I didn't think I was in the iPhone's demographic until my wife got one. The good web browsing experience (which requires the big screen) as well as the nicely integrated e-mail and visual voice mail are on the verge of getting me to convert from my venerable razor in exactly the way her previous smartphone (a HTC Hermes for what it's worth) wasn't.
Secondly, 720p can be done at about 2000kbps with x264, and easily lower than that. A 720p feature length could be done between 2gb and 3gb, and easily than that. Pirates are forging the way in this respect, as a quick google will show. The rest of your conjecture is of even lower quality than your "20gb" number.
um, yeah, you can. Just like you can fit a 480 line feature on a 650MB disc with ok results. Heck, if you wanted to, you could make a 300MB file. If you did so, you would sacrifice quality which is only sorta related to resolution. Movie studios have already felt the need to release more expensive dual layer blu-ray discs that also use modern codecs (H.264 and VC-1 are part of the Blu-ray standard) because they couldn't fit everything onto a single 25 GB layer. If you don't care how good a film looks and just want to see lots of pixels then, yes, you can get a 720p feature under 4 gigs, but your quality won't be much better than a 9 GB 480 line mpeg of the same film.
That's, like, physically impossible. LCDs can't be "blurry" without major malfunction, unlike CRTs which can be progressively more blurry over time. If you've got "blurry" text, you're running it at the wrong resolution.
Actually it's pretty easy to get an LCD with blurry text running at its native resolution if you're feeding it an analog video signal like you get with a VGA port. Many VGA input only LCD's (and a good number of dual input ones) have very crappy A/D converters which leave you with lots of fringing on sharp edges. This problem is made worse if the analog signal is degraded by poor quality cables and if it was of poor quality to begin with (as is usually the case on video ports that are built into motherboards). LCD's are super sharp IF they are running off a digital signal at their native resolution or if they have really good scaler engine.
You have it backwards. Summer hours give you more daylight after work. Given my choice, I'd switch to DST year round and deal with going to work in the dark.
What's wrong with spending an hour on your lonesome? Being the antisocial curmudgeon that I am, I'd look forward to it.
Some of us have jobs that require us to interact with other people, many of whom work inflexible shifts (say 8-5) so we're limited in our ability to do so by the need to interact with them. DST allows a coordinated move to an earlier schedule.
I like it. I can't help but believe that unfettered world wide access to information will lead to a more informed populations that will shun oppression and xenophobia in favor of participatory government and ethno-religious tolerance. This, in turn, will lead to more prosperity and consumer spending.
Because the internet is such a haven of enlightened tolerance now.
It isn't that hard to make more people. In fact its kind of fun. Outside of a pretty intense war, making enough people for all your suicide bombing needs doesn't seem like too high of a hurdle.
Why would you kill someone if you're going to buy up the patents from their estates? It would likely be considerable cheaper to simply buy the patents. Besides, the oil companies don't care what kind of fuel they supply, only that you give them money to buy it. I'm sure that they would be happy to sell you hydrogen, biodiesel or ground up babies if there were a profit in it.
Pretty much everything that is canned has to be cooked during the canning process. Traditional uncooked sauerkraut is much better but has a distinctly different flavor than kimchi. I really like sauerkraut but really dislike kimchi. I don't know if the difference is the seasoning (sauerkraut is traditionally just salt and cabbage) or if the different recipes also favor different fermentation processes. This seems likely to me because I'm under the impression that kimchi is usually fermented for 3 or 4 days and has a fairly short shelf-life while sauerkraut takes 1 to 4 weeks and has a longer shelf life.
Actually, there are some touch screens available now that have a piezoelectric dodad on the back of them that makes the touchscreen click when it registers a touch. I've played with some of these and it's amazing how well they work at giving a touchscreen button (or touch keyboard) a real feel. You could probably rig up an LCD with one of these guys in front of it in a nice box for much less than the Optimus keyboard and get a similarly good result.
I want something that will shake to the core. Something that doesn't feel scripted.
You could leave your mom's basement and interact with actual people. The real world features complex plots, destructable environments, excellent graphics and unlimited customization.
You do have to put up with lots of stupid and arbitrary rules though.
