Websites are billboards that are designed to be looked at.
Any website that wants to prevent anyone from linking to their 'content' can simply install a "door" with a "lock" (a password" to protect the content).
If you don't want someone to look at your website or your billboard, then you don't create it open to view from passersby...
This idiocy won't get off the ground.
Capitalism isn't suited to a non-scarcity based economy -- since the only way capitalism can continue to work is to induce artificial scarcities where there really are none.
The only way to do that is to create laws restricting access to access to things people already take for granted and already have access to. It'll be like the war on drugs, except that it will be every "Intellectual Property" -- and on a scale 10x as large.
The big loser -- will be the parasites who profit off of 'free information' being sold again and again -- getting rich and depleting the worlds resources and capital -- lowering standards of living and lowering productivity, and lowering overall progress needed for humans to survive and prosper into the next millennium. Without drastic attitude changes in people 'in power', there will be no humans next millennium, or humans will have devolved to tribal status and be subject/victim to whatever natural disaster comes along -- resulting in our eventual extinction.
If we don't solve the energy crunch issue -- and don't "free up wealth" the concept of 'wealth', and don't raise up the humanity, as a whole, we are dead. Unfortunately, no one living to day really cares much about life after their death (or their children's death). It's already the case, in the US, that the standard of living for the current generation is on track to decline from the previous generation -- and further declines are expected after that. Unless we create large, new, amounts of raw resources, we don't have anything even close to what is necessary in this world to support a standard of living even half that of what exists in the US.
Globalization-> leads to lower standard of living for top inventors and will limit technological growth as "high tech" knowledge becomes a 'luxury' -- we'll be stuck at the "using up resources" phase -- in a non-renewable, non-sustainable way -- until massive shortages destroy our civilization. At current rates of consumption against known reserves some materials will run out this century. Some within the next decade.
We are going downhill as a species -- because we are all like the lobsters you put in a barrel -- they will keep pulling down the ones that are almost about to escape, so that all are trapped and all die. That's us and our current morality/mindset.
Only a new religion of humanity, of caring and reducing suffering among all feeling creatures now and for all time in the future (no taking now at expense of the future), will we turns things around.
I believe that only a religion of sacrifice will bring the commitment necessary for our species to grow beyond our current condition and have the possibility of surviving by growing beyond this planet. A religion could inspire the passion necessary for the sacrifices and changes necessary -- and a religion could spread...but I don't know of any other form of human institution or system that could bring about the changes necessary.
Most certainly religions that focus on 'afterlife' and letting things slide in this life-time for reward in the next life are certainly an anathema to the survival of the species and should be, as enemies of humanity -- seen as pure and destructive evil, now matter how much they cloak themselves with good works or words of faith and belief.
No kudos for him 'sharing' or 'helping' his peers...his motivation was for the code to be a "good employer reference for his work" (not a bad idea in itself), but the idea of helping his peers seemed like a remote possibility to him -- he said it could be helpful to some peers, but with no 'could' qualification, he thought it would be a good reference. While I entirely approve of his posting his work, lets reserve kudos for altruism when it is actually the case.:-)
In the counter point, though -- if you, (or he) actually thought future students would benefit by copying his work, you might want to reconsider that -- copying from others and not learning to think for yourself is rarely a benefit if your goal is actual learning.
For 1000's of years, non-white desert dwellers have constructed large towers that deliver 100's of gallons/day -- all automatically powered by the sun -- and no manual effort required...
I usually split the difference when I buy a new cell-phone. I force them into a 1-year agreement & split the difference on the phone cost.
At least verizon has been willing to do this, but AT&T & Apple have a monopoly on the iPhone (which is substantially different from a generic 'smartphone', though one might argue that it's a mixed bag of benefits and deficits) -- like, perhaps, AT&T's monopoly position on offering the phone and their ability to dictate terms -- rather than being willing to negotiate or be reasonable with customers.
What company's software did Microsoft illegally install changes to?
Firefox is a company? I thought it was supposed to be a _system_ web-browser -- designed to work with a users's web sites? If a user wants to use MS based utils and wants to install plug-ins to THEIR web browser, then shouldn't they have that right?
Er...so tell me again, what company's software did Microsoft illegally make changes to?
Doofus!
P.s. I hate various aspects of MS as much as the next Linux/unix/open-source/XP diehard -Vista DRM-hating, Win-7 = Vista-II with minor performance enhancements (but never benched against XP3) & likely to be included, enhanced, end-user management for law-enforcement similar to what's required on cell-phones (universal tracking, remote turn-on, remote activation, silent listening with a conference-phone microphone) -- but has yet to come to a PC near you. Everything Vista was for Hollywood & Content Producers, is the next evil place for MS to go with Windows...add remote capabilities for arbitrary 'law enforcement' to remotely control PC's that are off or behind firewalls and get capabilities remotely in league with the black market botnet masters...
They'll have to do it to protect the children! Child-pr0n is stored stenographically across millions of home computers! Of course the owners of all those computers are aiding, abetting and guilty of conspiracy -- thus able to be prosecuted and given the sentences of the maximums of the worst offender in each category. Given enough time, and the walls we build to keep our borders 'safe' will be repurposed to keep "us" in.
Standard HDMI Cable - supports data rates up to 1080i/60;
High Speed HDMI Cable - supports data rates beyond 1080p, including Deep Color and all 3D formats of the new 1.4 specification;
Standard HDMI Cable with Ethernet - includes Ethernet connectivity;
High Speed HDMI Cable with Ethernet - includes Ethernet connectivity;
Automotive HDMI Cable - allows the connection of external HDMI-enabled devices to an in-vehicle HDMI device.
(**)
[If ((P1=Standard_HDMI_cable) == (P2=HDMI_1.1_cable) && pin_compatible(P1,P2) ), [then] _[likely:]__"only new cables people will encounter are: ____________ - 1.4 Highspeed (1080p -> 4k, 3D, Deep color etc) ____________ - 1.4 Highspeed + Ethernet.
(Ignoring Automotive cables in the rest of this)
So you are saying, we'll 'only' see 3 cables (i.e. the 2 new variants you mention + old)? I.e. you
think we won't see 'old+ethernet' combo?
First, I, hope you are right about no standard+ether. However, if they admit to not needing 2 separate cables for standard, then how likely is it they would only justify 2-cables for "1.4-HS?
I don't know about the connector differences between the new and old -- but IF there is any difference
between Low and High (there wasn't for USB), there might be a different adapter format when including ethernet.
Question.Could current connector format physically support full new capability set and maintain backward compatibility? (I.e. is there enough extra space in current connector profile to allow for more connections?
However it seems feasible,
__If_______they wanted to provide best value to customers/consumers
_____AND___were not focused on extraction of maximum money by consumer class affordability
___________ (a heinous practice that gives inflated profits for less innovation to producers,___________ costing consumers more, and creating more junk in the world -- hurting world growth___________ and causing orders of magnitude more resource consumption)
__ to make only ONE (1) cable AND to make ONE (1) adapter from the old HDMI plug to the new plug format,
Is it not?
It would be so refreshing if the electronics industry could be responsible and move toward cable simplification rather than increased stratification that will cause much waste of world resources in overhead for perpetuating multiple cable formats that will only exist for the purpose of creating increased profit-points for cable manufacturers...
-l
(**) - Why a technical commentary site like 'slashdot' makes it **SO** nearly impossible to do 'code' (which throws away indentation and spacing unless one uses filler chars like "_" (which are often specifically detected (if really used to quote much code) as "garbage, filler or repetitive characters"))), is beyond me. You'd think a technical site would at least allow *indenting*, -- especially within 'code' blocks,
not to mention 'Super' and 'Sub' scripting. Even Wordpress allows LaTeX formulae to be inserted in
comments -- and a technical site like "/." doesn't? That seems like a glaring deficiency (among others), (can't even <u>_u_n_d_e_r_l_i_n_e_</u>, either!
I wish 'Slashdot' would enter the modern age and allow formatting -- realizing that it can vastly improve readibility. Heck -- limit it to non-anon posters to _lower_ abuse potential, but come on, this is the era of CSS3 + and we are stuck in pre-CSS, *deprecated* tag usage only....UG...
I'd take anything they write with a bag-load of rock-salt. They have highly intelligent writers, lawyers and paid-think-tank' personnel who do nothing than think of ways to package conservative thought to sound acceptable and logical to the masses.
While I usually judge an article on its merits -- when it comes to anything by owned by Murdock -- I'm immediately suspect -- as his stated mission, besides reducing the average intelligence and education level of Americans in order to make them more 'pliable' by his heavily used and financed multi-media empire, he also has of reducing America's economic power and brain-base in order to increase the value of Australia's growing tech and IT sector -- so America will come more to rely on exported brain power from Australia. All of their IT folks I've dealt with, are both smart and dedicated, and totally willing to follow any unethical or America-harming orders without question. I.e. they are not brought up with American values -- (not that American values are what they used to be 30-40 years ago).
It's in Murdock's interest to recreate the deregulated and 'robber-baron' environment that existed in the early 1900's that allowed capitalist employer's to heavily exploit workers while using a stick approach of little or no social safety net to enforce compliance.
Murdock, Fox, and his ilk are quite 'anti-American' in their goals -- and are working their best to hold back responsible social behavior to the benefit of capitalistic greed and empire building even if it causes mass numbers of people to lose their homes and life savings (current recession being a prime example of Fox-related influence (though they were far from a 'cause', they set the stage for idiots electing idiots to loosen the reigns of government and allow unbridled lust to be rewarded and unchecked which created many horrible, exercised opportunities for abuse.
It sickens me to see Fox cloak itself in the US-Flag colors -- which they strongly identified with during the Bush era and and their strong encouragement for us to waste our dollars and research in 'tilting at oil-wells' in Iraq et al. Where now, with a change toward a progressive administration, they totally set themselves up as the anti-government station while maintaining their cloak of patriotism, and the nerve to trademark the language "Fair and Balanced".
There are times American's rights to free speech need to be more examined and restricted when major media outlets are owned by very powerful foreign businessmen who very likely have the interests of their own country and own foreign-based empires first and foremost, before any consideration of what is good for the US.
Is ASUS removing (and no longer supporting) their previously designed and installed Linux offerings? If not, I wouldn't call it a slap in the face, but just MS marketing 'Hype' attempting to compete with what may be the better performance of a Linux-installed computer.
