"Rebuild the kernel?" Who said anything about that? Joe Six-pack would simply use a package manager (e.g. `apt-get update kernel` or whatever) and be done. Jane Small-business shouldn't be needing to upgrade at all, because business usually shouldn't be using bleeding-edge stuff (but for exceptions, she could do the same thing as Joe).
Besides, in most cases people wouldn't have to do anything at all, because they don't buy new hardware the day its released. If they get it a month or so later it would already be in their kernel, because it would have auto-updated in the interim.
Or, another idea: when the system detects new unknown hardware, it could just automatically go download the new kernel without Joe even having to start his package manager. How much easier could it possibly be?
I read an article somebody else linked to about the first rotating building (this isn't the first; it's just the first one that's solar-powered), which said that all the plumbing was in the non-rotating center portion. In other words, your living room would rotate but your kitchen and bath would not -- which makes a lot of sense, but requires that each unit take up a whole floor (because you wouldn't want to be rotating past somebody else's bathroom).
I was hoping the O.P. would answer, and give me a chance to explain that the point I was trying to imply is that using a comma instead of a semicolon changed the meaning of the sentence. Oh well...
By the way, I think Australia's on to something! I need to call my congressman, and see if we can get something similar implemented here!
And speaking of layman lawyers, does it strike anybody else as weird that you have to have a license to practice law? After all, every citizen is supposed to know about and understand all the laws, because "ignorance of the law is no excuse" and they should (theoretically) be able to represent themselves in court. It seems to me that either we should either make ignorance an excuse or abolish all the lawyers.
You could build it in sections stacked on top of each other, with each section able to rotate ±30 degrees or so, then (since the bottom section would be fixed), each next higher section would have a greater cumulative maximum angle. This could then be an extra added benefit to the more expensive upper units, because they'd have more variety in the view.
Of course, the other thing you could do is just put all the mechanical stuff in a non-rotating center column, which would make a heck of a lot more sense anyway because you've got to have at least one set of stairs for the fire escape, and putting that in the rotating part seems pretty stupid...
It's the world's biggest, but it's still not all that big. There's plenty of room around England to build 99 more of them, and if that happened they would generate 100% of the UK's electricity needs*. Not so insignificant anymore, eh?
(*give or take wind variability -- that's beside the point)
I am skeptical of this as wind grows as an energy source. Capacity factor really only tells us how much total or annual power we convert. Even on windy days this is highly variable.
It's always windy somewhere; therefore, if we put wind mills everywhere and hook them all to the same grid, we'll have stable power! ; )
In the industrialized world, hydro is on its way out. Once seen as a "green" option, it's now widely hated by the environmental community.
On a large scale, yeah. But what about small hydro, on the same scale as you putting a windmill in your backyard? Personally, I've always wanted to go build a house up in the mountains and power it with a water wheel, which shouldn't disrupt the associated stream too much.
It even contributes to global warming -- in some cases worse than an equivalent-power coal plant.
1. Device manufacturers (especially printer, scanner, and other external device manufacturers) started shipping easy-to-install Linux drivers on a CD.
Actually, this would be a bad thing. What should happen is that manufacturers submit their drivers to kernel.org, so that they can be included in the official tree.
Dual core, just like 64-bit, is mostly a fad. Dual processor setups don't exist for speed, but to keep a system up. Dual cores came into existence because of a recent lack in innovation for single core processors, just like 3dfx' Voodoo series back in the day.
The difference is that the situation seems likely to persist this time.
Furthermore, dual core is being advertised as being double as fast as single core processors, which is not true. At the most, you get a 50% increase.
No, at most you'll get a 100% increase (assuming you're doing two different CPU-intensive tasks that don't need to pass data back and forth at all). 50% is closer to an average figure (unless you spend all your time doing only a single CPU-intensive task, that can't be multithreaded).
Again, unless you're into advanced stuff like heavy sound/video editing, you don't need these super CPUs.
Or gaming (soon, when more games become multithreaded), or running Folding@home, or compiling Seamonkey in less than 50 minutes...
Uh, I hate to break it to you, but the newer chips have other virtues than just being 64-bit: they're also considerably faster (and possibly dual-core). Why are you going out of your way to get a slower chip?
