"take the combined budget of the US and Europe on military spending for ONE year, and you already have the money to fund half a century of all programs on acknowledged "big" problems like poverty, disease, education, clean water, most environmental issues etc etc etc. on a world scale, yes sir."
The US and EU already spend double their collective defense budgets on social welfare programs and have not achieved these goals. How would 1/50th of that budget per year eliminate poverty and disease for the entire world?
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion College Hoops 2K6 Burnout Revenge Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter The Outfit Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires Rumble Roses XX Top Spin 2 Far Cry: Instincts Predator
Why the Japanese want their robots to act more like humans ... So Japan will need workers, and it is learning how to make robots that can do many of their jobs. But the country's keen interest in robots may also reflect something else: it seems that plenty of Japanese really like dealing with robots.
Few Japanese have the fear of robots that seems to haunt westerners in seminars and Hollywood films. In western popular culture, robots are often a threat, either because they are manipulated by sinister forces or because something goes horribly wrong with them. By contrast, most Japanese view robots as friendly and benign. Robots like people, and can do good.
The Japanese are well aware of this cultural divide, and commentators devote lots of attention to explaining it. The two most favoured theories, which are assumed to reinforce each other, involve religion and popular culture.
Most Japanese take an eclectic approach to religious beliefs, and the native religion, Shintoism, is infused with animism: it does not make clear distinctions between inanimate things and organic beings. A popular Japanese theory about robots, therefore, is that there is no need to explain why Japanese are fond of them: what needs explaining, rather, is why westerners allow their Christian hang-ups to get in the way of a good technology. When Honda started making real progress with its humanoid-robot project, it consulted the Vatican on whether westerners would object to a robot made in man's image. ... --------
A study done in 1996 (looking at the number of meteorites found in deserts over time) calculated that for objects in the 10 gram to 1 kilogram size range, 2900-7300 kilograms per year hit Earth.
They also estimate between 36 and 166 meteorites larger than 10 grams fall to Earth per million square kilometers per year. Over the whole surface area of Earth, that translates to 18,000 to 84,000 meteorites bigger than 10 grams per year.
...that so many people have turned to consoles, when you can't even install brand new games on a brand new Dell PC without lockups and crashes?
Does anyone really want to be on the phone with India on Christmas morning trying to get a Sims game working for their kid? Do yourself a favor and just get them a Gamecube with Smash Bros and RE:4.
"It wasn't a dark game, but it wasn't a bright one either-the lights were about half, like dusk. In the distance, in the dim light, he could see the enemy door, their lighted flash suits already pouring out. Ender knew a moments pleasure. Everyone had learned from Bonzo's misuse of Ender Wiggin. They all jumped through the door immediately, so that there was no chance to do anything other than name the formation they would use."
Neither increases in government subsidies to corn-based ethanol fuel nor hikes in the price of petroleum can overcome what one Cornell University agricultural scientist calls a fundamental input-yield problem: It takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the combustion of ethanol produces.
At a time when ethanol-gasoline mixtures (gasohol) are touted as the American answer to fossil fuel shortages by corn producers, food processors and some lawmakers, Cornell's David Pimentel takes a longer range view.
"Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning," says the Cornell professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Pimentel, who chaired a U.S. Department of Energy panel that investigated the energetics, economics and environmental aspects of ethanol production several years ago, subsequently conducted a detailed analysis of the corn-to-car fuel process. His findings will be published in September, 2001 in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology.
