Does anyone know of a site that does a "shootout" of different brands? Google wasn't much help for me. I've used CFLs in lamps and secondary locations for years, and noticed that quality varies a lot. It would be nice to have some research available so I don't have to waste money and time buying poor quality units.
Smoking a joint in the US set you up for blackmail?
For people with high-level security clearances, yes, any skeletons in your closet can be used by foreign powers to blackmail you into cooperation. Something along the lines of "if you provide us with these documents, we will pay you money, and as a bonus, we will burn these photos of you smoking crack with a prostitute." It really doesn't matter what the infraction is; if you can be harmed/embarrassed by it, you can be blackmailed to keep it secret.
I understand your point, but don't discount the difficulty of writing the games of yesteryear. With those early systems (Atari 2600), you had to output your graphics by twiddling bits during each raster scan line, no mode19h bitmapped memory, no DirectX buffers, and definitely no glBegin(); glAddTriangle() type calls. No function calls at all, just pushing bytes with assembly (if you're lucky) around. And do it in 1K or less of memory.
Games of today are much more complex, but the 'Invention of invention' was made decades ago, so we expect a lot more out of the industry today. Barnes & Noble or Amazon have shelves of books explaining how to write 2D/3D/board games, which is a huge benefit over the 'old days'. Pre-1990 you almost had to grow up in Silicon Valley so your dad could show you why you use "poke 3e, ff" to clear the screen on your Apple II. Now you can buy books showing you how to build your logic loop, collision detection, etc. And that's for the 'hardcore' coders who want to know the mechanics. Everyone else can just download/buy a game engine and make function calls.
Remember that the US provides almost $2B USD in aid to Egypt each year, almost as much as Israel, but I suspect Egypt has a much higher population than Israel. Also, Jordan receives about $500M USD per year. The numbers are in the congressional report here (PDF). Although, I imagine Isreal receives much more private foreign aid than what the federal US Govt provides.
The melting point of steel is at one point, but there is a gradient of structural strength that starts weakening far below the point at which it turns to liquid, and it is not a linear function. It's like a chocolate bar, but at (much) higher temperatures.
Couldn't most of the issues involved in e-voting be solved by producing the voter with a paper 'receipt' as proof of their vote (as well as a corresponding receipt for their precinct)?
What if the code in the machine prints the value you entered, but saves another value to the storage device? Either by malice or poor coding, it's the same result. The paper means nothing; it's the bits on the storage unit that matter, and very few people can truly verify that the two match. If you trust the paper receipt, then what's the point of e-voting, other than spending billions of dollars that could have been saved by using markers and paper ballots (the "connect the arrow" system is the best I've used). I'd rather put those tax dollars to better use.
I think it is more important that we, the voters, understand the concepts behind our voting procedures than it is to complicate it with opaque machinery with no visible benefit. The paper-ballot-counting machines can be complicated and opaque, but they are not required. Almost any citizen would be capable of counting a precinct's ballots by hand. What would they do if you handed them an SD card?
We use the same system here, and it is the best system I have used. Very cheap, too: some paper ballots and markers. No multi-thousand-dollar touchscreens required. Most importantly, IMO, everyone understands how it works, especially the precinct volunteers, who are generally older volunteers. If the counting machine fails, all the ballots could be recounted by hand as many times as required, and pretty much any citizen would be capable of stepping up to do so.
The touchscreens are understood by a very few people (techies), and even we don't have the source, so we're helpless, too. There is no way to recount if the machine fails, and there is no way to ensure that the vote I just registered is the actual value that is stored in memory. The so-called paper slip "receipt" is a joke. How hard is it to:
fprintf(file, $RIGGED_VOTE);
fprintf(printer, $YOUR_VOTE); So you have a paper slip that says you voted for your candidate, but it was stored as somebody else. A black mark with a marker is pretty hard to mistake. Sure, the counting machine could be rigged, but if there is ever suspicion, the original paper ballots can be recounted with a trusted system or person. There is no way to recount an electronic file; if it was written incorrectly, it will always be incorrect.
