Where else should the line be drawn? Unfortunately there is no line nicely "between" usability and security, because the two are in direct conflict. Computers would be so much easier to use in every way if we didn't have to worry about abuse - it's a huge part of the configuration burden that plagues computers today. That's the world we live in. The line has to be drawn somewhere, but "absolute security" isn't it (and neither is "absolute convenience").
Whether Microsoft draws it at the right place is, of course, another question entirely.
The problem is that due to credit prices have risen to what people can barely pay just the interest on. The prices have nothing to do with anything, except the expectation that the cycle will continue. When people quote these nice-sounding statistics about how many people are "homeowners," they never mention how many actually own them outright. We are returning to an "ownership" that amounts to renting because everybody has a mortgage payment and if you don't make the payment, you'll find out who the real "owner" is.
This may sound horrible, but having to actually understand code in order to work with it is a recipe for disaster. Don't get me wrong, I love to get "in the zone" and write some perfectly handcrafted code. But the fact is, some bozo is going to work on the code sooner or later. He's not going to really understand it, instead he's going to use the "generate and test" method of problem-solving, i.e. slop some code in there and then debug it until it seems to work. That bozo could even be you, when at some later date you hardly remember the code and have a short amount of time to modify it. I haven't discovered any way to cope with the problem, except to code in a very obvious way.
in a highly parallel system, going through the code line by line is often the most effective way of finding a problem.
And that's basically the problem with parallel software... the best way to debug it is still very poor.
I don't take on writing parallel code lightly; in fact I avoid it when possible. Go ahead and deride me, but I know it's not just me because I have consistently, over the course of many years, noted that threaded programs almost always have related bugs.
Do we as customers have that kind of cash? Whoever pays $4.6 BN for it is darn sure they'll turn around and charge even more for us to use it. I would rather see the FCC simply make up some non-interference rules and spare us all the expense.
Out of the half dozen or so laptops that we have floating around the office that are over 2 years old, not one of them has a battery that lasts for more than 15 minutes off of AC.
Batteries are consumables, and they're not all that expensive to replace. Heaven help you if you toss laptops just because the battery goes flat. On second thought, wanna sell me one of those "worn out" 2 year-old laptops?
Every laptop has that option; you don't have to use the battery.
Personally, I do need a laptop with long battery life when I travel, but I also buy a second, small-capacity/lightweight battery for every day use. This also preserves the long-life battery for trips.
From RTA: "She laughed and added that most people don't work out hard enough on the stepper to be out of breath when they're on a business call or to work up a good sweat there in the office. "You don't want to break out into a sweat and be horrible in the office."
I read a study a while ago that very light yet prolonged exercise can actually do you some good. Alas, I can't remember the catchphrase for this type of exercise.
Solar? About $20 trillion dollars worth of solar panels near the equator will do it.
That number doesn't scare me. World oil consumption is about 30 billion barrels per year, and it costs $90/barrel. That means the world spends $20 trillion on crude alone (not refined gasoline, diesel, or natural gas, let alone coal - just crude oil!) in only 7.4 years.
This problem has been plaguing us for years and we keep talking about how big and impossible it is, yet we do almost nothing about it. Somehow for the US to invest a couple trillion in solving this problem is out of the question - yet we have no problem spending that much to destroy and rebuild Iraq over and over again. It's sheer stupidity.
If consumer prices more accurately reflected long-term environmental costs, you could answer this question simply by determining whether it made financial sense to replace the gadget. People thinking of dumping their car to get something more fuel efficient in order to save money make this calculation all the time: how much gas $$/mo will I save, how long would that take to pay off the difference between car X and car Y (though the high price of gas is due to scarcity and politics instead of reflecting long-term costs such as the environment). Correcting the fact that pricing does not reflect environmental impact in general is the #1 environmental step we could take IMHO. Granted, this would allow rich people to continue polluting all they want, but at least they'd have an incentive to clean up their factories. And yes, I think we could and should extend this to imported goods.
Did you look at the "real world" benchmark results? The Samsung SSD drive destroyed the traditional drive by 400%-500% in 6 tests (including OS startup, app loading, gaming) and was about equal in the other two (media center and video editing).
Unless you know of some special reason why sustained write speed is critical, you should probably be looking more closely at access time, where SSD blows mechanical drives out of the water.
No doubt, mechanical drives still rule capacity/price, but with the growth rates of the two technologies over the past several years, SSD could take over soon.
Why do you think that? I read iraqbodycount's methods and I now believe it's too conservative an estimate. It doesn't even purport to count all the dead Iraqis - just the documented violent deaths of noncombatants. That's a joke. Would you count casualties from the US civil war that way? All the guys of sect X who stand up to prevent sect Y from kicking them out of their own homes - they don't even count. The millions of refugees driven from their homes with nothing - how many have died prematurely? And, yes, the ones that we killed ourselves... even if you assume they were all going to launch terrorist attacks on America anyways (which is absurd), they should certainly be included in something that purports to be an "iraq body count."
why don't they just require standard government ID and use the face recognizer to determine if the buyer is the person on the ID and let the ID provide the age?
Because that wouldn't increase the convenience of the machine at all vs. just requiring an ID card. I guess you are viewing this as a security mechanism, but the people making them apparently think there's a better market as a convenience mechanism. Based on this, I would guess that Japan's attitude about under-age smoking is less strict than here in the US.