If MS is requiring ASUS to no longer offer Linux -- it seems like this would be a perfect example of MS using their monopoly position to shut out competition, setting them up for more monopoly abuse lawsuits. If's it's only another option offered by MS -- of course MS will say their stuff is better.
The original article doesn't indicate that the Linux offerings will be discontinued -- just that ASUS is finally allowing MS to provide an ASUS tuned version of (presumably, XP) to try to compete. I don't see that as a slap -- just S.O.P.
With all it's magnets and electricity usage, you can't convince me they are anywhere near efficient enough to NOT generate loads of waste heat. In the winter -- especially during those '22 days', when electricity is at a premium, I suspect it has a good deal to due with those being the shortest and among the coldest days of winter. That means during the time of highest electrical cost, they are also likely to have the coldest outdoor temperatures.
There is a high amount of power going into the facility. The magnets can't take much power after they are energized, given they are being held at super-cool temperatures and are designed to function as 100% efficient super-conducting magnets -- then all of the power must be going into... what? Varying the magnetic flux to accelerate the particles (which will generate heat), and running cooling compressors (which could have been designed to take advantage of cooler outdoor temperatures to decrease cooling load requirements, but I suspect not) takes some power but would generate heat as a by-product.
Then there are the beams -- very high energy cost beams that are colliding with each other. Except for parts of the beams which convert into matter, which sounds negligible, with most of the research going into analyzing the decay products of temporarily created particles, then all that energy must generate ALOT of heat. In the coldest months of winter, not only should they be able to use that waste heat to heat the non-refrigerated, human-inhabited parts of the facility, (reducing heating load), most importantly -- that waste heat combined with the outdoor temperatures that are among the lowest of the winter, should provide ideal conditions for electrical generation through Sterling engines. It seems that the colder it is outside, the better the conditions for turning their waste heat into [re]usable electricity via Sterling
Combined with the possibility of increased cooling operating efficiency in winter (less cooling requirements, if they designed their cooling system s to take advantage of lower outdoor temperatures to start from as a base for cold-air to refrigerate, or help to bring in cold-outdoor air to help insulate cold-areas, their winder electrical load could drop by some fraction, reducing electrical usage during peak-cold times, thus further dropping their electrical load and lowering their winter electric bill.
While the majority of power goes energizing the magnets, they should be very efficient, as the operate at absolute zero are are near 100% efficiency). However, the 'end' work is 'smashing' of particles together and watching decay patterns. Unless I am gravely mistaken, virtually none, or a nearly insignificant percentage of that collision results in the creation of matter (that would act as a very large energy sump).
Given those conditions, it is likely that about 95% or more of the energy used would be radiated out (after decay) as VERY hot "waste heat" -- with each beam having the excess heat to be able to drill 30cm holes in copper (that's alot of excess heat!!!).
Such high heat with the extra frigid temperatures outside should enable optimal power generation from numerous heat-differential engines that convert heat-differences into mechanical energy.
Peltier devices have potential for high efficiency as they skip a mechanical -> generator step) (Peltier Guide. Mechanical devices such as those describe by the original (free-public domain), patented Stirling engine, US Patent 3995429, (a href="http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6804171/claims.html">US Patent 6804171, (OR), possibly, low-cost, licensable patents Method Accession# 01A0878780),
No, because SAS will always be more expensive than SATA.
Why? If you break products down into consumer and enterprise level drives -- as they do within SATA drives, then presumably, you can also have consumer and enterprise level SAS drives.
So why would a SAS drive at same quality (if you compare same speed and capacity) be more expensive than a SATA drive?
It appears from this jaundiced eye, that the distinction is purely arbitrary to support significantly higher mark-ups and margins for SAS products. With SATA Enterprise products, the mark-ups are noticeably lower as the Enterprise makers have to provide real performance and/or quality beyond the 5-year warrantied consumer level products.
Measuring quality for quality, why would SAS be any more expensive than SATA? (once you've separated out any difference for Enterprise vs. consumer level quality).
Seems like price of SAS drives and parts would fall due to increased volume.
Sorry , not wrong about kindle -- you you posted main reason why in your post!
You can take any book you already own (ebook or otherwise), attach the file to your amazon registered email address, and for 10 cents, get it formatted for your kindle account. Then you can download it for free to any kindle by logging in to your account on that kindle.
I can download anything from Gutenberg, or any of the other 10K-100K public domain titles (depends on what source you credit, and what counts as a 'title', I supposed), and only pay 10 cent to register a public domain book to my amazon account so I can transfer my free-file to my kindle?
Remember the little blue books that became popular after the 1st depression? NEW, they were only 5-10cents each for a paper copy, and used, you could often pick 50 for a dollar! And you didn't have to register your purchase with anyone!
Such a deal only 10cents to read a 'free' book on my kindle.
Or are you saying I can write into kindle and tell them ALL of the paper-copy (Paperback and hardback) books I own, and for 10-cents they'll provide me with a mono-chrome, kindle version? Will it include all diagrams and pics? How do they scan in older books? How do they verify my ownership? Do I just send them a photocopy of the title page? Somehow I think you are telling me the former. That I only need to pay 10cents to register any title I want to read w/Amazon. NOT a deal.
What was a deal was when someone wrote a python script that allowed you download such books directly to your kindling from your computer -- no Amazon registration or fee required.
If I have a PDF-encryted/registered ebook I bought from someone else, I want to be able to load it as well (presuming I can have my 'reader' act as 'book-cache' for my main computer.
While I'm comfortable that I can add Terabyte disks to my local computer to hold all my books and that I can backup my disks -- and that I can have the option to download any of those books at anytime to a portable reader (like a kindle -- but ideally full color), I don't have the faith that I can extend or expand my kindling's capacity nor read anything not licensed by Amazon, nor read anything when I am off the net, but still have my local laptop on a plane or *wherever* I don't want to accrue per-minute or per-megabyte download charges (as I would on most phones, unless I pay for unlimited dataplans). But even then, it's nothing like having local access to your library.
So no, not wrong about Kindle. They even charge to read free stuff. I can't download from my computer directly. Everything tied to Amazon's whim.
Nothing here should meant to be said to detract from the device itself -- only Amazon's desire to be the only access port to it.
Apple's always been *evil*. They've just become very good at creating the 'must-have' style products that are overpriced, locking you into Apple... at every chance. Easily shutting down anything remotely resembling 'freedom' -- which is what made the PC great in the first place. People have complained about MS's adoption of more and more DRM, but Apple's always had a de facto locking -- by having exclusive locks on compatible hardware. MS went with the approach of allowing unrestricted interoperability (which, when they've tried to limit, they've gotten slapped down due to their monopoly position, but Apple is similarly a monopoly in their market. But MS on PC's and Apples on Apples, are both monopolies. Apple gets away with it because they are smaller -- but their policies and user-abuse are far harsher and more totalitarian than MS. Much of that stems from Apple's core culture, but some of it also stems from MS being forced to be more open because they are a standard -- which they became because of their openness.
It disgusts me the way Apple fanboys fawn all everything Apple, which fancying themselves superior to PC-users. Bu it's nothing more than it ever was -- financial and "in-crowd" elitism.
You see it in Apple's commercials...the I'm a Mac, vs. PC. The PC guy looks like the average harried Joe -- while the Apple guy is just portrayed as 'cool'...with all his little 16-17 y/o rail-thin model pod-girls dancing around him in silhouette, like an oh-so-more-sophisticated 'Deadhead' scene of rainbow colors, but with the original 'cool' of Beatles style and music 60's-70 -- the epitome of cool in the baby-boom generation, with it's message perpetuating the message of perpetual cool youth with their stylish Apple products. The iPhone, by it's price should be focused on adults and business types, but it's obviously focused on sales to teens and 20'-something as the latest trend of electronic fashion -- just like the ipods were yesterday's (and ongoing) fashion statement.
But people should be concerned about how much market lock-in Apple has -- they own the main means of distribution for their gadgets -- and get to decide how their devices are used -- and they have shown that they have no qualms about shutting down anyone who tries to use their product in an unapproved manner -- or even performing the crudest of Christian censorship campaigns against 'objectionable' classics that have been previously censored or caused controversy. What will be next on their banned list, the unexpurgated poems of Walt Whitman, or the 'Song of Songs': an erotic piece that has been subject to demands of censorship over the centuries as it describes intense expressions of physical love, the voluptuous beauty of lovers longing for one another and in a uniquely feminine perspective, it's seductive and intimate language conveys and immediate, sensuous and intoxicating desire. Certainly worthy of censorship -- or how about the recent decision in Bloomington, Ind where the city is refusing to run a paid-bus, public-service ad, "You can be good without God", as being too controversial (that's their definition of objectionable).
That Apple is using it's censorship powers on type of apps and content is very disturbing given it's unique, monopoly lock in the markets it sells too -- yet the fan boys swoon on, like Apple can do no wrong. They were they original PC-company that moved to sue all their competitors out of business. The original company that "sued over their "Intellectual Property" -- they've been guilty of copyright, patent, trademark and DRM abuse since their creation and have no qualms using lawsuits and their market-lock on their products, to control what you can with "your" product (it's really their product -- they can brick-it anytime they don't like a change you've implemented). If you are lucky, they'll replace it
I'm going to start with an easy game to discuss: RapeLay -- an obscure title by a Japanese publisher that focuses on forced sex situations. There is something special about sexual crimes that make them even worse than murder in the United States.
Until the word 'rape' brings up images for men as being helpless tied down victims while they are brutally sodomized and mouth-raped with a stick holding open the teeth (assuming the rapist hasn't punched out or removed all the teeth before the mouth-rape), Rape will always be an easier game for men to discuss.
Once the image of men being reduced to quivering broken-boned receptacles for the machismo-raper's fluids, is firmly ensconced in the minds of all human men, then the topic of what "feels" worse or "is" worse can be rationally and logically discussed on a level playing field. Presuming enough of the males don't immediately seek the solace of suicide to hide their shame.
I don't know why...
Maybe then you'll know why. But without a level-victim playing field it's difficult for men, who make most of the laws, enforce most of the laws, and violate the most laws to really judge which is worse (and I'm not claiming one is worse than the other). It's just that for some people, living with the shame of victim-hood can be worse than being killed-in-action. Even though, logically, it wasn't the victim's fault -- that doesn't prevent what can be life-long suffering from, often, untreated PTSD. How much worse is it for those who are told that it was (or is) their fault due to the way they dressed, the fact that they 'flirted', or the fact that they were in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time.
