I can see how rapid boxing would be good aerobic exercise. But it seems that the Wii boxing game doesn't register rapid punch sequences. Whenever I try punching as fast as I can it seems to only register half of them so I slow down so as to not waste energy. The 3-minute aerobic exercise that reduces most macho guys to mush that I prefer is riding west on a bike out of Boulder, Colorado. There are some really strenuous climbs nearby that quickly knock out most people, especially if they are trying to keep any decent pace.
This is actually the second time GLONASS has become fully operational. The first time was back on February of 1996 (see 'Understanding GPS Principles and Applications' for details). However, older satellites started failing soon after and they weren't able to replace them quickly enough so the constellation quickly degraded in functionality.
Yes, the GLONASS satellites are in orbit at about a 65 degree inclination vs. 55 degrees for GPS, so you should see an improvement in visibility. It should help for dual-mode receivers, but they will certainly cost more than normal civilian GPS receivers since they will need a more expensive FDMA radio receiver to tune in multiple frequencies and will need additional electronics to decode GPS and GLONASS. It would consume batteries more quickly too of course due to the extra workload. The main benefit in the accuracy of your position result would be due to having more satellites visible than anything. If you are unable to directly see many satellites because you are in an urban corridor I wouldn't expect to see a drastic increase in accuracy since there would still be too much multipath.
I am sure if someone wanted to, they could run another study and grab another headline by stating something like Wii Burns As Many Calories as Real Workout.
I seriously doubt it. I play Wii sports and workout. There really is no comparison. The boxing game doesn't provide any resistance so you are essentially doing (weak) arobic exercise. Cycling would be far superior if that's what you are going for. I've seen people get out of breath playing the boxing game but they've all been pretty out of shape too.
I think people get the impression that if you are sitting on your butt, regardless of what you're doing you are burning the same number of calories. This isn't true, though, as you burn more calories when your brain is active, such as when you are playing an intense Xbox 360 game. Still no comparison to true exercise, but I can see how standing on your feet swinging your arms around is only a 2% increase over an intense Xbox 360 game. If you want to burn calories playing a video game, stick with DDR (on a difficulty of at least medium).
Going against the computer AI in multiplayer is also laughable. It is the weakest AI I've seen in years, so laughably easy you could seriously handicap yourself and still obliterate the computer. While it's fun to take on your friends in multiplayer, I used to have fun joining up with them and taking on the AI back in the days of Starcraft. Starcraft wasn't hard either but at least if you made it 2 AIs to each person there was some challenge. It's no fun at all doing this in Supreme Commander since you would practically have to not defend yourself in order lose to the computer, regardless of the ratio of AIs to humans.
The single-player game isn't too much fun either. But by all accounts online play is fun so at least there's that. Hopefuly Starcraft II won't be vaporware and will actually come out within the next 2 years.
Don't see too many '83 Ford Granadas though, do you? I had one for a while (back around 2001). It had absolutely the worst engine in a car I've ever seen, with a bizarre carburetor. The only reason mine still ran was because my grandmother owned it before me and only drove it about 70,000 miles in 20 years.
In your own quote you state that 'familial ALS accounts for about 10% of all ALS cases.' That's exactly what I said. Another quote from the same article: Most of the remaining 90-95% of cases are classified as "sporadic ALS" and have no known hereditary component. As for whether sporadic ALS will be shown to have a genetic component, time will tell. In the meantime there are other diseases that definitely have a genetic component that would be a better example.
Stephen Hawking wasn't born an invalid so he really isn't the best example to use. Also, Lou Gehrig's Disease doesn't have a hereditary component in 90-95% of cases. I'm sure there's a better example out there somewhere but all of the disabled people coming to mind were caused by non-hereditary diseases after birth.
I think it would be more fair if you could buy points in multiples of what you anticipate buying. So there could be an option to purchase 1200 points, 2400 points, etc. MS claims to be concerned about many small CC transactions. So just give more options when buying points above 10 dollars or whatever (as opposed to having to buy in multiples of 500 no matter what). This would seem to be trivially easy to implement. I think Microsoft intentionally does this so that virtually everyone carries a balance, allowing Microsoft to earn interest or in some other way capitalize on what is effectively a large savings account to them.
I second this. I've ordered several motherboard combos over the years from them. I once had a problem with one motherboard combo they mailed me. They mailed me a new one without requiring me to mail back the old one first (I live in Boulder, CO so it's nice to have this service) and they payed for all of the postage. They have one of the highest ratings at resellerratings.com for a reason.
