From a recent Seattle Times article: "The IRS has said time exchanges can be tax-exempt for several reasons: they're informal and noncommercial in nature; they aren't legally enforceable but backed only by a moral obligation; their purpose is charitable." (The quote is from about two-thirds the way down the page. Search for IRS to find it quickly.)
I don't know if I'd call it charitable in many cases. I think the article may have mangled the IRS's reasoning, but I am pretty confident that non-legally binding service exchange is not taxable. Imagine the accounting headaches if it were, and the trouble enforcing it.
You were curious and asked "Do US calculators use ratiometric fractions?"
I satisfied your curiousity and replied that they did, and meanwhile noted that the assumption that "you cannot readily convert 1/5 into 32nds" is not true if you are used to it, and that there is no extra inaccuracy in using a US measurement ruler instead of a metric one.
Sure, the slight bits add up. However, you are not accounting for all the small bits that are downsides to switching (completely switching - US scientists and engineers generally know and use metric): 1) conversion cost. Relabelling, educating the older generation, some period of time with signs with both, etc. If this were the only objection, it would make sense to switch during the next boom and get it over with for the sake of future returns in efficiency. 2) overlooked conversion costs. The enormous number of books that are still useful, but would become obsolete if no one knew miles, feet, inches, etc. anymore. Just think of all the obsoleted cookbooks alone. 3) The cultural cost. This is the most overlooked, but there are so many books and poems that are an important part of our culture that would be less accessible if people weren't familiar with the units. To give a small example, I don't ever use leagues, so this was the first time that I realized that the 20000 Leagues in Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea is nearly ten times the diamter of the Earth! To some extent conversions can be done, but losing personal familiarity with older units does cost some understanding of the text for most readers.
Using both as most convenient works just fine. And there's nothing the rest of the world can do about it. Neener, neener, neener.;)
True, I shouldn't use the word "photocopy" as a generic term for copying paper.
Of course, originally copies of paper were prepared by hand and then by typewriter long before the invention of the photocopy machine. However, I stand by my claim that the reason legal paper is the size it is is so that signatures and seals can be affixed.
Sorry, but what an ugly name for fractions as opposed to decimal equivalents. Yes, many US pocket calcs have a result->fraction button. Most non-graphing still just have eight digit displays.
Hmm, I don't think I've ever had to measure anything smaller than 1/32 of an inch with a ruler. Figuring out what 1/5 is in 32nds just means solving. 1/5 = x/32. Crossmultiplying and solving gives x = 32/5 or 6.4 (six and two fifths.) So, you go 6 tic marks and just shy of half of another. The inherent inaccuracy is less than 1/32 of an inch, and I can't cut anything that exactly.;) Also, that's about the same uncertainty as you quoted for the metric ruler.
A slight bit more math is involved than with metric, but really not that much. For a surprisingly large majority of people, the most complex manipulation of units they do is estimation. Unit conversions and divisions in your head are simply not a necessity of modern life for most people.
Well, if you care about calculation, you should be using Kelvin anyway.
As a chemist, I appreciate the metric system. However, there really isn't a compelling reason to make the general population change, especially with the prevalence of computers.
One thing I never use the metric system for is human-scale distance estimates. Meters are long enough that they are unwieldy, and no one I know uses decimeters. Feet are just the right size for most estimates I do. Actually, acre-feet give me the best mental grasp of large volumes, despite being the most cumbersome unit this side of a half-bushel. I do use liters instead of gallons for small volume estimates, though.
Also, another poster noted that 1 cubic decimeter is one liter. Well, that's still ugly. Your base length unit cubed should equal your base volume measure. Granted, that's a large volume with base length of 1 meter, but the choice of 1 liter = 1000 cubic centimeters is pretty arbitrary.
I'm an American, and I use the term "customary units" (using it as a technical term, not whatever units are customary) to refer to inches, feet, pounds, slugs (non-metric unit of mass), etc.
While maintaining the aspect ratio of paper is a nice trick, I hope that elegantness of the solution for division didn't trump ergonomics or convenience. I believe A4 is negligibly different from 8.5" by 11" ("letter" size), so it sounds like it doesn't matter.
By the way, "legal" paper (8.5" by 14") is the size it is so that you can photocopy "letter"-sized paper and then affix signatures and legal stuff at the bottom. Having a standard size that is longer than the commonly used sizes makes sense for these purposes. I'm curious: Is there something equivalent in international standard paper sizes?
You're right, the poster you quoted was mistaking reflected and absorbed light. However, since there has already been a good deal of confusion in this series of posts, I should point out that using the phrase, "most energetic" will probably confuse many people.
The peak of the intensity (numbers of photons per unit area) versus wavelength curve is at the green wavelengths (around 500nm), but the energy per photon is h*(speed of light/wavelength).
