Keeping leap seconds synced is pretty important across comms networks.
There's a lot of small print with EVs too
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I recently attended an EV conference where one of the speakers had done a conversion of a standard pickup. He was telling the people how it cost approx 2c per mile to run.
Then I asked him what his amortized battery cost was and he reckoned it would be approx 15c per mile (cost of battery/battery lifetime in miles).
That's a lot more than it costs me to run a standard diesel SUV.
Five 9s does not mean achieving five 9s at every installation. It means five 9s averaged across all installations. Having a 0.0001% chance of being hit by a bus is hardly consolation for the person that actually does get hit by the bus.
Of course it is very unlikely that MS achieves five 9s on any installation, let alone as an average.
How can this be called the premature end to the shuttle program? Shuttles were an ill-conceived idea from the beginning and now they are almost 30 years old. Surely they should have been retired long ago.
One of the biggest problems with throwing out a question like this on slashdot is that most slashdotters are not blind and are trying to throw tech solutions to problems that either don't exist or are are trivial (from a blind person's perspective). [OT, but we get the same sort of problems when slashdotters try to solve third world problems etc too].
I do not at all make claims to understand a blind person's needs, but I have spent some time trying to understand a blind person's requirements as part of working for a company that makes products for blind people - a highly successful company that must be doing a few things right.
One big thing I noticed is that most blind people are highly motivated to adapt to existing technology and generally don't need a big helping hand (unless they became blind very late in life). One blind guy I spoke to can Braille faster than I can type (ok not such a big challenge as I'm not a fast typer). This guy would learn how to use a candy-bar phone pretty quickly, but would likely prefer some special bumps/touch on some of the more important keys [5 to locate center of number pad, dial/hangip keys etc].
Most voice feedback is pretty crappy for blind people. Most blind people don't care for high quality spoken sound. What they want is fast. Most blind people will crank up the speed on their text to speech devices to full speed and at those speeds Joe Average non-blind person will not be able to understand.
What would be very interesting would be a blind person's special interest group adopting an open (eg OpenMoko) or semi-open (eg. Android) phone and seeing what sorts of UI design etc come out of that.
The world is full of examples showing species x declining while species y flourishes in the same environment. Just look in any city park: sparrows, pigeons etc thrive in a human pressured environment while many other bird types die off.
Perhaps diseases spread by bugs reduced the immune system. Add other stresses (say diminished food sources and competition from other animals) and you have a less favourable habitat for dinos, but more favourable for other species.
It does not matter what side they take, Global Warming is great for politicians and they love it because it makes a debating point that is far easier to deal with than looking at other more embarrassing issues. It also brings in lobbying from the oil companies etc.
Likewise, the scientists get spotlight time regardless of whether they agree or not. There's funding and debating both ways.
Similarly, most people thought of the CIA as a Cold War relic, until 9/11. After 9/11 the CIA gets the spotlight again + funding + whatever. 9/11 brought the CIA back into business, but that does not mean they support terrorism.
Whether it's the church burning scientists at the stake or, more recently, controlling access to money and prestige, science has always been influenced by outside forces. Net result: there is no such thing as objective science.
Because they need to eat and pay rent, scientists will follow the corporate line and rave about the emperor's new clothes just like the ignorant.
As a species we seem to love having these waves of hype up problems: SARS, Bird Flu, etc. Global Warming has been the biggest of these because everyone can relate to it.
Politicians love Global Warming because it stops people from thinking about other political issues. Many scientists love it because they finally get some of the spotlight and almost all scientific disciplines can be somehow linked to global warming. Just work GLobal Warming into your research title and it becomes trendy and "important".
As Chinese individual wealth and opportunities rise, Chinese people demand better pay and conditions. Chinese labor is already starting to get too expensive for some industries so Chinese companies start to find sources of cheap labour.
Of course this is nothing new. Not long ago, Japan was "the place that produced cheap crap". Now Japanese labor is relatively expensive and Japan offshore their work. Same thing is happening in Korea and many other places too.
What really has to change to ward of fear of diminished resources is for people to stop linking quality of life with material consumption. When you're starving then it makes sense, but right now obese people outnumber starving people so there is no food shortage, there is a consumption problem. It really needs people to stop using excessive consumption as a pill for their social ills. Getting a new cellphone every year != a high quality of life.
That might sound a bit trollish, but that's basically what is happening. US companies get stuff made in China because it is cheaper and much of that cheapness comes due to laxer environmental concerns and because the governments in places like China don't succumb to NIMBY concerns.
If you consider pollutants as a consumption issue, rather than as a production issue, then USA, being the largest consumers, should take some of the environmental responsibility too: That electronic gizzmo cost you $100 + your share of environmental "guilt".
With USA supposedly being "leader of the free world", you'd hope that the USA (48th) would be comparing itself to the top free countries, (Iceland, Norway, Estonia) not China (163), Russia (144) etc.