Then PLEASE explain the fallacies in the article's logic or at the very least link to a good counter argument (this is slashdot after all, feel free to link to anything other than goats...). It seems no-one is up to the task. I keep reading and reading looking for someone to argue the other side of the argument but everyone I come across is to the effect 'it's just a rant, move along'. No, it is not. Based on the evidence I've read they have a decent argument, regardless of any motives these people may have. Saying it's an 'infantile rant' isn't going to convince anyone. Showing me how this is an infantile rant would be much more effective. Are you up to it? Then please defend the actions of Wikipedia with more than a one-line sentence devoid of any information. I'm currently leading towards the viewpoint expressed in the article in at least part because I haven't read a good counter-argument yet.
I agree with you about X. I had issues with X on Tiger and was hoping for an improvement with Leopord. It's so bad now that I now do almost all of my work with a virtual machine running CentOS. Especially when using X with Spaces. I sometimes had problems where I would click on a console in one screen and immediately be taken to another X window on another screen. The only solution was to close the X window on the other screen. And the Z-order seems to be completely hosed (clicking on the top most window would bring up another, lower window). I can't believe they released such a buggy version of X with their new OS.
Obviously the dust would stay within the atmosphere. I meant to say if the dust could get above the troposphere (I guess that's what they would call it on Venus; if not, whatever layer they name that contains the clouds).
Still, the dirt kicked up in the Venetian atmosphere would still help reflect if the dust particles get higher than the atmosphere. If the dust is within the atmosphere I would presume that the light would be rather diffuse so the dust wouldn't help whatsoever. I don't have any idea how high the cloud tops are on Venus nor what altitude dust kicked up by nukes would stabilize at. Still, it would be a convenient excuse to get rid of our aging stockpile.
For the same reason it would cool earth's atmosphere, by blocking more sunlight (ie, global dimming). If enough dirt is kicked up high into the atmosphere it may block more light than the clouds by themselves, thus reflecting some of the sun's energy before getting trapped by greenhouse gas.
I wonder how much Venus would cool if we simply dropped a couple hundred nukes on the surface. It would surely cool it by a few degrees, although I doubt it would cool it to anywhere close to comfortable temperatures.
At least in Colorado the great majority of parking lots are considered private property. So police officers cannot enforce posted signs within a parking lot (such as stop signs, etc.). They can only enforce certain crimes, such as DUI within a parking lot. I only know this because I have a friend that just went through the local police academy.
I haven't noticed much bias on his part. It doesn't really make since for him to be harder on Dems though since he used to be the chief of staff for a Democrat senator before he started work for Meet the Press (he worked for one of my favorite senators of all time, Patrick Moynihan).
Short of Edwards I don't have a chance of being able to see/hear a candidate speak other than filtered through a news organization because my state isn't worth visiting because we're just to toe the line the rest of the states do.
That's not true. For one thing all of the candidates have been invited to appear on Meet the Press and be interviewed by Tim Russert. That's at least 30 minutes of national coverage per candidate. Frankly that's as much time as most people are willing to spend considering each candidate. In addition they make appearances on The Daily Show, Real Time w/ Bill Maher, etc. If they're a senator then you can also watch them make speeches on CSPAN2. You can also read transcripts on the candidate's website (such as this page for Biden).
As for feeling disenfranchised, there are things you can do in addition to voting, such as donating money to your favorite candidate or volunteering for them. This would have a much greater effect than your single vote.
Why do you call it 'small state elitism'? A fact is a fact. I've never lived in Iowa or New Hampshire but based on everything I've read and on personal accounts by trustworthy journalists such as Gwen Ifill (and other journalists on Washington Week) it appears that the people in these two states take their role of voting first very seriously and have a long tradition of having town hall meetings and seriously considering each candidate during the primary. No other state has this tradition nor are as involved in the primary. I'm not saying they wouldn't if given the chance but it would take time even under the best of circumstances.
I have lived in one of the larger states (Texas) and did not find that people seriously considered anyone other than W. Bush during the Republican primary in 2000. The reason why should be obvious. Now when is the last time a president came from Iowa or New Hampshire? Large states have an implicit advantage over smaller states by voting for 'their guy' and usually aren't thoughtful enough to seriously consider anyone else. Smaller states can also fall into this category. If it was up to Utah this election would go to Mitt Romney for two reasons: 1) he's Mormon 2) he got the winter Olympics on track. The other candidates wouldn't stand a chance (at least based on the latest polling). I'm not aware of New Hampshire or Iowa ever having such an obvious bias to a person based on religious/geographic affiliation.
Simply put: these two states have a strong track record of hosting solid debates, asking good questions and paying attention. I wish other parts of the election process were changed (such as having the president win by having the most popular votes). But having the states vote in a particular order has more positives than negatives IMO.