The graph of intensity vs. wavelength here is useful. (Graph is halfway down the page. Divide by 10 to change from Angstroms to nanometers. Visible light is ~400 to 700 nm, with very blue at 400nm and very red at 700nm.) However, intensity is number of photons, not total energy, so the power vs. wavelength peak (energy contribution) is shifted to the left because shorter-wavelength photons have more energy (blue photons are more energetic than red).
Further info on photosynthesis is here. Note that there is a blue absorption peak and a red absorption peak. For some reason, green is not absorbed, but looking at the energy versus wavelength graph instead of the intensity versus wavelength peak shows this isn't as bad as it sounds.
Previous posters have said this is a sign of a suboptimal solution, but ignores the fact that there are other factors involved in the optimization of plant leaf design besides light-gathering efficiency.
It is significantly harder to change one element to another than it is to rearrange atoms of elements you have into a particular order.
To make diamond from plants (for example), you just have to break some chemical bonds to get at the carbon and then make some new chemical bonds to get the right crystal structure. Getting the right structure for diamond usually means very high pressure.
This is relatively easy compared to changing atoms from one element to another. To do that, you have to have at least a neutron source (probably a nuclear reactor). This only works for the simplest of transformations. Past that, you have to start bombarding one atom with another at very high speeds and hoping you can get the decomposition you want. However, both processes are so energetically expensive that in general it would be cheaper to buy naturally occurring raw material.
I am using Firefox 0.8, and it does open a new browser window when you shift+click and a new tab if you Ctrl+click. It also keeps Alt-D as the shortcut to the navigation bar. I had tried switching before, but given up because of minor annoyances like changed keyboard shortcuts and less slickness than IE, but I switched to this version and haven't missed IE almost at all (I do miss the google toolbar slightly, but I think there is a project to replicate it). If you haven't tried Mozilla/Firefox in a while, I'd suggest giving it another whirl when you have some free time. The combination of tabbed browsing and the ability to bookmark all tabs to a folder or open all bookmarks in a folder to tabs can be a real time saver, too.
I do have one frustration that comes from my IE habits: I really like the way they've implemented tabbed browsing, but I occassionally close the whole window when I just meant to close the open tab because of IE habits. Anyone know of a quick fix to prevent that or a way to get back my browser session after closing the browser?
Also, does anyone know if there is there a way to save a browsing session? I know you can bookmark all tabs to a folder, but I'd like to preserve the individual history threads for each tab.
What's the point of greater than 128kbps if you are listening to most of your music in a noisy environment like city streets, a car with road noise from the highway, or a noisy classroom or office? I would guess most of the listening to portable audio players is done in noisy enough environments that greater kbps would just be a waste.
Also, why is it an ugly truth that consumers haven't trained themselves to be annoyed by minor artifacts in 128kps MP3s? That's a good thing; they can enjoy music with less investment of time and money. Almost all the musical ideas come across at even 128kbps. You might miss the last fadings of one section of orchestra for classical music, but you can't hear those over much noise anyway. I can hear a little difference in many songs between 128kbps and 192kbps, but all the essential details of music I have any chance of hearing even over light typing are preserved even in 128. If you don't focus on the errors, your brain does a very good job fixing slight infidelities, as well. It's no skin off your nose that most people can enjoy music without focusing on slight imperfections.
In addition, you are exageratting about the tolerance of the average consumer to low sound quality. Almost no one would put up with sub-64kbps MP3s. Napster and internet downloads showed us that consumers felt a good balance of size and quality was 128kbps. People just wouldn't download 64kbps because it was too distorted. However, I would love being able to sample albums I wanted to buy by downloading 64kpbs MP3 versions. It would allow me to make an informed decision about whether to download the songs, and the quality reduction would be sufficiently annoying to convince me to purchase the album.
This isn't exactly what you asked for, but I have a suggestion.
You can download a copy of messages to Outlook, leave it online, and have it automatically be deleted from both places when deleted from deleted items in Outlook.
I'm using this with Yahoo mail right now ($19.99/year right now - No affiliation but being a user.) This allows you to mainly use Outlook, but keep a copy available on the internet. You just need to remember to delete only from Outlook.
->"Tools" ->"Accounts"
(choose account) ->"Properties" ->"Advanced" ->"Deliver y" --->check "Leave a copy of message on server" --->check "Remove from server when deleted from 'Deleted Items'"
Hope this helps you.
Re:Is this a real threat? - lifetime
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Buckyballs Kill Fish
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I'd consider 48 hours still pretty short-term. Also, I would consider it cold comfort if the buckyballs didn't decompose but accumulated the sediment. Well, maybe buckyballs need the equivalent of condensation nuclei to quickly precipitate. I didn't see a detailed experimental procedure when I read the article, but it wouldn't be surprising if the water was relatively clean when the buckyballs were added. It would be ironic if it were simply too clean, and buckyballs didn't pose much of a threat in dirtier water. Alternately, if the buckyballs are toxic because of oxidative power, perhaps in dirtier water they would be reduced to harmless byproducts by oxidizing material in the water.