Traffic button doesn't work on FF2, neither do any of the other buttons. Didn't check FF1.5, probably not there, either. It's just a a-href link, or at least a JScript onclick(), so no excuses code-wise. My current project uses these all over the place and all links work on IE5/6/7, FF, Safari, Konq, etc. I'm sure the devs were told by the Windows group to hobble non-IE browsers with some if/then code. Snore, back to google maps, which works. Thanks for the link, though. I keep trying those guys periodically, but looks like they are still evil (tm).
Absolutely I agree with you, and yes, you lucked out, although I had no problem giving in to the Man. It's only money, after all, and if she's happy, I'm happy. My wife is really sensible with money, e.g. "going out to eat" for her is a trip to Subway, unless it's a really special occasion. But even with sensible women like her, the princess image is strong, so I encouraged her to have the day her way. Diamond shopping is really crazy, the price differential for similar product can range over 100%, and the mall places are usually total ripoffs. Luckily there was a FAQ on the Net that I used to get educated, and it saved me a lot of money in relative terms. See my posting above regarding what kind of rings I would buy if it were up to me.
Guys should be careful when going non-traditional, because most/many women will go along with it and convince themselves it's their idea too, when it's really the guy's idea, and he doesn't realize the hole he is digging for himself.:)
I completely agree with you. In fact, in my male geek/engineering mind, a flashy non-diamond aluminum ring is lighter, more durable, and fulfills the symbolic purpose for five bucks. My point was that WE (geek males, males in general) really don't care about such things, but most women do care. Even worse, most women realize it's all a racket and will cave in and go non-traditional if you convince them, but secretly feel disappointed that they didn't get "their day". Put it this way: imagine if a non-techie relative purchases you a console game. What are the odds that it would be in any way useful to you? They don't understand your world enough to even realize that "A Bug's Life: the arcade game" sucks (which is why it's half the price of, say, Gran Turismo) and they should just stick to buying sweaters.
Trying to superimpose male sensibility onto a wedding reminds me of the SNL skit (Will Farrell) in which they were going to have a KISS wedding with all sorts of cheesy themes. The woman really didn't want any of it, but sort of went along until it all blew up in the end.
No matter how they spin it, a manufactured diamond is doomed to be a cheap copy of the "real", natural diamond, a step above cubic zirconia. Physical properties/quality/engineering has nothing to do with it, it's all perception. My original post was a warning to just spend the extra money to get what the lady wants, rather than projecting your own sensibilities onto it and buying "A Bug's Life" because it's half the price of "Gran Turismo" (referring back to the earlier analogy).
Young man standing at a counter buying an engagement ring. To his left, a.6 carat "real" diamond for $1200. To his right, a.75 carat artificial for $600. He could save himself half a grand now for the artificial, but if SHE EVER FINDS OUT he "scrimped" and bought her a "fake" (think: cubic zirconia) diamond, he'll never hear the end of it. Even the most sensible woman will still feel betrayed, because she showed this ring to all her girlfriends and now feels like an idiot.
That's why De Beers is not worried. Diamonds are pretty much useless rocks as it is, men all know this, but we are not the intended customer. The natural diamond is integrated completely with the princess wedding image that girls dream about all their childhood (remember them flipping throught Brides magazine in high school?). If you're a man and you're smart, you won't try to "fight the system" and will just fork over the dough and get past the wedding. Let some other soon-to-be-single guy "make a stand" and have a simple, affordable honeymoon after giving an artificial ring at the signing ceremony at the Justice of the Peace.
You fight the fights need fighting; this is not one of them, IMHO.
Didn't that used to be called "Silo" application, meaning it had its own data formats, build tools, language, etc, and sharing data with other apps was like pulling teeth? So instead of using capability from the system down the hall we'll just rewrite the parts we need in our own app.
The main story on that page is the primary reason I have largely "tuned out" journalism/news over the past couple of years. I had to read between the lines to (a) figure out the bias of the writer, then (b) apply the anti-bias filter and re-read the article multiple times to get the real story.
