Strictly speaking, the high fructose corn syrup is a substitute for sugar. The carogeenan, or guar gum along with the whey is a substitute for milkfat and a stabilizing agent. On the whole, I prefer a ice cream with fewer ingredients, but you do have to put up with a short shelf life compared to ones containing more exotic ingredients. Bryers used to be close to this, but even they add a gum to improve shelf life now.
My addition to the plastic part is how long does it take to biodegrade ? We should be reducing our use of 10,000 year lifespan plastic not increasing it.
I sincerely hope that my network doesn't biodegrade.
But seriously, why is using plastic any worse than using copper? Its pretty likely that the copper requires more fossil to refine than the plastic requires to make, and it isn't like you can't burn the plastic when you want to get rid of it. Also, data cable is something you hope to be able to use for many years when you install it. It isn't like something that is meant to be disposed of after a single use like a drinking cup.
I guess that owing to the lack of direct video/RGB input (the SCART aka Peritel aka EuroConnector), US converters will have the additional cost of an NTSC encoder and RF modulator, but otherwise the requirements are not dissimilar so it seems like there's a lot of fat in that pork barrel.
I haven't seen a US TV without direct video input in 20 years. Just about every TV on the market in the past 20 years has had composite input and usually s-video as well. Even component video input is nearly universal, so I don't think that including an RF modulator is much of an issue.
Sales of analog "only" sets should have been banned 4 or 5 years ago
Why?
80% of Americans get their TV from cable or satellite. Analog sets work just fine as monitors for any Satellite box or cable box you might have and since most cable systems carry analog signals in addition to digital, they work great with cable and are likely to work with some cable systems for quite some time.
Apple wants to SELL the applications. If any coder can spend a weekend working up a decent solitaire game then that means they won't be able to charge $5 (or whatever) for their solitaire game on iTunes. The cell phone market has ALWAYS been about nickel and diming the customer to death. Charging for text messages?
I don't agree. The fact is that there is a sea of free games that run on PCs, AND there is still a lucrative market in software, even stuff like solitaire games that are pretty simple. Most people want commercial games that are easy to find and have a higher level of polish than most of the free stuff out there. Apple probably does want to make money from selling games (they do exist to make money after all), but the fact is that free applications don't pose a threat to them. The reason the iPhone was released without a SDK is that it wasn't really a fully baked product, but it was better than its competitors. With each upgrade they've been adding a bit of clearly missing functionality (do you really think that itunes on the iphone was an afterthought?). I expect the original iphone to be finished some time in February. I'm hoping for a larger capacity version before I replace my trusty RAZR, although I do suffer iphone envy every time I use my wife's iphone.
The government is making far more money by auctioning off the analog TV broadcast spectrum than it will cost to subsidize the converter boxes and giving them out helps relieve some of the unfairness of taking away one of the most cost-effective ways of getting news and entertainment from people. As much as TV sucks, it is the main source of news for many people, providing better real time coverage than the internet and more information than radio. Spending the additional money on schools would, in the short term at least, lead to a less informed citizenry.
You do realize that this isn't the standard random number generator, but one of several available random number generators that you can use for specific purposes (such as, you know, meeting a customer specification). As for implementing a "KNOWN DEFECTIVE" algorithm, there are plenty of them. Think of, for example, WEP.
I'm 24 years old. I don't want to go through the next 50 years of my life living in an international air of worry and uncertainty. I don't want to live in a permanent state of fear, generated by a megalomaniacal American government taking advantage of the majority low IQ populous' capacity for being brainwashed.
Can I suggest you up your meds? Your current dosage isn't doing its job.
1. Government introduces a new cryptography standard (which it will presumably require for some applications) that requires that systems provide a choice of 4 random number generators, one of which MAY have a flaw. 2. Manufacturers implement the new standard. 3. Grand conspiracy!!!