However, these are just possibilities, and the prospect of buckyballs acting as biologically-active catalysts is a bit disturbing. I'm starting graduate study in physical chemistry this fall, so I hope to read more extensive toxicity studies before I decide what research area to pursue.
Re:Is this a real threat? - lifetime
on
Buckyballs Kill Fish
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· Score: 4, Insightful
It should be noted that buckyballs were added to aquarium water with fish already in it, and damage was assessed after 48 hours.
Even a reasonably high level of toxicity might not be a major problem if the buckyballs are not persistent in a real-world environment. This is sort of like the short--half-life radioisotopes. They are more toxic precisely because they decay more rapidly, but if they have a half-life of a few days or less, disposal is simply a matter of letting them sit for a while.
The mechanism of effect needs to be determined to assess whether eating contaminated fish would have bad biological repercussions. If buckyballs are just really good oxidizing agents after being broken biologically, the residual effects would be minimal. If, on the other hand, the buckyballs are somehow acting catalytically or as immunological irritants, bioaccumulation could be likely and there would be a threat to humans from eating contaminated fish.
Unfortunately, there is precedent(bottom of page 7 of the PDF) for fullerenes acting as catalysts.
However, the paper linked to above also notes, "Fullerenes are also effective at mopping up free radicals, which damage living tissue. This has led to the suggestion that they might protect the skin in cosmetics, or help hinder neural damage caused by radicals in certain diseases, research on which in rats has already shown promise."[emphasis added] (page 9)
But then the same paper mentions that the size is similar to biologically active molecules, and has an affinity to an active site on an enzyme important to HIV.
It seems a thorough, well-designed toxicology study of fullerenes is in order. It is important that a study of the toxicity be done with conditions reasonably close to real world conditions.
oxidation versus reduction confusion
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Buckyballs Kill Fish
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· Score: 4, Informative
When buckyballs "steal" electrons, the buckyballs are reduced and whatever lost the electrons is oxidized.
Whenever something is oxidized, something else is reduced and vice versa.
Things that are easily reduced are good oxidizing agents; things that are easily oxidized are good reducing agents.
Despite the name, oxidation does not necessarily (or usually) involve oxygen; it refers to the change in oxidation number, and the term is just a vestige of a time when chemistry was less well understood.
People drive SUVs because they like them more, not because they aren't capable of analyzing a financial decision. (I don't like SUVs, either because I can't see over/around them while driving; however, I can understand how the extra space and being able to see around and over other drivers could have an appeal.)
For the other questions, you need to compare long-term cost-savings against either market returns or current borrowing rates. I ran a quick scenario assuming a conservative 7% return on investment (or savings from paying off debt). You have to save $2 for every $1 of initial investment over twenty years to come out ahead. Significantly more if your rate of return is higher. Also, how do maintenance for things like hybrid cars, heat sinks, and refrigerator coils outside the house compare to conventional cars and conventional heat and cooling?
Some of the alternatives you listed still make sense, but they are much less compelling when you factor in return on other investments, enjoyment of less efficient alternatives, overall hassle, and the preference for immediate gratification (irrational, but understandable: "life is uncertain - eat dessert first").
Double-paning the door (with either a vacuum or a closed dry gas between the two panes) would eliminate most of the condensation problems.
I guess you would have some condensation from warmer air that contacts the interior surface when the door is open, but my intuition is that this would be minimal even with glass and any remaining condenstaion problem could be eliminated by using a material with a lower heat conductivity than glass or coating the glass with a no-fog coating.
Actually, I am surprised more grocery stores don't double pane the glass in the freezer cases. Maybe energy lost to air escaping overshadows energy lost through thermal conduction because customers open the doors so often.
Basically, childproofing a chest freezer/fridge is problematic and the basic design is less convenient for most people as stated before.
if they reject 90% of messages, spam will obviously go down
If they block 100% of messages, there will be NO spam. That's a better spam blocking percentage than even whitelisting since trusted senders might turn bad.:)
Well, to be technical, those MP3 CD auctions aren't fraudulent if they really do have the claimed MP3s on them. They are illegal, but many buyers probably know that and buy them anyway rather than attempting Kaza or Napster or whatever is current.
While the number of illegal (including fraudulent) auctions would be an interesting statistic, there is value in segregating out the fraud cases from the other illegal cases because that is a better indicator of how likely you are to be scammed. I agree that their statistic of 2000 fraudulent items should be taken with a grain of salt.
