One reason would be that you would not have to worry too much about running out of space, even when using the highest quality MP3 bitrates. Plus, as others have mentioned, it can function as a portable HDD, so you can bring along movies, docuemnts, etc.
Sounds like your company has a bad process. Having a formal code review after each check in is crazy. Reviewing code when a task is declared completed makes more sense, or even doing regularly scheduled reviews.
Our company has some loose rules (we're working on strengthening them) that state that checked in code must be unit tested. This is to prevent things like your #5. But we haven't gotten to code reviews yet. Being on the team that's working on our process, I'll remember your experiences when we get to code reviews.
I actually had a coworker marked down on his yearly review last year for wanting to write re-usable code. Our manager's (very VERY flawed) opinion was that, though it might be nice to have the re-usable code, just write it for this specific task because it's just easy and fast.
The kicker is, this year that same manager wants to re-use the code that my coworker was origionally going to write.
But that's really the reason it's not done all that often. Developers think that the unit test will be a waste of time. The problem is, nobody codes perfectly. Finding a bug during unit testing is much better than finding it in design validation testing. Indeed, on many projects I have worked on, issues that could have been found with adequate unit testing were not found until after release.
Unfortunately, when schedules get tight, it's things like unit testing (and testing in general) that get cut. The more emphasis we get on the importance of QA the better our industry will be.
The only reason to get higher than 87 octane gas is if your engine knocks. Higher octane = less knock. This comes from friends who have years of experience as mechanics.
Heck, a co-worker has one of those Subaru WRXs. They say to use premium gas. He switched to 87 when gas prices went through the roof and hasn't had a problem.
I also remember reading in a discussion about what could be done with a 24 or 42 volt electrical system in cars that the same is true for braking systems, at least in France. So Brake By Wire would not be an option.
I must say, too, that I would want a physical connection to both steering and brakes. My mechanic friends believe in the 3 S's of cars: Start, Stop, Steer. Everything else is a luxury. The fewer things that can go wrong with #s 2 & 3, the better. And if the electrical system cuts out for any reason and 2 & 3 aren't mechanical, you're screwed.
I know many newer airplanes have fly-by-wire systems, but they also have a much higher quality maintenance schedule than your average car (seriously, how often do you take your car in to get everything checked out when it's working fine?).
Yes, voting or not voting is a personal choice. If it takes someone "cool" to get you to vote, that's what will be done. If only the people who care vote, though, are our elections really a measure of what the people want? Anyone who does not vote does not get their voice heard in choosing our leaders. And most people have some sort of opinion, no matter how dumb the reasons (I remember hearing that some people voted for Clinton because he looked better than his opponents).
Me, I believe the best reason to vote is to guarantee that you did everything you could to get the guy you wanted in office. I feel justified in complaining about things I disagree with the Bush administration on, because I voted for Gore. IMHO, if you don't vote, while you still have the right to complain, it doesn't mean much, as you did nothing to prevent it.
I totally aggree, but this is slashdot. It's a law of this crazy geek world that, when a new system or device or gadget comes out, someone in the community is going to try very hard to get Linux to run on it. This just takes it a step further.
Plus, you get the humor of running a Mac operating system on a MicroSoft product.
Actually, from what I remember from Geology in college, no, they are not on the same fault line. The Cascacdes (which Mt. St. Helens is a part of) are caused by the subduction fault of the Juan de Fuca plate going under the North American plate. California is home to the San Andreas fault, a transverse fault where the Pacific plate is slipping laterally past the North American plate. Also, these earthquakes are probably caused by movement of Magma within the volcano's magma chamber.
Anyone who has had more than 2 semesters of studying these things, feel free to correct me.
Though I use Winamp 5 for most of my MP3 playing enjoyment, I have found a good use for MusicMatch - ripping/recording. I use it to rip my CD collection (out of 120+ cds, only a couple extreme oddballs were not recognized by it's CD database), and also to do the initial recording from cassette tape to.wav for conversion of some old tapes to CD. I know there are other, more powerful, just as free programs out there, but MusicMatch has the added benefit that it is extremely easy to use.
From what I know of what is available in my area (Charter Communications in Michigan), the video on demand has the same features, but I do not think the movie list is very big. I know it can't compete with the selection of my local video rental places.
Well, if you buy all three extended editions of the LOTR movies (assuming they keep the same format for Return of the King as they had for the first two), you get 12 discs for 3 movies. Plus, the Matrix discs have more than just the movies on them, like the Animatrix.