Come on, could it just possibly be that Microsoft wants to be able to claim to be NIST 800-90 compliant for customers who want that kind of thing and that the NSA likes the idea of there being a variety of random number generators available? The only way that making this function available is a risk is the NSA also has control of the application and can force it to call this random number generator without properly seeding it. If they have that level of control, they have enough control to do whatever else they want in a much more direct way.
I don't see that memory usage remains a problem for most users. It's just the vocal few who are having memory problems. The main problem is that these users assume this is part of the "normal" experience of using Firefox, so they complain that every user must also be seeing the same thing. They take no steps to fix or report their problems, as they consider the problem to be "well-known" and think developers must be idiots for not being able to see it.
Firefox is normally pretty good, but it has intermittent machine bogging memory consumption problems. I've experienced these problems on all three computers I use regularly, one running windows 2k, two running XP, with really different hardware and with no extensions installed. My wife, who runs vista, also experiences the same thing. That being said, having to restart firefox every couple of days isn't that big of a deal and it is more than made up for by it sucking less than IE in other ways, but it is a bug.
Firefox has two memory consumption problems. Right now I'm using firefox 3.0b1. With this comment open, it is consuming 67,928K vs. IE 7 at 41,924K, so it has significantly higher memory usage during normal operation. However, the real problem is difficult to reproduce. If I leave Firefox 2 (which is what I usually use) on overnight, about one time in 10, it will be consuming 500+ megs of memory and half the CPU when I get back into work in the morning. I don't have the time to track down this problem in detail so that you can reproduce the problem, but it's definitely there and is frequent enough to be annoying.
There are many people who have had negative experiences with Firefox who keep on harping about the "memory leaks" and I don't see how Mozilla devs can change this public perception.
Well, a good start would be fixing the high memory consumption.
The same thing would happen with 12VAC. The advantage of AC is that it's cheap to convert between voltages so you can run 120VAC a pretty long way and then convert to 12VAC with a $5 transformer.
AC is a bunch more convenient for distributing power on a citywide scale because, unlike with DC, it's cheap and easy to transmit power at high voltage (to cut resistive loses) and then drop it down to a lower voltage (so you don't need really thick insulation to have a wire that can be safely touched) for use. However, DC is still useful for very long high voltage transmission cables (say between Utah and Los Angeles) and for links between unsynchronized power grids.
Beyond this, if your house is reasonably well insulated, you shouldn't ordinarily have to heat it except to warm it up when you've been away for a while. If you find that your heat has to be on every day during the winter then better insulation can save you a bunch of money.
The Democrats should let Colbert run considering that he does better in polls than many Democrat candidates. From the Washington post:
In the Democratic primary, Colbert takes 2.3 percent of the vote -- good for fifth place behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (40 percent), Sen. Barack Obama (19 percent), former Sen. John Edwards (12 percent) and Sen. Joe Biden (2.7 percent. Colbert finished ahead of Gov. Bill Richardson (2.1 percent), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (2.1 percent) and former Sen. Mike Gravel (less than 1 percent).
If they're going to let Richardson be on the ballot, they should let Colbert be on it too!
I'm really not sure what the market for this computer is. Linux is still pretty tricky as a desktop OS - about as good as Windows 98 (which would run much faster on the same hardware). My expectation is that if the customers are as unsophisticated as WalMart expects they are then most of these computers will soon get a pirated copy of XP (Or even 98... I think I have one of those floating around somewhere) installed on them, and if they're sophisticated to maintain a Linux system then they're sophisticated enough to buy a used system or and convert it to Linux (or just use it as-is).
I actually ran XP on a similarly capable machine and it was reasonably snappy. That being said, this computer is about as slow as than the original Pentium IV which was available when XP was released. Of course this suggests that the real competition for this system is the 5-6 year old used system from a yard sale or Craigslist which offers a similar price/performance combination.
Second, this solution requires a specific pulse frequency for each virus. It's not a broad-spectrum disinfectant. That suggests that viruses can easily evolve to defeat the device. Mutants that add a few non-functional amino acids to their capsid protein chains or that decorate the capsid surface with different biochemical groups would change the resonant frequency and allow mutants to escape and breed.