While I never played on Bnet.d, I have to disagree with you about there being no other reason to play on it. Blizzard servers may not be strained now, but when I was playing Diablo II lag was sometimes a real problem, especially for playing hard-core (once you're dead, your character is dead).
As previously mentioned, there are plenty of reasons other than not owning the game to want to play on non-Blizzard servers. A chance for reduced lag is one. Having different standards of acceptable behavior is another. Also, having a smaller pool of players makes meeting people online more likely. Moreover, if this is hosted for a local ISP, you are more likely to meet people in your area.
The comparison of BNet.d writers/users with virus writers is unfounded; a better comparison would be with the writers/users of no-CD hacks or software. Some people may use them for pirating, but many others use them for convenience. Given current hard drive sizes, there is no reason to require a CD or even DVD to be in the drive to play a game or use software. It adds only slightly to the security against pirating, and removing it is a convenience to the end user. (Requiring the CD be in the drive, but providing no copy protection on the CD, which I've often seen, is silly; real pirates will just copy the CD and the rest of your users will be inconvenienced.)
Another major thing you've missed about "improving the game experience" is that Blizzard was changing the balancing with each patch, which made a few of my friend's characters impotent (excessive concentration in skills that were nerfed with a patch). I don't know whether each patch was reverse engineered or not, but I assume that each server running Bnet.d had the choice of whether to implement a new patch.
Also, from the ISP's point of view, every player they could get on local Bnet.d servers was less external bandwidth they had to pay for. I don't think Diablo II was that bandwidth intensive, but it probably didn't hurt.
The use of the name is very questionable because it misappropriates the good name of Project Guttenburg and the good will people have towards Project Guttenburg.
However, the whole point of Project Guttenburg is to make texts already in the public domain readily available. A reasonable person will know that the same works exist for free in plain text format and will only pay for the added value (to them) of having them in a different format.
Anyone who wants to is still free to make PDF or HTML files of public domain works Project Guttenburg has made into e-texts. Project Guttenburg CANNOT release their books under the GPL because the copyright has already expired on these works. (For the vast majority, if not all of their works. Are there any exceptions?). That's why Project Guttenburg can get them free in the first place.
Project Guttenburg probably does have a strong trademark case, though.
Well, it depends on the type of fuel cell. Some of them run on ethanol or methanol, and for these the greatest danger is being pulled over by the police with an open bottle.:)
[Obligatory warning: Do not under any circumstances drink methanol. It can cause blindness and other serious health effects. Also, don't EVER drink near-100% alcohol. It will cause severe dehydration of tissues and probably a trip to the emergency room.]
Seriously, though, the dangers are about the same as carrying high-proof vodka. It is flammable, but not terribly. And for a laptop you wouldn't carry enough to cause much of a problem. Different hydrogen sources will have different handling requirements, but most fuel sources in the amounts needed to power laptops shouldn't be too dangerous.
"Fuel cells also lose most of their capacity within a year (okay, within a month) if used on a daily basis."
Are you referring to catalyst poisoning as the loss of capacity? Is this personal experience or something you read that you could link to? I'm curious. If you are referrin to catalyst poisoning, I wasn't aware the problem was that bad. I've read about some new methods of dealing with catalyst poisoning, but they do add complexity and cost. However, it seems likely a good portion of the poisoning problems could be solved with a little more research.
In addition to energy density, I would like to point out that you can double (or triple, quadruple, etc.) your running time for a fuel cell simply by carrying a fuel refill (such as methanol or ethanol) in a bottle, which is much cheaper than buying a second (or third or fourth) battery. Granted, this adds weight, but you could power a laptop for a full transatlantic flight. That's what I see as the main advantage of fuel cells: they're instantly refillable instead of requiring a long recharging.
Well, the website says one full day of operation in low-power mode (accessing e-mail, playing MP3s, and viewing your calendar from the grayscale display on the front of the machine).
However, only 2-3 hours running Windows XP. Sorry.:) Maybe when hydrogen fuel cells become more prevalent you'll be able to get 35 hours off a battery while running a modern operating system.
Also, there's a lot more you can do with 30 GB of hard drive space and a faster processor.
Check out the Flipstart. Still in development, but they've given a demo with one, so it's not just vaporware.
It's a complete, real computer. 4 inches by 6 inches and 1 inch thick. Runs Windows XP (actual full version).
Integrated 802.11g. 5.6" 1024 by 600 pixel screen. Integrated 1.3 megapixel camera. USB 2.0 Docking station provides access to optical drives and wired ethernet. 1 GHz processor (I don't know what kind.) Some special software to access MP3s and e-mails without opening up the full screen.
I don't have any relationship to the company except a friend who just started working there. I'm jealous. Oh well, maybe I can convince him to let me be a beta-tester.:)
My friend is going to try installing Linux on it. I'll let people know how that turns out.
