You need machine foster parents for what is, probably, the only plausible way of getting our asses out of this system, assuming technology that seems to be certainly within our range - embryo colonization.
(yes, hibernation of a skeleton crew / very small group of initial settlers, with the main purpose of kickstarting the colony and the growth of stored embryos, might be close enough)
Though "Porsche Unleashed" was an arcade game already...as pretty much whole NFS series from its inception. Which isn't strictly a bad thing, really - after all it essentially means that a game knows it's a game.
(generally, consider you might be also falling a bit into simple nostalgia; and overlooking lots of indy stuff, which gives often quite close experience to "golden days", whichever time period we mean by that in given discussion (~= from your youth); with "mainstream" expanded, and popular stuff being what fits nicely into current level of technology)
"Big $ and small brain" aren't a prerequisite for wasteful spending. In fact, if you look around, you'll notice that many of those who really should be more frugal (considering their real level of "$"), are actually often first in line for pointless shopping.
I don't get why people are saying that; among the most popular PC games you'll find WoW, soon Starcraft 2 (and, unfortunately not soon, Diablo 3 - but how late it will be only strengthens what I'm trying to show), numerous games based on Source, Galciv2, Sins of Solar Empire, soon Elemental (really can't wait for this one); also such nice gems as World of Goo, Aquaria, et al. Many of those supposedly showing "what PC gaming is all about", most of those not touching consoles in any way, also most with quite "modest" GFX (but, via nice artistic touches, often looking phenomenally). And now you're saying it has something to do with consoles?
No, publishers simply got their senses some time ago and don't want to limit their group of customers just for pointless bling (helps that laptops are a majority of PCs sold)
And there's also Solitaire, Farmville or Peggle...
Never said you should. Said quite the opposite in fact - said that if you're still using a ten year-old card today, you've had excellent value. Thing is though, I doubt you are and I'll bet there are good, sane reasons for this.
Joining the discussion - that's actually quite possible and not much of a stretch. In fact, one of my most often used PCs has...Matrox G400 16MB; one that will be 10 years old in a month IIRC (and the type is available for 11 years, I think). Most of the components in that machine are a bit younger by now (not by much), sure - but the GFX card does not really limit anything, not for what this machine was and is used (web, IM, TV, a little writing & small dev stuff, even basic video editing in its time - though I could easily edit 720p or 1080p via proxy editing...and basically can watch the former if I really want to, for some reason; all mostly a matter of proper, efficient software)
I doubt newer microwaves are in any appreciate way more power efficient BTW - they are still made pretty much in the same way, which is determined by the basic concept behind how they work and pretty basic, straightforward and long-known implementation of it. Old one might lose, somewhat, due to aging of transformer / caps / etc., but probably not by much (certainly not justifying throwing it away)
I pay almost exactly $15 for prepaid 4 GB via 3G valid for two months (and if next recharge happens before that point, unused "data credit" is simply added to the new one); contract deals are of course less expensive still per amount of data transferred. And my place isn't all that great.
"Fine"? In contract deal the data connection simply stops working, with few warnings starting comfortably early; and best of all, it can be "recharged" via means (and rates) very close to typical prepaid recharge levels.
Ex-Soviet Union generally doesn't have very exceptionally low birth rate; the rates are what they are for Russia largely due to whole generation of male alcoholics and drinking-related illnesses that are killing them.
And ultimately we're all on this boat; breeding while probably already beyond the sustainable levels for the planet, in some of those places even outright using 3-4 times more resources per capita than there is available long term (without taking them from the past or borrowing from the future), won't bring anything good...most likely especially for places doing it.
Ehhh...this confusion again; one group choosing as their trademark a name of basic radio method.
GSM association also uses CDMA for parts of their technology; but older standards from them, using TDMA, are...well...quite a bit older. So, what, were you making a point "older technology using less demanding, easier & cheaper to implement methods"? That's a surprise...
Of course, supposed "inferiority" hasn't stopped GSM being wildly more successful, evidently much better suited to demands of the world, so I'm not sure if you are making the point you intended to make there.
Also - tons of people actually have cameras perfectly capable of making videos in this resolution, assuming they are of quite specific kind - stop motion animation.