Victims of trauma often suffer for years beyond the actual event as triggers cause them to relive aspects of the event. Ask war veterans when they hear a car backfire or or when they awaken from some nightmare with night-sweats. Ask those who lived but were damaged for life, who may now be trying to care for a family, about how "lucky" they felt next to their fellow soldiers who were cut down, but died honorably, and who got posthumous decorations and benefits for their families.
I don't think you will find universal agreement about who got the better deal -- it very much comes down to the individual, as well as the supportiveness (or lack thereof) after the incident.
Ideally, everyone would 'get over it'...but tell that to the new crop of soldiers, with exceptionally high numbers coming back with what the army has been deliberately trying to downplay, but is being increasingly recognized as PSTD. Victims of any crime -- but especially ones involving interpersonal violence and violation are very likely to set the stage for PSTD-caused mental damage long after the actual event.
Yet, if a rapist was at the party, people would probably be mortified. While the sentencing isn't as harsh, sex offenders are registered and tracked for the rest of their lives while murderers can be released or paroled under good behavior.
About 30 years back, it used to be the other way around. Personally, I think physical castration should be used more often for violent 1st cases, or repeat offenders. But used to be that rape you got off with a few years or probation -- far less punishment than murder, usually. Regardless of the current trends in criminal "justice"[sic] and "rehabilitation"[sic] the sentences and punishments for most crimes under our criminal justice system are out of whack and do little to increase overall safety in the community or the country.
I see RapeLay as nothing more than a game concentrating on a particular crime -- a less serious crime than many I commit in some of the games I play.
I might agree with you if the victims (and perps) were equally represented between the sexes -- but it's one crime where overwhelmingly, the the majority of perps are mal
If you are going to advertise the new tech of some toy like this -- at least provide a way to signup to this 'invite-only' service.
It's so nice to hear about how the original article author has been so happy to use this Elite-invitation Only service -- it would be nice for them not to flaunt how happy they are to a public audience and expect us to be grateful or respectful for flaunting the fact that they are in the "elite, invite-only" group, and all the benefits of being in the group -- while giving no way for his readers or for slashdot-readers to sign-up or get an invite.
Sorta like that neat new Intel laptop with the builtin graphics processor I've been happy with now for a year and that you can't get -- the one with 256 processors that can act as 256-multi-way x86-Atom processors with a shared cache that use.7W ea, if all active, or 0 when not needed -- that can have arbitrary numbers of them configured as 3-D graphics accelerator cores, giving the ability to run the latest 3-D-compute intensive games in 100's of frames/second on its builtin-1920x1200 (w/full Hi-Def 1920x1080p support) screen, or using it's DVI or HDMI outputs for a larger screen. It's setup to dual boot in WinXP or Linux with the full 3D accel drives available from Intel (when you are eventually allowed access to the product, the drivers will be open-sourced, but it will only be sold with Vista Home Basic, included).
Yeah -- just the type of article us tech-heads love to read -- brings back fond memories. Here we are in the adult 'tech' world, where we are used to our tech-creds giving us accessibility to the latest tech (by virtue of latest tech usually being available, but incomprehensible to lay-people, so only us 'tech-heads' usually have access -- though it's all "merit" based, so it's ok, anyone who wants to access it, simply has to apply themselves to understand the tech!:-) But this 'invite-only' stuff...memory of highschool, where our tech-cred was considered outcast-nerd-dom, and even in our 20-30-something days, meant we usually weren't the ones who swept past the front of the line (not being one of the beautiful people), unless we were going in the side or back door to be one of the sound-visual tech-heads to support bands with heavy computer-sound and visual effect processing (earliest I can remember was D'Cuckoo back in the early 90's around SF. They used SGI-O2's for graphix and sounds effects to create light visuals and some audio processing...a music-loving geek's paradise job). But outside of those few opportunities....feeling like the outsider is always a lovely feeling.
So you prefer the idea that big government take over this process and implement this on ALL PC's?
Are you an idiot?
Here we have 1 company, Dell, (there are others that sell large numbers to businesses, or sell expensive computer products who do similar), who tries to slow down the theft of laptops and PC's walking away from businesses and people.' You whine (a bit too vociferously, IMO):
I can think of only two things more valuable in my house than my PC: The house itself, and my car. I can't sell either one without letting the government know! I dunno about a house (I'm a damn college student, own a house? yeah right.), but my car has a pretty little blue piece of paper with its VIN and my name and address on it. I can sell my car to you, you can pay me cash, hell, I can write you a bill of sale, but you don't own it until a notary witnesses me write your name on that piece of paper and sign it. PERIOD.
And I'm kind of fine with that. I don't want someone taking my multi-thousand dollar machine from me and then having to prove I own it.
So you have your 3rd most valuable piece of equipment, and don't want someone helping to keep it. If someone takes a computer from you, (and Dell wasn't tracking owners), then you would have to prove to the police that you owned the computer. If you couldn't, you've lost your computer - paper or not. But if you are the registered owner, it only works in your favor. You are the owner, and the thief has to prove that that they legally purchased it from you and you have to 'agree' that you legally transferred it to them. How is this a "bad" thing for a legal owner of the PC? Yet you complain like you are the one who has no legal standing. Why is that?
In addition to tracking for the purpose of preventing casual theft, something that has been a growing problem in the business world where employee theft of computers, especially, laptops that are easy to walk out a door with little notice, has been a growing, chronic problem for decades. I'm thinking they may especially be vigilant when a PC bought for 'business purposes' ends up in non-business hands. Inventory control is an automatic service that Dell advertises to businesses. May of their business PC's have built-in low-jack equipment built into the hardware and BIOS, so anytime the computer connects to any public net, if they lo-jacking is enabled (it's optionally enabled by the owner - but once enabled cannot be disabled w/o an onsite- Dell Service Call). Again, a theft deterrent for legal and valid owners that is totally under their control to activate OR not.
If you don't like such protections on a computer, than you might consider buying a cheaper computer that doesn't contain such safe guards. It still may be the case that their less expensive consumer PC's don't have such tracking, but expensive gaming-rigs like Alienware, would probably tend to include the anti-theft options to help control illegal ownership transfers.
The fact that you have such a violent, self-righteous reaction to this services seems to indicate that your are more worried about having to prove you are the owner of a "PC" you have acquired through "unofficial channels" or through some unscrupulous, third-party reseller of Dell goods. If they are selling stolen goods, then you should direct your anger at the seller. If you are knowingly purchasing stolen goods, you are an accessory to the crime. If they are not willing to transfer ownership and remaining warrantee or support contract to you, then they may be attempting fraud (by ordering parts for a PC they no longer own), OR they may be trying to force you to buy all of your addition and replacement parts through them (so they can get a mark-up). Whatever their trip, your anger should be focused at the right party - not at Dell or Alienware who is trying to "do the right thing" without being forced by some government entity. Government steps in when people aren't ethical enough to do the right thing themselves.
but where would this idea leave free software coders?"
Um, no different than from now? As near as I can tell, open-software or free software doesn't require a 'license' that the user has paid for. But the idea that I can buy a product and have it broken when I get home or not work as expected -- and then be told I can't get a refund, or that I need to get updates, or pay for upgrades for working products -- is so completely bogus its really not that funny.
I would relish the idea of product liability applying to software again. I might even find the software field tolerable again -- as opposed to the current system, where software developers are rushed and pushed to release anything that remotely can function -- and if it doesn't die on install or cause a system crash, then 'ship it'. Everything else you promise a patch -- that often never comes -- they just release a new product you have to upgrade to (because they don't support your old version) and you have to hope the bug is fixed in the new product -- and, well, it might be -- if you could find the feature that used to be there that you wanted to work -- but lo and behold, they've 'simplified' the interface, and 'modernized' it by removing all those pesky features you bought the product for, but never had them quite work correctly.
They old bait & switch -- that and the 'addict the customer to periodic subscription fees (called monthly support, or yearly support, or annual upgrades). Some companies go the extra mile to screw you over, so if you wait too long to 'upgrade' your product, and end up not staying on top of their release cycle and buying everyone of their updates, then when it comes time to upgrade, -- I had one company that wanted to charge me $150 for every upgrade between the one I had and the latest -- so to get currently I would have had to pay $450. It was only $400 to buy a new version of the product. At that point, I decided I didn't need their product anymore.
If they'd been required to fix the bugs in their original software in the first place, then I wouldn't have needed the $450 upgrade to their $400 product. But to get the fixes, I also had to buy all the new features and upgrades -- all on my dime, even though all I wanted was a simple bug fix in their product. Sorry -- we don't support that anymore. You have to buy a new one. But current one is 3 revisions ahead, so that will be $50 more than buying another copy of the product outright.
Gee -- thanks -- and the benefit of buying the upgrades? All my settings, documents and files would be upgraded to the new format -- otherwise I'd have to re-enter and recreate my setup with the new software. Bye-bye overpriced, under-supporting Hummingbird-X morons!
Oh, and did I mention, XFree, works faster and with fewer bugs than the for-pay product? So -- yeah, requiring a software vendor to stand behind a product they charge for sounds reasonable -- else maybe they shouldn't be selling the software -- maybe they should be giving it away and just selling service?
I bought a Dell product for nearly $1000 less than new on the Dell site (the seller supposedly didn't need it or had purchased too many and was willing to take a loss). Deal was on the up-n-up, and Dell wanted (as did I) to transfer the system serial number into my name and note me as the authorized owner.
This has come about because people have too often tended to walk away with hardware that doesn't belong to them, so some responsible companies track who claims to "own" a piece of hardware and that it 'jives' with their established database.
I don't know what weird thing Alienware or the eBay seller has raised in confusion, but the system ownership should be transferred over to you by the seller. Then, as the registered owner of the computer, you shouldn't have a problem.
Is there some problem with the eBay seller NOT wanting to transfer ownership to you for a system that you have supposedly purchased from them?
That sounds like the eBay seller trying to run some scam -- keeping the system in his name while he sells it to you (?). Can't think of why he'd want to do that unless he's trying to use the warrantee on your system to make fraudulent orders for replacement parts or such.