If I only read the opening paragraph(s), the reader would think the story would be "Bush administration imprisoned a journalist after implicating the administration". After reading below, we learn that the journalists publicly revealed the identity of a CIA agent, probably not only an act of Treason but an act that would should be highly unethical in the community. We also learn that Bush did not have this person imprisoned, but a legal, court-ordered supoeana was issued for the defendents' sources in the case. I thought even patient-client priviliges for doctors and lawyers could be overridden by a legal search warrant.
It appears that most of the cases on the sidebar are in a similar vein; journalists have information that the prosecution needs, the prosecution gets a supoeana for that information, journalists refuses and is held in contempt. I'm just not seeing the logical jump to freedom of the press with these cases? Does that mean if I majored in Communications or Journalism instead of Computer Science I could deny a legally-issued search warrant for items on my computer?
I'm really trying to see the logic, but to me, "no freedom of the press" would imply what the GP listed: no trial/mock trial when speaking out against the government, jack-booted thugs kicking in doors and whisking away families in the middle of the night, (e.g. The Night of Long Knives) etc.
Freedom not to reveal (or be pressured to reveal) their sources, in case the whistle-blower can lose life and limb because he spoke to a journalist.
Freedom of speech, just because saying 'Fush Buck' should not be cause enough to be sent to prison.
Freedom not to be bothered, investigated, spied upon, kicked or threatened by goons, just because they chose to exert their rights not to reveal their sources or their freedom of speech.
Have these things been happening to US journalists? If they have not, and neither have journalists in the other high-ranking nations, then how is this ranking conducted? Isn't that like ranking all the students who made 100% on their tests?
For mortal users (most of us), the benefit is an instant CPU performance boost of around 20-30% at least on Athlon 64 units when using the 64-bit instruction set vs the 32-bit instruction set. I have a dual-core AMD64 now, but I'm running everything 32-bit as the performance is more than acceptable. However, in a couple of years I will upgrade everything to 64-bit once all these glitches are solved and I should get a free upgrade in speed.
This PCStats article has some benchmarks on the topic. Anandtech had some too, but I couldn't find them immediately.
I disagree. They only have occassional "fawning tech-toys" articles once in a while, unlike almost all computer magazines, as well as Popular Science. They do have a "what's new" listing each month which is useful for those of use who are interested in such, and if one waits, most of those items which are useful will be reviewed in depth at some point in the future.
Consume this new scooter! The television of the future! Petrochemicals will produce better farming! 9-11 is not a conspiracy! Look what tomorrows SuperCops can do today!
Um, so the Segway or Razor is not worth reporting on? Are you saying it's wrong to purchase one of these, or to want to purchase one of these? Are you saying that I should just trust the box at Wal-mart instead of having a fairly neutral reviewer advise me on his/her findings? I don't understand your point.
The television of the future? I can only assume you're referring to HDTV. The same HDTV that supposedly will replace current NTSC television, a 50+ year engineering standard? Why the heck would this not be featured by an engineering/technology magazine?
Petrochemicals DO produce better crops, and have done so since the early 1900's when Harbor/Bosch (sp?) and other German chemists discovered how to make affordable synthetic fertilizers. These fertilizers allow billions of people to eat. There are of course many downsides to using these, but if we return to using dead fish and manure only for fertilizer, prepare to pay much more than a dollar or two for a loaf of bread.
PM's extended article refuting the 9-11 conspiracy freaks should have been done many times over by CNN, Fox, BBC, etc. It was an excellent article that unlike the nutjob web sites had solid research, INCLUDED FULL NAMES, and for crying out loud didn't use cheezy music and propaganda videos.
The SuperCops article got torn apart by the readers who wrote in. To PMs continual credit, they are not afraid to publish letters that do so.
I don't read Scientific American, so I can't speak to that point. I am an engineer who tries not to waste money on useless tech toys and USB gadgets, but I do like to read about a broad range of engineering topics in a compact format, and PM fufills that, or at least will inform me enough so I can further research a topic. They also include lots of 'guy' things like cars reviews/specs, home repair, and Jay Leno features. I'm sure they would like to return to their roots and include plans on how to build a camper trailer, but very few people have the skills, tools, space, or desire to build those projects, so they instead feature buildable wooden items like sheds that can still be peformed fairly quickly.