But yeah, I would prefer better bitrates (and/or encoding methods; H.264 won't be the last word) in more "standard" resolutions than such things basically just for show. Vimeo has "only" HD, with with their higher bitrates they look better (plus one can download the initial file)
@5 - that seems mostly natural, and for many species (in their way), not just us; probably often a competitive edge (it's just that we aren't so readily & rapidly regulated out of "living the dream" by other species / pressures of surroundings; the luxury of high adaptability). How many people really saw Civil War, WW1, WW2, great famines or pretty much any such turmoil? (with its full consequences)
Well, and it's only as long as you're reasonably fine already, of course - I'd venture a guess that a lot of people throughout the world, also today, don't quite see it as "roses and sweetness"...at least not the same kind of it. I suspect they still do, in a way; hell, large portion of the planet thinks there will be "roses and sweetness" actually after the end of time and/or after they'll....die; or smth.
OTOH many here seem to be quite displeased with power consumption of DAB receivers (and we all know that FM ones can be made to consume minuscule amounts of battery) - could it be a bit (also? etc.) a case of, more or less, a balance between power consumption of transceivers and power consumption of receivers?
I'd say minimizing the latter at the expense of the former is, in case of radio, desirable; the point, really.
Or - without the need to leave space for DAB. rest of the spectrum could be reshuffled so that universal cellular transmissions could have more bandwidth. There are also multicast transmissions possible via IP networks, BTW.
Battery life cares, I guess. Several posters in this thread mention pathetic times of DAB receiver operation on battery power - even when those are fairly large devices with a place for few AA cells.
I almost don't see any impact of FM reception in battery life of mobile phone, in which FM receiver is practically "free" (hell, probably one of the least expensive mobile phones with FM radio, Nokia 1616, seems to be cheaper than any DAB radio - but with a mobile phone thrown in for "free"; 5030, not much more expensive, has also a loudspeaker)
Really, people value the non-interactivity, it's a benefit. Sometimes you just want to fill the background with good enough music / etc. while doing something else (I suspect also not wanting something great - not wanting to be hooked too much); with scheduled short news service every hour a nice bonus (also one you don't have to actively follow, but still be certain that important news will reach you)
the vast majority of the radio listeners don't listen to music. They hear music instead. There's a difference. They put the kids on the SUV, and drive them to school, and turn on the radio in the meantime. Or, they're stuck in traffic, pissed off, and need to listen to "easy" music to pass the time. Or, they're sitting on their sofa, reading a magazine, and have the radio ON as a background.
Very few people actually drive somewhere in order to turn on the radio and listen to music. Or sit on their sofa, closing their eyes, and listen to just music. Normal people instead, are so busy with their lives, their problems, the quick pace of this civilization, that simply don't have the time to discover new music. Listening to unknown kind of melodies, or new kinds of sub-genres altogether, takes them out of their comfort zone. Listening to something like Dan Deacon instead of Lady Gaga, for example, while the kids shout at each other at the back of the car, makes it difficult to level your head. Not only you have your problems, but you have this new 'annoying' music playing instead of the music (or kind of music) you already know so well.
Basically, commercial radio works as a kind of a depressant for the masses. At first, it feels like music is exactly the opposite: an excitement that is, but in reality, in the large scheme of things, as far as FM radio is concerned, it's nothing but one of the ways that helps you kept in check. No, this is not a conspiracy theory, it's just how things work. Listeners want it that way too.
That's also BTW why any possible benefits of DAB are probably irrelevant - people are happy with very few stations already. For anything more there are ways you mention.
I don't know. FM might be considered to be of "good quality" in a lot more places than those where it has "clean signal" - it degrades quite gracefully, for a large part of that process still sounds pleasant. No such thing with DAB.
I have here a simple alarm radio, in a place near the edge of reception areas / in the middle between transmitters. Toying with the placement and antenna is required, but generally one can still get almost perfect reception (I wouldn't held much hope for digital), even after my damn cat shortened the antenna to a fraction of its length (well, much more toying required, a bit more static...but still pleasant)
Because non-gov entities don't present such kinds of solutions? (and no, market isn't guaranteed to not fall into them - look at, say, SUV uptake some time ago) BTW, ever heard of GSM, by far the most popular cellular standard on the planet (or so I've heard), also spearheaded by administrative activities? Or DVB-T?
...and for some time now integrated "for free" in many mobile phones, at least as far as FM is concerned.
Generally, what's this "free market & Nokia to the rescue"? Nokia doesn't do like it's being described, not with technology of such scope - think GSM (pure 2G), "2.5G" (GPRS, EDGE), 3G & "3.5G", and now LTE - this is the kind of technological scope we're talking about here, not some new minor feature in handsets. Each step took many years, too.
