Nobody is suggesting this? BWUA HAHA HA HA AHA HAH AH AHAHAHAHA....excuse me while I cough myself into a stroke...
Seriously. It took 60 seconds to find out that MADD *is* pushing for it in every car and that the auto manufacturers and insurance companies are playing ball.
True, but that's not what we were discussing. A false assumption is being made by many people that all Audi's are very expensive and their average drive wouldn't care about cost.
I'm an Audi driver and I take exception to this. For 'douchebag' the drivers of SUVs and 3/4 ton pickup trucks have everyone beat.
I see far too many of people with heavy vehicles driving by the laws of gross tonnage. I alternate between my A4 and a Silverado 2500HD and I witness first hand the difference in treatment between me in my Audi and me in my ginormous pickup.
I get treated with far greater respect in the gas hog. People don't cut off me in traffic, people don't always presume they have the right of way at four way stops, etc.
In the Audi I'm constantly having to avoid putting the Audi's legendary safety record to the test. I get cut off, people take the right away at four way stops, people pull out in front of me, etc.
Do douchebags drive Audi's? I'm sure there's a lot of pretentious douchebags who do, but they're a minuscule percent of the population in comparison to the jackhole SUV/Pickup drivers!
If you go to an online auto site, like autotrader.com, you'll find that a used 2005 Audi A8 Quattro can be had in the 28,000 to 30,000 dollar range. I see used '08s right now in the 45,000 to 50,000 dollar range.
Just because someone is driving a German luxury sedan doesn't necessarily mean that they have money falling out of their pockets. Audi's are surprisingly inexpensive used.
You should Google "Threshold Braking". ABS or NON-ABS it's the absolute best way to maneuver while your trying to scrub speed. If the ABS gets in your way while threshold braking that means you failed at it and the ABS just saved you.
This other chatter about slamming the brakes and maneuvering is just that, chatter. If the front wheels are locked because of you stomping the brakes you aren't steering around anything anyway.
The article DIRECTLY talks about this but I guess you either didn't RTFA or your head is stuck in "hardware" mode. When you're comparing Apple to Android to RIM you are ALSO comparing Operating Systems as all of these platforms have only ONE OS available.
The article spends significant time talking about OPERATING SYSTEMS, not just hardware.
Hoooo boy, the old "Masters of the Universe" theory.
No, just no.
If these guys were so smart we wouldn't be having problems with stock market crashes. If they really were good at what they did it would be their CLIENTS getting rich...not just them.
Also, they ALL consistently get their asses kicked by random stock pickers.
So please, stop with the "knowing what buttons to push" stuff. Most of these guys are WORSE, or arguably no better, at their job than a chimpanzee would be.
So somehow people with industrial strength educations, most of them Masters level, or higher, graduates from BigName Schools with *years* of study in Statistics, Modelling, and Programming are equivalent to Bank Tellers?
I'm not seeing how your analogy works at all. You could replace a bank teller with any monkey who can count, the same cannot be said about the guys in these positions.
The 'tellers role while vital isn't critical. In the event of a "teller crisis" the bank would survive. These high frequency trading companies though are built SOLELY on their systems ability to execute trades faster than the next firm...and you can't do that without extremely educated and talented people doing the technical work.
Well, sir, unlike you I don't care about reselling my books so this doesn't bother me. As for loaning a friend a copy, well, if I am impressed with a book I buy a physical copy and am able to lend that.
Let's look look a little deeper though. Where is written, and why is it understood, that only the _consumer_ can benefit from disruptive technology?
We can all agree that by using electronic distribution, such as Amazon, that e-book prices should be substantially lower than a physical copy. Yay! Cheaper books! Consumer wins! Everyone high fives and agrees that this is how it should be and that the consumer is gaining something.
By contrast is your line "...the authors conveniently and quietly take control of book distribution and remove the freedom of the consumer to control the end product themselves. This is bad. Very bad." Suddenly the technology shift is being decried because the consumer is losing something.
Here's a news flash; Disruptive Technology is disruptive! There's nothing written that says it must always impact the seller and never the buyer. This is a value transaction. You get a lower price, the publisher gets more control of secondary distribution. You get your book, whatever it's delivery method, and you give the provider your money. This happens within the contractual and regulatory framework that you agreed to at the time of purchase.
I agree that it would be nice if we, the consumers, didn't lose anything on the deal but realistically that is not how it is going to work out. If you want a book you can resell / lend buy a physical copy, if you want the cheapest possible price for a new book then buy an e-copy and accept the restrictions that come with that. You can insist on having the best of both worlds but NOWHERE is it written that a seller MUST provide you with you want. IF someone can do that and make money then that service will be provided, if no one can than you're not going to get what you want. So sorry, but that's how it works.