I'm tired of having to mentally adjust for the bias of each news source. During big events, I have to keep flipping between CNN (the sky is falling) and Fox (resistance is futile) and mentally figure out the real truth in the gradient between the two sources. Why are we paying these people? Is it that hard to at least *try* to be impartial? I don't mind if the journalists have their own opinions, and in the proper context (editorials) I want them to express them, but IT'S YOUR JOB, TELL THE NEWS AS IT HAPPENS, NOT HOW YOU FEEL.
Americans are stupid, ignorant jackasses......the same fucknuts who were duped into electing Bush twice......Not intended as a troll or a flame...
Hopefully you see the fallacy in these statements.
Jesus, Canada is looking better and better by the day. If your above comments represent how you truly how you feel about 300 million of your countrymen (I am assuming you are currently living in the US), then perhaps you are correct that moving to Canada would be a solution, although I imagine any location's citizens would eventually disappoint you. Before you change your citizenship, however, it might behoove you to get out of the house, change jobs/cities if you have to, turn off CNN/Fox/Al Jazeera, and find some others with which to surround yourself, because there are millions and millions of educated, enlightened, culturally diverse, and philanthropic Americans all around you.
How can anyone have an opinion on something if they don't know what it is?
Well, most people probably assume they are being sold something, so if you don't know what something is, the safest answer to 'do you want $FOO' is No.
I would dearly love to be able get a single passenger car that has three wheels, a gasoline powered engine, decent performance, truck-like suspension, comfortable interior (I'm tall), and doesn't look silly. Odd looking, I can deal with, silly looking is out. Having three wheels instead of four has advantages in many localities.
LOL, check out Popular Mechanics recently, Jay Leno received a hand-built three wheeler (tail dragger) that an old doit-yourselfer built about 60 years ago and drove it for decades. The article hasn't made it to their web archives yet, but it's a good read. Compared those those old guys, I feel pretty helpless when it comes to building 'real' stuff (as opposed to configuring switches aka software development).
Good points all, and just to add to the mix, there are plenty of 'big cars' in the US that get surpisingly good fuel economy. My parents have a Buick LeSabre that is a 'big Detroit car' with a 3.8L V6, and 30mpg on the highway is normal to them, which is not much less than a 4cyl Honda Accord (~34mpg). Granted, in mixed city/highway the 4cyl will average more like 29 while the larger car will dip down to about 22mpg, but all in all, non-performance cars in the US all get at around 30mpg or greater with no performance or comfort penalties. You're right, the really high-end fuel-efficient cars are not available in the US, probably because nobody in their right mind would drive a Smart car out on the Interstate, and the number of New Yorkers who would purchase one is probably too limited to make up a true market. I would love to have something like the Accord Diesel that gets greater than 50mpg, but apparently the EU diesel required to run that car exceeds US sulfur standards, a condition which has all sort of irony in it.
The real problem with efficiency, though, is the SUV truck. The traditional pickup truck was generally the second car driven by the man to get to/from work and for light duty on the weekends, so 14/20mpg wasn't a big deal when the family car was the primary people mover. Now the SUV is a primary people mover, but they get about the same mileage as a mid-80's pickup truck. Without legislation, I don't see gas prices limiting that until they get well in advance of $5/gal.
The best bang-for-the buck way to increase average efficiency is to get people back into normal 4-door automobiles. No wierd small cars, no hybrids, just moderation.
Why should I be forced to base my retirement on social security when I can gamble in the stock market instead?
I get the joke, and I have to laugh, because if not I'll think of the 7% FICA tax I've spent over the years plus the 7% my employers have been matching to FICA, and cry. (FICA is the social security fund, I forget what it stands for) I can't imagine how good retirement would be if I could put 14% in a mattress, much less put it in investments much safer than the stock market. My last Social Security statement estimated my benefits would be around $1200/month, which means I better have my house paid off and buy an old car so I can afford to keep the lights on. What a ripoff, considering the additional 12% I'm having to also put into my 401k to be able to *really* retire will pay out much more than that. I'm pretty sure a safety net for the poor and unfortunate --which we should provide-- cannot possibly cost this much. (sigh)
Slashdot Mirror
Does anyone know of a site that does a "shootout" of different brands? Google wasn't much help for me. I've used CFLs in lamps and secondary locations for years, and noticed that quality varies a lot. It would be nice to have some research available so I don't have to waste money and time buying poor quality units.
