even 1:1 clonage still leaves the issue of quality control open since that's ultimately a human process. That's where Chinese stuff seems to fall down
Keep in mind, the real iPhone IS made in China. Some "knockoffs" are just unauthorized production runs for which no license fee was paid to the western IP holder. I'm sure Foxconn wouldn't risk pulling that with Apple, but my point is, it's not really about nationality.
Carmack is one of those guys who will tell you that big, dumb movies like Transformers 3 are just "doing their job" and that filmmakers making movies nobody has seen before are "snooty."
I think it's more like a restaurant that makes an excellent steak, vs. more "artistic" restaurants always looking to wow you with something novel. Both have a place; the recipe for steak doesn't need changing. People enjoy the basic gameplay of first-person-shooters, just like they enjoy hitting a ball with a racket and don't need to change the rules of tennis every 6 months, because it's not about perpetual novelty. Multiplayer first-person deathmatch can't go away, not because developers are un-creative, but because people like it. Same with racing games. I don't want wild innovation in those, just ever-improving realism.
No, they're rebutting the conventional wisdom that the most cost effective way to speed up a PC is by adding more RAM. According to their (unspecified) benchmarks, you get better bang for the buck using NAND to relieve pressure on the hard disk (since they're inherently horribly slow).
Here's the crux:
"A well-designed NAND/DRAM combination brings SSD-like performance to a system at little or no price increase over a standard system based on the conventional DRAM-plus-HDD platform."
Obviously this is moot for a $2500 laptop with 8GB of ram, a big flash drive, and no hard drive. It sounds like they're arguing companies like Dell with, say, a $500 price point should start using some flash to augment the HDD even if they have to back off RAM to hit their price point.
I would just copy each project to two separate external 3TB drives and store one offsite. Each drive is then large enough to hold about 50 projects of the specified size. This gives you redundancy, protection against accidental modification/deletion (unlike RAID), and no single point of failure, and no reliance on obscure or vendor-specific technology. Oh, and it's cheap. So what's wrong with it? Too easy and inexpensive?
I don't understand your comment. Just because the shuttle program ended doesn't mean NASA has stopped exploring space. This Russian mission is un-manned, with scientific objectives - just the type of thing NASA is doing more of:
On July 16, the Dawn spacecraft begins a year-long visit to the large asteroid Vesta to help us understand the earliest chapter of our solar system's history. In August, the Juno spacecraft will launch to investigate Jupiter's origins, structure, and atmosphere. The September launch of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project is a critical first step in building a next-generation Earth-monitoring satellite system.
If you live in Fort Worth, you must realize it grew by approximately 40% in the last 10 years. It is your city that is the outlier. It would be pretty hard for an established local chain not to grow under those circumstances, while it lasts.
It's a serious enough issue that sci-fi has considered it for decades - what if automation makes many people unnecessary? What do all those people do? If their economic worth is less than the cost of food and shelter for them, then political instability is sure to follow. Don't just debunk silly "solutions" you think people might have in mind, like ludditism or marxism - do you see a workable solution? Or a good reason to continue to think it's an unfounded fear?
Wait a minute, how many places and times in history would you really trade for? And you don't get to make yourself King Arthur, either... you have to pick the time and place and face the vastly more likely odds of dying as an infant, or being a serf, or a racial or religious minority.
Exactly. It's just like the netflix price hike. The IP owners know what price point maximizes their revenues, and new technology doesn't fundamentally change that number. The idea that some third party (Amazon) could come in and drastically reduce textbook prices for students is pretty absurd, because book prices (and the size of the texbtook industry overall) were never based on the price of paper or shipping in the first place. One way or another, people will continue to be charged whatever the market will bear.
The only thing that could really change the prices is a crash in the student loan industry.
It's the same myth that has made the idea that pro athletes don't / should not use enhancing drugs and therapies.
This is to prevent a race to the bottom, where the only way to win is by completely destroying your health. It's also because pro sports are a commercial enterprise, and most fans aren't interested in being a party to death sports. It's the same reason the NFL issued new rules to reduce brain injuries last year, even though such hits are exciting to watch, and have nothing to do with a taboo such as drugs. (Granted, whether these new rules will be initially successful, or will - more likely - require further tweaking, is another matter).
Good point. There are no dates on the second one, so I wonder if it is outdated. The lower range of energy density for lithium-ion is about the same for both, whereas the upper end is much higher on the first.
Except guess what, battery density actually has improved steadily over time, and dramatically overall. It's not automatic, it's the result of many improvements just like this one.
I felt the same way when Leroy Petry, who just received the medal of honor, was showing off his artificial hand in an NBC Nightly News segment a night or two ago (couldn't find the video online). He said it learned to control its grasp in about 15 minutes because it uses the same nerves his hand did. And yes, it would be better if he didn't need it, it's not as good as the real thing, etc., but it sure is cool to see such futuristic technology make a difference in the real world!
