This makes sense from a "Mars Rover" perspective, when they do the design they only have access to 3MP camera technology, or 8GB flash drives, etc...
However to say the same about your F150 Truck? Sorry it isn't that special.
Lack of Equipment specialization? BS again! There are tons of technological standards, and most of them are more less stable. Look at PC's the last 10 years. Every now again again you might have to make a slight change to procedure, but it is basically the same.
What is FAR more likely is car/truck makers like to make everything themselves. To design every component. The reason for this is so you can't easily replace anything. You need to buy their parts. Go to their dealer. Hell, even stupid stuff like bolts and screws are custom, so you have to go and buy a 20$ plastic screw rather than a 0.05 cent one. The same with their electronic components. The fact that they have to design every part also means that of course they are behind the curve, A) because it is just more work to do, and B) because they are a stupid car/truck maker not a technology expert.
Anyway I call BS on that whole idea and have zero sympathy for the lot. Sooner or later one of the car/truck makers will realize that it is a better path to just make a great car/truck and leave the technological stuff to companies that do that for a living. Heck top gear has reviewed enough horrible GPS designed by particular car designer for their cars, or terrible control UI, etc...
Pardon the pun. but stop trying to reinvent the wheel everything time you use technology and use common components.
Well until we actually observe other alien life the scientific assumption should be that most life is like ours, that ours is the path of least resistance, the optimal path that all life takes. I think we should be open to it being radically different, however until we observe anything to the contrary, it is all just so much speculation. It could be that some life is so radically different that we may have a hard time recognizing to even observe it. It could be that we are the life oddballs, and most take another path. Who knows. However at this time the most rational response would be to surmise that at least at this time, life is likely similar to ourselves.
Seriously. Does anyone really fall for this. This is two things: 1) Justification of Control and 2) Justification of Budget.
Full stop.
Do you really think that a branch of the US military has a database that controls the operations of dams throughout the land and that "hackers" could penetrate such a system to cause havoc?
At worst some dude with a Chinese IP, was messing about stumbling around and may have accessed a system where a dam DB might be contained. Even if they got access to the system, and even if they managed to access the DB, likely all it was is an inventory of dams and likely their location and specifications for engineering purposes, for maintenance and management. So yeah perhaps if they managed to access all those things (big if, as all should be secure) then they might be able to deduce "vulnerabilities" in that they might see a damn is 60 years old and in need of repair/replacement, or access to structural diagrams that might illustrate a design flaw if it actually has one... However they should still have to physically travel to nowhere land to get access and likely do some physical things to even hope at any compromise. Thinking that the reds are accessing critical dams over the internet and will imminently be able to cause them to somehow overload, explode, fail, etc... is ridiculous.
I don't buy that for a second, other than the military needs to make excuses for its existence and budget, and these PR wars are what give the politicians the excuse to keep dumping more money into them.
In principle I think home schooling would be the way to go given an ideal situation as you describe. Unfortunately I would say in 99.9999% of the cases of homeschooling, this is NOT the case. Much more likely is that they have some weird beliefs that most of society doesn't subscribe to and they don't want their children to be influenced by say a public education, which might *gasp* actually educate them.
As a result whenever I hear about someone that was "home schooled", I am immediately filled with skepticism about how normal, un-weird, and not fucked up they are. Seems most are taught to believe the earth is 5000 years old, or that humans rode dinosaurs, or that Jews are bad, or any of a host of unlikely or offensive things.
I know of perhaps one couple that might be able to do it that would (they are slightly hippy), as I would consider the mother very smart and not ignorant (was grasping for a better word and gave up), and as it is I believe the kids likely (or will) go to public school, but I could see her additionally augmenting their education (which is probably the way to go anyway if you have the time and ability).
Even throwing out the whole moral or ethical side of things, from a purely corporate perspective it makes no sense.
A perfect example, is that a few years ago I was working on a project that included a particular DB dev. Part way though the project she leaves on parental leave. Another is assigned. She has to start pretty much from scratch and be brought up to speed. A few months later, she goes on leave. Another is assigned. Repeat. The last one managed to stick around until completion. But the project was very delayed by this. For myself I was frustrated and couldn't believe the manager assigned several pregnant women to my project in a row. Then again, managers are likely not supposed to discriminate against that. Fine. They have those rights and I would never argue against that, however from a purely empirical perspective of getting work done for a project... sorry it happens. Women get pregnant and leave the workplace/projects. Even allowing for men to do the same, it is more often and longer.
