Yeah. The Blizzard guy mentioned QuestHelper, but QH has been discontinued for a few main reasons:
1) Developer didn't quest any more 2) Blizzard changed rules on addon financials a few patches ago. Addons are apparently not even allowed to *suggest donations* ingame. They did this mainly in reaction to an "always-for-pay" addon, but a lot of the well known addons have either discontinued or slowed development pace WAY down since those rule changes. 3) Blizzard duplicated 50% or so of QH functionality ingame. Lots is still missing.:( 4) Too much effort to keep QH working properly
The Mozilla community does browsers (and to a lesser degree, email clients) very well. They have no experience in office suites, so thinking that they would do better than the OpenOffice team is rather silly.
If OpenOffice didn't exist and weren't doing as well as they are, I might agree with this. But office suites are the LAST place the Mozilla team should be changing focus to, especially with OO doing as well as it is.
Not 2005 or 2006. That's about when I ditched GNOME due to being sick of Havoc Pennington's reign of "usability" terror. There was a constant crusade to make sure that no user could have edge flipping of multiple desktops, even as a buried option or as an "addon". (I basically stuck with GNOME until they broke Brightside so many times that the Brightside author gave up - Brightside somehow managed to add edge flipping to most GNOME WMs.)
Pretty much everything he did in the name of "usability" was to remove functionality. People bitch about KDE4, but KDE4 is far more feature-complete than GNOME was when I ditched it, and GNOME was actually trending downwards. (Admittedly, I didn't do the KDE 3.x to 4.x transition until around KDE 4.2 or 4.3.)
Typical "pirate" TV episode distribution is: 350 MB (1/2 CD) for standard definition in the "old standard" format (Xvid/DivX + MP3 audio in an AVI container) for a one hour TV broadcast. (Typically 45 minutes of actual content. Commercials not included in the download.) 1.1 GB for high def in the "new standard" format (720p AVC video + AC3 audio in an MKV container)
I know they closed that loophole on the PS3 by requiring Flash 10 (the PS3 is still stuck at 9), but once the UA is switched there aren't many other ways to block a device.
Jeep Wranglers are built for rock-crawling, not towing. They have, in general, high gear ratios (good for rocks, bad for mileage) and a short wheelbase (Despite a lower clearance on paper, they're probably less likely to hit a rock than your F250.)
Oh, yeah, you needed a 4" lift to get more ground clearance than the stock Jeep - what was your clearance stock, and do you realize that Jeeps have lift kits available too? (Some probably far more aggressive than your 4" lift.)
There's also the fact that the $500 laptops tend to be built with the cheapest parts available and often have abysmal build quality.
Meanwhile, $300-400 netbooks are typically quite solidly built. My 9" Aspire One and my Eee 1000HE are some of the most solidly built portable computers I have ever worked with.
The good news is that in this era of corporate influences over government - If the government pushes hard for crackdowns on encryption again, the banking industry will push back again and win.
Outlawing encryption would do serious damage to our already shaky economy. Eliminating confidence in encryption of financial transactions (especially browser SSL) would be VERY detrimental to commerce.
So regarding the TFA - Is he even banned from using an SSL-enabled browser for online commerce?
Anyone who uses PlaysForSure as an example of an "Open" technology is spewing random bullshit with NOTHING to back it up... I'll get more information from fldksjc;jlssdljl than such random baseless claims.
PlaysForSure failed because it was a fundamentally closed technology, designed with the express purpose of closing down the devices it was installed on. Being closed doesn't work unless you have major market share (which Apple does in the music realm.)
The amount of spectrum bandwidth required to transmit a few hundred audio channels is a fraction of what is needed to transmit a few hundred TV channels.
So given a constant amount of power available, the power spectral density when transmitting audio only is significantly higher than when transmitting television.
Also, Sirius uses satellites in Tundra or Molniya orbits (I don't remember which), which are geosynchronous, but not geostationary.
Supposedly the student has developed a signal processor that will reduce power consumption and/or cost, but the article is REALLY slim on details as to how they did this and whether they really have made any significant breakthroughs beyond what's already there.
Toyota owns 20% of Subaru now (GM's former 20% share - it goes from company to company).