Smoking a joint in the US set you up for blackmail?
For people with high-level security clearances, yes, any skeletons in your closet can be used by foreign powers to blackmail you into cooperation. Something along the lines of "if you provide us with these documents, we will pay you money, and as a bonus, we will burn these photos of you smoking crack with a prostitute." It really doesn't matter what the infraction is; if you can be harmed/embarrassed by it, you can be blackmailed to keep it secret.
For 3 and 4, sounds like Webmin would be good option for you, if the built-in distro tools (RH, SuSe, etc) don't cut it for you.
I understand your point, but don't discount the difficulty of writing the games of yesteryear. With those early systems (Atari 2600), you had to output your graphics by twiddling bits during each raster scan line, no mode19h bitmapped memory, no DirectX buffers, and definitely no glBegin(); glAddTriangle() type calls. No function calls at all, just pushing bytes with assembly (if you're lucky) around. And do it in 1K or less of memory.
Games of today are much more complex, but the 'Invention of invention' was made decades ago, so we expect a lot more out of the industry today. Barnes & Noble or Amazon have shelves of books explaining how to write 2D/3D/board games, which is a huge benefit over the 'old days'. Pre-1990 you almost had to grow up in Silicon Valley so your dad could show you why you use "poke 3e, ff" to clear the screen on your Apple II. Now you can buy books showing you how to build your logic loop, collision detection, etc. And that's for the 'hardcore' coders who want to know the mechanics. Everyone else can just download/buy a game engine and make function calls.
Remember that the US provides almost $2B USD in aid to Egypt each year, almost as much as Israel, but I suspect Egypt has a much higher population than Israel. Also, Jordan receives about $500M USD per year. The numbers are in the congressional report here (PDF). Although, I imagine Isreal receives much more private foreign aid than what the federal US Govt provides.
The melting point of steel is at one point, but there is a gradient of structural strength that starts weakening far below the point at which it turns to liquid, and it is not a linear function. It's like a chocolate bar, but at (much) higher temperatures.
Couldn't most of the issues involved in e-voting be solved by producing the voter with a paper 'receipt' as proof of their vote (as well as a corresponding receipt for their precinct)?
What if the code in the machine prints the value you entered, but saves another value to the storage device? Either by malice or poor coding, it's the same result. The paper means nothing; it's the bits on the storage unit that matter, and very few people can truly verify that the two match. If you trust the paper receipt, then what's the point of e-voting, other than spending billions of dollars that could have been saved by using markers and paper ballots (the "connect the arrow" system is the best I've used). I'd rather put those tax dollars to better use.
I think it is more important that we, the voters, understand the concepts behind our voting procedures than it is to complicate it with opaque machinery with no visible benefit. The paper-ballot-counting machines can be complicated and opaque, but they are not required. Almost any citizen would be capable of counting a precinct's ballots by hand. What would they do if you handed them an SD card?
Meh, who cares, it's the beer one that really matters...
We use the same system here, and it is the best system I have used. Very cheap, too: some paper ballots and markers. No multi-thousand-dollar touchscreens required. Most importantly, IMO, everyone understands how it works, especially the precinct volunteers, who are generally older volunteers. If the counting machine fails, all the ballots could be recounted by hand as many times as required, and pretty much any citizen would be capable of stepping up to do so.
The touchscreens are understood by a very few people (techies), and even we don't have the source, so we're helpless, too. There is no way to recount if the machine fails, and there is no way to ensure that the vote I just registered is the actual value that is stored in memory. The so-called paper slip "receipt" is a joke. How hard is it to:
fprintf(file, $RIGGED_VOTE);
fprintf(printer, $YOUR_VOTE);
So you have a paper slip that says you voted for your candidate, but it was stored as somebody else. A black mark with a marker is pretty hard to mistake. Sure, the counting machine could be rigged, but if there is ever suspicion, the original paper ballots can be recounted with a trusted system or person. There is no way to recount an electronic file; if it was written incorrectly, it will always be incorrect.
