A safe octane booster, to what end? What's the point of putting an octane booster into your tank if the fuel you are buying is already sufficiently high octane? Do you know what the actual meaning/purpose of an octane rating is?
This talk of "comeback" is a misnomer as well, because it implies that the situation was different at some point. In order to have a comeback, you have to have been popular before.
Not really. If in a football game, one team is up, say, 35-0, and then the other team ends up winning, say, 42-35, I would certainly call that a comeback even though the team coming back was never ahead in the first place.
You're right, we should consider things in terms of percentages. For example, what percentage of your household's total power consumption per year comes from a plugged in Xbox360? I'll give you a hint: pretty damned close to zero.
Similarly, what percentage of the global yearly energy usage do plugged in consoles comprise? I'll give you the same hint again.
Just one 100W bulb left on per night is equivalent to 50 Xbox 360s or PS2s left plugged in.
It's easy to look at the number of kilowatt hours used per year by these consoles and freak out about it, but it doesn't mean much until you compare it to the total amount of energy used each year, and when you do that you should quickly realize how insignificant it is and that effort to reduce energy consumption is much much better directed elsewhere (for example, replacing incandescent bulbs with fluorescent bulbs whereever possible).
While Microsoft actually verifying the complete correctness of driver code would be great, a system where they do that for every single driver is totally unrealistic. Certifying a driver doesn't necessarily have to mean "this driver is totally flawless and will work perfectly" in order to be worthwhile and provide useful information. A certification that says "we don't guarantee that this is without flaws, but it generally functions properly and is relatively stable," while not ideal, requires a more reasonable amount of work on MS's part (considering they're not the driver writers), and is still very useful, because it still seperates good drivers from more broken ones.
If you really think that MS could feasibly certify that all the drivers were perfect, then why not get angry at the driver makers themselves for not doing so, since they'd only have to do it for their own drivers?
As far as I know, other OSs don't have this functionality at all, so it seems to me like you're criticizing them for doing something new and useful because they don't do it *perfectly*.
Trust for what? Trust to force some accountability on device driver makers?
Or are you just suggesting that MS will interpret bug reports as the drivers fault when it's actually the fault of Windows? Certainly possible, but I think that the potential gains are significant in terms of driver accountability.
Please clarify exactly what your argument in this context. I'm not arguing that MS hasn't done all sorts of things in the past to earn our ire, but I guess I just don't see the full scope of potential harm that you've got in mind.
I don't think that it's necessarily reasonable to expect Microsoft to go through and completely thoroughly analyze the code of every certified device driver to ensure that they're all playing nicely.
People seem to be suggesting that MS should be making a singular judgement for every driver, whether it is certified or not. Come on, any of you who know anything about software development know that that's absurd, especially since they're not MS's drivers in the first place.
You can't expect any sort of software to perform flawlessy right out of the gate, and this is a convenient way of monitoring a driver's reliability, and forcing some accountability onto those who make the drivers. I think that's totally reasonable, and to somehow try to twist this whole system into a negative is pretty backwards.
The implication seems to be that this will encourage companies to "beta test" their drivers on customers. I think the opposite is true. It will give more incentive to companies to get it done better the first time, since it can't be good publicity for them for their drivers to have a "red" rating.
Surely a mass dieoff would have significant repercussions across the globe, I just don't think it would necessarily result in a mass extinction as the parent was suggesting.
I don't think that you understand. Let me lay it out more clearly. This was my original point, nothing more:
No plankton does not imply no life on earth.
No, I was not saying "Excess CO2 does not imply no life on earth." Just the above statement.
Nice straw man there, but it doesn't really relate to what I said. I'm not saying or implying that having so much CO2 will have no negative impact; my point was that the parent had laid out a very specific prediction and presented it as fact.
Perhaps my sarcasm meter is broken, but I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to prove that even the complete absence of plankton would result in a massive global extinction of all species. Adaptation, and all that.
What I really don't understand is how the USPTO can grant additions that have already been done by someone else, simply because the original patent predated it? Sure, the original patent was in 1999, but the things that they're adding that weren't in the original patent have already been done by Microsoft.
I understand how the law works here, I'm just really at a loss for WHY?
Shouldn't there be or isn't there something that prevents companies from keeping hold on these patents after other companies have already used the ideas heavily without any litigation? Much like trademarks?
Not true! Voltage and clockspeed both influence hot hot a processor runs.
Did you read what he said?
First of all, you don't have any control over how much heat the G5 generates. No case layout, heatsinks, fans, can do anything of the sort. It's going to generate as much heat as it's going to generate.
Even with the points that you've brought up, his still stand; his point being that it's not difficult to handle the heat from a G5, and you just outlined a few easy ways to regulate heat. Hmm.
What should be considered mid-range?
Perhaps being able to get a powerful computer like a G5 with a monitor sized a little less than 20" and priced a little less than $1200?
Not everyone who wants a powerful computer needs/can afford a huge LCD like that.
Give me a G5 with a 17" monitor just like those. Then I'm happy.
Actually, if you look into the history of it far back enough, hacker was originally used quite a long time ago at MIT as a term referring to the exploration of the roof and tunnel system around campus and to harmless "pranks."
See what you can dig up on such names as Jack Florey and James E. Tetazoo.
3200x1600 on dual-monitors? Now, my math might be a little fuzzy here, but that's telling me you've got two 1600x1600 displays.
I'm curious, where'd you get these square monitors?
It sounds intriguing.
Actually, heat transfer rates are always proportional to the difference in temperature. So therefore, yes, colder water will in fact cool the CPU faster than the warmer water (duh? otherwise, why bother going through the effort to make cold water)
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A safe octane booster, to what end? What's the point of putting an octane booster into your tank if the fuel you are buying is already sufficiently high octane? Do you know what the actual meaning/purpose of an octane rating is?