Among his findings are:
o An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel's analysis. Thus, even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol.
o The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps are needed to separate the 8 percent ethanol from the 92 percent water. Additional treatment and energy are required to produce the 99.8 percent pure ethanol for mixing with gasoline. o Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU. "Put another way," Pimentel says, "about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTU."
o Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline. "That helps explain why fossil fuels -- not ethanol -- are used to produce ethanol," Pimentel says. "The growers and processors can't afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. U.S. drivers couldn't afford it, either, if it weren't for government subsidies to artificially lower the price."
o Most economic analyses of corn-to-ethanol production overlook the costs of environmental damages, which Pimentel says should add another 23 cents per gallon. "Corn production in the U.S. erodes soil about 12 times faster than the soil can be reformed, and irrigating corn mines groundwater 25 percent faster than the natural recharge rate of ground water. The environmental system in which corn is being produced is being rapidly degraded. Corn should not be considered a renewable resource for ethanol energy production, especially when human food is being converted into ethanol."
o The approximately $1 billion a year in current federal and state subsidies (mainly to large corporations) for ethanol production are not the only costs to consumers, the Cornell scientist observes. Subsidized corn results in higher prices for meat, milk and eggs because about 70 percent of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States Increasing ethanol production would further inflate corn prices, Pimentel says, noting: "In addition to paying tax dollars for ethanol subsidies, consumers would be paying significantly higher food prices in the marketplace."
Mark Rein, Vice President of Epic Games "If you walk into EB in the US, they try and sell you a second hand version of a game before a new one. I think that's bad. It would be fine if they share that revenue with us. They can also be marketing partners with us as well. We can have an official refurbished games policy. That's the problem. Those resold games use server resources, tech support. The majority of guys calling up saying "I don't have my serial number", I'm sure a lot of those are resold. It costs us money. Those customers think they paid for it, and they're entitled to support. The reality is, we didn't get paid. They didn't pay us."
Nintendo - Revolution (tentative name) +Backwards compatibility for the past 20 years
Not quite that simple. Where exactly do I insert the NES, SNES and N64 games that I already own? I will have to buy them again to get the privilege of playing them on an emulator on the Rev, and even this is limited to the games from publishers that agree to be part of this whole system.
"There are Bald Eagles nested throughout the island as part of an environmental rehabilitation attempt. Every once in a while, someone finds an Bald Eagle floating face-down in the water. After an invasive test, it has been found that DDT poisoning is the cause, from eating raw fish infected with DDT."
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists fed large doses of DDT to captive bald eagles for 112 days and concluded that "DDT residues encountered by eagles in the environment would not adversely affect eagles or their eggs." [Stickel, L. 1966. Bald eagle-pesticide relationships. Trans 31st N Amer Wildlife Conference, pp.190-200]
Every bald eagle found dead in the U.S., between 1961-1977 (266 birds) was analyzed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists who reported no adverse effects caused by DDT or its residues. [Reichel, WL. 1969. (Pesticide residues in 45 bald eagles found dad in the U.S. 1964-1965). Pesticides Monitoring J 3(3)142-144; Belisle, AA. 1972. (Pesticide residues and PCBs and mercury, in bald eagles found dead in the U.S. 1969-1970). Pesticides Monitoring J 6(3): 133-138; Cromartie, E. 1974. (Organochlorine pesticides and PCBs in 37 bald eagles found dead in the U.S. 1971-1972). Pesticides Monitoring J 9:11-14; Coon, NC. 1970. (Causes of bald eagle mortality in the US 1960-1065). Journal of Wildlife Diseases 6:72-76]
After 15 years of heavy and widespread usage of DDT, Audubon Society ornithologists counted 25 percent more eagles per observer in 1960 than during the pre-DDT 1941 bird census. [Marvin, PH. 1964 Birds on the rise. Bull Entomol Soc Amer 10(3):184-186; Wurster, CF. 1969 Congressional Record S4599, May 5, 1969; Anon. 1942. The 42nd Annual Christmas Bird Census. Audubon Magazine 44:1-75 (Jan/Feb 1942; Cruickshank, AD (Editor). 1961. The 61st Annual Christmas Bird Census. Audubon Field Notes 15(2):84-300; White-Stevens, R.. 1972. Statistical analyses of Audubon Christmas Bird censuses. Letter to New York Times, August 15, 1972]
We measured total system power consumption at the wall socket using a watt meter. The monitor was plugged into a separate outlet, so its power draw was not part of our measurement. The idle measurements were taken at the Windows desktop, and cards were tested under load running a loop of 3DMark05's "Firefly Forest" test at 1280x1024 resolution.