Up to a _50%_ increase in city fuel mileage is a joke?
Considering that most of these people mover SUVs do nothing but drive around the city all day long I'd say it's a significant step in improving average fuel economy!
A U.S. Gallon of gasoline weighs roughly 6 pounds and a U.S. ton is 2,000 pounds. Simple division gives you a "ton" of gasoline as something like 333 gallons. Gas prices can be pulled from http://www.eia.doe.gov/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_home_page.html . Back of the envelop gives you an average price around the U.S. of something like $2.80.
Again simple division of 15000 / 2.80 and the result is 5357. Multiply by 6 for 32142 pounds, divide by 2000 and you get *16* tons!
At today's prices you could buy, roughly, 16 tons of gas for $15,000.
Dirt roads here can be over 100 miles long, may take you over a mountain range, and could deposit you on a city on the other side of said range.
I can think of at least two ways to go from here to a city 180 miles south of here that do not involve a numbered highway. It will include a ridiculous amount of jeep trails and dirt road.
To be fair my TomTom is miserable at that sort of navigation, it simply doesn't have the mapping for it. My GARMIN Etrex Vista with full terrain mapping on the other hand...
If you're curious the TomTom is for the Audi, the Garmin is for my ATV.
Still, ignoring my life in Wyoming and remembering my growing up in Nebraska GPS would have been very handy for finding farm roads, of which there are many.
The very first sentence of the wiki article is crystal clear "The gauge of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the diameter of the barrel.".
The smaller the Gauge, BORE DIAMETER, the less powerful the shotgun. Gauge *is* bore diameter, so how could a shotgun with a smaller bore diameter be more powerful? A 12 gauge shotgun has a larger bore diameter than a 20 gauge shotgun does.
What you're tripping over is that I'm using the language in a technically accurate way and you're applying your incorrect understanding of the terms as you read it.
This really isn't uncommon and based on the post that I originally replied to your confusion does not surprise me.
No, I'm not a gun nut but when discussing firearms it's incredibly important to be accurate because so many people who aren't familiar with them will read your words and take them as fact.
Well, that, and firearms are very interesting pieces of mechanical engineering that you can hold in your hands and it's good to recognize all the difficulty that went into creating them.
You're picking on someone for mis-spelling gauge as guage. Okay, I got that one no problem. You progress to sarcastically point out that a.20 gauge shotgun would "tear your shoulder off with recoil". I'd ask you where you're getting this idea? The smaller the gauge of a shotgun the LESS powerful it is. Commonly available progression in order of most to least powerful is 10, 12, 18, and 20. You're already wickedly confused so I'm going to leave out the.410.
Once you're done displaying your ignorance in the scatter-gun category you move on to displaying it in the rifle category. The correct expression is.22, not 22 as you state. A 22 Caliber rifle very possibly COULD "tear your arm off" with recoil.
It's incredibly obvious that you don't understand the first thing about how to calculate a Gauge OR how to calculate a Caliber. In fact I'm calling into question whether you know anything about firearms at all.
Here is your own comment turned back on you - "Beam. Eye. Pot. Kettle."
The next time you're going to pick on someone for their ignorance perhaps you should check to make sure that your own knowledge is up to par.
"The more rural the area, the fewer route choices, and thusly the less importance a GPS due to the lack of choice."
I don't know what "rural" area you grew up in but you're wrong. I live in a rural area, Central Wyoming, and navigation is _harder_ because there are so many back roads that only the locals know how to find and navigate!
I've lived here 15 years and yet if I drive to the next sizeable town over, a mere 120 miles away, I can't find anything...including the shortcut around that town! Why? Because I'm not familiar with that area and I don't know the back roads well enough to pull off the shortcuts.
GPS is incredibly important and the more rural the area the more useful it is. After all, it's not like you can stop and ask for directions when the only thing you can see for miles in any direction is sagebrush, power poles, and cows.
Lack of promotion certainly played a part but the lack of VERIZON was also an issue. I replaced my personal cell in May and the N1 was never a possibility for me. There is no AT&T here, only Alltel. I'm sure the N1 would have worked but Alltel's service in this area is notoriously poor. That left me to choose between Verizon handsets...and you can't get the N1 that way.
When your product is only available for use with one of the two available MegaCarriers then you've immediately limited your potential market by approximately 50%.
Your post is informative but consider the following:
A defensive system at the discussed 32MW is going to be expensive and is most likely going to be found on the largest boats in the USN...aircraft carriers.