Additionally, the e-Plate is designed to shatter if anyone tries to remove or otherwise tamper with it, and the tag can be programmed to transmit a warning if any attempt is made to dislodge the plate.
The section of the article you quoted invalidated your own microwave comment (as you couldn't remove the plate to fit it in the microwave).
The question I have about this whole thing is how you remove the plate if you have a valid reason to do so, such as transferring the plate to a new vehicle you bought (having legally registered that vehicle with the license plate number of your old vehicle), or selling the vehicle to another person? Yeah, they'd probably just force you to buy a new plate for the new car, but what about people who get attached to their plates? That would be an awful waste of materials, as well as forcing the public to purchase a new plate at every sale and thus increase the cost of buying a car.
True that we wouldn't notice it (I know I wouldn't), but something else troubles me. How is the recording device going to "mark" the CD to say it's been copied? Is it just me, or would this require either making a physical change to the master CD or having some elaborate database setup so that the labels can track how many times each and every single CD they have manufactured (at the individual disc level, not the artist/album level) has been copied? Also, if no physical change is made to the disc, than how does the disc know if it is being read to be played or ripped or copied (i know this could be done with "requiring" new copying software to comply, but what about old software?).
There's just something about this whole idea that sounds like it's way too complicated to ever work reliably, unless you break compatability with all existing hardware.
Linus Torvalds should sue the author for libel and defamation of character (and extend it to slander if the author is making oral statements publicly).
Unfortunately, this would probably only have the same effect that Fox News's suing of Al Frankin had over his book last year--sell more copies.
Robots can't do anything we don't tell them to do.
Yet.
And they will continue to not do anything we don't tell them to do unless we tell them to do things we haven't told them to do (that made much more sense in my head...).
Thanks, you answered a question I had: How is collecting the water samples dangerous? I hadn't thought of the fact that it might be the polutants causing the danger.
Down side of that is, for a situation like the one you mentioned, we'd still have to get the robot into the site if it was not there already. Similar problem (unless it could be dropped from a helicopter or something).
the health insurance an American pays (after tax)
I don't know about all of America, but my health insurance payments are taken out of my paycheck PRE tax, both state and federal, IIRC. Plus, I have a medical reembursement account where my employer (or, rather, benefits coordination company) takes money out of my paycheck, again pre-tax, and I can get that money back for medical expenses, so it is basically untaxed.
It was a rather strange article. Plus, the author didn't seem to know much about current technology:
Someday perhaps it could make regular eyeglasses into night-vision glasses, or even contact lenses.
Don't know about you, but last I saw you COULD get contact lenses that function like regular eyeglasses, making you see better. What would be more interesting is if they made contact lenses that function like night vision glasses.
What makes a differnce is how efficiently the gas is burned, and how well things like the Catalytic Converter and the Emissions Control System work. There's a TON of computerised stuff in the emissions control system, with multiple sensors and the like. They control various things like the air/fuel mixture and all that. If these systems break down, milage tanks and emissions skyrocket.
Efficiency-wise they are the same, but I would guess that the Civic is a ULEV (Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle), where the Escort probably puts out a bit more pollution, so the hybrid could be better from a cleanliness standpoint.
In fact, the milage this guy is getting is in fact WORSE than what my wife gets in her 2002 Civic EX, which has the worst EPA numbers of the whole Civic line (33/38, I believe, with an automatic tranny). However, her ACTUAL milage has always been far better--there have even been times she has topped 50 mpg, mostly highway driving.
On another note, this article seems to miss a few things that affect gas milage, like driving habits. If you always floor it when starting from a dead stop, your milage will go down. And it's not really speeding that affects milage, but what speed your engine is going (lower RPM = higher milage). If your car runs at 3000 RPM at 30 mph, but shifts up a gear and runs at 2000 RPM at 35 mph, you will get better milage at 35.
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To quote another coworker: "You just can't fix stupid."
One reason would be that you would not have to worry too much about running out of space, even when using the highest quality MP3 bitrates. Plus, as others have mentioned, it can function as a portable HDD, so you can bring along movies, docuemnts, etc.
Our company has some loose rules (we're working on strengthening them) that state that checked in code must be unit tested. This is to prevent things like your #5. But we haven't gotten to code reviews yet. Being on the team that's working on our process, I'll remember your experiences when we get to code reviews.
The kicker is, this year that same manager wants to re-use the code that my coworker was origionally going to write.
Unfortunately, when schedules get tight, it's things like unit testing (and testing in general) that get cut. The more emphasis we get on the importance of QA the better our industry will be.