I had the same thought at first. However then I realized that we're really only worried about a few viruses (very few viruses are both common and deadly) and it would probably take some time for this evolution to happen (it took 30 years for antibiotic resistance to become common in bacteria). In the mean time, this might provide a nice weapon against disease which will hopefully work long enough for us to invent something better. It is an arms race and we shouldn't let the inevitable improvement on the part of the viruses dissuade us from creating a new tool that might let us gain a temporary victory.
This approach is a really clever way of eliminating specific viruses from a specific tissue or fluid. It's a shame that it would be darn hard to apply to an entire organism (to, for example, cure a viral infection) because you would have to illuminate the whole organism with the laser. It also has limited application in cleaning blood because it has to be tuned for a specific virus (i.e. AIDS) and would have run multiple times to remove others.
This being said, I wonder if there's value in killing off (say) all the copies of a virus in someone's blood (even if some remains in other tissues). Also, it seems that this should be adaptable to bacterial infections because bacterial DNA is pretty different than human DNA. If this is the case, it might be a useful treatment approach for sepsis.
You do realize that most DVD players can be set up to just play the main movie automagically, don't you? The procedure then becomes:
Get Disk
Insert Disk
Play movie
That being said, if you can't handle opening the DVD case or using the menu on your cable box, then changing the settings on your DVD player might be too much for you.
You know, everyone gripes about the mod system, but it works pretty well. However, this is getting off topic, so I'll just add that my service with Comcast still blows less than my service with SBC did.
Slashdot Mirror
Strictly speaking, the high fructose corn syrup is a substitute for sugar. The carogeenan, or guar gum along with the whey is a substitute for milkfat and a stabilizing agent. On the whole, I prefer a ice cream with fewer ingredients, but you do have to put up with a short shelf life compared to ones containing more exotic ingredients. Bryers used to be close to this, but even they add a gum to improve shelf life now.
My addition to the plastic part is how long does it take to biodegrade ? We should be reducing our use of 10,000 year lifespan plastic not increasing it.
I sincerely hope that my network doesn't biodegrade.
But seriously, why is using plastic any worse than using copper? Its pretty likely that the copper requires more fossil to refine than the plastic requires to make, and it isn't like you can't burn the plastic when you want to get rid of it. Also, data cable is something you hope to be able to use for many years when you install it. It isn't like something that is meant to be disposed of after a single use like a drinking cup.
I guess that owing to the lack of direct video/RGB input (the SCART aka Peritel aka EuroConnector), US converters will have the additional cost of an NTSC encoder and RF modulator, but otherwise the requirements are not dissimilar so it seems like there's a lot of fat in that pork barrel.
I haven't seen a US TV without direct video input in 20 years. Just about every TV on the market in the past 20 years has had composite input and usually s-video as well. Even component video input is nearly universal, so I don't think that including an RF modulator is much of an issue.
Sales of analog "only" sets should have been banned 4 or 5 years ago
Why?
80% of Americans get their TV from cable or satellite. Analog sets work just fine as monitors for any Satellite box or cable box you might have and since most cable systems carry analog signals in addition to digital, they work great with cable and are likely to work with some cable systems for quite some time.
Apple wants to SELL the applications. If any coder can spend a weekend working up a decent solitaire game then that means they won't be able to charge $5 (or whatever) for their solitaire game on iTunes. The cell phone market has ALWAYS been about nickel and diming the customer to death. Charging for text messages?