On my Linux box, Flash intermittently freezes the entire OS solid. Can't even log in remotely. Granted, that's a sign of some more fundamental issue, which I haven't been able to track down. Personally I think it's the NVidia driver. The OSS driver is useless without vdpau. I've swapped out the PSU and graphics card, and run CPU and video benchmarks for hours on end. Yet it only locks up when my son watches youtube, and then occasionally. Real fun.
I'm not so sure it is good. The space race of the 1960's is not going to return - what may return is the arms race of the 1970's-1980's, into which the space race against the USSR inevitably devolved.
We have already done the feel-good, man-on-the-moon part of aerospace that is within the realm of the feasible. (Whereas actually reaching other solar systems is not). Thus we will will not return us to the starry-eyed 1960's. So, what's left? A resumption of the cold war - spending billions on missile defense (whether for aircraft carriers, satellites, or the homeland) against new Chinese anti-ship, anti-satellite, and inter-continental ballistic missiles that will inevitably result from their space program, and the need for larger standing inventories of expensive high-tech weapons like the F22 (much like the F14 fleet that never saw any real action before being retired).
That isn't a correlation v. causation problem. More likely it means the regularities found are necessary but not sufficient conditions. In other words they have identified *some* of the causes, but not enough to completely define it, as in write a hit automatically. But on that basis I agree it does not constitute a "formula" for making a hit.
Here is the provided definition from your own link:
"False flag (aka Black Flag) operations are covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities."
It means what it says, one party pretending to be another. And yet, the RIAA is not disguising itself here.
Moreover, the RIAA's logic is basically correct: the only way to limit people from using the Internet to break laws would be for the government to have ultimate control. The Internet doesn't know whether a blob of data is national security secrets or kiddie porn or copyright violations or home movies of kittens; it's all the same. So they're trying to enlist other people who are their natural allies in trying to restrict the Internet. There is no question that doing so would benefit the RIAA's immediate interests.
So let's dismiss the weak arguments and focus on the real issue: should narrow special interests trump those of the general public? I agree with most people here that we must be extremely careful and limited in doing that.
I see this carries a person. I think of the primary benefit of solar aircraft being the potential for "perpetual" flight, e.g. as a cheap alternative to a satellite. Is there a motivation for manned solar-powered flight, other than the technical challenge of doing so? (It's a neat accomplishment, either way).
The analogy with payola is flawed. On Amazon, no matter how many glowing astroturf reviews there are, anybody can write a negative review that gives solid reasons why they didn't like it, and negate all the positive reviews if you're convinced those drawbacks are a dealbreaker for you. Yes, all online reviews (especially positive ones) should be taken with a grain of salt, but overall I've had good results from using the Amazon reviews to guide my purchases. (In fact I consult them even if I know I'll be buying elsewhere).
I think they should nix the $50 startup fee, then charge 50 cents per hour up to a maximum of $15.
But my guess is rather than "most people" playing hundreds of hours per month, most people actually play 0 hours per month, and just don't check their credit card statement very often, and they don't want to lose those.
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Keep in mind, the real iPhone IS made in China. Some "knockoffs" are just unauthorized production runs for which no license fee was paid to the western IP holder. I'm sure Foxconn wouldn't risk pulling that with Apple, but my point is, it's not really about nationality.
I think it's more like a restaurant that makes an excellent steak, vs. more "artistic" restaurants always looking to wow you with something novel. Both have a place; the recipe for steak doesn't need changing. People enjoy the basic gameplay of first-person-shooters, just like they enjoy hitting a ball with a racket and don't need to change the rules of tennis every 6 months, because it's not about perpetual novelty. Multiplayer first-person deathmatch can't go away, not because developers are un-creative, but because people like it. Same with racing games. I don't want wild innovation in those, just ever-improving realism.
Here's the crux:
Obviously this is moot for a $2500 laptop with 8GB of ram, a big flash drive, and no hard drive. It sounds like they're arguing companies like Dell with, say, a $500 price point should start using some flash to augment the HDD even if they have to back off RAM to hit their price point.
I would just copy each project to two separate external 3TB drives and store one offsite. Each drive is then large enough to hold about 50 projects of the specified size. This gives you redundancy, protection against accidental modification/deletion (unlike RAID), and no single point of failure, and no reliance on obscure or vendor-specific technology. Oh, and it's cheap. So what's wrong with it? Too easy and inexpensive?
If you live in Fort Worth, you must realize it grew by approximately 40% in the last 10 years. It is your city that is the outlier. It would be pretty hard for an established local chain not to grow under those circumstances, while it lasts.
