if all six billion people on earth used hand calculators and performed calculations 24 hours a day and seven days a week, it would take them 46 years to do what the Roadrunner can in one day
I'm glad to see the continuing trend of creatively "dumbing down" units of measure (in this case, flops) to the point where they are not only practically useless, but entirely divorced from reality. I would like to propose the following similar, hype-worthy measure for fuel economy:
Old: Miles per gallon
New: Number of miles from which one would smell the excrement from the number of cattle one could feed for a day with the amount of corn it would take to produce one gallon.
I'm a nitpicking bastard for saying this, but I think you're confusing a World of Warcraft "raid" with RAID, the acronym that means "redundant array of inexpensive disks" to the IT industry and computer users. While it's possible for a person to save screenshots of their WoW raid to their RAID volume, saying you can't wait to join your guild's RAID makes it seem like you're just shouting the word "raid" for some strange reason.:)
So how long before we get to pay several hundred dollars for high-pressure, superconducting HDMI cables that take our HD viewing to the "next level"...and also spontaneously ignite if they are chewed on by the family pet?
I really wonder if Nader is financially backed by the GOP as a spoiler meant to take votes from the Democrats.
Our election system is a joke, and the people with the power to fix it rely on it being broken to stay in power. Obvious conflict of interest.
As compro01 said, twice the volts at the same amperage = twice the wattage. My wording could have been better though. I think voltages vary in the UK too...sometimes 240, sometimes 220? Check out UK electric kettles, there are many that operate over 3000 watts. There are no electric kettles sold for use in the US (that I know of) that operate over 1750 watts.
Home circuits in the US are typically 15-amps at 120 volts, yielding a maximum safe energy draw of 15A * 120V = 1800 Watts. Appliance manufacturers usually limit devices to use at most 1750 watts, to maintain a margin of safety. (Note: in the UK, they use 240 volts, so they have twice the maximum wattage, which is why their electric kettles boil water so much faster than ours, which is obviously why they like tea so much more than us.) A typical high-capacity modern laptop battery will have a 85 Watt-hour capacity. Assuming manufacturers did not artificially limit ultracapacitor charging rates, it would take an equivalent ultracapacitor about (85/1750) = 0.0486 hours, or a bit under 3 minutes to charge. Cell phone and PDA batteries are much lower capacity, and would thus require much less time to charge at the same wattage.
The nice thing about capacitors is that they charge orders of magnitude faster than batteries. If you could plug your phone/PDA/etc. into any wall socket and have it fully charged in a few seconds, would you really need a power source for it that would last for days? Certainly yes, for camping trips perhaps. Ultracapacitors would introduce new ways of using portable devices.
I think neocons would include tactical voting/public awareness efforts like hackthevote.us as being one of the "dirty tricks" campaigns.
Re:If you're worried about artificial limitations.
on
Best Non-Subscription DVR?
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· Score: 4, Informative
As a Windows user, I used GB-PVR (http://www.gbpvr.com/) for 18 months with great success. Just recently switched to Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, and am loving that too. It requires a bit more video card, though.
As much as I was disappointed by the 2004 election results, my desire for impartial truth outweighs my personal affinity for party-bashing, conspiracy theories, and groupthink. More informed investigation and reporting, less rabble rousing, please, fellow liberals! Hopefully we can earn an impeachment if it is deserved, and not just the ire of our GOP counterparts.
You're talking about evolutionary vs. revolutionary change. I used to be on a formula racing team, and each year we were accustomed to making small, evolutionary changes to our winning design to improve it. The competition often complained that we were just copying our previous designs, not introducing enough new innovation (even though we always had new innovations). It came down to the fact that revolutionary changes (broader, more fundamental) are more "dangerous", often more likely to hurt you than help you. If you're already working with a winning design, then incremental, evolutionary changes are SOP. No point in risking it all if you're winning already!
A totally new Slashdot design would defintely be more interesting, but I would think that even if it was genius, it could hurt the site more than help it by driving away more users than it attracts. For example, a "revolutionary" design might be one that works great in Firefox, and purposely ignores obvious usability problems with IE. This could encourage lots of users to switch to Firefox, but I would expect lots of IE users would just stop visiting/. instead. Of course, I doubt a solution that didn't gracefully handle all common browsers would ever be accepted, but it would certainly be interesting to see.
Haha, I just saw one of their commercials a few minutes ago. Now I know what they meant by the small "Vonage 911 works differently than 911" text at the bottom of the screen, near the end of the ad.