I don't know the particulars of your situation, but assuming Alienware is operating under Dell rules -- they will treat you as a thief unless the system has been transferred by the previous owner, into your name. Is there some problem that you don't want the computer in your name? Or is it that the eBay seller is refusing to sign-over the "deed to the computer"....
Since that's basically what it is -- Dell(Alienware) is making sure you are the registered owner of the product you are ordering parts for. Plain and simple. Any confusion beyond that is either your sellers 'trip', or your reluctance to be acknowledged as 'owner' of a computer that you have purchased. Either way, I strongly doubt Alienware is treating their registered customers as thieves.
Get the ownership of the system transferred and stop whining about how mean Alienware is being. You wouldn't complain if the police stopped you and wondered why you were driving a car that was listed as being owned in someone else's name, would you? Why complain about owning or trying to get service on a computer that hasn't been transferred into your name then?
Ah, yes...the problem with Firefox is one of poor design, with only 1 thread to manage all of the user's input and tasks. With 13 active windows, and an additional 79 background tabs (94 tabs total), I have about 33 threads allocated, but only 1 thread being used to actually manage user input and the
various 'active' tabs (apparently 1 of the tabs, (who knows which one, FF doesn't provide any way
to tell which 'tab' it is, i.e.-no internal 'ps') is hogging things). Of course if this was a real OS, we could see what was hogging the cpu and the rest of the browser could run on one of the *3* other 'idle' cores. But hey, this makes for easier design -- just doesn't scale well.
CPU |CSWitch|Thread
96.96 |866 |firefox.exe+0x15a0
|7 |M0ZCRT19.dl|!endthreadex+0xa0
|2 |MSVCR71.dll!_threadstartex
| |xul.dll!gfxPattern::~gfxPattern+0x75
| |MOZCRT19.dll!endthreadex+0xa0
|42 |MOZCRT19.dll!endthreadex+0xa0
| |MOZCRT19.dll!endthreadex+0xa0 [5 copies of this line]
| |wdmaud.drv!MixerCallbackThread
| |WINMM.dll!mciwindow
|2144 |WINMM.dll!timeThread
| |kernel32_dllBaseThreadStartThunk
| |NPSWF32dll!native_ShockwaveFlash_TCallLabel+0x14ad3 [4 copies of this line]
|2 |MSVCR71.dll!_threadstartex
| |MSVCR71.dll!_threadstartex [6 copies of this line]
|45 |MSVCR71.dll!_threadstartex
| |MSVCR71.dll!_threadstartex [6 copies of this line]
| |RPCRT4.dll!ThreadStartRoutine
| |mswsock.dll!SockAsyncThread
Can't imagine *why* anyone would even consider needing a multiprocessor browser, unless they, um, left it up for days at a time, and often were in the middle of one task or project, then after a break came back and got involved in another -- usually with all windows being shut down in some stack-like order unless windows or the browser crashes. One window with ~20 background tabs had all of the day's slashdot-headlines-of-interest opened with me slowly clicking through them (getting interrupted and not finishing the tabs, now, a day later....*cough*).
Ok...so I have alot on my plate -- not to mention books to read, emails to write, articles and letters to write...way much more to do than I have time for, but what else is new?:-)
p.s.The '|' separated table layout is a slashdot *feature*. Readers are to do layout in their brains.
So do we think he'll make all of the Fox Network and Fox News websites, pay-only? Pay-for-news only partly worked on WSJ. While they charged extra for online access on top of paper delivery when they first started, paper subscribers eventually got full online access included and then WSJ opened their website to the public. They made a special 'subscriber-only' blogger section so WSJ affection ado's could discuss things uninterrupted by the plebes, AND the subscriber-blogger section had some chance of being used for news-paper fodder should a blog article be well written. So now you have bloggers able to contribute increasingly intelligent user insights -- potentially reducing staffing needs at WSJ depending on the nature of the community.
Now, the 'cheaper' option option is go 'online' access only. It's cheaper for WSJ, their profit margins are WAY higher, and their profits go up the more they convert away from paper access to online -- no printing, transportation and delivery costs of a 6-day a-week paper.
For those that are interested or need that type of business information, they'll switch to the online version due to ease of access and easier search tools (among other benefits). But this *works* for the WSJ, because many receive/have it delivered to their business anyway, so online access might be more convenient that trying to read from a paper while trying to also work on a computer. It also works, some higher than normal proportion are those for whom the Journal is important for their doing their business. At $150+ dollars/year normal price, (99 on occasion sales, it's not something aimed at casual readers.
So any switch to paid-online content is a cheaper option for motivated subscribers who want to keep track of the journal news -- that information is important enough to pay much more than a standard magazine subscription, so I expect the lower-price of online content is an easy sell.
OTOH -- for non-business-necessary audiences with standard-cost magazines and newspapers, with, readers that don't have a strong need for the product, that barrier of pay-to-access may become not so worthwhile. Besides -- paying, for Fox News? Masochistic.
Apparently, have to use separate processes on *windows*, since AFAIK, threads on linux are implemented on processes and free to roam between processors. Why this isn't true on Windows, I dunno.
Is NT fundamentally broken in not allowing threads to map to multiple processors?
Seems rather sucky -- you can't jsut have multi-threaded apps, but must make multi-proc apps (just for windows?)...
Anyone know for sure that linux doesn't keep multiple-threads of same process on 1 processor (unless deliberately asked). It seems like that may be what Windows is doing? Or maybe none of those threads are actually used for alternate tabs -- but for things like playing sounds or something?
Re:a remedy for low creativity: Cannabis research.
on
Cosmetic Neurology
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· Score: 1
The posting was meant as a lighthearted response, with the same level of seriousness, concern, scientific basis and level of proof, as those, hinting at anecdotal associations between some nootropics and reduced creativity, positing the existence of a nootropic that creates such an effect being chosen by 'everyone' (i.e. you can kiss creativity goodbye).
The hyperbole of "everyone" choosing being a 'whole bunch smarter' at the expense of being a 'whole bunch less creative', is as sound a proposition as the proposed (and sometimes believed) thought that legalizing Cannabis would have "everyone" sitting around stoned all day.
Furthermore, the suggested association of nootropics, as a class, with lowering [all forms of] creativity has equal scientific standing with the claim that Cannabis, in general, raises all types of creativity.
Different drugs/nootropics will have different effects on different people depending on their mental state and balance before taking such drugs. What drug(s) might have some net, beneficial effects for one person, might have net, negative effects for another. Also the effects of 'small doses', compared to 'over-usage', are *quite* different for nearly all substances, including water.
What type of creativity might be useful in math or physics, might have very different components of of the creativity useful in writing, creating music, dancing, -- etc.
The correlations between some nootropics possibly having a decreased effect on creativity has less scientific support that the correlation between Cannabis and increased creativity. I am only aware of anecdotal stories of feelings of reduced creativity, and logical theorizing about effects on 'creativity' based on preliminary and incomplete understandings of creativity. Most specifically, 'creativity' seems to flourish in a mind rich with source information and material, combined with some level of non-linear, discursive thought that allows connecting previously disparate elements in new ways. However, disruptions of this process can easily be brought about by unbalancing the input parameters -- i.e. if one has insufficient or inaccurate base and source information (i.e. if someone has no education in the area that they want to be theorizing in), they aren't likely to form new insights that will be useful (as based on a knowledge of current state of the art in a field).
Equally disruptive can be excessively 'wide' discourse, where one posits over too broad an area to come up with (or create) "useful" connections sufficiently within the topic (or topics) where one has sufficient base information to work with.
So -- a balance is needed. Different individuals start out with different proclivities in mental ability. Some may be "over focused", and have negative effects of appearing overly rigid or even Obsessive-Compulsive. Others may be too scattered or too defocused, to the point of appearing (or feeling) spaced out). Depending on where individuals are *starting from*, and depending on what 'effect' they are striving for "at the moment" (i.e. the effect one strive for when taking a test, or working to beat some types of deadlines, might be different than the effect one wants in the evening or on weekends to 'calm down', and let the brain relax.
Shifts in desired effect are also variable based on 'life situation'. If you are injured, or laid up, you may not want to fee "driven to work", and thus end up frustrated when your injuries prevent you from working. However, if someone is feeling physically energized and not injured -- possibly based on a release from a winter 'S.A.D.D.'-period that left you feeling low, then many might feel a stronger desire to have mental clarity and focus to aid in some type of periodic and more intensive life-organization.
What *has* been shown, scientifically, about Cannabis -- is that when the user wants an effect of increased creativity -- if they are otherwise mentally clear, but their brain is overly in the 'busy'-b
So let's see, we want a 'game' with a "compelling" story-line that is based, as much as possible, on "what is 'real'":
First, it's important to note the parallels in this story with other media trends. There are parallels in the photographic news and in books as American's "sophistication" levels have evolved over time. Now there is a demand toward more realism vs. in the past<sup>(**1)</sup>.
Now, realism demands are making stronger demands into modern gaming, where the game researchers strive for increased realism and send researchers out into the field and across world-sites for gathering actual field info for inclusion in modern simulation games (from world-photo trips for the latest LaraCroft games, to the Iraq-War Game example of gathering data from the actual war-zone to interview soldiers, AND, for realism's sake, the 'enemy' side. Makes perfect sense. But with a couple of points about the collision of reality and simulations-for-fun (games).
Showing 'real', may collide with 'politically correct'<sup>(**2)</sup>.
To be historically accurate, how will the illegal nature of the war being started handled (or avoided)? Is deliberate "avoision"<sup>(**3)</sup> collusion? Might such potential for collusion be regarded negatively by those judging the moral value of such a game?
Will a game, for sake of realism, include real-life episodes (or subgames) of torture<sup>(**4)</sup> Would not including that void the "realism" aspect of the Iraqi War simulation?
In light of the realities of this war and what has been (and is being uncovered) that an attempt to portray an accurately realistic game might be judged NOT to make for "good", or "fun" "game play" is not exceptionally surprising.*cough*
Hopefully war-games and such will stop being the 'fodder' for 'fun'-role playing games as they only lead impressionable minds into believing that such war 'games' are fun and that going to war isn't very ugly when it becomes sufficiently 'realistic'.
Footnotes:
(**1) Parallel events are seen in the literary-world, where 'real-life' stories from those who have survived 'trauma' make NY Times best seller lists, and Oprah selected reading lists because of their 1st-hand viewpoint of the realities of events that most US readers will never come close to experiencing.