I should add I live in Colorado now and we vote rather late in the primaries. Still, I don't feel disenfranchised because there's nothing stopping me from donating and volunteering for my favorite candidate which makes a much greater impact in the election than my single vote.
It's not like IA, NH, and SC are really representative of the US Population either. Iowa gives whitebread a new meaning, as does NH. SC starts to represent the mix of ethnicity that makes this nation so great, but the real melting pot states aren't until later and receive less focus than any other state.
Iowa and New Hampshire residents do differ in one major aspect than others: they really pay attention to the candidates prior to the primary. Many of them attend town hall meetings and are thoughtful about their decisions. Personally I'd rather have a couple of small states with well-informed citizens cast their vote first rather than having their voice drowned out by large states with typically much less informed people (which is exactly what would happen if the vote occurred on a single day). This also makes it easier for people to run for president because they don't need to focus on spending tons of money in large markets early in the primary. So if they do well in Iowa or New Hampshire they will be able to raise money more easily (and have more time to raise it) before competing in states like New York, California or Florida. It gives the underdog a better chance of success.
Is this $20 billion included in the $80 billion trade deficit? That is, would it be $100 billion without Microsoft?
Yes, this is included in the trade deficit calculation so yes, if your numbers were correct then the deficit would be $100 billion without Microsoft. Washington state is one of the very few states with an international trade surplus in large part due to Microsoft and Boeing. Other companies with a trade surplus are restaurant chains that sell franchises overseas (such as Starbucks, McDonalds, and KFC).
On the other hand, is perhaps this money not arriving to the US, but rather received only by "Microsoft Japan"
The money is funneled through Microsoft Japan. Microsoft in Redmond still gets a slice of every license sold there (or at least for the great majority of licenses). In the case of restaurant chains usually the franchises are locally owned and operated so the American company only profits from the initial franchise sale and (sometimes) from the ingredients sold.
Agreed. Back in the dot com bust there was money to be made by purchasing tanked stocks only to sell them days/weeks later (just in time before the company folded or the stock was delisted). I managed to double my money in Kmart stock in just two weeks but wouldn't touch stock from companies like Enron.
Slashdot Mirror
I can see how rapid boxing would be good aerobic exercise. But it seems that the Wii boxing game doesn't register rapid punch sequences. Whenever I try punching as fast as I can it seems to only register half of them so I slow down so as to not waste energy. The 3-minute aerobic exercise that reduces most macho guys to mush that I prefer is riding west on a bike out of Boulder, Colorado. There are some really strenuous climbs nearby that quickly knock out most people, especially if they are trying to keep any decent pace.
This is actually the second time GLONASS has become fully operational. The first time was back on February of 1996 (see 'Understanding GPS Principles and Applications' for details). However, older satellites started failing soon after and they weren't able to replace them quickly enough so the constellation quickly degraded in functionality.
Yes, the GLONASS satellites are in orbit at about a 65 degree inclination vs. 55 degrees for GPS, so you should see an improvement in visibility. It should help for dual-mode receivers, but they will certainly cost more than normal civilian GPS receivers since they will need a more expensive FDMA radio receiver to tune in multiple frequencies and will need additional electronics to decode GPS and GLONASS. It would consume batteries more quickly too of course due to the extra workload. The main benefit in the accuracy of your position result would be due to having more satellites visible than anything. If you are unable to directly see many satellites because you are in an urban corridor I wouldn't expect to see a drastic increase in accuracy since there would still be too much multipath.
I am sure if someone wanted to, they could run another study and grab another headline by stating something like Wii Burns As Many Calories as Real Workout.
I seriously doubt it. I play Wii sports and workout. There really is no comparison. The boxing game doesn't provide any resistance so you are essentially doing (weak) arobic exercise. Cycling would be far superior if that's what you are going for. I've seen people get out of breath playing the boxing game but they've all been pretty out of shape too.
I think people get the impression that if you are sitting on your butt, regardless of what you're doing you are burning the same number of calories. This isn't true, though, as you burn more calories when your brain is active, such as when you are playing an intense Xbox 360 game. Still no comparison to true exercise, but I can see how standing on your feet swinging your arms around is only a 2% increase over an intense Xbox 360 game. If you want to burn calories playing a video game, stick with DDR (on a difficulty of at least medium).