Seeing "Serenity" without having first seen the Firefly series would be surprisingly like watching Star Trek: Generations without having first seen TNG or TOS. It would still be an entertaining movie for a sci-fi buff, but you'd not get even half as much from it. Plus, due to certain events in Serenity, watching it before watching the series would significantly detract from both of them. I'm still mourning the loss of one of my favorite characters.
Just saw it...the Salon.com review was on the money. A solid sci-fi action/drama with a lot of twinkles of Whedon's genius, but if I hadn't seen the series, I would have probably been put off by the chemistry between the characters due to the backstory I wouldn't have known about, and sure as hell wouldn't have responded as strongly to the movie!
I only wish I hadn't seen the recently made indie-move "Rx" before this. I was so happy to see one of my favorite actors from Firefly in a totally different type of role (in which he was fabulous). If I only knew...
I consider myself a reasonably discriminating movie enthusiast, and I abhorred the "War of the Worlds" remake and enjoyed "The Island" (also a remake, btw). Of course, I was expecting "War of the Worlds" to be good and "The Island" to be bad, from their respective previews. Cry_Wolf looked so bad I'm basing a parody submission for a trailer contest on it.
But to get back on-topic, I'm totally looking forward to Serenity (loved the series on DVD, not on Fox), but I have to admit the trailers make it look pretty dumb. Unfortunately, I'm not expecting much from the movie (hopefully it will wow me!), and I don't expect it will have a particularly awesome opening weekend, not only because of the trailers but because, frankly, who is going to want to watch a movie called "Serenity"? Sure, the title makes sense from the series, but isn't the whole point of any movie to have some sort of conflict? "Serenity" sounds like a sleeper, literally. Maybe it's a marketing snafu on Joss' part, or perhaps it's genius, if the movie is also genius. Sure, only an ignoramus will judge a book by its cover, but considering our current president, ignorance currently has majority representation in the US.
I was really excited to see the "pilot" episode of Firefly air on Fox, but after watching it, I thought it sucked and never watched another episode. I got turned off by the Buffy-style in-jokes that I didn't get and lots of obvious character chemistry (and plot points) that made no sense without knowing history about the characters and the series. After the series was cancelled, I learned (from/.) that it was heavily edited and aired out of order. Combined with being shown in the Friday night "death slot", these reasons are what I'd heard had lead to the series' cancellation. I eventually read enough rave reviews to buy the DVD's, and loved the series enough to watch it a few times. I don't think the fictional-and-somewhat-unrelated political angle had any bearing on it's cancellation.
Yahoo! can add all the features they want, all the free disk space, all the spam protection, a slick web interface, etc. Until I can send and retrieve my Yahoo! mail from a POP3 or IMAP interface FOR FREE like I can on Gmail, it's not better than Gmail, at least not for me. I was using Yahoo! mail for over a year before they turned off their free POP3 access. I don't blame them, but that's why I switched to Gmail. Then Gmail activated free POP3 FTW.
Interesting...but what I'd REALLY love to see is the chat-log of the group meeting mentioned in the article. I'm guessing that around 9pm, it starts getting rather entertaining.
From the article:
To ensure the suspects were at home, a gang member-turned-informant had pressed his pals to go online for a group meeting.
At 9 p.m., Nagel, the Secret Service's assistant director for investigations, issued the "go" order. Agents armed with Sig-Sauer 229 pistols and MP5 semi-automatic machine guns swooped in, aided by local cops and international police. The adrenaline was pumping, in part, because several ShadowCrew members were known to own weapons. Twenty-eight members were arrested, most still at their computers. The alleged ringleaders went quietly, but one suspect jumped out a second-story window. Agents nabbed him on the ground. Later, they found a loaded assault rifle in his apartment. The operation was swift and bloodless.
Gary Kurtz, producer of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, gives some insight into where the storyline may, or may not, go.
My guess is it'll go "up". That's the only place it can go, from these last three travesties of writing/directing.
Note to filmmakers of the future: bad dialog leads to anger, bad directing leads to hatred, shallow action sequences lead to suffering. Farming out a movie to a corporation of computer animators is a path to the dark side of filmmaking.
While "continuous voting" might seem like a good idea, it's important for an administration to have stability despite any "fad" changes in public opinion, for implementation of policy. 4-year terms and impeachment are both decent methods of ensuring the "will of the voters" is sufficiently recognized, IMO.