The PAC-1 upgrade was a software patch that allowed the patriot to search more of the sky, giving it a nominal capability to defend against ballistic missiles. The PAC-2 upgrade was another software upgrade combined with a missile that actually stood a chance of hitting a ballistic missile (which the original patriot missile didn't). The real upgrade that has made the patriot a usable system was the GEM or guidance enhanced missile that had a better guidance system and better control of when it detonated. That came between the 2 gulf wars when the PAC-2 upgrades had proven themselves inadequate. It is my expectation that the good folks developing the navy's missiles are smart enough to learn from the army's mistakes as well as their own.
Actually, the Patriot Missile system from Gulf War I wasn't designed to shoot down Scuds. It was an anti-aircraft system that was hastily repurposed to shoot down missiles (a task at which it only exhibited marginal success). Taking an anti-missile system and modifying it to hit a satellite in very low orbit is much easier than modifying an anti-aircraft missile to hit missiles because in the former case you already have a good enough guidance system and you just need to add a bit of range. Besides, I believe that they were already using this missile as a test-bed for ballistic missile defense development.
Why is it that every single article that references any scientific development in the fields of genetics or molecular biology gets the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag on Slashdot? What does this say about our society, since Slashdot members tend to represent the more educated and successful members to begin with? Have we really become such fat lazy luddites that we will reject anything we do not understand, on the basis of an infinitesmally-small risk to our (relatively) decadent and luxurious life?
The thing about biological systems is that they're inherently self-replicating in the way that just about everything else isn't. This means that even benign screw-ups can have surprising and long-reaching consequences. Think about kudzu in the Southern U.S., starlings in North America, Dutch-elm disease in the eastern U.S., rabbits in Australia, and rats on Easter Island. All of these introductions of exotic species wrought enormous destruction and in the case of dutch-elm disease took the American Elm from being the dominant species in eastern U.S. forests to being virtually extinct. Genetic engineering is about creating new exotic species that we can use to do neato things. Now, it's true that most species and ecosystems are darn robust and can handle a wide variety of new threats, but if you're trying to think of a way that we as a species can kill ourselves off, then creating a new organism that proves to be harmful in some unexpected way and well suited to compete in the environment is a pretty good bet.
Sugarcane is just about the perfect crop if you want to make ethanol. Unfortunately for those of us in the U.S. there are few places here that can grow sugarcane and fewer still that can do so economically (hence the U.S.'s high taxes on imported sugar and our use of high fructose corn syrup as a substitute). Our inability to produce sugarcane has led both to our current corn based ethanol production and to huge investments in research into methods of making ethanol from other feedstocks that are cheaper to grow than corn.
Because that argument doesn't hold water for me; it would be perfectly valid to write the spec for the THEORETICAL FUTURE when such speeds are possible and just wait for hardware to catch up with the spec.
When you see a device described as USB, USB 2.0, FireWire 400, SCSI-160 or whatever, you should be able to make assumptions about how quickly the bus will perform. If your standard is for a performance level that you can't achieve then knowing a device conforms to a specific spec says nothing about how it performs. Also, you don't know what the future will hold. I don't think that most people back in the days of 10 base T would have believed that unshielded twisted pair copper was capable of carrying 100 times as much data as it was carrying then. In that case, it turned out that lots of existing cable was perfectly suitable for far greater performance than would have been the theoretical spec 15 years ago.
I think the problem is more like "Oh no! I might have to be around people who don't look or act or think like me and who have a tendency to riot over cartoons and misnamed teddy bears."
Do you get your TV over the air or via cable or satellite? If it is one of the later two, then I'm amazed that DVR's with service aren't available from your cable or satellite company for a modest fee. Mine is $11/month for a 160 GB unit and is integrated with the program guide. I couldn't imagine going back to a VCR (or VCR equivalent like the DVD recorder) without the ability to record 2 programs at once (while you're watching a third, recorded show), pause live TV or record several hours of TV on a day when the programming is good so that I have something to watch when I get home from work.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't think I was in the iPhone's demographic until my wife got one. The good web browsing experience (which requires the big screen) as well as the nicely integrated e-mail and visual voice mail are on the verge of getting me to convert from my venerable razor in exactly the way her previous smartphone (a HTC Hermes for what it's worth) wasn't.