Even when the progress in the area was, evidently, highly desirable by people. DAB OTOH isn't nearly as attractive - if anything, first versions of DAB were brought to the market too soon, when available codecs weren't very optimal yet (hence quality suffered). All the while FM is mostly good enough with quality, and DAB doesn't go near AM where that one is strong. It just...doesn't really give much value. No wonder people weren't quick with adopting it.
Developing under agreement is a good thing here - not only in place where many different regulatory bodies almost overlap in area (as far as radio goes), this also has the effects of commoditizing the equipment & making the technology cheaper (what played a large role with tech from GSM association). Prices could be much worse...
Anyway, people just don't listen to the radio the way they used to anyway (that could be also an argument for why such system was a waste of time - it would be better to wait 2 decades, give the spectrum to cellular technology and provide any radio, if anybody wants it, via IP)
Uhm, yeah, nobody said about missions which have to survive nights (or even all orbital ones)
Your comparison of received and radiated energy glances over the fact that body of spacecraft is quite compact vs. solar panels being secondary structures outside of it. Juno most likely still has radiators to get rid of waste heat. The decision to use solar panels was a practical one - you shouldn't use at will RTGs which are in very short supply, if there's alternative available for given science objectives (one that would make much more frequent missions feasible, too)
NASA is launching quite soon a spacecraft to Jupiter relying on solar panels. And the ESA spacecraft part of mentioned joint mission will also rely on solar panels. Seems they have improved quite a bit / I wouldn't be too surprised at seeing, eventually, some mission to Saturn relying on them.
Not saying that we don't need RTGs, we do of course (for further missions or more complex ones; using solar panels whenever possible saves RTGs for those...), but part of the premises of TFS is not terribly accurate.
Slashdot Mirror
...I'm aware of...
^that part of what you wrote is the key...
You need machine foster parents for what is, probably, the only plausible way of getting our asses out of this system, assuming technology that seems to be certainly within our range - embryo colonization.
(yes, hibernation of a skeleton crew / very small group of initial settlers, with the main purpose of kickstarting the colony and the growth of stored embryos, might be close enough)
Though "Porsche Unleashed" was an arcade game already...as pretty much whole NFS series from its inception. Which isn't strictly a bad thing, really - after all it essentially means that a game knows it's a game.
(generally, consider you might be also falling a bit into simple nostalgia; and overlooking lots of indy stuff, which gives often quite close experience to "golden days", whichever time period we mean by that in given discussion (~= from your youth); with "mainstream" expanded, and popular stuff being what fits nicely into current level of technology)
"Big $ and small brain" aren't a prerequisite for wasteful spending. In fact, if you look around, you'll notice that many of those who really should be more frugal (considering their real level of "$"), are actually often first in line for pointless shopping.
I don't get why people are saying that; among the most popular PC games you'll find WoW, soon Starcraft 2 (and, unfortunately not soon, Diablo 3 - but how late it will be only strengthens what I'm trying to show), numerous games based on Source, Galciv2, Sins of Solar Empire, soon Elemental (really can't wait for this one); also such nice gems as World of Goo, Aquaria, et al. Many of those supposedly showing "what PC gaming is all about", most of those not touching consoles in any way, also most with quite "modest" GFX (but, via nice artistic touches, often looking phenomenally). And now you're saying it has something to do with consoles?
No, publishers simply got their senses some time ago and don't want to limit their group of customers just for pointless bling (helps that laptops are a majority of PCs sold)
And there's also Solitaire, Farmville or Peggle...
Bringing back two Voodoo 2 cards, found for pennies now, (or some nice Voodoo 3) would be probably a bit more practical.
Never said you should. Said quite the opposite in fact - said that if you're still using a ten year-old card today, you've had excellent value. Thing is though, I doubt you are and I'll bet there are good, sane reasons for this.