Heck, a co-worker has one of those Subaru WRXs. They say to use premium gas. He switched to 87 when gas prices went through the roof and hasn't had a problem.
I must say, too, that I would want a physical connection to both steering and brakes. My mechanic friends believe in the 3 S's of cars: Start, Stop, Steer. Everything else is a luxury. The fewer things that can go wrong with #s 2 & 3, the better. And if the electrical system cuts out for any reason and 2 & 3 aren't mechanical, you're screwed.
I know many newer airplanes have fly-by-wire systems, but they also have a much higher quality maintenance schedule than your average car (seriously, how often do you take your car in to get everything checked out when it's working fine?).
Though, nowadays, it would have been KI2K.
Me, I believe the best reason to vote is to guarantee that you did everything you could to get the guy you wanted in office. I feel justified in complaining about things I disagree with the Bush administration on, because I voted for Gore. IMHO, if you don't vote, while you still have the right to complain, it doesn't mean much, as you did nothing to prevent it.
Plus, you get the humor of running a Mac operating system on a MicroSoft product.
Anyone who has had more than 2 semesters of studying these things, feel free to correct me.
Though I use Winamp 5 for most of my MP3 playing enjoyment, I have found a good use for MusicMatch - ripping/recording. I use it to rip my CD collection (out of 120+ cds, only a couple extreme oddballs were not recognized by it's CD database), and also to do the initial recording from cassette tape to .wav for conversion of some old tapes to CD. I know there are other, more powerful, just as free programs out there, but MusicMatch has the added benefit that it is extremely easy to use.
From what I know of what is available in my area (Charter Communications in Michigan), the video on demand has the same features, but I do not think the movie list is very big. I know it can't compete with the selection of my local video rental places.
Well, if you buy all three extended editions of the LOTR movies (assuming they keep the same format for Return of the King as they had for the first two), you get 12 discs for 3 movies. Plus, the Matrix discs have more than just the movies on them, like the Animatrix.
The section of the article you quoted invalidated your own microwave comment (as you couldn't remove the plate to fit it in the microwave).
The question I have about this whole thing is how you remove the plate if you have a valid reason to do so, such as transferring the plate to a new vehicle you bought (having legally registered that vehicle with the license plate number of your old vehicle), or selling the vehicle to another person? Yeah, they'd probably just force you to buy a new plate for the new car, but what about people who get attached to their plates? That would be an awful waste of materials, as well as forcing the public to purchase a new plate at every sale and thus increase the cost of buying a car.
There's just something about this whole idea that sounds like it's way too complicated to ever work reliably, unless you break compatability with all existing hardware.
Unfortunately, this would probably only have the same effect that Fox News's suing of Al Frankin had over his book last year--sell more copies.
Yet.
And they will continue to not do anything we don't tell them to do unless we tell them to do things we haven't told them to do (that made much more sense in my head...).
Down side of that is, for a situation like the one you mentioned, we'd still have to get the robot into the site if it was not there already. Similar problem (unless it could be dropped from a helicopter or something).
Or the printer thinks you've changed your name to PC.
the health insurance an American pays (after tax) I don't know about all of America, but my health insurance payments are taken out of my paycheck PRE tax, both state and federal, IIRC. Plus, I have a medical reembursement account where my employer (or, rather, benefits coordination company) takes money out of my paycheck, again pre-tax, and I can get that money back for medical expenses, so it is basically untaxed.
Someday perhaps it could make regular eyeglasses into night-vision glasses, or even contact lenses.
Don't know about you, but last I saw you COULD get contact lenses that function like regular eyeglasses, making you see better. What would be more interesting is if they made contact lenses that function like night vision glasses.
What makes a differnce is how efficiently the gas is burned, and how well things like the Catalytic Converter and the Emissions Control System work. There's a TON of computerised stuff in the emissions control system, with multiple sensors and the like. They control various things like the air/fuel mixture and all that. If these systems break down, milage tanks and emissions skyrocket.
Efficiency-wise they are the same, but I would guess that the Civic is a ULEV (Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle), where the Escort probably puts out a bit more pollution, so the hybrid could be better from a cleanliness standpoint.
On another note, this article seems to miss a few things that affect gas milage, like driving habits. If you always floor it when starting from a dead stop, your milage will go down. And it's not really speeding that affects milage, but what speed your engine is going (lower RPM = higher milage). If your car runs at 3000 RPM at 30 mph, but shifts up a gear and runs at 2000 RPM at 35 mph, you will get better milage at 35.