Yes, I do call it carbon neutral. The plants take in C02, H20 and E to create vinegar and cellulose, and due to thermodynamics, plants can't create more H20 and C02 than they take in; so by definition it's carbon neutral.
Exactly, and the quicker we go carbon neutral the better. (Though after burning so many fossil fuels, we're already way behind. What we *really* need is a car that poops carbon bricks we can bury back in the coal mines).
My question is, can the mice still smell the cats? If the mice can still smell the cat, but the link from "cat smell" to "fear" is gone, yet the link from "cat appearance" to "fear" still persists, then I agree that is interesting.
What would also be interesting is if the genetically modified mice can learn to fear the smell of cats by repeatedly smelling them just before seeing them, or something.
I would be more worried about customer satisfaction, whether 1,000 or 10,000. If it works well for people, is available most everywhere, and only costs $199, it will sell.
These reviews sound good, unless they're all pro-linux shills.
So tell us, what here is worthy of the patent? If it's simply parallel search, then I don't think it can be considered valid. Even RAID0 would fall under this description.
To the industry, it doesn't matter whether somebody doesn't pay because they're copying for free, or because they simply don't like music. The only difference is, it's presumably easier to force a pirate to pay than to make people like music. Presumably.
Slashdot Mirror
Whether Microsoft draws it at the right place is, of course, another question entirely.
To me it seems there is less excitement and slower uptake of Vista than previous MS releases. If true, that is new.
The problem is that due to credit prices have risen to what people can barely pay just the interest on. The prices have nothing to do with anything, except the expectation that the cycle will continue. When people quote these nice-sounding statistics about how many people are "homeowners," they never mention how many actually own them outright. We are returning to an "ownership" that amounts to renting because everybody has a mortgage payment and if you don't make the payment, you'll find out who the real "owner" is.
This may sound horrible, but having to actually understand code in order to work with it is a recipe for disaster. Don't get me wrong, I love to get "in the zone" and write some perfectly handcrafted code. But the fact is, some bozo is going to work on the code sooner or later. He's not going to really understand it, instead he's going to use the "generate and test" method of problem-solving, i.e. slop some code in there and then debug it until it seems to work. That bozo could even be you, when at some later date you hardly remember the code and have a short amount of time to modify it. I haven't discovered any way to cope with the problem, except to code in a very obvious way.
Personally, I do need a laptop with long battery life when I travel, but I also buy a second, small-capacity/lightweight battery for every day use. This also preserves the long-life battery for trips.
With a docking station, you can plug 2 displays into most laptops anyways.
I read a study a while ago that very light yet prolonged exercise can actually do you some good. Alas, I can't remember the catchphrase for this type of exercise.
This problem has been plaguing us for years and we keep talking about how big and impossible it is, yet we do almost nothing about it. Somehow for the US to invest a couple trillion in solving this problem is out of the question - yet we have no problem spending that much to destroy and rebuild Iraq over and over again. It's sheer stupidity.
If consumer prices more accurately reflected long-term environmental costs, you could answer this question simply by determining whether it made financial sense to replace the gadget. People thinking of dumping their car to get something more fuel efficient in order to save money make this calculation all the time: how much gas $$/mo will I save, how long would that take to pay off the difference between car X and car Y (though the high price of gas is due to scarcity and politics instead of reflecting long-term costs such as the environment). Correcting the fact that pricing does not reflect environmental impact in general is the #1 environmental step we could take IMHO. Granted, this would allow rich people to continue polluting all they want, but at least they'd have an incentive to clean up their factories. And yes, I think we could and should extend this to imported goods.
Once again: "seek time."
Unless you know of some special reason why sustained write speed is critical, you should probably be looking more closely at access time, where SSD blows mechanical drives out of the water.
No doubt, mechanical drives still rule capacity/price, but with the growth rates of the two technologies over the past several years, SSD could take over soon.
Why do you think that? I read iraqbodycount's methods and I now believe it's too conservative an estimate. It doesn't even purport to count all the dead Iraqis - just the documented violent deaths of noncombatants. That's a joke. Would you count casualties from the US civil war that way? All the guys of sect X who stand up to prevent sect Y from kicking them out of their own homes - they don't even count. The millions of refugees driven from their homes with nothing - how many have died prematurely? And, yes, the ones that we killed ourselves... even if you assume they were all going to launch terrorist attacks on America anyways (which is absurd), they should certainly be included in something that purports to be an "iraq body count."
Unfortunately selective enforcement is nefarious because it's so hard to prove. Just as a black person here in the US.
What would also be interesting is if the genetically modified mice can learn to fear the smell of cats by repeatedly smelling them just before seeing them, or something.
There is a big difference between believing that God will punish somebody for something, and taking it into your own hands.
These reviews sound good, unless they're all pro-linux shills.
So tell us, what here is worthy of the patent? If it's simply parallel search, then I don't think it can be considered valid. Even RAID0 would fall under this description.
To the industry, it doesn't matter whether somebody doesn't pay because they're copying for free, or because they simply don't like music. The only difference is, it's presumably easier to force a pirate to pay than to make people like music. Presumably.