Joining the discussion - that's actually quite possible and not much of a stretch. In fact, one of my most often used PCs has...Matrox G400 16MB; one that will be 10 years old in a month IIRC (and the type is available for 11 years, I think). Most of the components in that machine are a bit younger by now (not by much), sure - but the GFX card does not really limit anything, not for what this machine was and is used (web, IM, TV, a little writing & small dev stuff, even basic video editing in its time - though I could easily edit 720p or 1080p via proxy editing...and basically can watch the former if I really want to, for some reason; all mostly a matter of proper, efficient software)
I doubt newer microwaves are in any appreciate way more power efficient BTW - they are still made pretty much in the same way, which is determined by the basic concept behind how they work and pretty basic, straightforward and long-known implementation of it. Old one might lose, somewhat, due to aging of transformer / caps / etc., but probably not by much (certainly not justifying throwing it away)
Thing is, toying with the radio spectrum can't really work any other way than via the "government way"...
Read my post just below, in response to parent; and don't project universally your experiences from some dysfunctional market.
It's a matter of "belief" suddenly?...
I pay almost exactly $15 for prepaid 4 GB via 3G valid for two months (and if next recharge happens before that point, unused "data credit" is simply added to the new one); contract deals are of course less expensive still per amount of data transferred.
And my place isn't all that great.
"Fine"? In contract deal the data connection simply stops working, with few warnings starting comfortably early; and best of all, it can be "recharged" via means (and rates) very close to typical prepaid recharge levels.
Ex-Soviet Union generally doesn't have very exceptionally low birth rate; the rates are what they are for Russia largely due to whole generation of male alcoholics and drinking-related illnesses that are killing them.
And ultimately we're all on this boat; breeding while probably already beyond the sustainable levels for the planet, in some of those places even outright using 3-4 times more resources per capita than there is available long term (without taking them from the past or borrowing from the future), won't bring anything good...most likely especially for places doing it.
Ehhh...this confusion again; one group choosing as their trademark a name of basic radio method.
GSM association also uses CDMA for parts of their technology; but older standards from them, using TDMA, are...well...quite a bit older. So, what, were you making a point "older technology using less demanding, easier & cheaper to implement methods"? That's a surprise...
Of course, supposed "inferiority" hasn't stopped GSM being wildly more successful, evidently much better suited to demands of the world, so I'm not sure if you are making the point you intended to make there.
They would have to pay MPEG-LA for each streaming of H.264 if the video is more than 12 minutes in length.
Also - tons of people actually have cameras perfectly capable of making videos in this resolution, assuming they are of quite specific kind - stop motion animation.
But yeah, I would prefer better bitrates (and/or encoding methods; H.264 won't be the last word) in more "standard" resolutions than such things basically just for show. Vimeo has "only" HD, with with their higher bitrates they look better (plus one can download the initial file)
So...to hell with probably all of them? (at the least pretty much all "notable" ones)
@5 - that seems mostly natural, and for many species (in their way), not just us; probably often a competitive edge (it's just that we aren't so readily & rapidly regulated out of "living the dream" by other species / pressures of surroundings; the luxury of high adaptability). How many people really saw Civil War, WW1, WW2, great famines or pretty much any such turmoil? (with its full consequences)
Well, and it's only as long as you're reasonably fine already, of course - I'd venture a guess that a lot of people throughout the world, also today, don't quite see it as "roses and sweetness"...at least not the same kind of it. I suspect they still do, in a way; hell, large portion of the planet thinks there will be "roses and sweetness" actually after the end of time and/or after they'll....die; or smth.
OTOH many here seem to be quite displeased with power consumption of DAB receivers (and we all know that FM ones can be made to consume minuscule amounts of battery) - could it be a bit (also? etc.) a case of, more or less, a balance between power consumption of transceivers and power consumption of receivers?
I'd say minimizing the latter at the expense of the former is, in case of radio, desirable; the point, really.
Or - without the need to leave space for DAB. rest of the spectrum could be reshuffled so that universal cellular transmissions could have more bandwidth. There are also multicast transmissions possible via IP networks, BTW.
Battery life cares, I guess. Several posters in this thread mention pathetic times of DAB receiver operation on battery power - even when those are fairly large devices with a place for few AA cells.
I almost don't see any impact of FM reception in battery life of mobile phone, in which FM receiver is practically "free" (hell, probably one of the least expensive mobile phones with FM radio, Nokia 1616, seems to be cheaper than any DAB radio - but with a mobile phone thrown in for "free"; 5030, not much more expensive, has also a loudspeaker)
Really, people value the non-interactivity, it's a benefit. Sometimes you just want to fill the background with good enough music / etc. while doing something else (I suspect also not wanting something great - not wanting to be hooked too much); with scheduled short news service every hour a nice bonus (also one you don't have to actively follow, but still be certain that important news will reach you)
This blog post covers it quite nicely:
the vast majority of the radio listeners don't listen to music. They hear music instead. There's a difference. They put the kids on the SUV, and drive them to school, and turn on the radio in the meantime. Or, they're stuck in traffic, pissed off, and need to listen to "easy" music to pass the time. Or, they're sitting on their sofa, reading a magazine, and have the radio ON as a background.