You can read all the documentation and code. Open source alternate firmware available for Java http://lejos.sourceforge.net/, C, Lua and many other languages.
Even many US customers think the stuff is nasty and would prefer to buy imported stuff and would rather dump their crap elsewhere.
All NZ beef is grass fed (properly so, not the US defition which means the animal had a mouthful of grass once in its life). NZ beef is mad cow free too.
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Keeping leap seconds synced is pretty important across comms networks.
Then I asked him what his amortized battery cost was and he reckoned it would be approx 15c per mile (cost of battery/battery lifetime in miles).
That's a lot more than it costs me to run a standard diesel SUV.
Make yer own transistors!
Leap seconds correct for the rotation of the earth to keep the sun above at noon.
If we dispense with leap seconds then this relationship will slowly change and noon will eventually be dark.
Of course it is very unlikely that MS achieves five 9s on any installation, let alone as an average.
How can this be called the premature end to the shuttle program? Shuttles were an ill-conceived idea from the beginning and now they are almost 30 years old. Surely they should have been retired long ago.
I do not at all make claims to understand a blind person's needs, but I have spent some time trying to understand a blind person's requirements as part of working for a company that makes products for blind people - a highly successful company that must be doing a few things right.
One big thing I noticed is that most blind people are highly motivated to adapt to existing technology and generally don't need a big helping hand (unless they became blind very late in life). One blind guy I spoke to can Braille faster than I can type (ok not such a big challenge as I'm not a fast typer). This guy would learn how to use a candy-bar phone pretty quickly, but would likely prefer some special bumps/touch on some of the more important keys [5 to locate center of number pad, dial/hangip keys etc].
Most voice feedback is pretty crappy for blind people. Most blind people don't care for high quality spoken sound. What they want is fast. Most blind people will crank up the speed on their text to speech devices to full speed and at those speeds Joe Average non-blind person will not be able to understand.
What would be very interesting would be a blind person's special interest group adopting an open (eg OpenMoko) or semi-open (eg. Android) phone and seeing what sorts of UI design etc come out of that.
would be if she does not like how we try to take care of it.
Get off my lawn!
Perhaps diseases spread by bugs reduced the immune system. Add other stresses (say diminished food sources and competition from other animals) and you have a less favourable habitat for dinos, but more favourable for other species.
Likewise, the scientists get spotlight time regardless of whether they agree or not. There's funding and debating both ways.
Similarly, most people thought of the CIA as a Cold War relic, until 9/11. After 9/11 the CIA gets the spotlight again + funding + whatever. 9/11 brought the CIA back into business, but that does not mean they support terrorism.
I've watched Mythbusters only 5 or so times, but at least once they busted a myth that they should not have.
Because they need to eat and pay rent, scientists will follow the corporate line and rave about the emperor's new clothes just like the ignorant.
As a species we seem to love having these waves of hype up problems: SARS, Bird Flu, etc. Global Warming has been the biggest of these because everyone can relate to it.
Politicians love Global Warming because it stops people from thinking about other political issues. Many scientists love it because they finally get some of the spotlight and almost all scientific disciplines can be somehow linked to global warming. Just work GLobal Warming into your research title and it becomes trendy and "important".
"Frown on government helping out businesses"??? Look at all the agricultural subsidies, bailing out financial organizations, lobbying,...
Why the hell does the rest of the world put up with USA? Reason: It is one of the biggest markets in the world and you don't bite the hand that feeds.
From what I've seen it is MIPS-compatible, and with the latest round of mods also x86 compatible. Both these architectures run Linux.
That means you can break the law for free!
gnu (bash etc) is also used in many other platforms and RMS doesn't go about insisting that those should get called GNU/xxx.
As a whole, has more renewable energy than anyone else.
Of course this is nothing new. Not long ago, Japan was "the place that produced cheap crap". Now Japanese labor is relatively expensive and Japan offshore their work. Same thing is happening in Korea and many other places too.
What really has to change to ward of fear of diminished resources is for people to stop linking quality of life with material consumption. When you're starving then it makes sense, but right now obese people outnumber starving people so there is no food shortage, there is a consumption problem. It really needs people to stop using excessive consumption as a pill for their social ills. Getting a new cellphone every year != a high quality of life.
If you consider pollutants as a consumption issue, rather than as a production issue, then USA, being the largest consumers, should take some of the environmental responsibility too: That electronic gizzmo cost you $100 + your share of environmental "guilt".
Except to show that it is easy to do. Most Average Joes can run a Windows program with very little outside help.
With USA supposedly being "leader of the free world", you'd hope that the USA (48th) would be comparing itself to the top free countries, (Iceland, Norway, Estonia) not China (163), Russia (144) etc.
You can read all the documentation and code. Open source alternate firmware available for Java http://lejos.sourceforge.net/, C, Lua and many other languages.
All NZ beef is grass fed (properly so, not the US defition which means the animal had a mouthful of grass once in its life). NZ beef is mad cow free too.
Yeah right!