Slashdot Mirror
From a recent Seattle Times article:
"The IRS has said time exchanges can be tax-exempt for several reasons: they're informal and noncommercial in nature; they aren't legally enforceable but backed only by a moral obligation; their purpose is charitable."
(The quote is from about two-thirds the way down the page. Search for IRS to find it quickly.)
I don't know if I'd call it charitable in many cases. I think the article may have mangled the IRS's reasoning, but I am pretty confident that non-legally binding service exchange is not taxable. Imagine the accounting headaches if it were, and the trouble enforcing it.
"Ting! Next, please."? That's just obnoxious.
;)
To recap:
You were curious and asked "Do US calculators use ratiometric fractions?"
I satisfied your curiousity and replied that they did, and meanwhile noted that the assumption that "you cannot readily convert 1/5 into 32nds" is not true if you are used to it, and that there is no extra inaccuracy in using a US measurement ruler instead of a metric one.
Sure, the slight bits add up. However, you are not accounting for all the small bits that are downsides to switching (completely switching - US scientists and engineers generally know and use metric):
1) conversion cost. Relabelling, educating the older generation, some period of time with signs with both, etc. If this were the only objection, it would make sense to switch during the next boom and get it over with for the sake of future returns in efficiency.
2) overlooked conversion costs. The enormous number of books that are still useful, but would become obsolete if no one knew miles, feet, inches, etc. anymore. Just think of all the obsoleted cookbooks alone.
3) The cultural cost. This is the most overlooked, but there are so many books and poems that are an important part of our culture that would be less accessible if people weren't familiar with the units. To give a small example, I don't ever use leagues, so this was the first time that I realized that the 20000 Leagues in Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea is nearly ten times the diamter of the Earth! To some extent conversions can be done, but losing personal familiarity with older units does cost some understanding of the text for most readers.
Using both as most convenient works just fine. And there's nothing the rest of the world can do about it. Neener, neener, neener.
True, I shouldn't use the word "photocopy" as a generic term for copying paper.
Of course, originally copies of paper were prepared by hand and then by typewriter long before the invention of the photocopy machine. However, I stand by my claim that the reason legal paper is the size it is is so that signatures and seals can be affixed.
Sorry, but what an ugly name for fractions as opposed to decimal equivalents. Yes, many US pocket calcs have a result->fraction button. Most non-graphing still just have eight digit displays.
;) Also, that's about the same uncertainty as you quoted for the metric ruler.
Hmm, I don't think I've ever had to measure anything smaller than 1/32 of an inch with a ruler. Figuring out what 1/5 is in 32nds just means solving. 1/5 = x/32. Crossmultiplying and solving gives x = 32/5 or 6.4 (six and two fifths.) So, you go 6 tic marks and just shy of half of another. The inherent inaccuracy is less than 1/32 of an inch, and I can't cut anything that exactly.
A slight bit more math is involved than with metric, but really not that much. For a surprisingly large majority of people, the most complex manipulation of units they do is estimation. Unit conversions and divisions in your head are simply not a necessity of modern life for most people.
Well, if you care about calculation, you should be using Kelvin anyway.
As a chemist, I appreciate the metric system. However, there really isn't a compelling reason to make the general population change, especially with the prevalence of computers.
One thing I never use the metric system for is human-scale distance estimates. Meters are long enough that they are unwieldy, and no one I know uses decimeters. Feet are just the right size for most estimates I do. Actually, acre-feet give me the best mental grasp of large volumes, despite being the most cumbersome unit this side of a half-bushel. I do use liters instead of gallons for small volume estimates, though.
Also, another poster noted that 1 cubic decimeter is one liter. Well, that's still ugly. Your base length unit cubed should equal your base volume measure. Granted, that's a large volume with base length of 1 meter, but the choice of 1 liter = 1000 cubic centimeters is pretty arbitrary.
I'm an American, and I use the term "customary units" (using it as a technical term, not whatever units are customary) to refer to inches, feet, pounds, slugs (non-metric unit of mass), etc.
While maintaining the aspect ratio of paper is a nice trick, I hope that elegantness of the solution for division didn't trump ergonomics or convenience. I believe A4 is negligibly different from 8.5" by 11" ("letter" size), so it sounds like it doesn't matter.
By the way, "legal" paper (8.5" by 14") is the size it is so that you can photocopy "letter"-sized paper and then affix signatures and legal stuff at the bottom. Having a standard size that is longer than the commonly used sizes makes sense for these purposes. I'm curious: Is there something equivalent in international standard paper sizes?
You're right, the poster you quoted was mistaking reflected and absorbed light. However, since there has already been a good deal of confusion in this series of posts, I should point out that using the phrase, "most energetic" will probably confuse many people.