Very few people actually drive somewhere in order to turn on the radio and listen to music. Or sit on their sofa, closing their eyes, and listen to just music. Normal people instead, are so busy with their lives, their problems, the quick pace of this civilization, that simply don't have the time to discover new music. Listening to unknown kind of melodies, or new kinds of sub-genres altogether, takes them out of their comfort zone. Listening to something like Dan Deacon instead of Lady Gaga, for example, while the kids shout at each other at the back of the car, makes it difficult to level your head. Not only you have your problems, but you have this new 'annoying' music playing instead of the music (or kind of music) you already know so well.
Basically, commercial radio works as a kind of a depressant for the masses. At first, it feels like music is exactly the opposite: an excitement that is, but in reality, in the large scheme of things, as far as FM radio is concerned, it's nothing but one of the ways that helps you kept in check. No, this is not a conspiracy theory, it's just how things work. Listeners want it that way too.
That's also BTW why any possible benefits of DAB are probably irrelevant - people are happy with very few stations already. For anything more there are ways you mention.
I don't know. FM might be considered to be of "good quality" in a lot more places than those where it has "clean signal" - it degrades quite gracefully, for a large part of that process still sounds pleasant. No such thing with DAB.
I have here a simple alarm radio, in a place near the edge of reception areas / in the middle between transmitters. Toying with the placement and antenna is required, but generally one can still get almost perfect reception (I wouldn't held much hope for digital), even after my damn cat shortened the antenna to a fraction of its length (well, much more toying required, a bit more static...but still pleasant)
Because non-gov entities don't present such kinds of solutions? (and no, market isn't guaranteed to not fall into them - look at, say, SUV uptake some time ago) BTW, ever heard of GSM, by far the most popular cellular standard on the planet (or so I've heard), also spearheaded by administrative activities? Or DVB-T?
...and for some time now integrated "for free" in many mobile phones, at least as far as FM is concerned.
Generally, what's this "free market & Nokia to the rescue"? Nokia doesn't do like it's being described, not with technology of such scope - think GSM (pure 2G), "2.5G" (GPRS, EDGE), 3G & "3.5G", and now LTE - this is the kind of technological scope we're talking about here, not some new minor feature in handsets. Each step took many years, too.
Even when the progress in the area was, evidently, highly desirable by people. DAB OTOH isn't nearly as attractive - if anything, first versions of DAB were brought to the market too soon, when available codecs weren't very optimal yet (hence quality suffered). All the while FM is mostly good enough with quality, and DAB doesn't go near AM where that one is strong. It just...doesn't really give much value. No wonder people weren't quick with adopting it.
Developing under agreement is a good thing here - not only in place where many different regulatory bodies almost overlap in area (as far as radio goes), this also has the effects of commoditizing the equipment & making the technology cheaper (what played a large role with tech from GSM association). Prices could be much worse...
Anyway, people just don't listen to the radio the way they used to anyway (that could be also an argument for why such system was a waste of time - it would be better to wait 2 decades, give the spectrum to cellular technology and provide any radio, if anybody wants it, via IP)
Uhm, yeah, nobody said about missions which have to survive nights (or even all orbital ones)
Your comparison of received and radiated energy glances over the fact that body of spacecraft is quite compact vs. solar panels being secondary structures outside of it. Juno most likely still has radiators to get rid of waste heat.
The decision to use solar panels was a practical one - you shouldn't use at will RTGs which are in very short supply, if there's alternative available for given science objectives (one that would make much more frequent missions feasible, too)
NASA is launching quite soon a spacecraft to Jupiter relying on solar panels. And the ESA spacecraft part of mentioned joint mission will also rely on solar panels. Seems they have improved quite a bit / I wouldn't be too surprised at seeing, eventually, some mission to Saturn relying on them.
Not saying that we don't need RTGs, we do of course (for further missions or more complex ones; using solar panels whenever possible saves RTGs for those...), but part of the premises of TFS is not terribly accurate.