultaneously on each of the five tape channels and across a five character matrix.
Keep quiet? Nah, the short range of the Lightning is legendary. That's more due to its lack of internal fuel tankage than because its engines were unusually thirsty. The fact remains that the P1, and IIRC at least some production Lightnings (F.2A?) could reach Mach 1+ without afterburners.
Well, the huge price difference between LPG and petrol in the Netherlands is mainly due to LPG being almost untaxed, unlike petrol. Not quite a subsidy, but definitely a tax break. The price of LPG is balanced with road taxes, with the result that running an LPG vehicle is cheaper than petrol if you drive more than about 15,000 km/yr.
Sure, the money still goes somewhere, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not accomplishing as much as it could. Using your logic, it's okay for pork barrel contracts to exist; I'd rather see that money being applied to where it'll do some good beyond providing people with a living.
Uh, the F-22 is the first aircraft to intentionally be designed for supercruise...the Concorde was an accident.
I find that hard to believe. In the EE P.1, this ability might have been accidental, but by the time Concorde was designed, the physics involved were understood well enough that it was possible to design for supercruise. Had Concorde been unable to supercruise, its range would have been halved (4 hours at Mach 2 instead of 8). Likewise, Concorde's Mach 2.04 cruise speed was no accident: at that speed, you've got a 'sweet spot' in the speed/power required curve.
Evaporation has nothing to do with this. The L in LPG means Liquid. It's stored as a liquid, and in newer systems, it's injected into the cylinders as a liquid as well (LPi). One litre of LPG weighs about 0,5 kg. Its energy density is a bit lower than that of petrol.
LPG is attractive for two reasons: 1. It is a waste product from refining oil. You basically get it for free. 2. It's a mix of butane and propane, with very few impurities. This means it burns cleanly.
It's somewhere between 10 and 20 %. IDK where you got the 50 % figure, but it's way off. In the Netherlands, I currently pay E 0,50/l for LPG, versus E 1 for diesel and E 1,50 for petrol. (Yes, my car runs on LPG)
That's because it used an afterburner to fly through the atmosphere like a fighter jet.
Actually, it didn't. The afterburners were only used on takeoff, and during the accelleration from Mach 1 to about 1.7. For the second part, afterburning wasn't strictly necessary, but turned out to be more efficient than accelleration on dry thrust. Can't find good data on required runway length, but Concorde typically took off at 400 km/h, which is rather high. Accelleration from dry thrust may not have been enough to achieve 400 km/h on a typical runway.
IOW, people who refer to the F-22's supercruise ability as something new or unique, are wrong. Concorde could do this. (So could the English Electric P.1, prototype for the EE Lightning, by the way).
Here's one area where capitalism shoots itself in the foot: by not sharing new information, everyone has to reinvent the wheel, wasting massive amounts of money. The scientific ideal of sharing all new discoveries would make innovation much more efficient.
FTA: it was quite a longlasting format The format, maybe, but the tapes, certainly not. The endless (looped) tape was a Bad Idea, and the cartridge design was crap so they'd jam all the time. Good riddance.
Overzealous spam filters. I've recently tried to send PDF and JPG files to some people, and failed. The recipients' ISP's filters blackholed either the attachments or the entire message. Nuts! Another intended recipient has a local spam filter that somehow checks the messages while still on the POP server. This takes bloody ages, causing the transfer to time out. Lather, rinse, repeat. As a result, he has to use a webmail client to receive large messages. And then there's Outlook's inability to receive executables. Yes, I know viruses blah blah blah, but there are times when I've a legitimate reason to send someone an.exe. Being able to tell Outlook "yes, I know what's at stake, show me the damn attachment anyway" would help.
...ended up installing Suse, which was ok, but not suitable to my needs.
And how would this map be useful in deciding which are? It only tells you which Linux distros exist, and how they relate. Apart from a few notes on special-purpose/language versions, it tells you nothing about the functionality and philosophy of a distribution.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft - believe it or not - had massive usability testing programs long before OS X came out, as did many other pieces of software.
One of those pieces was the original Mac OS. Remember 1984? Apple's been doing this for longer than just about everyone.
It's not innovation.
Apple was the first to create a version of Unix that was acceptable to Joe Average. That may have been 'just an optimization' but it's a significant achievement nonetheless, and goes way deeper than eye candy.
I'm not saying OS X is perfect, but dismissing it as eye candy does not do it justice.
Its primary innovation was a focus on eyecandy.
You misspelled usability.
a Nintendog item that blocks your view of the playfield by jumping up on the screen and demanding to be petted
So, a fierce dog bars the way, then?
"Santa Claus is coming to town" was really about the NSA?
He sees you when you're sleeping.
He knows when you're awake.
He knows if you've been bad or good,
Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?
I think so, Brain, but where are we going to find a hundred thousand mice, transport to Wake Forest and a nuclear bomb at this time of night?