I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say you're European. Unfortunately, you guys can buy cars that we just simply don't have access to over here in the States. Around here, 30 is pretty damn good, even for the smallest cars we have (which you wouldn't find small at all -- stuff like the Honda Civic, Hyundai Accent, Ford Focus, etc.). If you can convince Ford or GM or Fiat or Renault DaimlerChrysler to import some small diesels over here, be my guest...
It is not hugely difficult to imagine that *exactly the same company* that implements this on a handheld device might also implement this on the desktop do you not understand?
If this smear Vista campaign does anything at all, it will drive consumers away from Windows and towards Mac OSX. I suspect that isn't the FSF's goal.
It's better than nothing, though. The more fragmented the populace becomes between Windows and Mac OS, the more cross-platform everything will need to be. And the more cross-platform everything is, the more viable Linux becomes.
Yeah, I know -- I just ordered a Core Duo Thinkpad X60 tablet a few days ago, and unfortunately didn't even have an option to get a Core 2. If I'm lucky, maybe it's socketed and upgradable, but either way having a tablet screen was more important to me than having a 64-bit CPU, even if I run an OS on it that supports 64-bit well.
the crossfire went twice as far on the same tank of gas
The Crossfire might go twice as far on a single tank, but it might also have a tank twice as big. In other words, the Elantra almost certainly gets more miles per gallon. And by "almost certainly," I mean it actuallydoes.
Besides, if you really want to save gas (and money), what you actually want is an early-nineties compact like the Honda CRX HF or Geo Metro XFi. Each gets over 50 MPG! And no, they were not hybrids or diesels or anything expensive and fancy like that. In fact, each of them can now be found for $2000 or less (the CRX is more expensive than the Metro, beecause its desirable to ricers).
That's part of the problem with a lot of "pro-lifers" they only care about the kid when it's in the fetus, but after it's born, it's sink or swim elitism, baby.
Those issues have nothing to do with each other. There's plenty of us so-called "sink or swim elitists" that are pro-choice, and plenty of "pro-life" morons who also favor state nanny-ism.
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Counterpoint.
"Rebuild the kernel?" Who said anything about that? Joe Six-pack would simply use a package manager (e.g. `apt-get update kernel` or whatever) and be done. Jane Small-business shouldn't be needing to upgrade at all, because business usually shouldn't be using bleeding-edge stuff (but for exceptions, she could do the same thing as Joe).
Besides, in most cases people wouldn't have to do anything at all, because they don't buy new hardware the day its released. If they get it a month or so later it would already be in their kernel, because it would have auto-updated in the interim.
Or, another idea: when the system detects new unknown hardware, it could just automatically go download the new kernel without Joe even having to start his package manager. How much easier could it possibly be?
I read an article somebody else linked to about the first rotating building (this isn't the first; it's just the first one that's solar-powered), which said that all the plumbing was in the non-rotating center portion. In other words, your living room would rotate but your kitchen and bath would not -- which makes a lot of sense, but requires that each unit take up a whole floor (because you wouldn't want to be rotating past somebody else's bathroom).
: (
I was hoping the O.P. would answer, and give me a chance to explain that the point I was trying to imply is that using a comma instead of a semicolon changed the meaning of the sentence. Oh well...
By the way, I think Australia's on to something! I need to call my congressman, and see if we can get something similar implemented here!
And speaking of layman lawyers, does it strike anybody else as weird that you have to have a license to practice law? After all, every citizen is supposed to know about and understand all the laws, because "ignorance of the law is no excuse" and they should (theoretically) be able to represent themselves in court. It seems to me that either we should either make ignorance an excuse or abolish all the lawyers.
How can you not be certain whether you're an Australian lawyer or not? That seems rather like the kind of thing I'd be sure of, one way or the other.
I mostly asked as a joke, but thanks anyway!
Only police in a helicopter, if you're on one of the upper floors.
If I were gonna live in a fancy rotating building, I'd want electrochromic windows!