I look around me and most women I have worked with have had at least one or two at this point over a period of the last few years. This means you are supporting a work force of nearly half that are not actually "working". Meanwhile I have been here the whole time working for years more than many of them. Then when you think about pay level and seniority, etc... how is that fair to men? Anyway that is not to say that I won't participate in having a child or taking time off, however I haven't thus far...
Anyway it is a double standard. Actually there was an author that recently was on the CBC promoting his new book, and he actually had the balls to point out that statistically women actually shouldn't make as much money as men simply because they do not work as much due to pregnancy. If you are trying to be totally fair, and not getting into the morality argument etc...
I suppose. I wasn't really thinking laptops. But you are right on laptops integrated video is more common, and dedicated is horribly expensive for even a middling card. Which is why I would not really consider gaming on a laptop.
So I suppose as a target, it will make some difference for those that wish to play some games on their laptop. At any rate it will raise the bar as to which games are possible VS impossible to play on a regular laptop that doesn't cost 2 grand.
First: Metro is all on lowest settings and scores between 11-25FPS Second: Crisis I am not sure how performance is higher than mainstream... unless "performance" is just a nicer way to say lowest quality, highest performance. Third: The resolutions they are talking about are 1366x768 which might have been relevant 10 years ago, but are hardly what I would call modern.
So if you are saying that these integrated solutions will barely play modern games if at all on their lowest settings, then yes OK I agree.
What I was making fun of is that saying something has 1.5-3x the power, isn't so significant when it is multiplied by very little in the first place.
One could argue that the increase will allow some casual lower end gaming on integrated video to be improved. However one might also argue that newer modern games that come out will also *gasp* have higher demands on video anyway, and so your gains are moot. Unless you just want to play old games etc...
Then again if you are worried about video, you likely want to play games, and the new ones that come out.
Don't get me wrong, I think this is a good step, and one that will eventually see a level of integration that may allow for real integration of video for gaming purposes. Particularly now that new systems can have 64bit OS/CPU and more than 3.5GB of memory to possibly share with the video. The trouble is sharing all that bandwidth across a single architecture, which seems to be where all the current development is.
Many of the coal plants in China I doubt meet any sort of regulations. On top of that I am sure a bunch do, however the fact is coal is used for a lot more than just power generation. The population uses it personally. You can buy cakes or bricks of the stuff and it is used for heating, cooking, etc... none of which is going to have ANY of the environmental scrubbers and the like. Now it does sound like much, but expand that usage to the number of citizens... Even if China refit every one of their power generation plants to be the most environmentally friendly ever, they still have a much larger problem.
The black lung smog over London in the industrial age wasn't only due to factories, but due to the fact that everyone used it for everything. Heck my parents house still has a "coal chute", which was eventually converted to Oil, and that is in Canada.
Sounds to me like the Computer in question had a "tell". Seems fine to me to take advantage of that. More realistic that way!
Otherwise it is like whining, hey no fair, you can figure out when I am bluffing or not, give me all the money I lost back. To which the response should be, well either don't play or become ( or design) a better poker player...
"Holy Living shit" might be hard to interpret in court. I suggest making it longer using specific examples.
I would also suggest you only print it on XXXXL size shirts as it will have to be that big in order to hold it all.
In addition, on the inside of the tag, make sure you use the standard "This agreement is valid upon visual inspection, and may be amended at any time and in any way in my head and I need only notify you verbally after said beating."
This is my primary problem with the Green Party up here in Canada. When they started out, they seemed a reasonable choice. Then they decided they needed to be a "National" party and run a candidate in every riding. Which means they accepted any nutbar into their ranks as they needed warm bodies to lose races.
This has twisted a reasonable green party focused on sensible environmental policy combined with a more conservative fiscal policy. Now it is a more radical leftist environmental fear mongering hippy silliness. Were their policy decisions seem less based on real science and more based on ideology, which is what you are normally voting against in the normal Conservatives! All it is, is the other side of the coin, but no better.
It is my belief that Nuclear Energy isn't getting a fair shake. About the only thing I agree is that the traditional reactors do take a long time to build, and are very costly initially to construct. That isn't to say new more modern technologies are not more viable. What really gets me, is that people put the blinders on, and don't even want to further our research into these areas. I think it is absurd.
Hydro is great. It really has only two big issues. One it can only exist in certain physical places, and once you run out, you have no more places for Hydro. Secondly, is as the environmentalist will point out, but its very nature, you are basically flooding a LARGE area in order to create a resovoir. This irreversibly destroys habitat and ecology... though some might point out it creates a new one... i.e. a lake. I know in Canada, many of these have been in Quebec, and what has been a sticking point is that in may involve Native groups in one way or another (their land, disputed land, etc...) which is also a concern.