In a more "naïve" time, we contented ourselves with stories about such events. And for news, we had had produced video reals shown as entertainment-news in theaters during WWII, with stirring interpretation and music supplied by news/video-production organizations that were designed to inform, but also stir patriotic feelings of support for what was portrayed (and was mostly so) as a war against 'evil' <sup>(**1a)</sup>.
Coinciding, heavily with the advent of first-hand video reporting of the news -- starting in the Vietnam era, but continuing up through modern times, we've become sensitized to the differences between 'real-life' portrayals and the 'produced' versions of 'real-life' events, somehow believing that only 'real-life' portrayals have true and lasting value (whereas the reality depends on the depiction, but such subtleties are lost and subjectively lost for judgment by the viewer). This 'black'-or-'white' thinking of 'real' or 'fake' is permeating culture -- so much that weird 'photo-ops' need to be created at expense and possible terror, vs. creating the same with a photo-shop program<sup>(**1b)</sup>.
Much emphasis has been placed on the authenticity of book narratives written in the first-person about current events. It's of prime importance that such narratives be clearly labeled as non-fiction (meaning the person lived through them), or 'Fiction', meaning it's a story that gets relegated to a back book shelf, possible one for "current event commentary
a remedy for low creativity - MediCann?
on
Cosmetic Neurology
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· Score: 1
Maybe it will be countered by the pro-creative effects of medical Marijuana?:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Websites are billboards that are designed to be looked at.
Any website that wants to prevent anyone from linking to their 'content' can simply install a "door" with a "lock" (a password" to protect the content).
If you don't want someone to look at your website or your billboard, then you don't create it open to view from passersby...
This idiocy won't get off the ground.
Capitalism isn't suited to a non-scarcity based economy -- since the only way capitalism can continue to work is to induce artificial scarcities where there really are none.
The only way to do that is to create laws restricting access to access to things people already take for granted and already have access to. It'll be like
the war on drugs, except that it will be every "Intellectual Property" -- and on a scale 10x as large.
The big loser -- will be the parasites who profit off of 'free information' being sold again and again -- getting rich and depleting the worlds resources and capital -- lowering standards of living and lowering productivity, and lowering overall progress needed for humans to survive and prosper into the next millennium. Without drastic attitude changes in people 'in power', there will be no humans next millennium, or humans will have devolved to tribal status and be subject/victim to whatever natural disaster comes along -- resulting in our eventual extinction.
If we don't solve the energy crunch issue -- and don't "free up wealth" the concept of 'wealth', and don't raise up the humanity, as a whole, we are dead. Unfortunately, no one living to day really cares much about life after their death (or their children's death). It's already the case, in the US, that the standard of living for the current generation is on track to decline from the previous generation -- and further declines are expected after that. Unless we create large, new, amounts of raw resources, we don't have anything even close to what is necessary in this world to support a standard of living even half that of what exists in the US.
Globalization-> leads to lower standard of living for top inventors and will limit technological growth as "high tech" knowledge becomes a 'luxury' -- we'll be stuck at the "using up resources" phase -- in a non-renewable, non-sustainable way -- until massive shortages destroy our civilization. At current rates of consumption against known reserves some materials will run out this century. Some within the next decade.
We are going downhill as a species -- because we are all like the lobsters you put in a barrel -- they will keep pulling down the ones that are almost about to escape, so that all are trapped and all die. That's us and our current morality/mindset.
Only a new religion of humanity, of caring and reducing suffering among all feeling creatures now and for all time in the future (no taking now at expense of the future), will we turns things around.
I believe that only a religion of sacrifice will bring the commitment necessary for our species to grow beyond our current condition and have the possibility of surviving by growing beyond this planet. A religion could inspire the passion necessary for the sacrifices and changes necessary -- and a religion could spread...but I don't know of any other form of human institution or system that could bring about the changes necessary.
Most certainly religions that focus on 'afterlife' and letting things slide in this life-time for reward in the next life are certainly an anathema to the survival of the species and should be, as enemies of humanity -- seen as pure and destructive evil, now matter how much they cloak themselves with good works or words of faith and belief.
linda
No kudos for him 'sharing' or 'helping' his peers...his motivation was for the code to be a "good employer reference for his work" (not a bad idea in itself), but the idea of helping his peers seemed like a remote possibility to him -- he said it could be helpful to some peers, but with no 'could' qualification, he thought it would be a good reference. While I entirely approve of his posting his work, lets reserve kudos for altruism when it is actually the case. :-)
In the counter point, though -- if you, (or he) actually thought future students would benefit by copying his work, you might want to reconsider that -- copying from others and not learning to think for yourself is rarely a benefit if your goal is actual learning.
For 1000's of years, non-white desert dwellers have constructed large towers that deliver 100's of gallons/day -- all automatically powered by the sun -- and no manual effort required...
WOW...
Um, could you cite references?
I usually split the difference when I buy a new cell-phone. I force them into a 1-year agreement &
split the difference on the phone cost.
At least verizon has been willing to do this, but AT&T & Apple have a monopoly on the iPhone (which is substantially different from a generic 'smartphone', though one might argue that it's a mixed bag of benefits and deficits) -- like, perhaps, AT&T's monopoly position on offering the phone and their ability to dictate terms -- rather than being willing to negotiate or be reasonable with customers.
What company's software did Microsoft illegally install changes to?
Firefox is a company? I thought it was supposed to be a _system_ web-browser -- designed to work with a users's web sites? If a user wants to use MS based utils and wants to install plug-ins to THEIR web browser, then shouldn't they have that right?
Er...so tell me again, what company's software did Microsoft illegally make changes to?
Doofus!
P.s. I hate various aspects of MS as much as the next Linux/unix/open-source/XP diehard -Vista DRM-hating, Win-7 = Vista-II with minor performance enhancements (but never benched against XP3) & likely to be included, enhanced, end-user management for law-enforcement similar to what's required on cell-phones (universal tracking, remote turn-on, remote activation, silent listening with a conference-phone microphone) -- but has yet to come to a PC near you. Everything Vista was for Hollywood & Content Producers, is the next evil place for MS to go with Windows...add remote capabilities for arbitrary 'law enforcement' to remotely control PC's that are off or behind firewalls and get capabilities remotely in league with the black market botnet masters...
They'll have to do it to protect the children! Child-pr0n is stored stenographically across millions of home computers! Of course the owners of all those computers are aiding, abetting and guilty of conspiracy -- thus able to be prosecuted and given the sentences of the maximums of the worst offender in each category. Given enough time, and the walls we build to keep our borders 'safe' will be repurposed to keep "us" in.
Idjot! :-)
(Ignoring Automotive cables in the rest of this)
So you are saying, we'll 'only' see 3 cables (i.e. the 2 new variants you mention + old)? I.e. you think we won't see 'old+ethernet' combo?
First, I, hope you are right about no standard+ether. However, if they admit to not needing 2 separate cables for standard, then how likely is it they would only justify 2-cables for "1.4-HS?
I don't know about the connector differences between the new and old -- but IF there is any difference between Low and High (there wasn't for USB), there might be a different adapter format when including ethernet.
Question. Could current connector format physically support full new capability set and maintain backward compatibility? (I.e. is there enough extra space in current connector profile to allow for more connections?
However it seems feasible, __If_______they wanted to provide best value to customers/consumers _____AND___were not focused on extraction of maximum money by consumer class affordability ___________ (a heinous practice that gives inflated profits for less innovation to producers, ___________ costing consumers more, and creating more junk in the world -- hurting world growth ___________ and causing orders of magnitude more resource consumption) __ to make only ONE (1) cable AND to make ONE (1) adapter from the old HDMI plug to the new plug format,Is it not?
It would be so refreshing if the electronics industry could be responsible and move toward cable simplification rather than increased stratification that will cause much waste of world resources in overhead for perpetuating multiple cable formats that will only exist for the purpose of creating increased profit-points for cable manufacturers...
-l
(**) - Why a technical commentary site like 'slashdot' makes it **SO** nearly impossible to do 'code' (which throws away indentation and spacing unless one uses filler chars like "_" (which are often specifically detected (if really used to quote much code) as "garbage, filler or repetitive characters"))), is beyond me. You'd think a technical site would at least allow *indenting*, -- especially within 'code' blocks, not to mention 'Super' and 'Sub' scripting. Even Wordpress allows LaTeX formulae to be inserted in comments -- and a technical site like "/." doesn't? That seems like a glaring deficiency (among others), (can't even <u>_u_n_d_e_r_l_i_n_e_</u>, either!
I wish 'Slashdot' would enter the modern age and allow formatting -- realizing that it can vastly improve readibility. Heck -- limit it to non-anon posters to _lower_ abuse potential, but come on, this is the era of CSS3 + and we are stuck in pre-CSS, *deprecated* tag usage only....UG...
Even the primitive markup is technically
I'd take anything they write with a bag-load of rock-salt. They have highly intelligent writers, lawyers and paid-think-tank' personnel who do nothing than think of ways to package conservative thought to sound acceptable and logical to the masses.
While I usually judge an article on its merits -- when it comes to anything by owned by Murdock -- I'm immediately suspect -- as his stated mission, besides reducing the average intelligence and education level of Americans in order to make them more 'pliable' by his heavily used and financed multi-media empire, he also has of reducing America's economic power and brain-base in order to increase the value of Australia's growing tech and IT sector -- so America will come more to rely on exported brain power from Australia. All of their IT folks I've dealt with, are both smart and dedicated, and totally willing to follow any unethical or America-harming orders without question. I.e. they are not brought up with American values -- (not that American values are what they used to be 30-40 years ago).
It's in Murdock's interest to recreate the deregulated and 'robber-baron' environment that existed in the early 1900's that allowed capitalist employer's to heavily exploit workers while using a stick approach of little or no social safety net to enforce compliance.
Murdock, Fox, and his ilk are quite 'anti-American' in their goals -- and are working their best to hold back responsible social behavior to the benefit of capitalistic greed and empire building even if it causes mass numbers of people to lose their homes and life savings (current recession being a prime example of Fox-related influence (though they were far from a 'cause', they set the stage for idiots electing idiots to loosen the reigns of government and allow unbridled lust to be rewarded and unchecked which created many horrible, exercised opportunities for abuse.