Traffic button doesn't work on FF2, neither do any of the other buttons. Didn't check FF1.5, probably not there, either. It's just a a-href link, or at least a JScript onclick(), so no excuses code-wise. My current project uses these all over the place and all links work on IE5/6/7, FF, Safari, Konq, etc. I'm sure the devs were told by the Windows group to hobble non-IE browsers with some if/then code. Snore, back to google maps, which works. Thanks for the link, though. I keep trying those guys periodically, but looks like they are still evil (tm).
Absolutely I agree with you, and yes, you lucked out, although I had no problem giving in to the Man. It's only money, after all, and if she's happy, I'm happy. My wife is really sensible with money, e.g. "going out to eat" for her is a trip to Subway, unless it's a really special occasion. But even with sensible women like her, the princess image is strong, so I encouraged her to have the day her way. Diamond shopping is really crazy, the price differential for similar product can range over 100%, and the mall places are usually total ripoffs. Luckily there was a FAQ on the Net that I used to get educated, and it saved me a lot of money in relative terms. See my posting above regarding what kind of rings I would buy if it were up to me.
:)
Guys should be careful when going non-traditional, because most/many women will go along with it and convince themselves it's their idea too, when it's really the guy's idea, and he doesn't realize the hole he is digging for himself.
I completely agree with you. In fact, in my male geek/engineering mind, a flashy non-diamond aluminum ring is lighter, more durable, and fulfills the symbolic purpose for five bucks. My point was that WE (geek males, males in general) really don't care about such things, but most women do care. Even worse, most women realize it's all a racket and will cave in and go non-traditional if you convince them, but secretly feel disappointed that they didn't get "their day". Put it this way: imagine if a non-techie relative purchases you a console game. What are the odds that it would be in any way useful to you? They don't understand your world enough to even realize that "A Bug's Life: the arcade game" sucks (which is why it's half the price of, say, Gran Turismo) and they should just stick to buying sweaters.
Trying to superimpose male sensibility onto a wedding reminds me of the SNL skit (Will Farrell) in which they were going to have a KISS wedding with all sorts of cheesy themes. The woman really didn't want any of it, but sort of went along until it all blew up in the end.
No matter how they spin it, a manufactured diamond is doomed to be a cheap copy of the "real", natural diamond, a step above cubic zirconia. Physical properties/quality/engineering has nothing to do with it, it's all perception. My original post was a warning to just spend the extra money to get what the lady wants, rather than projecting your own sensibilities onto it and buying "A Bug's Life" because it's half the price of "Gran Turismo" (referring back to the earlier analogy).
De Beers is terrified
.6 carat "real" diamond for $1200. To his right, a .75 carat artificial for $600. He could save himself half a grand now for the artificial, but if SHE EVER FINDS OUT he "scrimped" and bought her a "fake" (think: cubic zirconia) diamond, he'll never hear the end of it. Even the most sensible woman will still feel betrayed, because she showed this ring to all her girlfriends and now feels like an idiot.
Young man standing at a counter buying an engagement ring. To his left, a
That's why De Beers is not worried. Diamonds are pretty much useless rocks as it is, men all know this, but we are not the intended customer. The natural diamond is integrated completely with the princess wedding image that girls dream about all their childhood (remember them flipping throught Brides magazine in high school?). If you're a man and you're smart, you won't try to "fight the system" and will just fork over the dough and get past the wedding. Let some other soon-to-be-single guy "make a stand" and have a simple, affordable honeymoon after giving an artificial ring at the signing ceremony at the Justice of the Peace.
You fight the fights need fighting; this is not one of them, IMHO.
Didn't that used to be called "Silo" application, meaning it had its own data formats, build tools, language, etc, and sharing data with other apps was like pulling teeth? So instead of using capability from the system down the hall we'll just rewrite the parts we need in our own app.
The main story on that page is the primary reason I have largely "tuned out" journalism/news over the past couple of years. I had to read between the lines to (a) figure out the bias of the writer, then (b) apply the anti-bias filter and re-read the article multiple times to get the real story.