Slashdot Mirror
"take the combined budget of the US and Europe on military spending for ONE year, and you already have the money to fund half a century of all programs on acknowledged "big" problems like poverty, disease, education, clean water, most environmental issues etc etc etc. on a world scale, yes sir."
The US and EU already spend double their collective defense budgets on social welfare programs and have not achieved these goals. How would 1/50th of that budget per year eliminate poverty and disease for the entire world?
"Things are only impossible until they're not."
-- Jean-Luc Picard
http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=108
Those modems never materialized.
There are finally quite a few coming.
Scheduled in the next 4 weeks:
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
College Hoops 2K6
Burnout Revenge
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
The Outfit
Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII
Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires
Rumble Roses XX
Top Spin 2
Far Cry: Instincts Predator
This story is actually quite old. Here is much more detail from May 2005:
2 6857&sid=e282f1c82635fb59cb7a4e36afedb380.nyud.net :8080
http://www.xceedspeed.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=
It can be downloaded here: http://www.mininova.org/tor/49932
... are allowed to take a 5-10 minute break every hour in order to get their fix? Is someone waiting outside to fire them for wasting time?
Here are are images from October
y cott-egypt.html
http://egyptiansandmonkey.blogspot.com/2006/02/bo
http://economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?s tory_id=5323427&no_na_tran=1
...
...
Why the Japanese want their robots to act more like humans
So Japan will need workers, and it is learning how to make robots that can do many of their jobs. But the country's keen interest in robots may also reflect something else: it seems that plenty of Japanese really like dealing with robots.
Few Japanese have the fear of robots that seems to haunt westerners in seminars and Hollywood films. In western popular culture, robots are often a threat, either because they are manipulated by sinister forces or because something goes horribly wrong with them. By contrast, most Japanese view robots as friendly and benign. Robots like people, and can do good.
The Japanese are well aware of this cultural divide, and commentators devote lots of attention to explaining it. The two most favoured theories, which are assumed to reinforce each other, involve religion and popular culture.
Most Japanese take an eclectic approach to religious beliefs, and the native religion, Shintoism, is infused with animism: it does not make clear distinctions between inanimate things and organic beings. A popular Japanese theory about robots, therefore, is that there is no need to explain why Japanese are fond of them: what needs explaining, rather, is why westerners allow their Christian hang-ups to get in the way of a good technology. When Honda started making real progress with its humanoid-robot project, it consulted the Vatican on whether westerners would object to a robot made in man's image.
--------
"how many dead pixels can i get stuck with?"
I returned 2 of their 24" LCDs before I received one without backlight bleeding. They paid all shipping, both ways.
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?num
...that so many people have turned to consoles, when you can't even install brand new games on a brand new Dell PC without lockups and crashes?
Does anyone really want to be on the phone with India on Christmas morning trying to get a Sims game working for their kid? Do yourself a favor and just get them a Gamecube with Smash Bros and RE:4.
"Further, if the latest rumors about the 7800GTX 512MB are true..."
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28227
"[Nvidia's next-gen card] is expected in early February and Nvidia is already playing with these cards."
So it would suprise anyone that they would discontinue the old card when they launch a new high-end card? Why is that a 'rumor', it is common sense.
"The reason this system won't be accepted..."
http://www.ppsontime.com/news/inc3.gif
Seems this became a common practice long ago.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug01/corn-ba sedethanol.hrs.html
Neither increases in government subsidies to corn-based ethanol fuel nor hikes in the price of petroleum can overcome what one Cornell University agricultural scientist calls a fundamental input-yield problem: It takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the combustion of ethanol produces.
At a time when ethanol-gasoline mixtures (gasohol) are touted as the American answer to fossil fuel shortages by corn producers, food processors and some lawmakers, Cornell's David Pimentel takes a longer range view.
"Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning," says the Cornell professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Pimentel, who chaired a U.S. Department of Energy panel that investigated the energetics, economics and environmental aspects of ethanol production several years ago, subsequently conducted a detailed analysis of the corn-to-car fuel process. His findings will be published in September, 2001 in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology.
Among his findings are:
o An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel's analysis. Thus, even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol.
o The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps are needed to separate the 8 percent ethanol from the 92 percent water. Additional treatment and energy are required to produce the 99.8 percent pure ethanol for mixing with gasoline. o Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU. "Put another way," Pimentel says, "about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTU."
o Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline. "That helps explain why fossil fuels -- not ethanol -- are used to produce ethanol," Pimentel says. "The growers and processors can't afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. U.S. drivers couldn't afford it, either, if it weren't for government subsidies to artificially lower the price."
o Most economic analyses of corn-to-ethanol production overlook the costs of environmental damages, which Pimentel says should add another 23 cents per gallon. "Corn production in the U.S. erodes soil about 12 times faster than the soil can be reformed, and irrigating corn mines groundwater 25 percent faster than the natural recharge rate of ground water. The environmental system in which corn is being produced is being rapidly degraded. Corn should not be considered a renewable resource for ethanol energy production, especially when human food is being converted into ethanol."
o The approximately $1 billion a year in current federal and state subsidies (mainly to large corporations) for ethanol production are not the only costs to consumers, the Cornell scientist observes. Subsidized corn results in higher prices for meat, milk and eggs because about 70 percent of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States Increasing ethanol production would further inflate corn prices, Pimentel says, noting: "In addition to paying tax dollars for ethanol subsidies, consumers would be paying significantly higher food prices in the marketplace."
"seems obvious to me that they are selling an 'engine' now, with a game as an afterthought. Kind of like id."
Has a single developer actually licensed the Doom3 engine?
The Unreal Engine v3 has already been licensed by many, with no game to act as a tech demo.
http://www.epicgames.com/
Unreal Engine 3: Microsoft, Sony, Atari, Vivendi, Buena Vista, Namco, Bioware, Gearbox, America's Army, etc.
Doom3 Engine: ??
If id's goal was to make the engine as ubiquitous with fps as the Quake3 engine(over 100 games) was then they seem to have failed miserably.
Don't forget that this is on their wish list.
o ry.php(que)id=125925%22
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/news/news_st
Mark Rein, Vice President of Epic Games
"If you walk into EB in the US, they try and sell you a second hand version of a game before a new one. I think that's bad. It would be fine if they share that revenue with us. They can also be marketing partners with us as well. We can have an official refurbished games policy. That's the problem. Those resold games use server resources, tech support. The majority of guys calling up saying "I don't have my serial number", I'm sure a lot of those are resold. It costs us money. Those customers think they paid for it, and they're entitled to support. The reality is, we didn't get paid. They didn't pay us."
Not quite that simple. Where exactly do I insert the NES, SNES and N64 games that I already own? I will have to buy them again to get the privilege of playing them on an emulator on the Rev, and even this is limited to the games from publishers that agree to be part of this whole system.
Even old NES games will probably cost "a couple of pounds" according to Nintendo: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=6
Even better, only $209 at Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16814130258
Do the posters here really have so much hatred towards Microsoft that they are willing to mod up every anonymous anti-MS rant?
e nt&task=view&id=1497&Itemid=2
If you want to read a serious analysis read this Merrill Lynch report released today: http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_cont
http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm
You saw that episode of "Connections" also?
Windows media encoder is MP aware as well.
? i=2484&p=9
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx
Windows Media Encoder
A64 2.4GHz: 2.21 fps
A64 2x2.2GHz: 3.93 fps (+78%)
http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q4/radeon-x1000
(Idle/Load)
7800GT: 112 / 204
X1800XL: 144 / 207
7800GTX: 129 / 225
X1800XT: 173 / 250