A Nimitz class carrier has 2 x 104 MegaWatt nuclear reactors. Requiring 160MW for a shipboard 32MW laser cannon may be inconvenient but that kind of power is available if needed.
Also consider that a Nimitz class carrier is a truly gigantic heat sink...sitting in the middle of a literal ocean of liquid cooling. I don't forsee any cooling problems that cannot be solved with engineering.
Epic size? Have you seen the size of a Nimitz class carrier? They'll find a place to park the thing.
As for the rest of your post comparing this to existing CIWS systems, well, are you arguing that we shouldn't try because the first generation may have some problems? I seem to recall Phalanx based CIWS having gone through a few teething problems and revisions.
Laser beams AND rail guns. The USN is on the verge of becoming a very "SciFi" weapons platform. If everything takes twice as long as planned then by 2020 you're going to see USN ships equipped with both weapons systems. Rail Guns firing projectiles at OTH targets at 5600MPH and handling close in threats with Phalanx CIWS upgraded with LASERS.
Your comment should be modded funny, not insightful. The kind of mirror you can realistically bring to a battlefield is not going to protect you from a 32KW laser aimed in your direction.
In most phones, smart or not, the antenna is either buried under the case or poking out the top. In the first case it's impossible to physically touch as it's under the skin of the device, in the second case it's highly unlikely to be gripped during operation because of it's location.
In fact it seems to only be the iPhone 4 that not only elected to build the antenna into the body of the phone but did so in such a manner as to allow direct physical contact while the phone is being held in a casual and comfortable manner.
Are there any other mysteries you'd like me to clear up for you?
Slashdot Mirror
I pay the ISP so the situation is reversed. I should be able to watch THEM.
Nobody is suggesting this? BWUA HAHA HA HA AHA HAH AH AHAHAHAHA....excuse me while I cough myself into a stroke...
Seriously. It took 60 seconds to find out that MADD *is* pushing for it in every car and that the auto manufacturers and insurance companies are playing ball.
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/support-grows-for-alcohol-interlocks-on-cars/
The NHSTA, your government, wants them as mandatory equipment in ALL vehicles by 2013.
http://interlockfacts.com/
Is there any other fantasies I can disabuse you of? Santa Claus? Maybe the tooth fairy?
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/support-grows-for-alcohol-interlocks-on-cars/
It took 30 seconds to find that on Google.
Here's a little clip "The auto and insurance industries are already involved in a cooperative research program to develop passive monitoring systems."
True, but that's not what we were discussing. A false assumption is being made by many people that all Audi's are very expensive and their average drive wouldn't care about cost.
I'm just dispelling this wrong assumption.
I'm an Audi driver and I take exception to this. For 'douchebag' the drivers of SUVs and 3/4 ton pickup trucks have everyone beat.
I see far too many of people with heavy vehicles driving by the laws of gross tonnage. I alternate between my A4 and a Silverado 2500HD and I witness first hand the difference in treatment between me in my Audi and me in my ginormous pickup.
I get treated with far greater respect in the gas hog. People don't cut off me in traffic, people don't always presume they have the right of way at four way stops, etc.
In the Audi I'm constantly having to avoid putting the Audi's legendary safety record to the test. I get cut off, people take the right away at four way stops, people pull out in front of me, etc.
Do douchebags drive Audi's? I'm sure there's a lot of pretentious douchebags who do, but they're a minuscule percent of the population in comparison to the jackhole SUV/Pickup drivers!
Well, that's your opinion and since it's just that, an opinion, it's difficult for me to argue or agree with you.
If you go to an online auto site, like autotrader.com, you'll find that a used 2005 Audi A8 Quattro can be had in the 28,000 to 30,000 dollar range. I see used '08s right now in the 45,000 to 50,000 dollar range.
Just because someone is driving a German luxury sedan doesn't necessarily mean that they have money falling out of their pockets. Audi's are surprisingly inexpensive used.
You should Google "Threshold Braking". ABS or NON-ABS it's the absolute best way to maneuver while your trying to scrub speed. If the ABS gets in your way while threshold braking that means you failed at it and the ABS just saved you.
This other chatter about slamming the brakes and maneuvering is just that, chatter. If the front wheels are locked because of you stomping the brakes you aren't steering around anything anyway.
Of course that squint Obama is shouting from the rooftops about how Morgan Stanley is running the price up.
Oh, wait...
I'm sorry but you're comparison is pretty crap.
RIM = 1 OS
Apple = 1 OS
Android = 1 OS
We're comparing apples to apples here.
The article DIRECTLY talks about this but I guess you either didn't RTFA or your head is stuck in "hardware" mode. When you're comparing Apple to Android to RIM you are ALSO comparing Operating Systems as all of these platforms have only ONE OS available.