Subaru has a very well defined niche that is not at risk. Despite not offering hybrids, they were one of the few vehicle manufacturers that had sales increase in past years. This is partly due to the fact that they've been marketing one of their vehicles (the Outback) as the fuel efficient SUV alternative for over a decade, so were well placed when the anti-SUV backlash hit. They also are tied with Audi for having some of the best AWD systems on the planet.
As an interim solution, Subaru started putting CVTs into their cars a year ago.
They're working on a few joint design efforts with Toyota, and I suspect we'll see a hybrid Subaru come soon using Toyota expertise. That and/or a gasoline direct injection engine are what Subaru is going to need soon.
Much of the USGS data has been replaced with higher resolution aerial orthoimagery in many states, usually from a state government data source.
Definitely: New York (imagery taken under contract on behalf of New York GIS) New Jersey Pennsylvania
In all three of the above cases, you can actually get the original orthoimagery yourself from the respective state's government GIS organization as a free download, with a MUCH less restrictive license than Google's.
"Why does the FAA not allow drones in commercial airspace yet? Short answer is no one has took the time and money to develop one and get it certified. The longer answer is it depends on whether you are talking about piloted drones or autonomous drones. "
I believe a number of military drones (namely the Global Hawk) do have such certification.
It's probably a case of a new manned aerial imagery source becoming available.
Is this new imagery also showing in Google Earth? (I can't check from my current location). GEarth is usually a bit more verbose than GMaps regarding copyright details.
At very high zoom levels, it is only listing Google as the copyright holder, but this may be an error. However, Google may have hired out to a more traditional source for this.
I'm not sure if the microdrones described have the flight stability in turbulence to provide the accuracy required for georeferenced imagery. (In general, the larger the flight platform, the less it is affected by turbulence.)
"Chernobyl happened because they turned all the safety systems off and ran the reactor in ways it wasnt designed to. And then acted all surprised when it blew up. Also, the reactor design was flawed from day one (because it had a positive void coefficient)" Not just that, but in addition the reactor had no containment building and the core was full of flammable graphite.
There are at least 3-4 reactor design differences and 3-4 procedural differences between even "dinosaur" domestic PWR/BWR designs and the Chernobyl reactor, any single one of them could have prevented the disaster, or at least in the case of a containment building, greatly reduced its impact.
I like the other poster's analogy to drunk-driving a school bus through a blizzard with the brakes cut. Although I think that's not quite as bad as the utter stupidity that led to Chernobyl.
There are known reactor designs (such as the IFR) that could actually burn what is currently created by existing reactors as waste. I think I saw at one point a claim (may not be true) that if given enough IFRs, they could supply the entirety of the United States electrical demand for 100 years using only the waste from existing reactors so far. The waste from IFRs was much more dangerous in the short term, but easier to manage due to significantly shorter lifetime. (all of the long-life transuranics get burned). The IFR got killed because it relied on a form of reprocessing, and most politicians don't realize there are other reprocessing technologies than PUREX (which is a pretty significant proliferation risk, however, most other countries are using it now so we should start doing it too.)
Hideously complicated? There's nothing complicated about a planetary gearset.
The planetary gearset in the Prius' transmission is almost identical to what is at the core of a typical automatic transmission, except that a traditional automatic transmission has a whole pile of hydraulic clutches that switch the input and output to the gearset between various parts of the planetary gear, and apply friction to whichever part of the gearset is not connected to an input or output. 90%+ of automatic transmission failures occur in either these clutches or with the seals of the hydraulic system that engages these clutches.
In the case of the Prius, there are no clutches. Everything is attached the the planetary gearset in a fixed configuration. Since you have no cases where gears or clutches are engaging and disengaging, it is MUCH more reliable. About the only thing that can go wrong is if one of the motor generators fails and freewheels.
Note: Some of Toyota's larger hybrids combine the Prius' approach with a traditional automatic transmission.
Slashdot Mirror
http://music.metafilter.com/2380/Punch-Em-In-The-Dick-NSFW-lyrics - The author of this song does not discriminate when it comes to dick-punching.
Yeah. The Blizzard guy mentioned QuestHelper, but QH has been discontinued for a few main reasons:
1) Developer didn't quest any more :(
2) Blizzard changed rules on addon financials a few patches ago. Addons are apparently not even allowed to *suggest donations* ingame. They did this mainly in reaction to an "always-for-pay" addon, but a lot of the well known addons have either discontinued or slowed development pace WAY down since those rule changes.