The real problem is that control over our voting system is in the hands of the same people that used it to get into office, and they don't want to change that. It is a fundamental problem that has allowed corporations to "own" candidates all over our government. Just as it is imperative that our voting system be changed, it is also imperative (and related) that money be seperated from power. People should never be allowed to profit (directly or indirectly) for occupying a government office. Government positions should be considered "terms of service" similar to jury duty, not avenues for gaining wealth or power.
Slashdot Mirror
if all six billion people on earth used hand calculators and performed calculations 24 hours a day and seven days a week, it would take them 46 years to do what the Roadrunner can in one day
I'm glad to see the continuing trend of creatively "dumbing down" units of measure (in this case, flops) to the point where they are not only practically useless, but entirely divorced from reality. I would like to propose the following similar, hype-worthy measure for fuel economy:
Old: Miles per gallon
New: Number of miles from which one would smell the excrement from the number of cattle one could feed for a day with the amount of corn it would take to produce one gallon.
I'm a nitpicking bastard for saying this, but I think you're confusing a World of Warcraft "raid" with RAID, the acronym that means "redundant array of inexpensive disks" to the IT industry and computer users. While it's possible for a person to save screenshots of their WoW raid to their RAID volume, saying you can't wait to join your guild's RAID makes it seem like you're just shouting the word "raid" for some strange reason. :)
So how long before we get to pay several hundred dollars for high-pressure, superconducting HDMI cables that take our HD viewing to the "next level"...and also spontaneously ignite if they are chewed on by the family pet?
I really wonder if Nader is financially backed by the GOP as a spoiler meant to take votes from the Democrats. Our election system is a joke, and the people with the power to fix it rely on it being broken to stay in power. Obvious conflict of interest.
"Proofiness" ...I love it.
I think it only proves there's no fraud detectable by recount.
As compro01 said, twice the volts at the same amperage = twice the wattage. My wording could have been better though. I think voltages vary in the UK too...sometimes 240, sometimes 220? Check out UK electric kettles, there are many that operate over 3000 watts. There are no electric kettles sold for use in the US (that I know of) that operate over 1750 watts.
Home circuits in the US are typically 15-amps at 120 volts, yielding a maximum safe energy draw of 15A * 120V = 1800 Watts. Appliance manufacturers usually limit devices to use at most 1750 watts, to maintain a margin of safety. (Note: in the UK, they use 240 volts, so they have twice the maximum wattage, which is why their electric kettles boil water so much faster than ours, which is obviously why they like tea so much more than us.) A typical high-capacity modern laptop battery will have a 85 Watt-hour capacity. Assuming manufacturers did not artificially limit ultracapacitor charging rates, it would take an equivalent ultracapacitor about (85/1750) = 0.0486 hours, or a bit under 3 minutes to charge. Cell phone and PDA batteries are much lower capacity, and would thus require much less time to charge at the same wattage.
The nice thing about capacitors is that they charge orders of magnitude faster than batteries. If you could plug your phone/PDA/etc. into any wall socket and have it fully charged in a few seconds, would you really need a power source for it that would last for days? Certainly yes, for camping trips perhaps. Ultracapacitors would introduce new ways of using portable devices.
I think neocons would include tactical voting/public awareness efforts like hackthevote.us as being one of the "dirty tricks" campaigns.
As a Windows user, I used GB-PVR (http://www.gbpvr.com/) for 18 months with great success. Just recently switched to Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, and am loving that too. It requires a bit more video card, though.
Toner wars > Clone wars
Bring it on!
We can say anything if we just ask!
As much as I was disappointed by the 2004 election results, my desire for impartial truth outweighs my personal affinity for party-bashing, conspiracy theories, and groupthink. More informed investigation and reporting, less rabble rousing, please, fellow liberals! Hopefully we can earn an impeachment if it is deserved, and not just the ire of our GOP counterparts.
You're talking about evolutionary vs. revolutionary change. I used to be on a formula racing team, and each year we were accustomed to making small, evolutionary changes to our winning design to improve it. The competition often complained that we were just copying our previous designs, not introducing enough new innovation (even though we always had new innovations). It came down to the fact that revolutionary changes (broader, more fundamental) are more "dangerous", often more likely to hurt you than help you. If you're already working with a winning design, then incremental, evolutionary changes are SOP. No point in risking it all if you're winning already!
/. instead. Of course, I doubt a solution that didn't gracefully handle all common browsers would ever be accepted, but it would certainly be interesting to see.