If I only read the opening paragraph(s), the reader would think the story would be "Bush administration imprisoned a journalist after implicating the administration". After reading below, we learn that the journalists publicly revealed the identity of a CIA agent, probably not only an act of Treason but an act that would should be highly unethical in the community. We also learn that Bush did not have this person imprisoned, but a legal, court-ordered supoeana was issued for the defendents' sources in the case. I thought even patient-client priviliges for doctors and lawyers could be overridden by a legal search warrant.
It appears that most of the cases on the sidebar are in a similar vein; journalists have information that the prosecution needs, the prosecution gets a supoeana for that information, journalists refuses and is held in contempt. I'm just not seeing the logical jump to freedom of the press with these cases? Does that mean if I majored in Communications or Journalism instead of Computer Science I could deny a legally-issued search warrant for items on my computer?
I'm really trying to see the logic, but to me, "no freedom of the press" would imply what the GP listed: no trial/mock trial when speaking out against the government, jack-booted thugs kicking in doors and whisking away families in the middle of the night, (e.g. The Night of Long Knives) etc.
Have these things been happening to US journalists? If they have not, and neither have journalists in the other high-ranking nations, then how is this ranking conducted? Isn't that like ranking all the students who made 100% on their tests?
For mortal users (most of us), the benefit is an instant CPU performance boost of around 20-30% at least on Athlon 64 units when using the 64-bit instruction set vs the 32-bit instruction set. I have a dual-core AMD64 now, but I'm running everything 32-bit as the performance is more than acceptable. However, in a couple of years I will upgrade everything to 64-bit once all these glitches are solved and I should get a free upgrade in speed.
This PCStats article has some benchmarks on the topic. Anandtech had some too, but I couldn't find them immediately.
I disagree. They only have occassional "fawning tech-toys" articles once in a while, unlike almost all computer magazines, as well as Popular Science. They do have a "what's new" listing each month which is useful for those of use who are interested in such, and if one waits, most of those items which are useful will be reviewed in depth at some point in the future.
Consume this new scooter! The television of the future! Petrochemicals will produce better farming! 9-11 is not a conspiracy! Look what tomorrows SuperCops can do today!
Um, so the Segway or Razor is not worth reporting on? Are you saying it's wrong to purchase one of these, or to want to purchase one of these? Are you saying that I should just trust the box at Wal-mart instead of having a fairly neutral reviewer advise me on his/her findings? I don't understand your point.
The television of the future? I can only assume you're referring to HDTV. The same HDTV that supposedly will replace current NTSC television, a 50+ year engineering standard? Why the heck would this not be featured by an engineering/technology magazine?
Petrochemicals DO produce better crops, and have done so since the early 1900's when Harbor/Bosch (sp?) and other German chemists discovered how to make affordable synthetic fertilizers. These fertilizers allow billions of people to eat. There are of course many downsides to using these, but if we return to using dead fish and manure only for fertilizer, prepare to pay much more than a dollar or two for a loaf of bread.
PM's extended article refuting the 9-11 conspiracy freaks should have been done many times over by CNN, Fox, BBC, etc. It was an excellent article that unlike the nutjob web sites had solid research, INCLUDED FULL NAMES, and for crying out loud didn't use cheezy music and propaganda videos.
The SuperCops article got torn apart by the readers who wrote in. To PMs continual credit, they are not afraid to publish letters that do so.
I don't read Scientific American, so I can't speak to that point. I am an engineer who tries not to waste money on useless tech toys and USB gadgets, but I do like to read about a broad range of engineering topics in a compact format, and PM fufills that, or at least will inform me enough so I can further research a topic. They also include lots of 'guy' things like cars reviews/specs, home repair, and Jay Leno features. I'm sure they would like to return to their roots and include plans on how to build a camper trailer, but very few people have the skills, tools, space, or desire to build those projects, so they instead feature buildable wooden items like sheds that can still be peformed fairly quickly.