Hydro is also hugely important in that it is one of the ONLY sources of energy we use that can be used as a great big potential energy battery. I.e. when it is sunny out use solar, when it is windy out use wind, and power pumps to move water to higher gravity. Then when the sun goes out, or the wind dies down, you open the sluice gates, and produce hydro energy using the water you just stored. There are inefficiencies in the translation, but otherwise you have nothing. You are left with always on Nuclear, or easy to spin up Gas/Coal generation.
Solar is SLOWLY getting better. However per Watt is by far the most expensive. Also those panels have to come from someplace. That someplace is China. The production of them and the materials needed to construct them, and their life span... not great. Though I think government could do a lot more to promote this for individuals. Remove the barriers to sell power back to grid. Subsidize that. Let individuals and companies take care of the rest. Also from an electrical distribution perspective it makes much more sense, as you lose a lot in translation as it were moving current from one geographic area to another. Keeping generation local is a big plus.
"as there would be no anti-trust laws to keep them from colluding, price-fixing, etc. and any competitor who tried to enter the field would be crushed before they could get a foothold."
LOL! (wipes away tear). Funniest thing I have heard all day. I think you are being overly optimistic that this isn't already your reality.
Many have mentioned, good reasons already. Such as the fees that are changed, the percentage that VISA/MC/etc... all charge, which is all passed on to customer, peer-to-peer transactions, etc...
The real reason is of course control, or lack of it. Pretty much all "electronic" currency right now is handled in 2 forms. Debit, which is governed by "Interact", and Credit Cards, which for all intents and purposes are VISA/MC. That is a lot of power consolidated into 3 groups, that are not "national" or at least not "national Canada". Given their recent actions against Wikileaks, one might argue they are "national US". Who at the whim of a national government decided to eliminate their services from an individual, who not only isn't, of that nation, but also wasn't physically in that nation, nor actually changed by anyone associated with that.
Anyway, one could argue that Mint is a POS, and given that the Canadian Mint is behind it maybe it is. However I think there is a very easy reason for it. Also the other electronic transactions, are exactly that, transactions, whereby various currencies may be used and exchanged (at high fees), where as the idea behind mint is that it is an actual currency... perhaps, I haven't really looked into it all that much to be honest.
Still, might fail, seems better than, will fail. I guess the risk/reward is: "What are the odds of it failing within the first 4 years?"
I would have to think part of the problem is having to insulate electronic components against hard radiation, while at the same time trying to cool them.
You would think the best method would be simply to use a peltier with a big ass heat sink protruding into vacuum. Zero moving parts, no liquid coolants. Then again, ultra low temperature might be hard to hit this way, depending what ultra low is. Or the wattage required for such a device might exceed what is realistically gathered from solar. Then again something like a RTG, though expensive might provide perhaps enough power.
Though looking a terrestrial CPU overclocking, if you want to hit those ultra low temperatures, you have to use a compressor based system, or LN2. Which is more or less the only options being discussed.
Seriously, other than multiple other flaws, how is this going to work with a battery?
Is it going to have a cord so you can plug it in? Sorry power cord won't reach!:) Or even if it has a battery , you pick it up and the battery is dead, so useless... and how might you charge it? Like an iPhone? And how is that going to work when locked in a safe or gun cabinet?
I recall reading Animal Farm, 1984, and Brave New World all in the same year as curriculum. I think it was Grade 9.
Did A Wrinkle in Time and Dune on my own dime.
Couldn't agree more with the politician. I think I am mostly just surprised that a good idea came from a politician. He must have good staff or something.
Then again, unless they tackle the whole creationism thing down there, it's a bit of a mess. I mean trying to promote science and math by getting kids excited about science fiction on one hand and yet teaching them anti-science in creationism on the other... doesn't make a lot of sense.
Someone mentioned to me that these are already crossfire, so you are really buying two 500$ cards, which isn't as crazy really.
That said, these things were never meant to generate sales, only media and "prestige".
I liken it to car companies making racing cars, even those they only sell a few and loose money on everyone. However for the rest of us shmucks that buy the 30,000$ car that has that race car pedigree... i.e. AMD or nVidia want to prove them against each other at the very highest end, hoping that people will buy into the idea that, because my 200$ card might use some vaguely similar technology that their's might be somehow more powerful than the others.