Secondly, 720p can be done at about 2000kbps with x264, and easily lower than that. A 720p feature length could be done between 2gb and 3gb, and easily than that. Pirates are forging the way in this respect, as a quick google will show. The rest of your conjecture is of even lower quality than your "20gb" number.
um, yeah, you can. Just like you can fit a 480 line feature on a 650MB disc with ok results. Heck, if you wanted to, you could make a 300MB file. If you did so, you would sacrifice quality which is only sorta related to resolution. Movie studios have already felt the need to release more expensive dual layer blu-ray discs that also use modern codecs (H.264 and VC-1 are part of the Blu-ray standard) because they couldn't fit everything onto a single 25 GB layer. If you don't care how good a film looks and just want to see lots of pixels then, yes, you can get a 720p feature under 4 gigs, but your quality won't be much better than a 9 GB 480 line mpeg of the same film.
That's, like, physically impossible. LCDs can't be "blurry" without major malfunction, unlike CRTs which can be progressively more blurry over time. If you've got "blurry" text, you're running it at the wrong resolution.
Actually it's pretty easy to get an LCD with blurry text running at its native resolution if you're feeding it an analog video signal like you get with a VGA port. Many VGA input only LCD's (and a good number of dual input ones) have very crappy A/D converters which leave you with lots of fringing on sharp edges. This problem is made worse if the analog signal is degraded by poor quality cables and if it was of poor quality to begin with (as is usually the case on video ports that are built into motherboards). LCD's are super sharp IF they are running off a digital signal at their native resolution or if they have really good scaler engine.
You have it backwards. Summer hours give you more daylight after work. Given my choice, I'd switch to DST year round and deal with going to work in the dark.
Some of us have jobs that require us to interact with other people, many of whom work inflexible shifts (say 8-5) so we're limited in our ability to do so by the need to interact with them. DST allows a coordinated move to an earlier schedule.
I like it. I can't help but believe that unfettered world wide access to information will lead to a more informed populations that will shun oppression and xenophobia in favor of participatory government and ethno-religious tolerance. This, in turn, will lead to more prosperity and consumer spending.
Because the internet is such a haven of enlightened tolerance now.
It isn't that hard to make more people. In fact its kind of fun. Outside of a pretty intense war, making enough people for all your suicide bombing needs doesn't seem like too high of a hurdle.
Why would you kill someone if you're going to buy up the patents from their estates? It would likely be considerable cheaper to simply buy the patents. Besides, the oil companies don't care what kind of fuel they supply, only that you give them money to buy it. I'm sure that they would be happy to sell you hydrogen, biodiesel or ground up babies if there were a profit in it.
This joke is never obligatory! Will you people finally let it go?
I for one welcome our humorless overlords.
Farewell sweet, sweet karma
Pretty much everything that is canned has to be cooked during the canning process. Traditional uncooked sauerkraut is much better but has a distinctly different flavor than kimchi. I really like sauerkraut but really dislike kimchi. I don't know if the difference is the seasoning (sauerkraut is traditionally just salt and cabbage) or if the different recipes also favor different fermentation processes. This seems likely to me because I'm under the impression that kimchi is usually fermented for 3 or 4 days and has a fairly short shelf-life while sauerkraut takes 1 to 4 weeks and has a longer shelf life.
Actually, there are some touch screens available now that have a piezoelectric dodad on the back of them that makes the touchscreen click when it registers a touch. I've played with some of these and it's amazing how well they work at giving a touchscreen button (or touch keyboard) a real feel. You could probably rig up an LCD with one of these guys in front of it in a nice box for much less than the Optimus keyboard and get a similarly good result.
I want something that will shake to the core. Something that doesn't feel scripted.
You could leave your mom's basement and interact with actual people. The real world features complex plots, destructable environments, excellent graphics and unlimited customization.
You do have to put up with lots of stupid and arbitrary rules though.
Would Seattle really be a loss?