The peak of the intensity (numbers of photons per unit area) versus wavelength curve is at the green wavelengths (around 500nm), but the energy per photon is h*(speed of light/wavelength).
The graph of intensity vs. wavelength here is useful. (Graph is halfway down the page. Divide by 10 to change from Angstroms to nanometers. Visible light is ~400 to 700 nm, with very blue at 400nm and very red at 700nm.) However, intensity is number of photons, not total energy, so the power vs. wavelength peak (energy contribution) is shifted to the left because shorter-wavelength photons have more energy (blue photons are more energetic than red).
Further info on photosynthesis is here.
Note that there is a blue absorption peak and a red absorption peak. For some reason, green is not absorbed, but looking at the energy versus wavelength graph instead of the intensity versus wavelength peak shows this isn't as bad as it sounds.
Previous posters have said this is a sign of a suboptimal solution, but ignores the fact that there are other factors involved in the optimization of plant leaf design besides light-gathering efficiency.
It is significantly harder to change one element to another than it is to rearrange atoms of elements you have into a particular order.
To make diamond from plants (for example), you just have to break some chemical bonds to get at the carbon and then make some new chemical bonds to get the right crystal structure. Getting the right structure for diamond usually means very high pressure.
This is relatively easy compared to changing atoms from one element to another. To do that, you have to have at least a neutron source (probably a nuclear reactor). This only works for the simplest of transformations. Past that, you have to start bombarding one atom with another at very high speeds and hoping you can get the decomposition you want. However, both processes are so energetically expensive that in general it would be cheaper to buy naturally occurring raw material.
I am using Firefox 0.8, and it does open a new browser window when you shift+click and a new tab if you Ctrl+click.
It also keeps Alt-D as the shortcut to the navigation bar.
I had tried switching before, but given up because of minor annoyances like changed keyboard shortcuts and less slickness than IE, but I switched to this version and haven't missed IE almost at all (I do miss the google toolbar slightly, but I think there is a project to replicate it).
If you haven't tried Mozilla/Firefox in a while, I'd suggest giving it another whirl when you have some free time.
The combination of tabbed browsing and the ability to bookmark all tabs to a folder or open all bookmarks in a folder to tabs can be a real time saver, too.
I do have one frustration that comes from my IE habits:
I really like the way they've implemented tabbed browsing, but I occassionally close the whole window when I just meant to close the open tab because of IE habits. Anyone know of a quick fix to prevent that or a way to get back my browser session after closing the browser?
Also, does anyone know if there is there a way to save a browsing session? I know you can bookmark all tabs to a folder, but I'd like to preserve the individual history threads for each tab.
What's the point of greater than 128kbps if you are listening to most of your music in a noisy environment like city streets, a car with road noise from the highway, or a noisy classroom or office? I would guess most of the listening to portable audio players is done in noisy enough environments that greater kbps would just be a waste.
Also, why is it an ugly truth that consumers haven't trained themselves to be annoyed by minor artifacts in 128kps MP3s? That's a good thing; they can enjoy music with less investment of time and money. Almost all the musical ideas come across at even 128kbps. You might miss the last fadings of one section of orchestra for classical music, but you can't hear those over much noise anyway. I can hear a little difference in many songs between 128kbps and 192kbps, but all the essential details of music I have any chance of hearing even over light typing are preserved even in 128. If you don't focus on the errors, your brain does a very good job fixing slight infidelities, as well.
It's no skin off your nose that most people can enjoy music without focusing on slight imperfections.
In addition, you are exageratting about the tolerance of the average consumer to low sound quality. Almost no one would put up with sub-64kbps MP3s. Napster and internet downloads showed us that consumers felt a good balance of size and quality was 128kbps. People just wouldn't download 64kbps because it was too distorted. However, I would love being able to sample albums I wanted to buy by downloading 64kpbs MP3 versions. It would allow me to make an informed decision about whether to download the songs, and the quality reduction would be sufficiently annoying to convince me to purchase the album.
This isn't exactly what you asked for, but I have a suggestion.
r y"
You can download a copy of messages to Outlook, leave it online, and have it automatically be deleted from both places when deleted from deleted items in Outlook.
I'm using this with Yahoo mail right now ($19.99/year right now - No affiliation but being a user.) This allows you to mainly use Outlook, but keep a copy available on the internet. You just need to remember to delete only from Outlook.
->"Tools"
->"Accounts"
(choose account)
->"Properties"
->"Advanced"
->"Delive
--->check "Leave a copy of message on server"
--->check "Remove from server when deleted from 'Deleted Items'"
Hope this helps you.
I'd consider 48 hours still pretty short-term. Also, I would consider it cold comfort if the buckyballs didn't decompose but accumulated the sediment. Well, maybe buckyballs need the equivalent of condensation nuclei to quickly precipitate. I didn't see a detailed experimental procedure when I read the article, but it wouldn't be surprising if the water was relatively clean when the buckyballs were added. It would be ironic if it were simply too clean, and buckyballs didn't pose much of a threat in dirtier water.