It's a serious enough issue that sci-fi has considered it for decades - what if automation makes many people unnecessary? What do all those people do? If their economic worth is less than the cost of food and shelter for them, then political instability is sure to follow. Don't just debunk silly "solutions" you think people might have in mind, like ludditism or marxism - do you see a workable solution? Or a good reason to continue to think it's an unfounded fear?
Revising comments should only be allowed if the comment has not yet been moderated or replied to.
Wait a minute, how many places and times in history would you really trade for? And you don't get to make yourself King Arthur, either... you have to pick the time and place and face the vastly more likely odds of dying as an infant, or being a serf, or a racial or religious minority.
The only thing that could really change the prices is a crash in the student loan industry.
This is to prevent a race to the bottom, where the only way to win is by completely destroying your health. It's also because pro sports are a commercial enterprise, and most fans aren't interested in being a party to death sports. It's the same reason the NFL issued new rules to reduce brain injuries last year, even though such hits are exciting to watch, and have nothing to do with a taboo such as drugs. (Granted, whether these new rules will be initially successful, or will - more likely - require further tweaking, is another matter).
Good point. There are no dates on the second one, so I wonder if it is outdated. The lower range of energy density for lithium-ion is about the same for both, whereas the upper end is much higher on the first.
Agreed - the only place I use disposable AAs now is in cheap flashlights and toys I know my kids will lose :)
Except guess what, battery density actually has improved steadily over time, and dramatically overall. It's not automatic, it's the result of many improvements just like this one.
I felt the same way when Leroy Petry, who just received the medal of honor, was showing off his artificial hand in an NBC Nightly News segment a night or two ago (couldn't find the video online). He said it learned to control its grasp in about 15 minutes because it uses the same nerves his hand did. And yes, it would be better if he didn't need it, it's not as good as the real thing, etc., but it sure is cool to see such futuristic technology make a difference in the real world!
On my Linux box, Flash intermittently freezes the entire OS solid. Can't even log in remotely. Granted, that's a sign of some more fundamental issue, which I haven't been able to track down. Personally I think it's the NVidia driver. The OSS driver is useless without vdpau. I've swapped out the PSU and graphics card, and run CPU and video benchmarks for hours on end. Yet it only locks up when my son watches youtube, and then occasionally. Real fun.
We have already done the feel-good, man-on-the-moon part of aerospace that is within the realm of the feasible. (Whereas actually reaching other solar systems is not). Thus we will will not return us to the starry-eyed 1960's. So, what's left? A resumption of the cold war - spending billions on missile defense (whether for aircraft carriers, satellites, or the homeland) against new Chinese anti-ship, anti-satellite, and inter-continental ballistic missiles that will inevitably result from their space program, and the need for larger standing inventories of expensive high-tech weapons like the F22 (much like the F14 fleet that never saw any real action before being retired).
Rather, somebody who realizes the PC OS is "done" and it will never again be a big growth industry like it once was.
That isn't a correlation v. causation problem. More likely it means the regularities found are necessary but not sufficient conditions. In other words they have identified *some* of the causes, but not enough to completely define it, as in write a hit automatically. But on that basis I agree it does not constitute a "formula" for making a hit.
It means what it says, one party pretending to be another. And yet, the RIAA is not disguising itself here.
Moreover, the RIAA's logic is basically correct: the only way to limit people from using the Internet to break laws would be for the government to have ultimate control. The Internet doesn't know whether a blob of data is national security secrets or kiddie porn or copyright violations or home movies of kittens; it's all the same. So they're trying to enlist other people who are their natural allies in trying to restrict the Internet. There is no question that doing so would benefit the RIAA's immediate interests.
So let's dismiss the weak arguments and focus on the real issue: should narrow special interests trump those of the general public? I agree with most people here that we must be extremely careful and limited in doing that.
Oh, you mean a "true flag," otherwise known as a "reason" for doing something.
I see this carries a person. I think of the primary benefit of solar aircraft being the potential for "perpetual" flight, e.g. as a cheap alternative to a satellite. Is there a motivation for manned solar-powered flight, other than the technical challenge of doing so? (It's a neat accomplishment, either way).
I'm not even on Facebook and I hate it, because everybody stopped sending personal emails. Everything is getting too centralized.
The analogy with payola is flawed. On Amazon, no matter how many glowing astroturf reviews there are, anybody can write a negative review that gives solid reasons why they didn't like it, and negate all the positive reviews if you're convinced those drawbacks are a dealbreaker for you. Yes, all online reviews (especially positive ones) should be taken with a grain of salt, but overall I've had good results from using the Amazon reviews to guide my purchases. (In fact I consult them even if I know I'll be buying elsewhere).
But my guess is rather than "most people" playing hundreds of hours per month, most people actually play 0 hours per month, and just don't check their credit card statement very often, and they don't want to lose those.