Going against the computer AI in multiplayer is also laughable. It is the weakest AI I've seen in years, so laughably easy you could seriously handicap yourself and still obliterate the computer. While it's fun to take on your friends in multiplayer, I used to have fun joining up with them and taking on the AI back in the days of Starcraft. Starcraft wasn't hard either but at least if you made it 2 AIs to each person there was some challenge. It's no fun at all doing this in Supreme Commander since you would practically have to not defend yourself in order lose to the computer, regardless of the ratio of AIs to humans.
The single-player game isn't too much fun either. But by all accounts online play is fun so at least there's that. Hopefuly Starcraft II won't be vaporware and will actually come out within the next 2 years.
Don't see too many '83 Ford Granadas though, do you? I had one for a while (back around 2001). It had absolutely the worst engine in a car I've ever seen, with a bizarre carburetor. The only reason mine still ran was because my grandmother owned it before me and only drove it about 70,000 miles in 20 years.
In your own quote you state that 'familial ALS accounts for about 10% of all ALS cases.' That's exactly what I said. Another quote from the same article: Most of the remaining 90-95% of cases are classified as "sporadic ALS" and have no known hereditary component. As for whether sporadic ALS will be shown to have a genetic component, time will tell. In the meantime there are other diseases that definitely have a genetic component that would be a better example.
Stephen Hawking wasn't born an invalid so he really isn't the best example to use. Also, Lou Gehrig's Disease doesn't have a hereditary component in 90-95% of cases. I'm sure there's a better example out there somewhere but all of the disabled people coming to mind were caused by non-hereditary diseases after birth.
I think it would be more fair if you could buy points in multiples of what you anticipate buying. So there could be an option to purchase 1200 points, 2400 points, etc. MS claims to be concerned about many small CC transactions. So just give more options when buying points above 10 dollars or whatever (as opposed to having to buy in multiples of 500 no matter what). This would seem to be trivially easy to implement. I think Microsoft intentionally does this so that virtually everyone carries a balance, allowing Microsoft to earn interest or in some other way capitalize on what is effectively a large savings account to them.
I second this. I've ordered several motherboard combos over the years from them. I once had a problem with one motherboard combo they mailed me. They mailed me a new one without requiring me to mail back the old one first (I live in Boulder, CO so it's nice to have this service) and they payed for all of the postage. They have one of the highest ratings at resellerratings.com for a reason.
Then PLEASE explain the fallacies in the article's logic or at the very least link to a good counter argument (this is slashdot after all, feel free to link to anything other than goats...). It seems no-one is up to the task. I keep reading and reading looking for someone to argue the other side of the argument but everyone I come across is to the effect 'it's just a rant, move along'. No, it is not. Based on the evidence I've read they have a decent argument, regardless of any motives these people may have. Saying it's an 'infantile rant' isn't going to convince anyone. Showing me how this is an infantile rant would be much more effective. Are you up to it? Then please defend the actions of Wikipedia with more than a one-line sentence devoid of any information. I'm currently leading towards the viewpoint expressed in the article in at least part because I haven't read a good counter-argument yet.
I agree with you about X. I had issues with X on Tiger and was hoping for an improvement with Leopord. It's so bad now that I now do almost all of my work with a virtual machine running CentOS. Especially when using X with Spaces. I sometimes had problems where I would click on a console in one screen and immediately be taken to another X window on another screen. The only solution was to close the X window on the other screen. And the Z-order seems to be completely hosed (clicking on the top most window would bring up another, lower window). I can't believe they released such a buggy version of X with their new OS.
Obviously the dust would stay within the atmosphere. I meant to say if the dust could get above the troposphere (I guess that's what they would call it on Venus; if not, whatever layer they name that contains the clouds).
Still, the dirt kicked up in the Venetian atmosphere would still help reflect if the dust particles get higher than the atmosphere. If the dust is within the atmosphere I would presume that the light would be rather diffuse so the dust wouldn't help whatsoever. I don't have any idea how high the cloud tops are on Venus nor what altitude dust kicked up by nukes would stabilize at. Still, it would be a convenient excuse to get rid of our aging stockpile.
For the same reason it would cool earth's atmosphere, by blocking more sunlight (ie, global dimming). If enough dirt is kicked up high into the atmosphere it may block more light than the clouds by themselves, thus reflecting some of the sun's energy before getting trapped by greenhouse gas.
I wonder how much Venus would cool if we simply dropped a couple hundred nukes on the surface. It would surely cool it by a few degrees, although I doubt it would cool it to anywhere close to comfortable temperatures.
He could have put in the address for the local baseball stadium as the Blues Brothers did.
At least in Colorado the great majority of parking lots are considered private property. So police officers cannot enforce posted signs within a parking lot (such as stop signs, etc.). They can only enforce certain crimes, such as DUI within a parking lot. I only know this because I have a friend that just went through the local police academy.