3) Blizzard duplicated 50% or so of QH functionality ingame. Lots is still missing.
4) Too much effort to keep QH working properly
It's open source - so worst case it'll fork.
The Mozilla community does browsers (and to a lesser degree, email clients) very well. They have no experience in office suites, so thinking that they would do better than the OpenOffice team is rather silly.
If OpenOffice didn't exist and weren't doing as well as they are, I might agree with this. But office suites are the LAST place the Mozilla team should be changing focus to, especially with OO doing as well as it is.
Not 2005 or 2006. That's about when I ditched GNOME due to being sick of Havoc Pennington's reign of "usability" terror. There was a constant crusade to make sure that no user could have edge flipping of multiple desktops, even as a buried option or as an "addon". (I basically stuck with GNOME until they broke Brightside so many times that the Brightside author gave up - Brightside somehow managed to add edge flipping to most GNOME WMs.)
Pretty much everything he did in the name of "usability" was to remove functionality. People bitch about KDE4, but KDE4 is far more feature-complete than GNOME was when I ditched it, and GNOME was actually trending downwards. (Admittedly, I didn't do the KDE 3.x to 4.x transition until around KDE 4.2 or 4.3.)
Typical "pirate" TV episode distribution is:
350 MB (1/2 CD) for standard definition in the "old standard" format (Xvid/DivX + MP3 audio in an AVI container) for a one hour TV broadcast. (Typically 45 minutes of actual content. Commercials not included in the download.)
1.1 GB for high def in the "new standard" format (720p AVC video + AC3 audio in an MKV container)
You sure about 2?
I know they closed that loophole on the PS3 by requiring Flash 10 (the PS3 is still stuck at 9), but once the UA is switched there aren't many other ways to block a device.
As others have stated:
Jeep Wranglers are built for rock-crawling, not towing. They have, in general, high gear ratios (good for rocks, bad for mileage) and a short wheelbase (Despite a lower clearance on paper, they're probably less likely to hit a rock than your F250.)
Oh, yeah, you needed a 4" lift to get more ground clearance than the stock Jeep - what was your clearance stock, and do you realize that Jeeps have lift kits available too? (Some probably far more aggressive than your 4" lift.)
There's also the fact that the $500 laptops tend to be built with the cheapest parts available and often have abysmal build quality.
Meanwhile, $300-400 netbooks are typically quite solidly built. My 9" Aspire One and my Eee 1000HE are some of the most solidly built portable computers I have ever worked with.
The good news is that in this era of corporate influences over government - If the government pushes hard for crackdowns on encryption again, the banking industry will push back again and win.
Outlawing encryption would do serious damage to our already shaky economy. Eliminating confidence in encryption of financial transactions (especially browser SSL) would be VERY detrimental to commerce.
So regarding the TFA - Is he even banned from using an SSL-enabled browser for online commerce?
Welcome to the wonderful world of stock photography.
Anyone who uses PlaysForSure as an example of an "Open" technology is spewing random bullshit with NOTHING to back it up... I'll get more information from fldksjc;jlssdljl than such random baseless claims.
PlaysForSure failed because it was a fundamentally closed technology, designed with the express purpose of closing down the devices it was installed on. Being closed doesn't work unless you have major market share (which Apple does in the music realm.)
So can the TracVision units which have been on the market for a few years.
The amount of spectrum bandwidth required to transmit a few hundred audio channels is a fraction of what is needed to transmit a few hundred TV channels.
So given a constant amount of power available, the power spectral density when transmitting audio only is significantly higher than when transmitting television.
Also, Sirius uses satellites in Tundra or Molniya orbits (I don't remember which), which are geosynchronous, but not geostationary.
Phased arrays for DirecTV reception have been on the market for at least a few years. Here's one:
http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?mc=06&p=KVHA7&d=KVH-TracVision-A7-InMotion-SUVMiniVan-DIRECTV-Satellite-TV-Antenna-System-(A7)&c=Satellite%20Dishes%20for%20SUVs&sku=
Supposedly the student has developed a signal processor that will reduce power consumption and/or cost, but the article is REALLY slim on details as to how they did this and whether they really have made any significant breakthroughs beyond what's already there.
Toyota owns 20% of Subaru now (GM's former 20% share - it goes from company to company).