A totally new Slashdot design would defintely be more interesting, but I would think that even if it was genius, it could hurt the site more than help it by driving away more users than it attracts. For example, a "revolutionary" design might be one that works great in Firefox, and purposely ignores obvious usability problems with IE. This could encourage lots of users to switch to Firefox, but I would expect lots of IE users would just stop visiting
Haha, I just saw one of their commercials a few minutes ago. Now I know what they meant by the small "Vonage 911 works differently than 911" text at the bottom of the screen, near the end of the ad.
Seeing "Serenity" without having first seen the Firefly series would be surprisingly like watching Star Trek: Generations without having first seen TNG or TOS. It would still be an entertaining movie for a sci-fi buff, but you'd not get even half as much from it. Plus, due to certain events in Serenity, watching it before watching the series would significantly detract from both of them. I'm still mourning the loss of one of my favorite characters.
Just saw it...the Salon.com review was on the money. A solid sci-fi action/drama with a lot of twinkles of Whedon's genius, but if I hadn't seen the series, I would have probably been put off by the chemistry between the characters due to the backstory I wouldn't have known about, and sure as hell wouldn't have responded as strongly to the movie!
I only wish I hadn't seen the recently made indie-move "Rx" before this. I was so happy to see one of my favorite actors from Firefly in a totally different type of role (in which he was fabulous). If I only knew...
I consider myself a reasonably discriminating movie enthusiast, and I abhorred the "War of the Worlds" remake and enjoyed "The Island" (also a remake, btw). Of course, I was expecting "War of the Worlds" to be good and "The Island" to be bad, from their respective previews. Cry_Wolf looked so bad I'm basing a parody submission for a trailer contest on it.
But to get back on-topic, I'm totally looking forward to Serenity (loved the series on DVD, not on Fox), but I have to admit the trailers make it look pretty dumb. Unfortunately, I'm not expecting much from the movie (hopefully it will wow me!), and I don't expect it will have a particularly awesome opening weekend, not only because of the trailers but because, frankly, who is going to want to watch a movie called "Serenity"? Sure, the title makes sense from the series, but isn't the whole point of any movie to have some sort of conflict? "Serenity" sounds like a sleeper, literally. Maybe it's a marketing snafu on Joss' part, or perhaps it's genius, if the movie is also genius. Sure, only an ignoramus will judge a book by its cover, but considering our current president, ignorance currently has majority representation in the US.
I was really excited to see the "pilot" episode of Firefly air on Fox, but after watching it, I thought it sucked and never watched another episode. I got turned off by the Buffy-style in-jokes that I didn't get and lots of obvious character chemistry (and plot points) that made no sense without knowing history about the characters and the series. After the series was cancelled, I learned (from /.) that it was heavily edited and aired out of order. Combined with being shown in the Friday night "death slot", these reasons are what I'd heard had lead to the series' cancellation. I eventually read enough rave reviews to buy the DVD's, and loved the series enough to watch it a few times. I don't think the fictional-and-somewhat-unrelated political angle had any bearing on it's cancellation.
Yahoo! can add all the features they want, all the free disk space, all the spam protection, a slick web interface, etc. Until I can send and retrieve my Yahoo! mail from a POP3 or IMAP interface FOR FREE like I can on Gmail, it's not better than Gmail, at least not for me. I was using Yahoo! mail for over a year before they turned off their free POP3 access. I don't blame them, but that's why I switched to Gmail. Then Gmail activated free POP3 FTW.
You should patent that analogy, it's great!
From the article:
My guess is it'll go "up". That's the only place it can go, from these last three travesties of writing/directing.
Note to filmmakers of the future: bad dialog leads to anger, bad directing leads to hatred, shallow action sequences lead to suffering. Farming out a movie to a corporation of computer animators is a path to the dark side of filmmaking.
Haha, I was thinking the same thing...quite awesome that old B-movie sci-fi shows using cheap lens effects to convey speed had it right all along.
While "continuous voting" might seem like a good idea, it's important for an administration to have stability despite any "fad" changes in public opinion, for implementation of policy. 4-year terms and impeachment are both decent methods of ensuring the "will of the voters" is sufficiently recognized, IMO.
The real problem is that control over our voting system is in the hands of the same people that used it to get into office, and they don't want to change that. It is a fundamental problem that has allowed corporations to "own" candidates all over our government. Just as it is imperative that our voting system be changed, it is also imperative (and related) that money be seperated from power. People should never be allowed to profit (directly or indirectly) for occupying a government office. Government positions should be considered "terms of service" similar to jury duty, not avenues for gaining wealth or power.