I'm tired of having to mentally adjust for the bias of each news source. During big events, I have to keep flipping between CNN (the sky is falling) and Fox (resistance is futile) and mentally figure out the real truth in the gradient between the two sources. Why are we paying these people? Is it that hard to at least *try* to be impartial? I don't mind if the journalists have their own opinions, and in the proper context (editorials) I want them to express them, but IT'S YOUR JOB, TELL THE NEWS AS IT HAPPENS, NOT HOW YOU FEEL.
Not just possible, but it works and has been shipping for a while by Canoo.
Americans are stupid, ignorant jackasses... ...the same fucknuts who were duped into electing Bush twice... ...Not intended as a troll or a flame...
Hopefully you see the fallacy in these statements.
Jesus, Canada is looking better and better by the day.
If your above comments represent how you truly how you feel about 300 million of your countrymen (I am assuming you are currently living in the US), then perhaps you are correct that moving to Canada would be a solution, although I imagine any location's citizens would eventually disappoint you. Before you change your citizenship, however, it might behoove you to get out of the house, change jobs/cities if you have to, turn off CNN/Fox/Al Jazeera, and find some others with which to surround yourself, because there are millions and millions of educated, enlightened, culturally diverse, and philanthropic Americans all around you.
How can anyone have an opinion on something if they don't know what it is?
Well, most people probably assume they are being sold something, so if you don't know what something is, the safest answer to 'do you want $FOO' is No.
I would dearly love to be able get a single passenger car that has three wheels, a gasoline powered engine, decent performance, truck-like suspension, comfortable interior (I'm tall), and doesn't look silly. Odd looking, I can deal with, silly looking is out. Having three wheels instead of four has advantages in many localities.
LOL, check out Popular Mechanics recently, Jay Leno received a hand-built three wheeler (tail dragger) that an old doit-yourselfer built about 60 years ago and drove it for decades. The article hasn't made it to their web archives yet, but it's a good read. Compared those those old guys, I feel pretty helpless when it comes to building 'real' stuff (as opposed to configuring switches aka software development).
Good points all, and just to add to the mix, there are plenty of 'big cars' in the US that get surpisingly good fuel economy. My parents have a Buick LeSabre that is a 'big Detroit car' with a 3.8L V6, and 30mpg on the highway is normal to them, which is not much less than a 4cyl Honda Accord (~34mpg). Granted, in mixed city/highway the 4cyl will average more like 29 while the larger car will dip down to about 22mpg, but all in all, non-performance cars in the US all get at around 30mpg or greater with no performance or comfort penalties. You're right, the really high-end fuel-efficient cars are not available in the US, probably because nobody in their right mind would drive a Smart car out on the Interstate, and the number of New Yorkers who would purchase one is probably too limited to make up a true market. I would love to have something like the Accord Diesel that gets greater than 50mpg, but apparently the EU diesel required to run that car exceeds US sulfur standards, a condition which has all sort of irony in it.
The real problem with efficiency, though, is the SUV truck. The traditional pickup truck was generally the second car driven by the man to get to/from work and for light duty on the weekends, so 14/20mpg wasn't a big deal when the family car was the primary people mover. Now the SUV is a primary people mover, but they get about the same mileage as a mid-80's pickup truck. Without legislation, I don't see gas prices limiting that until they get well in advance of $5/gal.
The best bang-for-the buck way to increase average efficiency is to get people back into normal 4-door automobiles. No wierd small cars, no hybrids, just moderation.
Why should I be forced to base my retirement on social security when I can gamble in the stock market instead?
I get the joke, and I have to laugh, because if not I'll think of the 7% FICA tax I've spent over the years plus the 7% my employers have been matching to FICA, and cry. (FICA is the social security fund, I forget what it stands for) I can't imagine how good retirement would be if I could put 14% in a mattress, much less put it in investments much safer than the stock market. My last Social Security statement estimated my benefits would be around $1200/month, which means I better have my house paid off and buy an old car so I can afford to keep the lights on. What a ripoff, considering the additional 12% I'm having to also put into my 401k to be able to *really* retire will pay out much more than that. I'm pretty sure a safety net for the poor and unfortunate --which we should provide-- cannot possibly cost this much. (sigh)