I haven't noticed much bias on his part. It doesn't really make since for him to be harder on Dems though since he used to be the chief of staff for a Democrat senator before he started work for Meet the Press (he worked for one of my favorite senators of all time, Patrick Moynihan).
Short of Edwards I don't have a chance of being able to see/hear a candidate speak other than filtered through a news organization because my state isn't worth visiting because we're just to toe the line the rest of the states do.
That's not true. For one thing all of the candidates have been invited to appear on Meet the Press and be interviewed by Tim Russert. That's at least 30 minutes of national coverage per candidate. Frankly that's as much time as most people are willing to spend considering each candidate. In addition they make appearances on The Daily Show, Real Time w/ Bill Maher, etc. If they're a senator then you can also watch them make speeches on CSPAN2. You can also read transcripts on the candidate's website (such as this page for Biden).
As for feeling disenfranchised, there are things you can do in addition to voting, such as donating money to your favorite candidate or volunteering for them. This would have a much greater effect than your single vote.
Why do you call it 'small state elitism'? A fact is a fact. I've never lived in Iowa or New Hampshire but based on everything I've read and on personal accounts by trustworthy journalists such as Gwen Ifill (and other journalists on Washington Week) it appears that the people in these two states take their role of voting first very seriously and have a long tradition of having town hall meetings and seriously considering each candidate during the primary. No other state has this tradition nor are as involved in the primary. I'm not saying they wouldn't if given the chance but it would take time even under the best of circumstances.
I have lived in one of the larger states (Texas) and did not find that people seriously considered anyone other than W. Bush during the Republican primary in 2000. The reason why should be obvious. Now when is the last time a president came from Iowa or New Hampshire? Large states have an implicit advantage over smaller states by voting for 'their guy' and usually aren't thoughtful enough to seriously consider anyone else. Smaller states can also fall into this category. If it was up to Utah this election would go to Mitt Romney for two reasons: 1) he's Mormon 2) he got the winter Olympics on track. The other candidates wouldn't stand a chance (at least based on the latest polling). I'm not aware of New Hampshire or Iowa ever having such an obvious bias to a person based on religious/geographic affiliation.
Simply put: these two states have a strong track record of hosting solid debates, asking good questions and paying attention. I wish other parts of the election process were changed (such as having the president win by having the most popular votes). But having the states vote in a particular order has more positives than negatives IMO.
I should add I live in Colorado now and we vote rather late in the primaries. Still, I don't feel disenfranchised because there's nothing stopping me from donating and volunteering for my favorite candidate which makes a much greater impact in the election than my single vote.
It's not like IA, NH, and SC are really representative of the US Population either. Iowa gives whitebread a new meaning, as does NH. SC starts to represent the mix of ethnicity that makes this nation so great, but the real melting pot states aren't until later and receive less focus than any other state.
Iowa and New Hampshire residents do differ in one major aspect than others: they really pay attention to the candidates prior to the primary. Many of them attend town hall meetings and are thoughtful about their decisions. Personally I'd rather have a couple of small states with well-informed citizens cast their vote first rather than having their voice drowned out by large states with typically much less informed people (which is exactly what would happen if the vote occurred on a single day). This also makes it easier for people to run for president because they don't need to focus on spending tons of money in large markets early in the primary. So if they do well in Iowa or New Hampshire they will be able to raise money more easily (and have more time to raise it) before competing in states like New York, California or Florida. It gives the underdog a better chance of success.
Is this $20 billion included in the $80 billion trade deficit? That is, would it be $100 billion without Microsoft?
Yes, this is included in the trade deficit calculation so yes, if your numbers were correct then the deficit would be $100 billion without Microsoft. Washington state is one of the very few states with an international trade surplus in large part due to Microsoft and Boeing. Other companies with a trade surplus are restaurant chains that sell franchises overseas (such as Starbucks, McDonalds, and KFC).
On the other hand, is perhaps this money not arriving to the US, but rather received only by "Microsoft Japan"
The money is funneled through Microsoft Japan. Microsoft in Redmond still gets a slice of every license sold there (or at least for the great majority of licenses). In the case of restaurant chains usually the franchises are locally owned and operated so the American company only profits from the initial franchise sale and (sometimes) from the ingredients sold.
They would then need a way of dissipating the heat. If this is in an outdoor, hot environment this may be difficult to do cost-effectively.
Agreed. Back in the dot com bust there was money to be made by purchasing tanked stocks only to sell them days/weeks later (just in time before the company folded or the stock was delisted). I managed to double my money in Kmart stock in just two weeks but wouldn't touch stock from companies like Enron.