Duh. The footprints in the butter are a dead giveaway.
The claim probably comes from this incident:
(quote)
A simulation of Colossus which Sale ran on a top-of-the-range Pentium PC took twice as long as the real thing.
or this:
If you wanted to program a modern computer to do what Colossus does, you'd need a 2GHz Pentium to match it.
Don't forget Colossus was massively parallel:
At 5,000 cps the interval between sprocket holes is 200 microsecs. In this time Colossus will do up to 100 Boolean calculations simultaneously on each of the five tape channels and across a five character matrix.
That's where one of these comes in handy.
Keep quiet? Nah, the short range of the Lightning is legendary. That's more due to its lack of internal fuel tankage than because its engines were unusually thirsty.
The fact remains that the P1, and IIRC at least some production Lightnings (F.2A?) could reach Mach 1+ without afterburners.
Well, the huge price difference between LPG and petrol in the Netherlands is mainly due to LPG being almost untaxed, unlike petrol. Not quite a subsidy, but definitely a tax break. The price of LPG is balanced with road taxes, with the result that running an LPG vehicle is cheaper than petrol if you drive more than about 15,000 km/yr.
Sure, the money still goes somewhere, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not accomplishing as much as it could. Using your logic, it's okay for pork barrel contracts to exist; I'd rather see that money being applied to where it'll do some good beyond providing people with a living.
Wikipedia disagrees
Uh, the F-22 is the first aircraft to intentionally be designed for supercruise...the Concorde was an accident.
I find that hard to believe. In the EE P.1, this ability might have been accidental, but by the time Concorde was designed, the physics involved were understood well enough that it was possible to design for supercruise.
Had Concorde been unable to supercruise, its range would have been halved (4 hours at Mach 2 instead of 8).
Likewise, Concorde's Mach 2.04 cruise speed was no accident: at that speed, you've got a 'sweet spot' in the speed/power required curve.
Evaporation has nothing to do with this. The L in LPG means Liquid. It's stored as a liquid, and in newer systems, it's injected into the cylinders as a liquid as well (LPi).
One litre of LPG weighs about 0,5 kg. Its energy density is a bit lower than that of petrol.
LPG is attractive for two reasons:
1. It is a waste product from refining oil. You basically get it for free.
2. It's a mix of butane and propane, with very few impurities. This means it burns cleanly.
It's somewhere between 10 and 20 %. IDK where you got the 50 % figure, but it's way off.
In the Netherlands, I currently pay E 0,50/l for LPG, versus E 1 for diesel and E 1,50 for petrol.
(Yes, my car runs on LPG)
That's because it used an afterburner to fly through the atmosphere like a fighter jet.
Actually, it didn't. The afterburners were only used on takeoff, and during the accelleration from Mach 1 to about 1.7. For the second part, afterburning wasn't strictly necessary, but turned out to be more efficient than accelleration on dry thrust.
Can't find good data on required runway length, but Concorde typically took off at 400 km/h, which is rather high. Accelleration from dry thrust may not have been enough to achieve 400 km/h on a typical runway.
IOW, people who refer to the F-22's supercruise ability as something new or unique, are wrong. Concorde could do this. (So could the English Electric P.1, prototype for the EE Lightning, by the way).
Here's one area where capitalism shoots itself in the foot: by not sharing new information, everyone has to reinvent the wheel, wasting massive amounts of money. The scientific ideal of sharing all new discoveries would make innovation much more efficient.
FTA: it was quite a longlasting format
The format, maybe, but the tapes, certainly not. The endless (looped) tape was a Bad Idea, and the cartridge design was crap so they'd jam all the time. Good riddance.
a couple of weeks (hours?) ago
demonstrating another 24 breakthrough: time dilation. The show's episodes last for an hour, but it seems like weeks...
Overzealous spam filters. I've recently tried to send PDF and JPG files to some people, and failed. The recipients' ISP's filters blackholed either the attachments or the entire message. Nuts! .exe. Being able to tell Outlook "yes, I know what's at stake, show me the damn attachment anyway" would help.
Another intended recipient has a local spam filter that somehow checks the messages while still on the POP server. This takes bloody ages, causing the transfer to time out. Lather, rinse, repeat. As a result, he has to use a webmail client to receive large messages.
And then there's Outlook's inability to receive executables. Yes, I know viruses blah blah blah, but there are times when I've a legitimate reason to send someone an
The advantage is that our infrastructure is more geared towards humans on legs than on wheels (e.g. stairs).
...ended up installing Suse, which was ok, but not suitable to my needs.
And how would this map be useful in deciding which are? It only tells you which Linux distros exist, and how they relate. Apart from a few notes on special-purpose/language versions, it tells you nothing about the functionality and philosophy of a distribution.
waffle iron
So that's why I can never read those bloody faxes...
What's this about, then?
Add a monomolecular backing, and even the sides of the tape will be useful/lethal...