I don't agree. The fact is that there is a sea of free games that run on PCs, AND there is still a lucrative market in software, even stuff like solitaire games that are pretty simple. Most people want commercial games that are easy to find and have a higher level of polish than most of the free stuff out there. Apple probably does want to make money from selling games (they do exist to make money after all), but the fact is that free applications don't pose a threat to them. The reason the iPhone was released without a SDK is that it wasn't really a fully baked product, but it was better than its competitors. With each upgrade they've been adding a bit of clearly missing functionality (do you really think that itunes on the iphone was an afterthought?). I expect the original iphone to be finished some time in February. I'm hoping for a larger capacity version before I replace my trusty RAZR, although I do suffer iphone envy every time I use my wife's iphone.
The government is making far more money by auctioning off the analog TV broadcast spectrum than it will cost to subsidize the converter boxes and giving them out helps relieve some of the unfairness of taking away one of the most cost-effective ways of getting news and entertainment from people. As much as TV sucks, it is the main source of news for many people, providing better real time coverage than the internet and more information than radio. Spending the additional money on schools would, in the short term at least, lead to a less informed citizenry.
You do realize that this isn't the standard random number generator, but one of several available random number generators that you can use for specific purposes (such as, you know, meeting a customer specification). As for implementing a "KNOWN DEFECTIVE" algorithm, there are plenty of them. Think of, for example, WEP.
I'm 24 years old. I don't want to go through the next 50 years of my life living in an international air of worry and uncertainty. I don't want to live in a permanent state of fear, generated by a megalomaniacal American government taking advantage of the majority low IQ populous' capacity for being brainwashed.
Can I suggest you up your meds? Your current dosage isn't doing its job.
So, let's review:
1. Government introduces a new cryptography standard (which it will presumably require for some applications) that requires that systems provide a choice of 4 random number generators, one of which MAY have a flaw.
2. Manufacturers implement the new standard.
3. Grand conspiracy!!!
Come on, could it just possibly be that Microsoft wants to be able to claim to be NIST 800-90 compliant for customers who want that kind of thing and that the NSA likes the idea of there being a variety of random number generators available? The only way that making this function available is a risk is the NSA also has control of the application and can force it to call this random number generator without properly seeding it. If they have that level of control, they have enough control to do whatever else they want in a much more direct way.
How smart can you be if you're living across the street from section 8 housing?
Here are several studies on vaccines and autism
From Pediatrics, indicating that Autism is not caused by Mercury preservatives in vaccines
From the Lancet, indicating that there is no relation between getting the MMR vaccine (the one usually accused of causing Autism)and autism
from BMJ, another study suggesting that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism
From JAMA: no link between Autism and the MMR vaccine in California
I could keep going on, but I leave you with this link on Google Scholar.
Knock yourself out.
I don't see that memory usage remains a problem for most users. It's just the vocal few who are having memory problems. The main problem is that these users assume this is part of the "normal" experience of using Firefox, so they complain that every user must also be seeing the same thing. They take no steps to fix or report their problems, as they consider the problem to be "well-known" and think developers must be idiots for not being able to see it.
Firefox is normally pretty good, but it has intermittent machine bogging memory consumption problems. I've experienced these problems on all three computers I use regularly, one running windows 2k, two running XP, with really different hardware and with no extensions installed. My wife, who runs vista, also experiences the same thing. That being said, having to restart firefox every couple of days isn't that big of a deal and it is more than made up for by it sucking less than IE in other ways, but it is a bug.
Firefox has two memory consumption problems. Right now I'm using firefox 3.0b1. With this comment open, it is consuming 67,928K vs. IE 7 at 41,924K, so it has significantly higher memory usage during normal operation. However, the real problem is difficult to reproduce. If I leave Firefox 2 (which is what I usually use) on overnight, about one time in 10, it will be consuming 500+ megs of memory and half the CPU when I get back into work in the morning. I don't have the time to track down this problem in detail so that you can reproduce the problem, but it's definitely there and is frequent enough to be annoying.
There are many people who have had negative experiences with Firefox who keep on harping about the "memory leaks" and I don't see how Mozilla devs can change this public perception.
Well, a good start would be fixing the high memory consumption.
The same thing would happen with 12VAC. The advantage of AC is that it's cheap to convert between voltages so you can run 120VAC a pretty long way and then convert to 12VAC with a $5 transformer.