You could build it in sections stacked on top of each other, with each section able to rotate ±30 degrees or so, then (since the bottom section would be fixed), each next higher section would have a greater cumulative maximum angle. This could then be an extra added benefit to the more expensive upper units, because they'd have more variety in the view.
Of course, the other thing you could do is just put all the mechanical stuff in a non-rotating center column, which would make a heck of a lot more sense anyway because you've got to have at least one set of stairs for the fire escape, and putting that in the rotating part seems pretty stupid...
Is marijuana worth enough to make it profitable to run a grow-op in one of these (and use the proceeds to pay the rent)?
It's the world's biggest, but it's still not all that big. There's plenty of room around England to build 99 more of them, and if that happened they would generate 100% of the UK's electricity needs*. Not so insignificant anymore, eh?
(*give or take wind variability -- that's beside the point)
It's always windy somewhere; therefore, if we put wind mills everywhere and hook them all to the same grid, we'll have stable power! ; )
On a large scale, yeah. But what about small hydro, on the same scale as you putting a windmill in your backyard? Personally, I've always wanted to go build a house up in the mountains and power it with a water wheel, which shouldn't disrupt the associated stream too much.
How do you figure?
First of all, Three Mile Island was a success -- the containment system did exactly what it was supposed to do.
Second, we have better reactor designs (e.g. pebble-bed reactors) now that can't fail that way.
Actually, this would be a bad thing. What should happen is that manufacturers submit their drivers to kernel.org, so that they can be included in the official tree.
That's the only condition necessary, I think.
The difference is that the situation seems likely to persist this time.
No, at most you'll get a 100% increase (assuming you're doing two different CPU-intensive tasks that don't need to pass data back and forth at all). 50% is closer to an average figure (unless you spend all your time doing only a single CPU-intensive task, that can't be multithreaded).
Or gaming (soon, when more games become multithreaded), or running Folding@home, or compiling Seamonkey in less than 50 minutes...
Uh, I hate to break it to you, but the newer chips have other virtues than just being 64-bit: they're also considerably faster (and possibly dual-core). Why are you going out of your way to get a slower chip?
Yeah, tell that to all the people who had WGA fuck up on them, saying their copy of XP was "pirated" when it actually wasn't.
Also, for the seventeen millionth time, stealing isn't the same thing as copyright infringment, asshole!
I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say you're European. Unfortunately, you guys can buy cars that we just simply don't have access to over here in the States. Around here, 30 is pretty damn good, even for the smallest cars we have (which you wouldn't find small at all -- stuff like the Honda Civic, Hyundai Accent, Ford Focus, etc.). If you can convince Ford or GM or Fiat or Renault DaimlerChrysler to import some small diesels over here, be my guest...
What part of
It is not hugely difficult to imagine that *exactly the same company* that implements this on a handheld device might also implement this on the desktop do you not understand?So I guess the whole "activation" and "Windows Genuine Advantage[sic]" stuff is just a figment of everyone's imagination, then?
It's better than nothing, though. The more fragmented the populace becomes between Windows and Mac OS, the more cross-platform everything will need to be. And the more cross-platform everything is, the more viable Linux becomes.
Yeah, I know -- I just ordered a Core Duo Thinkpad X60 tablet a few days ago, and unfortunately didn't even have an option to get a Core 2. If I'm lucky, maybe it's socketed and upgradable, but either way having a tablet screen was more important to me than having a 64-bit CPU, even if I run an OS on it that supports 64-bit well.
Windows 2000 is good, but it isn't that good!
The Crossfire might go twice as far on a single tank, but it might also have a tank twice as big. In other words, the Elantra almost certainly gets more miles per gallon. And by "almost certainly," I mean it actually does.
Besides, if you really want to save gas (and money), what you actually want is an early-nineties compact like the Honda CRX HF or Geo Metro XFi. Each gets over 50 MPG! And no, they were not hybrids or diesels or anything expensive and fancy like that. In fact, each of them can now be found for $2000 or less (the CRX is more expensive than the Metro, beecause its desirable to ricers).
Those issues have nothing to do with each other. There's plenty of us so-called "sink or swim elitists" that are pro-choice, and plenty of "pro-life" morons who also favor state nanny-ism.