The PAC-1 upgrade was a software patch that allowed the patriot to search more of the sky, giving it a nominal capability to defend against ballistic missiles. The PAC-2 upgrade was another software upgrade combined with a missile that actually stood a chance of hitting a ballistic missile (which the original patriot missile didn't). The real upgrade that has made the patriot a usable system was the GEM or guidance enhanced missile that had a better guidance system and better control of when it detonated. That came between the 2 gulf wars when the PAC-2 upgrades had proven themselves inadequate. It is my expectation that the good folks developing the navy's missiles are smart enough to learn from the army's mistakes as well as their own.
Actually, the Patriot Missile system from Gulf War I wasn't designed to shoot down Scuds. It was an anti-aircraft system that was hastily repurposed to shoot down missiles (a task at which it only exhibited marginal success). Taking an anti-missile system and modifying it to hit a satellite in very low orbit is much easier than modifying an anti-aircraft missile to hit missiles because in the former case you already have a good enough guidance system and you just need to add a bit of range. Besides, I believe that they were already using this missile as a test-bed for ballistic missile defense development.
It's not like GIMP is an MS Paint competitor.
You're right. Paint has a far better interface and is more generally useful.
Why is it that every single article that references any scientific development in the fields of genetics or molecular biology gets the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag on Slashdot? What does this say about our society, since Slashdot members tend to represent the more educated and successful members to begin with? Have we really become such fat lazy luddites that we will reject anything we do not understand, on the basis of an infinitesmally-small risk to our (relatively) decadent and luxurious life?
The thing about biological systems is that they're inherently self-replicating in the way that just about everything else isn't. This means that even benign screw-ups can have surprising and long-reaching consequences. Think about kudzu in the Southern U.S., starlings in North America, Dutch-elm disease in the eastern U.S., rabbits in Australia, and rats on Easter Island. All of these introductions of exotic species wrought enormous destruction and in the case of dutch-elm disease took the American Elm from being the dominant species in eastern U.S. forests to being virtually extinct. Genetic engineering is about creating new exotic species that we can use to do neato things. Now, it's true that most species and ecosystems are darn robust and can handle a wide variety of new threats, but if you're trying to think of a way that we as a species can kill ourselves off, then creating a new organism that proves to be harmful in some unexpected way and well suited to compete in the environment is a pretty good bet.
Ah, Slashdot - the land of fruits and nuts.
Sugarcane is just about the perfect crop if you want to make ethanol. Unfortunately for those of us in the U.S. there are few places here that can grow sugarcane and fewer still that can do so economically (hence the U.S.'s high taxes on imported sugar and our use of high fructose corn syrup as a substitute). Our inability to produce sugarcane has led both to our current corn based ethanol production and to huge investments in research into methods of making ethanol from other feedstocks that are cheaper to grow than corn.
Soylent Gas is people!!!!! Farewell Karma!
You mean like this girl
Because that argument doesn't hold water for me; it would be perfectly valid to write the spec for the THEORETICAL FUTURE when such speeds are possible and just wait for hardware to catch up with the spec.
When you see a device described as USB, USB 2.0, FireWire 400, SCSI-160 or whatever, you should be able to make assumptions about how quickly the bus will perform. If your standard is for a performance level that you can't achieve then knowing a device conforms to a specific spec says nothing about how it performs. Also, you don't know what the future will hold. I don't think that most people back in the days of 10 base T would have believed that unshielded twisted pair copper was capable of carrying 100 times as much data as it was carrying then. In that case, it turned out that lots of existing cable was perfectly suitable for far greater performance than would have been the theoretical spec 15 years ago.
I think the problem is more like "Oh no! I might have to be around people who don't look or act or think like me and who have a tendency to riot over cartoons and misnamed teddy bears."
Do you get your TV over the air or via cable or satellite? If it is one of the later two, then I'm amazed that DVR's with service aren't available from your cable or satellite company for a modest fee. Mine is $11/month for a 160 GB unit and is integrated with the program guide. I couldn't imagine going back to a VCR (or VCR equivalent like the DVD recorder) without the ability to record 2 programs at once (while you're watching a third, recorded show), pause live TV or record several hours of TV on a day when the programming is good so that I have something to watch when I get home from work.
It did get included eventually. 2.5" drives use 44pin IDE cables that carry signal and power.