Alternately, if the buckyballs are toxic because of oxidative power, perhaps in dirtier water they would be reduced to harmless byproducts by oxidizing material in the water.
However, these are just possibilities, and the prospect of buckyballs acting as biologically-active catalysts is a bit disturbing. I'm starting graduate study in physical chemistry this fall, so I hope to read more extensive toxicity studies before I decide what research area to pursue.
It should be noted that buckyballs were added to aquarium water with fish already in it, and damage was assessed after 48 hours.
Even a reasonably high level of toxicity might not be a major problem if the buckyballs are not persistent in a real-world environment. This is sort of like the short--half-life radioisotopes. They are more toxic precisely because they decay more rapidly, but if they have a half-life of a few days or less, disposal is simply a matter of letting them sit for a while.
The mechanism of effect needs to be determined to assess whether eating contaminated fish would have bad biological repercussions. If buckyballs are just really good oxidizing agents after being broken biologically, the residual effects would be minimal. If, on the other hand, the buckyballs are somehow acting catalytically or as immunological irritants, bioaccumulation could be likely and there would be a threat to humans from eating contaminated fish.
Unfortunately, there is precedent(bottom of page 7 of the PDF) for fullerenes acting as catalysts.
However, the paper linked to above also notes, "Fullerenes are also effective at mopping up free radicals, which damage living tissue. This has led to the suggestion that they might protect the skin in cosmetics, or help hinder neural damage caused by radicals in certain diseases, research on which in rats has already shown promise."[emphasis added] (page 9)
But then the same paper mentions that the size is similar to biologically active molecules, and has an affinity to an active site on an enzyme important to HIV.
It seems a thorough, well-designed toxicology study of fullerenes is in order. It is important that a study of the toxicity be done with conditions reasonably close to real world conditions.
When buckyballs "steal" electrons, the buckyballs are reduced and whatever lost the electrons is oxidized.
Whenever something is oxidized, something else is reduced and vice versa.
Things that are easily reduced are good oxidizing agents; things that are easily oxidized are good reducing agents.
Despite the name, oxidation does not necessarily (or usually) involve oxygen; it refers to the change in oxidation number, and the term is just a vestige of a time when chemistry was less well understood.
People drive SUVs because they like them more, not because they aren't capable of analyzing a financial decision. (I don't like SUVs, either because I can't see over/around them while driving; however, I can understand how the extra space and being able to see around and over other drivers could have an appeal.)
For the other questions, you need to compare long-term cost-savings against either market returns or current borrowing rates. I ran a quick scenario assuming a conservative 7% return on investment (or savings from paying off debt). You have to save $2 for every $1 of initial investment over twenty years to come out ahead. Significantly more if your rate of return is higher. Also, how do maintenance for things like hybrid cars, heat sinks, and refrigerator coils outside the house compare to conventional cars and conventional heat and cooling?
Some of the alternatives you listed still make sense, but they are much less compelling when you factor in return on other investments, enjoyment of less efficient alternatives, overall hassle, and the preference for immediate gratification (irrational, but understandable: "life is uncertain - eat dessert first").
Double-paning the door (with either a vacuum or a closed dry gas between the two panes) would eliminate most of the condensation problems.
I guess you would have some condensation from warmer air that contacts the interior surface when the door is open, but my intuition is that this would be minimal even with glass and any remaining condenstaion problem could be eliminated by using a material with a lower heat conductivity than glass or coating the glass with a no-fog coating.
Actually, I am surprised more grocery stores don't double pane the glass in the freezer cases. Maybe energy lost to air escaping overshadows energy lost through thermal conduction because customers open the doors so often.
Basically, childproofing a chest freezer/fridge is problematic and the basic design is less convenient for most people as stated before.
if they reject 90% of messages, spam will obviously go down
:)
If they block 100% of messages, there will be NO spam.
That's a better spam blocking percentage than even whitelisting since trusted senders might turn bad.
Since it's digital, you can use error-correction code when storing the data and also compare checksums of the copies.
You can be reasonably certain that you made a completely perfect copy if everything checks out.
Well, to be technical, those MP3 CD auctions aren't fraudulent if they really do have the claimed MP3s on them. They are illegal, but many buyers probably know that and buy them anyway rather than attempting Kaza or Napster or whatever is current.
While the number of illegal (including fraudulent) auctions would be an interesting statistic, there is value in segregating out the fraud cases from the other illegal cases because that is a better indicator of how likely you are to be scammed. I agree that their statistic of 2000 fraudulent items should be taken with a grain of salt.