It sickens me to see Fox cloak itself in the US-Flag colors -- which they strongly identified with during the Bush era and and their strong encouragement for us to waste our dollars and research in 'tilting at oil-wells' in Iraq et al. Where now, with a change toward a progressive administration, they totally set themselves up as the anti-government station while maintaining their cloak of patriotism, and the nerve to trademark the language "Fair and Balanced".
There are times American's rights to free speech need to be more examined and restricted when major media outlets are owned by very powerful foreign businessmen who very likely have the interests of their own country and own foreign-based empires first and foremost, before any consideration of what is good for the US.
Is ASUS removing (and no longer supporting) their previously designed and installed Linux offerings? If not, I wouldn't call it a slap in the face, but just MS marketing 'Hype' attempting to compete with what may be the better performance of a Linux-installed computer.
If MS is requiring ASUS to no longer offer Linux -- it seems like this would be a perfect example of MS using their monopoly position to shut out competition, setting them up for more monopoly abuse lawsuits. If's it's only another option offered by MS -- of course MS will say their stuff is better.
The original article doesn't indicate that the Linux offerings will be discontinued -- just that ASUS is finally
allowing MS to provide an ASUS tuned version of (presumably, XP) to try to compete. I don't see that as a slap -- just S.O.P.
-linda
With all it's magnets and electricity usage, you can't convince me they are anywhere near efficient enough to NOT generate loads of waste heat. In the winter -- especially during those '22 days', when electricity is at a premium, I suspect it has a good deal to due with those being the shortest and among the coldest days of winter. That means during the time of highest electrical cost, they are also likely to have the coldest outdoor temperatures.
There is a high amount of power going into the facility. The magnets can't take much power after they are energized, given they are being held at super-cool temperatures and are designed to function as 100% efficient super-conducting magnets -- then all of the power must be going into ... what? Varying the magnetic flux to accelerate the particles (which will generate heat), and running cooling compressors (which could have been designed to take advantage of cooler outdoor temperatures to decrease cooling load requirements, but I suspect not) takes some power but would generate heat as a by-product.
Then there are the beams -- very high energy cost beams that are colliding with each other. Except for parts of the beams which convert into matter, which sounds negligible, with most of the research going into analyzing the decay products of temporarily created particles, then all that energy must generate ALOT of heat. In the coldest months of winter, not only should they be able to use that waste heat to heat the non-refrigerated, human-inhabited parts of the facility, (reducing heating load), most importantly -- that waste heat combined with the outdoor temperatures that are among the lowest of the winter, should provide ideal conditions for electrical generation through Sterling engines. It seems that the colder it is outside, the better the conditions for turning their waste heat into [re]usable electricity via Sterling
Combined with the possibility of increased cooling operating efficiency in winter (less cooling requirements, if they designed their cooling system s to take advantage of lower outdoor temperatures to start from as a base for cold-air to refrigerate, or help to bring in cold-outdoor air to help insulate cold-areas, their winder electrical load could drop by some fraction, reducing electrical usage during peak-cold times, thus further dropping their electrical load and lowering their winter electric bill.
While the majority of power goes energizing the magnets, they should be very efficient, as the operate at absolute zero are are near 100% efficiency). However , the 'end' work is 'smashing' of particles together and watching decay patterns. Unless I am gravely mistaken, virtually none, or a nearly insignificant percentage of that collision results in the creation of matter (that would act as a very large energy sump).
Given those conditions, it is likely that about 95% or more of the energy used would be radiated out (after decay) as VERY hot "waste heat" -- with each beam having the excess heat to be able to drill 30cm holes in copper (that's alot of excess heat!!!).
Such high heat with the extra frigid temperatures outside should enable optimal power generation from numerous heat-differential engines that convert heat-differences into mechanical energy.
Peltier devices have potential for high efficiency as they skip a mechanical -> generator step) (Peltier Guide.
Mechanical devices such as those describe by the original (free-public domain), patented Stirling engine, US Patent 3995429, (a href="http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6804171/claims.html">US Patent 6804171, (OR), possibly, low-cost, licensable patents Method Accession# 01A0878780),
Why? If you break products down into consumer and enterprise level drives -- as they do within SATA drives, then presumably, you can also have consumer and enterprise level SAS drives.
So why would a SAS drive at same quality (if you compare same speed and capacity) be more expensive than a SATA drive?
It appears from this jaundiced eye, that the distinction is purely arbitrary to support significantly higher mark-ups and margins for SAS products. With SATA Enterprise products, the mark-ups are noticeably lower as the Enterprise makers have to provide real performance and/or quality beyond the 5-year warrantied consumer level products.
Measuring quality for quality, why would SAS be any more expensive than SATA? (once you've separated out any difference for Enterprise vs. consumer level quality).
Seems like price of SAS drives and parts would fall due to increased volume.
Sorry , not wrong about kindle -- you you posted main reason why in your post!
I can download anything from Gutenberg, or any of the other 10K-100K public domain titles (depends on what source you credit, and what counts as a 'title', I supposed), and only pay 10 cent to register a public domain book to my amazon account so I can transfer my free-file to my kindle?
Remember the little blue books that became popular after the 1st depression? NEW, they were only 5-10cents each for a paper copy, and used, you could often pick 50 for a dollar! And you didn't have to register your purchase with anyone!
Such a deal only 10cents to read a 'free' book on my kindle.
Or are you saying I can write into kindle and tell them ALL of the paper-copy (Paperback and hardback) books I own, and for 10-cents they'll provide me with a mono-chrome, kindle version? Will it include all diagrams and pics? How do they scan in older books? How do they verify my ownership? Do I just send them a photocopy of the title page? Somehow I think you are telling me the former. That I only need to pay 10cents to register any title I want to read w/Amazon. NOT a deal.
What was a deal was when someone wrote a python script that allowed you download such books directly to your kindling from your computer -- no Amazon registration or fee required.
If I have a PDF-encryted/registered ebook I bought from someone else, I want to be able to load it as well (presuming I can have my 'reader' act as 'book-cache' for my main computer.
While I'm comfortable that I can add Terabyte disks to my local computer to hold all my books and that I can backup my disks -- and that I can have the option to download any of those books at anytime to a portable reader (like a kindle -- but ideally full color), I don't have the faith that I can extend or expand my kindling's capacity nor read anything not licensed by Amazon, nor read anything when I am off the net, but still have my local laptop on a plane or *wherever* I don't want to accrue per-minute or per-megabyte download charges (as I would on most phones, unless I pay for unlimited dataplans). But even then, it's nothing like having local access to your library.
So no, not wrong about Kindle. They even charge to read free stuff. I can't download from my computer directly. Everything tied to Amazon's whim.
Nothing here should meant to be said to detract from the device itself -- only Amazon's desire to be the only access port to it.
It's only showing it's colors.
Apple's always been *evil*. They've just become very good at creating the 'must-have' style products that are overpriced, locking you into Apple ... at every chance. Easily shutting down anything remotely resembling 'freedom' -- which is what made the PC great in the first place. People have complained about MS's adoption of more and more DRM, but Apple's always had a de facto locking -- by having exclusive locks on compatible hardware. MS went with the approach of allowing unrestricted interoperability (which, when they've tried to limit, they've gotten slapped down due to their monopoly position, but Apple is similarly a monopoly in their market. But MS on PC's and Apples on Apples, are both monopolies. Apple gets away with it because they are smaller -- but their policies and user-abuse are far harsher and more totalitarian than MS. Much of that stems from Apple's core culture, but some of it also stems from MS being forced to be more open because they are a standard -- which they became because of their openness.
It disgusts me the way Apple fanboys fawn all everything Apple, which fancying themselves superior to PC-users. Bu it's nothing more than it ever was -- financial and "in-crowd" elitism.
You see it in Apple's commercials...the I'm a Mac, vs. PC. The PC guy looks like the average harried Joe -- while the Apple guy is just portrayed as 'cool'...with all his little 16-17 y/o rail-thin model pod-girls dancing around him in silhouette, like an oh-so-more-sophisticated 'Deadhead' scene of rainbow colors, but with the original 'cool' of Beatles style and music 60's-70 -- the epitome of cool in the baby-boom generation, with it's message perpetuating the message of perpetual cool youth with their stylish Apple products. The iPhone, by it's price should be focused on adults and business types, but it's obviously focused on sales to teens and 20'-something as the latest trend of electronic fashion -- just like the ipods were yesterday's (and ongoing) fashion statement.
But people should be concerned about how much market lock-in Apple has -- they own the main means of distribution for their gadgets -- and get to decide how their devices are used -- and they have shown that they have no qualms about shutting down anyone who tries to use their product in an unapproved manner -- or even performing the crudest of Christian censorship campaigns against 'objectionable' classics that have been previously censored or caused controversy. What will be next on their banned list, the unexpurgated poems of Walt Whitman, or the 'Song of Songs': an erotic piece that has been subject to demands of censorship over the centuries as it describes intense expressions of physical love, the voluptuous beauty of lovers longing for one another and in a uniquely feminine perspective, it's seductive and intimate language conveys and immediate, sensuous and intoxicating desire. Certainly worthy of censorship -- or how about the recent decision in Bloomington, Ind where the city is refusing to run a paid-bus, public-service ad, "You can be good without God", as being too controversial (that's their definition of objectionable).
That Apple is using it's censorship powers on type of apps and content is very disturbing given it's unique, monopoly lock in the markets it sells too -- yet the fan boys swoon on, like Apple can do no wrong. They were they original PC-company that moved to sue all their competitors out of business. The original company that "sued over their "Intellectual Property" -- they've been guilty of copyright, patent, trademark and DRM abuse since their creation and have no qualms using lawsuits and their market-lock on their products, to control what you can with "your" product (it's really their product -- they can brick-it anytime they don't like a change you've implemented). If you are lucky, they'll replace it
Until the word 'rape' brings up images for men as being helpless tied down victims while they are brutally sodomized and mouth-raped with a stick holding open the teeth (assuming the rapist hasn't punched out or removed all the teeth before the mouth-rape), Rape will always be an easier game for men to discuss.
Once the image of men being reduced to quivering broken-boned receptacles for the machismo-raper's fluids, is firmly ensconced in the minds of all human men, then the topic of what "feels" worse or "is" worse can be rationally and logically discussed on a level playing field. Presuming enough of the males don't immediately seek the solace of suicide to hide their shame.