The article spends significant time talking about OPERATING SYSTEMS, not just hardware.
Hoooo boy, the old "Masters of the Universe" theory.
No, just no.
If these guys were so smart we wouldn't be having problems with stock market crashes. If they really were good at what they did it would be their CLIENTS getting rich...not just them.
Also, they ALL consistently get their asses kicked by random stock pickers.
Here's an example: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/paul-farrells-commentary-chimp-99-champ-makes-monkey-of-wall-street
Here is another, newer, one: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Dispatch/market-dispatches.aspx?post=1548081
So please, stop with the "knowing what buttons to push" stuff. Most of these guys are WORSE, or arguably no better, at their job than a chimpanzee would be.
So somehow people with industrial strength educations, most of them Masters level, or higher, graduates from BigName Schools with *years* of study in Statistics, Modelling, and Programming are equivalent to Bank Tellers?
I'm not seeing how your analogy works at all. You could replace a bank teller with any monkey who can count, the same cannot be said about the guys in these positions.
The 'tellers role while vital isn't critical. In the event of a "teller crisis" the bank would survive. These high frequency trading companies though are built SOLELY on their systems ability to execute trades faster than the next firm...and you can't do that without extremely educated and talented people doing the technical work.
Well, sir, unlike you I don't care about reselling my books so this doesn't bother me. As for loaning a friend a copy, well, if I am impressed with a book I buy a physical copy and am able to lend that.
Let's look look a little deeper though. Where is written, and why is it understood, that only the _consumer_ can benefit from disruptive technology?
We can all agree that by using electronic distribution, such as Amazon, that e-book prices should be substantially lower than a physical copy. Yay! Cheaper books! Consumer wins! Everyone high fives and agrees that this is how it should be and that the consumer is gaining something.
By contrast is your line "...the authors conveniently and quietly take control of book distribution and remove the freedom of the consumer to control the end product themselves. This is bad. Very bad." Suddenly the technology shift is being decried because the consumer is losing something.
Here's a news flash; Disruptive Technology is disruptive! There's nothing written that says it must always impact the seller and never the buyer. This is a value transaction. You get a lower price, the publisher gets more control of secondary distribution. You get your book, whatever it's delivery method, and you give the provider your money. This happens within the contractual and regulatory framework that you agreed to at the time of purchase.
I agree that it would be nice if we, the consumers, didn't lose anything on the deal but realistically that is not how it is going to work out. If you want a book you can resell / lend buy a physical copy, if you want the cheapest possible price for a new book then buy an e-copy and accept the restrictions that come with that. You can insist on having the best of both worlds but NOWHERE is it written that a seller MUST provide you with you want. IF someone can do that and make money then that service will be provided, if no one can than you're not going to get what you want. So sorry, but that's how it works.
Up to a _50%_ increase in city fuel mileage is a joke?
Considering that most of these people mover SUVs do nothing but drive around the city all day long I'd say it's a significant step in improving average fuel economy!
You seriously underestimate.
A U.S. Gallon of gasoline weighs roughly 6 pounds and a U.S. ton is 2,000 pounds. Simple division gives you a "ton" of gasoline as something like 333 gallons. Gas prices can be pulled from http://www.eia.doe.gov/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_home_page.html . Back of the envelop gives you an average price around the U.S. of something like $2.80.
Again simple division of 15000 / 2.80 and the result is 5357. Multiply by 6 for 32142 pounds, divide by 2000 and you get *16* tons!
At today's prices you could buy, roughly, 16 tons of gas for $15,000.
Do you feel smarter now? :-)
Dirt roads here can be over 100 miles long, may take you over a mountain range, and could deposit you on a city on the other side of said range.
I can think of at least two ways to go from here to a city 180 miles south of here that do not involve a numbered highway. It will include a ridiculous amount of jeep trails and dirt road.
To be fair my TomTom is miserable at that sort of navigation, it simply doesn't have the mapping for it. My GARMIN Etrex Vista with full terrain mapping on the other hand...
If you're curious the TomTom is for the Audi, the Garmin is for my ATV.
Still, ignoring my life in Wyoming and remembering my growing up in Nebraska GPS would have been very handy for finding farm roads, of which there are many.
Nooooo, I have it exactly right.
The very first sentence of the wiki article is crystal clear "The gauge of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the diameter of the barrel.".
The smaller the Gauge, BORE DIAMETER, the less powerful the shotgun. Gauge *is* bore diameter, so how could a shotgun with a smaller bore diameter be more powerful? A 12 gauge shotgun has a larger bore diameter than a 20 gauge shotgun does.