Subaru has a very well defined niche that is not at risk. Despite not offering hybrids, they were one of the few vehicle manufacturers that had sales increase in past years. This is partly due to the fact that they've been marketing one of their vehicles (the Outback) as the fuel efficient SUV alternative for over a decade, so were well placed when the anti-SUV backlash hit. They also are tied with Audi for having some of the best AWD systems on the planet.
As an interim solution, Subaru started putting CVTs into their cars a year ago.
They're working on a few joint design efforts with Toyota, and I suspect we'll see a hybrid Subaru come soon using Toyota expertise. That and/or a gasoline direct injection engine are what Subaru is going to need soon.
Much of the USGS data has been replaced with higher resolution aerial orthoimagery in many states, usually from a state government data source.
Definitely:
New York (imagery taken under contract on behalf of New York GIS)
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
In all three of the above cases, you can actually get the original orthoimagery yourself from the respective state's government GIS organization as a free download, with a MUCH less restrictive license than Google's.
"Why does the FAA not allow drones in commercial airspace yet? Short answer is no one has took the time and money to develop one and get it certified. The longer answer is it depends on whether you are talking about piloted drones or autonomous drones. "
I believe a number of military drones (namely the Global Hawk) do have such certification.
It's probably a case of a new manned aerial imagery source becoming available.
Is this new imagery also showing in Google Earth? (I can't check from my current location). GEarth is usually a bit more verbose than GMaps regarding copyright details.
At very high zoom levels, it is only listing Google as the copyright holder, but this may be an error. However, Google may have hired out to a more traditional source for this.
I'm not sure if the microdrones described have the flight stability in turbulence to provide the accuracy required for georeferenced imagery. (In general, the larger the flight platform, the less it is affected by turbulence.)
I definately agree on this one. As someone who lives in a semi-rural area, the more rural you get, the more single mothers you tend to find...
"If a family bought a 52" HDTV 2 years ago and just finished to pay for it"
Quoting the grandparent - 2 years ago, TVs in that size class were a LOT more expensive than you quote.
Really, there is very little difference between "exhaustion penalty" and "rest bonus" other than perception.
In both cases, you get more XP when rested and less when not rested. Other than psychology there is no difference.
This is the second one. As I understand, the first one was pretty crappy too.
"Chernobyl happened because they turned all the safety systems off and ran the reactor in ways it wasnt designed to. And then acted all surprised when it blew up. Also, the reactor design was flawed from day one (because it had a positive void coefficient)"
Not just that, but in addition the reactor had no containment building and the core was full of flammable graphite.
There are at least 3-4 reactor design differences and 3-4 procedural differences between even "dinosaur" domestic PWR/BWR designs and the Chernobyl reactor, any single one of them could have prevented the disaster, or at least in the case of a containment building, greatly reduced its impact.
I like the other poster's analogy to drunk-driving a school bus through a blizzard with the brakes cut. Although I think that's not quite as bad as the utter stupidity that led to Chernobyl.
There are known reactor designs (such as the IFR) that could actually burn what is currently created by existing reactors as waste. I think I saw at one point a claim (may not be true) that if given enough IFRs, they could supply the entirety of the United States electrical demand for 100 years using only the waste from existing reactors so far. The waste from IFRs was much more dangerous in the short term, but easier to manage due to significantly shorter lifetime. (all of the long-life transuranics get burned). The IFR got killed because it relied on a form of reprocessing, and most politicians don't realize there are other reprocessing technologies than PUREX (which is a pretty significant proliferation risk, however, most other countries are using it now so we should start doing it too.)
Hideously complicated? There's nothing complicated about a planetary gearset.
The planetary gearset in the Prius' transmission is almost identical to what is at the core of a typical automatic transmission, except that a traditional automatic transmission has a whole pile of hydraulic clutches that switch the input and output to the gearset between various parts of the planetary gear, and apply friction to whichever part of the gearset is not connected to an input or output. 90%+ of automatic transmission failures occur in either these clutches or with the seals of the hydraulic system that engages these clutches.
In the case of the Prius, there are no clutches. Everything is attached the the planetary gearset in a fixed configuration. Since you have no cases where gears or clutches are engaging and disengaging, it is MUCH more reliable. About the only thing that can go wrong is if one of the motor generators fails and freewheels.
Note: Some of Toyota's larger hybrids combine the Prius' approach with a traditional automatic transmission.