Maybe then you'll know why. But without a level-victim playing field it's difficult for men, who make most of the laws, enforce most of the laws, and violate the most laws to really judge which is worse (and I'm not claiming one is worse than the other). It's just that for some people, living with the shame of victim-hood can be worse than being killed-in-action. Even though, logically, it wasn't the victim's fault -- that doesn't prevent what can be life-long suffering from, often, untreated PTSD. How much worse is it for those who are told that it was (or is) their fault due to the way they dressed, the fact that they 'flirted', or the fact that they were in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time.
Victims of trauma often suffer for years beyond the actual event as triggers cause them to relive aspects of the event. Ask war veterans when they hear a car backfire or or when they awaken from some nightmare with night-sweats. Ask those who lived but were damaged for life, who may now be trying to care for a family, about how "lucky" they felt next to their fellow soldiers who were cut down, but died honorably, and who got posthumous decorations and benefits for their families.
I don't think you will find universal agreement about who got the better deal -- it very much comes down to the individual, as well as the supportiveness (or lack thereof) after the incident.
Ideally, everyone would 'get over it'...but tell that to the new crop of soldiers, with exceptionally high numbers coming back with what the army has been deliberately trying to downplay, but is being increasingly recognized as PSTD. Victims of any crime -- but especially ones involving interpersonal violence and violation are very likely to set the stage for PSTD-caused mental damage long after the actual event.
About 30 years back, it used to be the other way around. Personally, I think physical castration should be used more often for violent 1st cases, or repeat offenders. But used to be that rape you got off with a few years or probation -- far less punishment than murder, usually. Regardless of the current trends in criminal "justice"[sic] and "rehabilitation"[sic] the sentences and punishments for most crimes under our criminal justice system are out of whack and do little to increase overall safety in the community or the country.
I might agree with you if the victims (and perps) were equally represented between the sexes -- but it's one crime where overwhelmingly, the the majority of perps are mal
Idiot, maybe yes,
Hacker?
Give me a break.
Stupid D.A.'s have nothing better to do than abuse and misuse the laws that are given to them by well meaning legislators
.
If you are going to advertise the new tech of some toy like this -- at least provide a way to signup to this 'invite-only' service.
It's so nice to hear about how the original article author has been so happy to use this Elite-invitation Only service -- it would be nice for them not to flaunt how happy they are to a public audience and expect us to be grateful or respectful for flaunting the fact that they are in the "elite, invite-only" group, and all the benefits of being in the group -- while giving no way for his readers or for slashdot-readers to sign-up or get an invite.
Sorta like that neat new Intel laptop with the builtin graphics processor I've been happy with now for a year and that you can't get -- the one with 256 processors that can act as 256-multi-way x86-Atom processors with a shared cache that use .7W ea, if all active, or 0 when not needed -- that can have arbitrary numbers of them configured as 3-D graphics accelerator cores, giving the ability to run the latest 3-D-compute intensive games in 100's of frames/second on its builtin-1920x1200 (w/full Hi-Def 1920x1080p support) screen, or using it's DVI or HDMI outputs for a larger screen. It's setup to dual boot in WinXP or Linux with the full 3D accel drives available from Intel (when you are eventually allowed access to the product, the drivers will be open-sourced, but it will only be sold with Vista Home Basic, included).
Yeah -- just the type of article us tech-heads love to read -- brings back fond memories. Here we are in the adult 'tech' world, where we are used to our tech-creds giving us accessibility to the latest tech (by virtue of latest tech usually being available, but incomprehensible to lay-people, so only us 'tech-heads' usually have access -- though it's all "merit" based, so it's ok, anyone who wants to access it, simply has to apply themselves to understand the tech! :-) But this 'invite-only' stuff...memory of highschool, where our tech-cred was considered outcast-nerd-dom, and even in our 20-30-something days, meant we usually weren't the ones who swept past the front of the line (not being one of the beautiful people), unless we were going in the side or back door to be one of the sound-visual tech-heads to support bands with heavy computer-sound and visual effect processing (earliest I can remember was D'Cuckoo back in the early 90's around SF. They used SGI-O2's for graphix and sounds effects to create light visuals and some audio processing...a music-loving geek's paradise job). But outside of those few opportunities....feeling like the outsider is always a lovely feeling.
*snort*
So you prefer the idea that big government take over this process and implement this on ALL PC's?
Are you an idiot?
Here we have 1 company, Dell, (there are others that sell large numbers to businesses, or sell expensive computer products who do similar), who tries to slow down the theft of laptops and PC's walking away from businesses and people.' You whine (a bit too vociferously, IMO):
So you have your 3rd most valuable piece of equipment, and don't want someone helping to keep it. If someone takes a computer from you, (and Dell wasn't tracking owners), then you would have to prove to the police that you owned the computer. If you couldn't, you've lost your computer - paper or not. But if you are the registered owner, it only works in your favor. You are the owner, and the thief has to prove that that they legally purchased it from you and you have to 'agree' that you legally transferred it to them. How is this a "bad" thing for a legal owner of the PC? Yet you complain like you are the one who has no legal standing. Why is that?
In addition to tracking for the purpose of preventing casual theft, something that has been a growing problem in the business world where employee theft of computers, especially, laptops that are easy to walk out a door with little notice, has been a growing, chronic problem for decades. I'm thinking they may especially be vigilant when a PC bought for 'business purposes' ends up in non-business hands. Inventory control is an automatic service that Dell advertises to businesses. May of their business PC's have built-in low-jack equipment built into the hardware and BIOS, so anytime the computer connects to any public net, if they lo-jacking is enabled (it's optionally enabled by the owner - but once enabled cannot be disabled w/o an onsite- Dell Service Call). Again, a theft deterrent for legal and valid owners that is totally under their control to activate OR not.
If you don't like such protections on a computer, than you might consider buying a cheaper computer that doesn't contain such safe guards. It still may be the case that their less expensive consumer PC's don't have such tracking, but expensive gaming-rigs like Alienware, would probably tend to include the anti-theft options to help control illegal ownership transfers.
The fact that you have such a violent, self-righteous reaction to this services seems to indicate that your are more worried about having to prove you are the owner of a "PC" you have acquired through "unofficial channels" or through some unscrupulous, third-party reseller of Dell goods. If they are selling stolen goods, then you should direct your anger at the seller. If you are knowingly purchasing stolen goods, you are an accessory to the crime. If they are not willing to transfer ownership and remaining warrantee or support contract to you, then they may be attempting fraud (by ordering parts for a PC they no longer own), OR they may be trying to force you to buy all of your addition and replacement parts through them (so they can get a mark-up). Whatever their trip, your anger should be focused at the right party - not at Dell or Alienware who is trying to "do the right thing" without being forced by some government entity. Government steps in when people aren't ethical enough to do the right thing themselves.
Um, no different than from now? As near as I can tell, open-software or free software doesn't require a 'license' that the user has paid for. But the idea that I can buy a product and have it broken when I get home or not work as expected -- and then be told I can't get a refund, or that I need to get updates, or pay for upgrades for working products -- is so completely bogus its really not that funny.
I would relish the idea of product liability applying to software again. I might even find the software field tolerable again -- as opposed to the current system, where software developers are rushed and pushed to release anything that remotely can function -- and if it doesn't die on install or cause a system crash, then 'ship it'. Everything else you promise a patch -- that often never comes -- they just release a new product you have to upgrade to (because they don't support your old version) and you have to hope the bug is fixed in the new product -- and, well, it might be -- if you could find the feature that used to be there that you wanted to work -- but lo and behold, they've 'simplified' the interface, and 'modernized' it by removing all those pesky features you bought the product for, but never had them quite work correctly.
They old bait & switch -- that and the 'addict the customer to periodic subscription fees (called monthly support, or yearly support, or annual upgrades). Some companies go the extra mile to screw you over, so if you wait too long to 'upgrade' your product, and end up not staying on top of their release cycle and buying everyone of their updates, then when it comes time to upgrade, -- I had one company that wanted to charge me $150 for every upgrade between the one I had and the latest -- so to get currently I would have had to pay $450. It was only $400 to buy a new version of the product. At that point, I decided I didn't need their product anymore.
If they'd been required to fix the bugs in their original software in the first place, then I wouldn't have needed the $450 upgrade to their $400 product. But to get the fixes, I also had to buy all the new features and upgrades -- all on my dime, even though all I wanted was a simple bug fix in their product. Sorry -- we don't support that anymore. You have to buy a new one. But current one is 3 revisions ahead, so that will be $50 more than buying another copy of the product outright.
Gee -- thanks -- and the benefit of buying the upgrades? All my settings, documents and files would be upgraded to the new format -- otherwise I'd have to re-enter and recreate my setup with the new software. Bye-bye overpriced, under-supporting Hummingbird-X morons!
Oh, and did I mention, XFree, works faster and with fewer bugs than the for-pay product?
So -- yeah, requiring a software vendor to stand behind a product they charge for sounds reasonable -- else maybe they shouldn't be selling the software -- maybe they should be giving it away and just selling service?
I bought a Dell product for nearly $1000 less than new on the Dell site (the seller supposedly didn't need it or had purchased too many and was willing to take a loss). Deal was on the up-n-up, and Dell wanted (as did I) to transfer the system serial number into my name and note me as the authorized owner.
This has come about because people have too often tended to walk away with hardware that doesn't belong to them, so some responsible companies track who claims to "own" a piece of hardware and that it 'jives' with their established database.
I don't know what weird thing Alienware or the eBay seller has raised in confusion, but the system ownership should be transferred over to you by the seller. Then, as the registered owner of the computer, you shouldn't have a problem.
Is there some problem with the eBay seller NOT wanting to transfer ownership to you for a system that you have supposedly purchased from them?
That sounds like the eBay seller trying to run some scam -- keeping the system in his name while he sells it to you (?). Can't think of why he'd want to do that unless he's trying to use the warrantee on your system to make fraudulent orders for replacement parts or such.
I don't know the particulars of your situation, but assuming Alienware is operating under Dell rules -- they will treat you as a thief unless the system has been transferred by the previous owner, into your name. Is there some problem that you don't want the computer in your name? Or is it that the eBay seller is refusing to sign-over the "deed to the computer"....