What you're tripping over is that I'm using the language in a technically accurate way and you're applying your incorrect understanding of the terms as you read it.
This really isn't uncommon and based on the post that I originally replied to your confusion does not surprise me.
No, I'm not a gun nut but when discussing firearms it's incredibly important to be accurate because so many people who aren't familiar with them will read your words and take them as fact.
Well, that, and firearms are very interesting pieces of mechanical engineering that you can hold in your hands and it's good to recognize all the difficulty that went into creating them.
Oh, and yes, a 12G is more powerful than a 20G. :)
Dan I'm a little confused.
You're picking on someone for mis-spelling gauge as guage. Okay, I got that one no problem. You progress to sarcastically point out that a .20 gauge shotgun would "tear your shoulder off with recoil". I'd ask you where you're getting this idea? The smaller the gauge of a shotgun the LESS powerful it is. Commonly available progression in order of most to least powerful is 10, 12, 18, and 20. You're already wickedly confused so I'm going to leave out the .410.
Once you're done displaying your ignorance in the scatter-gun category you move on to displaying it in the rifle category. The correct expression is .22, not 22 as you state. A 22 Caliber rifle very possibly COULD "tear your arm off" with recoil.
It's incredibly obvious that you don't understand the first thing about how to calculate a Gauge OR how to calculate a Caliber. In fact I'm calling into question whether you know anything about firearms at all.
Here is your own comment turned back on you - "Beam. Eye. Pot. Kettle."
The next time you're going to pick on someone for their ignorance perhaps you should check to make sure that your own knowledge is up to par.
Gauge - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauge_(bore_diameter)
Caliber - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliber
Mods - Mr. Dvorkin's post is not informative, it's WRONG.
"The more rural the area, the fewer route choices, and thusly the less importance a GPS due to the lack of choice."
I don't know what "rural" area you grew up in but you're wrong. I live in a rural area, Central Wyoming, and navigation is _harder_ because there are so many back roads that only the locals know how to find and navigate!
I've lived here 15 years and yet if I drive to the next sizeable town over, a mere 120 miles away, I can't find anything...including the shortcut around that town! Why? Because I'm not familiar with that area and I don't know the back roads well enough to pull off the shortcuts.
GPS is incredibly important and the more rural the area the more useful it is. After all, it's not like you can stop and ask for directions when the only thing you can see for miles in any direction is sagebrush, power poles, and cows.
Lack of promotion certainly played a part but the lack of VERIZON was also an issue. I replaced my personal cell in May and the N1 was never a possibility for me. There is no AT&T here, only Alltel. I'm sure the N1 would have worked but Alltel's service in this area is notoriously poor. That left me to choose between Verizon handsets...and you can't get the N1 that way.
When your product is only available for use with one of the two available MegaCarriers then you've immediately limited your potential market by approximately 50%.
SURPRISE!
Naval reactors are completely contained, they don't dump anything.
Your post is informative but consider the following:
A defensive system at the discussed 32MW is going to be expensive and is most likely going to be found on the largest boats in the USN...aircraft carriers.
A Nimitz class carrier has 2 x 104 MegaWatt nuclear reactors. Requiring 160MW for a shipboard 32MW laser cannon may be inconvenient but that kind of power is available if needed.
Also consider that a Nimitz class carrier is a truly gigantic heat sink...sitting in the middle of a literal ocean of liquid cooling. I don't forsee any cooling problems that cannot be solved with engineering.
Epic size? Have you seen the size of a Nimitz class carrier? They'll find a place to park the thing.
As for the rest of your post comparing this to existing CIWS systems, well, are you arguing that we shouldn't try because the first generation may have some problems? I seem to recall Phalanx based CIWS having gone through a few teething problems and revisions.
Laser beams AND rail guns. The USN is on the verge of becoming a very "SciFi" weapons platform. If everything takes twice as long as planned then by 2020 you're going to see USN ships equipped with both weapons systems. Rail Guns firing projectiles at OTH targets at 5600MPH and handling close in threats with Phalanx CIWS upgraded with LASERS.
This IS the future.
Your comment should be modded funny, not insightful. The kind of mirror you can realistically bring to a battlefield is not going to protect you from a 32KW laser aimed in your direction.
In most phones, smart or not, the antenna is either buried under the case or poking out the top. In the first case it's impossible to physically touch as it's under the skin of the device, in the second case it's highly unlikely to be gripped during operation because of it's location.
In fact it seems to only be the iPhone 4 that not only elected to build the antenna into the body of the phone but did so in such a manner as to allow direct physical contact while the phone is being held in a casual and comfortable manner.
Are there any other mysteries you'd like me to clear up for you?