You're right, we should consider things in terms of percentages. For example, what percentage of your household's total power consumption per year comes from a plugged in Xbox360? I'll give you a hint: pretty damned close to zero. Similarly, what percentage of the global yearly energy usage do plugged in consoles comprise? I'll give you the same hint again. Just one 100W bulb left on per night is equivalent to 50 Xbox 360s or PS2s left plugged in. It's easy to look at the number of kilowatt hours used per year by these consoles and freak out about it, but it doesn't mean much until you compare it to the total amount of energy used each year, and when you do that you should quickly realize how insignificant it is and that effort to reduce energy consumption is much much better directed elsewhere (for example, replacing incandescent bulbs with fluorescent bulbs whereever possible).
While Microsoft actually verifying the complete correctness of driver code would be great, a system where they do that for every single driver is totally unrealistic. Certifying a driver doesn't necessarily have to mean "this driver is totally flawless and will work perfectly" in order to be worthwhile and provide useful information. A certification that says "we don't guarantee that this is without flaws, but it generally functions properly and is relatively stable," while not ideal, requires a more reasonable amount of work on MS's part (considering they're not the driver writers), and is still very useful, because it still seperates good drivers from more broken ones.
If you really think that MS could feasibly certify that all the drivers were perfect, then why not get angry at the driver makers themselves for not doing so, since they'd only have to do it for their own drivers?
As far as I know, other OSs don't have this functionality at all, so it seems to me like you're criticizing them for doing something new and useful because they don't do it *perfectly*.
I'm not really seeing the direct correlation between a massive Ice Age and dead plankton... please clarify?
Or are you just suggesting that MS will interpret bug reports as the drivers fault when it's actually the fault of Windows? Certainly possible, but I think that the potential gains are significant in terms of driver accountability.
Please clarify exactly what your argument in this context. I'm not arguing that MS hasn't done all sorts of things in the past to earn our ire, but I guess I just don't see the full scope of potential harm that you've got in mind.
Doesn't Windows Update send hardware info to Microsoft? I could be wrong, but that could be one way for them to get that information.
Unless the rating drops low enough that Vista blocks the installation of the driver. I imagine that would affect things a little.
Regardless of Microsoft's reasoning behind this move, I think it's a good one and I find it hard to understand why one would argue otherwise.
People seem to be suggesting that MS should be making a singular judgement for every driver, whether it is certified or not. Come on, any of you who know anything about software development know that that's absurd, especially since they're not MS's drivers in the first place.
You can't expect any sort of software to perform flawlessy right out of the gate, and this is a convenient way of monitoring a driver's reliability, and forcing some accountability onto those who make the drivers. I think that's totally reasonable, and to somehow try to twist this whole system into a negative is pretty backwards.
The implication seems to be that this will encourage companies to "beta test" their drivers on customers. I think the opposite is true. It will give more incentive to companies to get it done better the first time, since it can't be good publicity for them for their drivers to have a "red" rating.
Surely a mass dieoff would have significant repercussions across the globe, I just don't think it would necessarily result in a mass extinction as the parent was suggesting.
I don't think that you understand. Let me lay it out more clearly. This was my original point, nothing more: No plankton does not imply no life on earth. No, I was not saying "Excess CO2 does not imply no life on earth." Just the above statement.
Has it been shown that plankton are the absolute singular bottom of the food chain?
Nice straw man there, but it doesn't really relate to what I said. I'm not saying or implying that having so much CO2 will have no negative impact; my point was that the parent had laid out a very specific prediction and presented it as fact.
If it were entirely underwater then it wouldn't be true; it would displace the equivalent volume, and ice and water do not have the same density.
Perhaps my sarcasm meter is broken, but I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to prove that even the complete absence of plankton would result in a massive global extinction of all species. Adaptation, and all that.
I understand how the law works here, I'm just really at a loss for WHY?
Shouldn't there be or isn't there something that prevents companies from keeping hold on these patents after other companies have already used the ideas heavily without any litigation? Much like trademarks?
The US imposed sanctions on Yugoslavia, and then he's wanted for taking $3.35 million away from them?
Does this not make sense to anybody else?
Not true! Voltage and clockspeed both influence hot hot a processor runs. Did you read what he said? First of all, you don't have any control over how much heat the G5 generates. No case layout, heatsinks, fans, can do anything of the sort. It's going to generate as much heat as it's going to generate. Even with the points that you've brought up, his still stand; his point being that it's not difficult to handle the heat from a G5, and you just outlined a few easy ways to regulate heat. Hmm.
I don't think anyone would take your Navy seriously if you "roll" up in ANY kind of battleship.
What should be considered mid-range? Perhaps being able to get a powerful computer like a G5 with a monitor sized a little less than 20" and priced a little less than $1200? Not everyone who wants a powerful computer needs/can afford a huge LCD like that. Give me a G5 with a 17" monitor just like those. Then I'm happy.
Actually, if you look into the history of it far back enough, hacker was originally used quite a long time ago at MIT as a term referring to the exploration of the roof and tunnel system around campus and to harmless "pranks." See what you can dig up on such names as Jack Florey and James E. Tetazoo.
3200x1600 on dual-monitors? Now, my math might be a little fuzzy here, but that's telling me you've got two 1600x1600 displays. I'm curious, where'd you get these square monitors? It sounds intriguing.
Actually, heat transfer rates are always proportional to the difference in temperature. So therefore, yes, colder water will in fact cool the CPU faster than the warmer water (duh? otherwise, why bother going through the effort to make cold water)