While I never played on Bnet.d, I have to disagree with you about there being no other reason to play on it. Blizzard servers may not be strained now, but when I was playing Diablo II lag was sometimes a real problem, especially for playing hard-core (once you're dead, your character is dead).
As previously mentioned, there are plenty of reasons other than not owning the game to want to play on non-Blizzard servers. A chance for reduced lag is one. Having different standards of acceptable behavior is another. Also, having a smaller pool of players makes meeting people online more likely. Moreover, if this is hosted for a local ISP, you are more likely to meet people in your area.
The comparison of BNet.d writers/users with virus writers is unfounded; a better comparison would be with the writers/users of no-CD hacks or software. Some people may use them for pirating, but many others use them for convenience. Given current hard drive sizes, there is no reason to require a CD or even DVD to be in the drive to play a game or use software. It adds only slightly to the security against pirating, and removing it is a convenience to the end user. (Requiring the CD be in the drive, but providing no copy protection on the CD, which I've often seen, is silly; real pirates will just copy the CD and the rest of your users will be inconvenienced.)
Another major thing you've missed about "improving the game experience" is that Blizzard was changing the balancing with each patch, which made a few of my friend's characters impotent (excessive concentration in skills that were nerfed with a patch). I don't know whether each patch was reverse engineered or not, but I assume that each server running Bnet.d had the choice of whether to implement a new patch.
Also, from the ISP's point of view, every player they could get on local Bnet.d servers was less external bandwidth they had to pay for. I don't think Diablo II was that bandwidth intensive, but it probably didn't hurt.
The use of the name is very questionable because it misappropriates the good name of Project Guttenburg and the good will people have towards Project Guttenburg.
However, the whole point of Project Guttenburg is to make texts already in the public domain readily available. A reasonable person will know that the same works exist for free in plain text format and will only pay for the added value (to them) of having them in a different format.
Anyone who wants to is still free to make PDF or HTML files of public domain works Project Guttenburg has made into e-texts. Project Guttenburg CANNOT release their books under the GPL because the copyright has already expired on these works. (For the vast majority, if not all of their works. Are there any exceptions?). That's why Project Guttenburg can get them free in the first place.
Project Guttenburg probably does have a strong trademark case, though.
Well, it depends on the type of fuel cell. Some of them run on ethanol or methanol, and for these the greatest danger is being pulled over by the police with an open bottle. :)
[Obligatory warning: Do not under any circumstances drink methanol. It can cause blindness and other serious health effects. Also, don't EVER drink near-100% alcohol. It will cause severe dehydration of tissues and probably a trip to the emergency room.]
Seriously, though, the dangers are about the same as carrying high-proof vodka. It is flammable, but not terribly. And for a laptop you wouldn't carry enough to cause much of a problem. Different hydrogen sources will have different handling requirements, but most fuel sources in the amounts needed to power laptops shouldn't be too dangerous.
"Fuel cells also lose most of their capacity within a year (okay, within a month) if used on a daily basis."
Are you referring to catalyst poisoning as the loss of capacity? Is this personal experience or something you read that you could link to? I'm curious. If you are referrin to catalyst poisoning, I wasn't aware the problem was that bad. I've read about some new methods of dealing with catalyst poisoning, but they do add complexity and cost. However, it seems likely a good portion of the poisoning problems could be solved with a little more research.
In addition to energy density, I would like to point out that you can double (or triple, quadruple, etc.) your running time for a fuel cell simply by carrying a fuel refill (such as methanol or ethanol) in a bottle, which is much cheaper than buying a second (or third or fourth) battery. Granted, this adds weight, but you could power a laptop for a full transatlantic flight. That's what I see as the main advantage of fuel cells: they're instantly refillable instead of requiring a long recharging.
Well, the website says one full day of operation in low-power mode (accessing e-mail, playing MP3s, and viewing your calendar from the grayscale display on the front of the machine).
:)
However, only 2-3 hours running Windows XP. Sorry.
Maybe when hydrogen fuel cells become more prevalent you'll be able to get 35 hours off a battery while running a modern operating system.
Also, there's a lot more you can do with 30 GB of hard drive space and a faster processor.
Check out the Flipstart. Still in development, but they've given a demo with one, so it's not just vaporware.
:)
It's a complete, real computer.
4 inches by 6 inches and 1 inch thick. Runs Windows XP (actual full version).
Integrated 802.11g.
5.6" 1024 by 600 pixel screen.
Integrated 1.3 megapixel camera.
USB 2.0
Docking station provides access to optical drives and wired ethernet.
1 GHz processor (I don't know what kind.)
Some special software to access MP3s and e-mails without opening up the full screen.
I don't have any relationship to the company except a friend who just started working there. I'm jealous. Oh well, maybe I can convince him to let me be a beta-tester.
My friend is going to try installing Linux on it. I'll let people know how that turns out.