Since that's basically what it is -- Dell(Alienware) is making sure you are the registered owner of the product you are ordering parts for. Plain and simple. Any confusion beyond that is either your sellers 'trip', or your reluctance to be acknowledged as 'owner' of a computer that you have purchased. Either way, I strongly doubt Alienware is treating their registered customers as thieves.
Get the ownership of the system transferred and stop whining about how mean Alienware is being. You wouldn't complain if the police stopped you and wondered why you were driving a car that was listed as being owned in someone else's name, would you? Why complain about owning or trying to get service on a computer that hasn't been transferred into your name then?
Ah, yes...the problem with Firefox is one of poor design, with only 1 thread to manage all of the user's input and tasks. With 13 active windows, and an additional 79 background tabs (94 tabs total), I have about 33 threads allocated, but only 1 thread being used to actually manage user input and the various 'active' tabs (apparently 1 of the tabs, (who knows which one, FF doesn't provide any way to tell which 'tab' it is, i.e.-no internal 'ps') is hogging things). Of course if this was a real OS, we could see what was hogging the cpu and the rest of the browser could run on one of the *3* other 'idle' cores. But hey, this makes for easier design -- just doesn't scale well.
CPU |CSWitch|Thread
96.96 |866 |firefox.exe+0x15a0
|7 |M0ZCRT19.dl|!endthreadex+0xa0
|2 |MSVCR71.dll!_threadstartex
| |xul.dll!gfxPattern::~gfxPattern+0x75
| |MOZCRT19.dll!endthreadex+0xa0
|42 |MOZCRT19.dll!endthreadex+0xa0
| |MOZCRT19.dll!endthreadex+0xa0 [5 copies of this line]
| |wdmaud.drv!MixerCallbackThread
| |WINMM.dll!mciwindow
|2144 |WINMM.dll!timeThread
| |kernel32_dllBaseThreadStartThunk
| |NPSWF32dll!native_ShockwaveFlash_TCallLabel+0x14ad3 [4 copies of this line]
|2 |MSVCR71.dll!_threadstartex
| |MSVCR71.dll!_threadstartex [6 copies of this line]
|45 |MSVCR71.dll!_threadstartex
| |MSVCR71.dll!_threadstartex [6 copies of this line]
| |RPCRT4.dll!ThreadStartRoutine
| |mswsock.dll!SockAsyncThread
Can't imagine *why* anyone would even consider needing a multiprocessor browser, unless they, um, left it up for days at a time, and often were in the middle of one task or project, then after a break came back and got involved in another -- usually with all windows being shut down in some stack-like order unless windows or the browser crashes. One window with ~20 background tabs had all of the day's slashdot-headlines-of-interest opened with me slowly clicking through them (getting interrupted and not finishing the tabs, now, a day later....*cough*).
Ok...so I have alot on my plate -- not to mention books to read, emails to write, articles and letters to write...way much more to do than I have time for, but what else is new? :-)
p.s.The '|' separated table layout is a slashdot *feature*. Readers are to do layout in their brains.
So do we think he'll make all of the Fox Network and Fox News websites, pay-only? Pay-for-news only partly worked on WSJ. While they charged extra for online access on top of paper delivery when they first started, paper subscribers eventually got full online access included and then WSJ opened their website to the public. They made a special 'subscriber-only' blogger section so WSJ affection ado's could discuss things uninterrupted by the plebes, AND the subscriber-blogger section had some chance of being used for news-paper fodder should a blog article be well written. So now you have bloggers able to contribute increasingly intelligent user insights -- potentially reducing staffing needs at WSJ depending on the nature of the community.
Now, the 'cheaper' option option is go 'online' access only. It's cheaper for WSJ, their profit margins are WAY higher, and their profits go up the more they convert away from paper access to online -- no printing, transportation and delivery costs of a 6-day a-week paper.
For those that are interested or need that type of business information, they'll switch to the online version due to ease of access and easier search tools (among other benefits). But this *works* for the WSJ, because many receive/have it delivered to their business anyway, so online access might be more convenient that trying to read from a paper while trying to also work on a computer. It also works, some higher than normal proportion are those for whom the Journal is important for their doing their business. At $150+ dollars/year normal price, (99 on occasion sales, it's not something aimed at casual readers.
So any switch to paid-online content is a cheaper option for motivated subscribers who want to keep track of the journal news -- that information is important enough to pay much more than a standard magazine subscription, so I expect the lower-price of online content is an easy sell.
OTOH -- for non-business-necessary audiences with standard-cost magazines and newspapers, with, readers that don't have a strong need for the product, that barrier of pay-to-access may become not so worthwhile. Besides -- paying, for Fox News? Masochistic.
-l
Apparently, have to use separate processes on *windows*, since AFAIK, threads on linux are implemented on processes and free to roam between processors. Why this isn't true on Windows, I dunno.
Is NT fundamentally broken in not allowing threads to map to multiple processors?
Seems rather sucky -- you can't jsut have multi-threaded apps, but must make multi-proc apps (just for windows?)...
Anyone know for sure that linux doesn't keep multiple-threads of same process on 1 processor (unless deliberately asked). It seems like that may be what Windows is doing? Or maybe none of those threads are actually used for alternate tabs -- but for things like playing sounds or something?
The posting was meant as a lighthearted response, with the same level of seriousness, concern, scientific basis and level of proof, as those, hinting at anecdotal associations between some nootropics and reduced creativity, positing the existence of a nootropic that creates such an effect being chosen by 'everyone' (i.e. you can kiss creativity goodbye).
The hyperbole of "everyone" choosing being a 'whole bunch smarter' at the expense of being a 'whole bunch less creative', is as sound a proposition as the proposed (and sometimes believed) thought that legalizing Cannabis would have "everyone" sitting around stoned all day.
Furthermore, the suggested association of nootropics, as a class, with lowering [all forms of] creativity has equal scientific standing with the claim that Cannabis, in general, raises all types of creativity.
Different drugs/nootropics will have different effects on different people depending on their mental state and balance before taking such drugs. What drug(s) might have some net, beneficial effects for one person, might have net, negative effects for another. Also the effects of 'small doses', compared to 'over-usage', are *quite* different for nearly all substances, including water.
What type of creativity might be useful in math or physics, might have very different components of of the creativity useful in writing, creating music, dancing, -- etc.
The correlations between some nootropics possibly having a decreased effect on creativity has less scientific support that the correlation between Cannabis and increased creativity. I am only aware of anecdotal stories of feelings of reduced creativity, and logical theorizing about effects on 'creativity' based on preliminary and incomplete understandings of creativity. Most specifically, 'creativity' seems to flourish in a mind rich with source information and material, combined with some level of non-linear, discursive thought that allows connecting previously disparate elements in new ways. However, disruptions of this process can easily be brought about by unbalancing the input parameters -- i.e. if one has insufficient or inaccurate base and source information (i.e. if someone has no education in the area that they want to be theorizing in), they aren't likely to form new insights that will be useful (as based on a knowledge of current state of the art in a field).
Equally disruptive can be excessively 'wide' discourse, where one posits over too broad an area to come up with (or create) "useful" connections sufficiently within the topic (or topics) where one has sufficient base information to work with.
So -- a balance is needed. Different individuals start out with different proclivities in mental ability. Some may be "over focused", and have negative effects of appearing overly rigid or even Obsessive-Compulsive. Others may be too scattered or too defocused, to the point of appearing (or feeling) spaced out). Depending on where individuals are *starting from*, and depending on what 'effect' they are striving for "at the moment" (i.e. the effect one strive for when taking a test, or working to beat some types of deadlines, might be different than the effect one wants in the evening or on weekends to 'calm down', and let the brain relax.
Shifts in desired effect are also variable based on 'life situation'. If you are injured, or laid up, you may not want to fee "driven to work", and thus end up frustrated when your injuries prevent you from working. However, if someone is feeling physically energized and not injured -- possibly based on a release from a winter 'S.A.D.D.'-period that left you feeling low, then many might feel a stronger desire to have mental clarity and focus to aid in some type of periodic and more intensive life-organization.
What *has* been shown, scientifically, about Cannabis -- is that when the user wants an effect of increased creativity -- if they are otherwise mentally clear, but their brain is overly in the 'busy'-b
Missing, irony? Are you?
So let's see, we want a 'game' with a "compelling" story-line that is based, as much as possible, on "what is 'real'":
Now, realism demands are making stronger demands into modern gaming, where the game researchers strive for increased realism and send researchers out into the field and across world-sites for gathering actual field info for inclusion in modern simulation games (from world-photo trips for the latest LaraCroft games, to the Iraq-War Game example of gathering data from the actual war-zone to interview soldiers, AND, for realism's sake, the 'enemy' side. Makes perfect sense. But with a couple of points about the collision of reality and simulations-for-fun (games).
In light of the realities of this war and what has been (and is being uncovered) that an attempt to portray an accurately realistic game might be judged NOT to make for "good", or "fun" "game play" is not exceptionally surprising.*cough*
Hopefully war-games and such will stop being the 'fodder' for 'fun'-role playing games as they only lead impressionable minds into believing that such war 'games' are fun and that going to war isn't very ugly when it becomes sufficiently 'realistic'.
Footnotes:
In a more "naïve" time, we contented ourselves with stories about such events. And for news, we had had produced video reals shown as entertainment-news in theaters during WWII, with stirring interpretation and music supplied by news/video-production organizations that were designed to inform, but also stir patriotic feelings of support for what was portrayed (and was mostly so) as a war against 'evil' <sup>(**1a)</sup>.
Coinciding, heavily with the advent of first-hand video reporting of the news -- starting in the Vietnam era, but continuing up through modern times, we've become sensitized to the differences between 'real-life' portrayals and the 'produced' versions of 'real-life' events, somehow believing that only 'real-life' portrayals have true and lasting value (whereas the reality depends on the depiction, but such subtleties are lost and subjectively lost for judgment by the viewer). This 'black'-or-'white' thinking of 'real' or 'fake' is permeating culture -- so much that weird 'photo-ops' need to be created at expense and possible terror, vs. creating the same with a photo-shop program<sup>(**1b)</sup>.
Much emphasis has been placed on the authenticity of book narratives written in the first-person about current events. It's of prime importance that such narratives be clearly labeled as non-fiction (meaning the person lived through them), or 'Fiction', meaning it's a story that gets relegated to a back book shelf, possible one for "current event commentary
Maybe it will be countered by the pro-creative effects of medical Marijuana? :-)