Are there any advantages to DC current?
AC is a bunch more convenient for distributing power on a citywide scale because, unlike with DC, it's cheap and easy to transmit power at high voltage (to cut resistive loses) and then drop it down to a lower voltage (so you don't need really thick insulation to have a wire that can be safely touched) for use. However, DC is still useful for very long high voltage transmission cables (say between Utah and Los Angeles) and for links between unsynchronized power grids.
Beyond this, if your house is reasonably well insulated, you shouldn't ordinarily have to heat it except to warm it up when you've been away for a while. If you find that your heat has to be on every day during the winter then better insulation can save you a bunch of money.
Yeah, after you've raised them as your daughters o_0 they still don't have accelerated aging, or accelerated education ;)
You're right, not everybody has the patience of Woody Allen...
The Democrats should let Colbert run considering that he does better in polls than many Democrat candidates. From the Washington post:
In the Democratic primary, Colbert takes 2.3 percent of the vote -- good for fifth place behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (40 percent), Sen. Barack Obama (19 percent), former Sen. John Edwards (12 percent) and Sen. Joe Biden (2.7 percent. Colbert finished ahead of Gov. Bill Richardson (2.1 percent), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (2.1 percent) and former Sen. Mike Gravel (less than 1 percent).If they're going to let Richardson be on the ballot, they should let Colbert be on it too!
I'm really not sure what the market for this computer is. Linux is still pretty tricky as a desktop OS - about as good as Windows 98 (which would run much faster on the same hardware). My expectation is that if the customers are as unsophisticated as WalMart expects they are then most of these computers will soon get a pirated copy of XP (Or even 98... I think I have one of those floating around somewhere) installed on them, and if they're sophisticated to maintain a Linux system then they're sophisticated enough to buy a used system or and convert it to Linux (or just use it as-is).
I actually ran XP on a similarly capable machine and it was reasonably snappy. That being said, this computer is about as slow as than the original Pentium IV which was available when XP was released. Of course this suggests that the real competition for this system is the 5-6 year old used system from a yard sale or Craigslist which offers a similar price/performance combination.
Second, this solution requires a specific pulse frequency for each virus. It's not a broad-spectrum disinfectant. That suggests that viruses can easily evolve to defeat the device. Mutants that add a few non-functional amino acids to their capsid protein chains or that decorate the capsid surface with different biochemical groups would change the resonant frequency and allow mutants to escape and breed.
I had the same thought at first. However then I realized that we're really only worried about a few viruses (very few viruses are both common and deadly) and it would probably take some time for this evolution to happen (it took 30 years for antibiotic resistance to become common in bacteria). In the mean time, this might provide a nice weapon against disease which will hopefully work long enough for us to invent something better. It is an arms race and we shouldn't let the inevitable improvement on the part of the viruses dissuade us from creating a new tool that might let us gain a temporary victory.
This approach is a really clever way of eliminating specific viruses from a specific tissue or fluid. It's a shame that it would be darn hard to apply to an entire organism (to, for example, cure a viral infection) because you would have to illuminate the whole organism with the laser. It also has limited application in cleaning blood because it has to be tuned for a specific virus (i.e. AIDS) and would have run multiple times to remove others.
This being said, I wonder if there's value in killing off (say) all the copies of a virus in someone's blood (even if some remains in other tissues). Also, it seems that this should be adaptable to bacterial infections because bacterial DNA is pretty different than human DNA. If this is the case, it might be a useful treatment approach for sepsis.
You do realize that most DVD players can be set up to just play the main movie automagically, don't you? The procedure then becomes:
That being said, if you can't handle opening the DVD case or using the menu on your cable box, then changing the settings on your DVD player might be too much for you.
You know, everyone gripes about the mod system, but it works pretty well. However, this is getting off topic, so I'll just add that my service with Comcast still blows less than my service with SBC did.