What most people don't seem to get is that video cards are produced in such a way as to limit their functionality and features purposefully for the only reason of hitting different markets and price points. The same way CPU's are/were binned, and OC born. Disconnecting stuff simply to disable it to make it not compete with a more expensive version. Other than is certain extreem examples, the manufacturing costs differences are likely pretty minimal (modified by RAM size, but usually only 1-2GB anyway, or a high bin rate of a certain die size perhaps).
Anyway, as alluded to, it is penis waving to generate sales of shittier cards.
Ah, I guess that would make sense, sorta, insomuch as a 1000$ video card makes sense. Though at the same time if what you say is true (and I didn't RTFA), then really this is more like bulk buying two 500$ video cards, which realistically have been around for long time as a "reasonable" price point. I think the old nVidia Geforce 500TI started at 500$ and that was like 13 years ago or something.
Anyway there will be fools who want to "quad" these things out, so 750W would still apply. Regardless 375W is still stupid. Maybe not as stupid as 270Wx2, but still stupid.
LOL, so at full load you will need pretty much a secondary PSU to run the damn thing... really decent power management I guess! Though I guess considering the stupid 1000$ price tag, you probably don't care about buying a 200$ 1200-1500W PSU I suppose.
Then again if you want to run a crossfire configuration, that's a 750W under load minimum. As a few HD and a high end processor, well you are hitting some PSU limits!
That said if I had unlimited money I might buy it, though even then probably not as it is such a waste.
Also htf did they pick the name "Malta"? I mean at least nVidia had the good sense to call their penis "Titan" for gods sake!
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This makes sense from a "Mars Rover" perspective, when they do the design they only have access to 3MP camera technology, or 8GB flash drives, etc...
However to say the same about your F150 Truck? Sorry it isn't that special.
Lack of Equipment specialization? BS again! There are tons of technological standards, and most of them are more less stable. Look at PC's the last 10 years. Every now again again you might have to make a slight change to procedure, but it is basically the same.
What is FAR more likely is car/truck makers like to make everything themselves. To design every component. The reason for this is so you can't easily replace anything. You need to buy their parts. Go to their dealer. Hell, even stupid stuff like bolts and screws are custom, so you have to go and buy a 20$ plastic screw rather than a 0.05 cent one. The same with their electronic components. The fact that they have to design every part also means that of course they are behind the curve, A) because it is just more work to do, and B) because they are a stupid car/truck maker not a technology expert.
Anyway I call BS on that whole idea and have zero sympathy for the lot. Sooner or later one of the car/truck makers will realize that it is a better path to just make a great car/truck and leave the technological stuff to companies that do that for a living. Heck top gear has reviewed enough horrible GPS designed by particular car designer for their cars, or terrible control UI, etc...
Pardon the pun. but stop trying to reinvent the wheel everything time you use technology and use common components.
Make a box with a large switch on it and a light. Label it "The Internet". Have a presentation on the internet.
You live in a computer simulation.
No. I am saying that society shouldn't get concerned at the idea of a man who doesn't take paternal leave being compensated better because of it.
Well until we actually observe other alien life the scientific assumption should be that most life is like ours, that ours is the path of least resistance, the optimal path that all life takes. I think we should be open to it being radically different, however until we observe anything to the contrary, it is all just so much speculation. It could be that some life is so radically different that we may have a hard time recognizing to even observe it. It could be that we are the life oddballs, and most take another path. Who knows. However at this time the most rational response would be to surmise that at least at this time, life is likely similar to ourselves.
Seriously. Does anyone really fall for this. This is two things: 1) Justification of Control and 2) Justification of Budget.
Full stop.
Do you really think that a branch of the US military has a database that controls the operations of dams throughout the land and that "hackers" could penetrate such a system to cause havoc?
At worst some dude with a Chinese IP, was messing about stumbling around and may have accessed a system where a dam DB might be contained. Even if they got access to the system, and even if they managed to access the DB, likely all it was is an inventory of dams and likely their location and specifications for engineering purposes, for maintenance and management. So yeah perhaps if they managed to access all those things (big if, as all should be secure) then they might be able to deduce "vulnerabilities" in that they might see a damn is 60 years old and in need of repair/replacement, or access to structural diagrams that might illustrate a design flaw if it actually has one... However they should still have to physically travel to nowhere land to get access and likely do some physical things to even hope at any compromise. Thinking that the reds are accessing critical dams over the internet and will imminently be able to cause them to somehow overload, explode, fail, etc... is ridiculous.
I don't buy that for a second, other than the military needs to make excuses for its existence and budget, and these PR wars are what give the politicians the excuse to keep dumping more money into them.
In principle I think home schooling would be the way to go given an ideal situation as you describe. Unfortunately I would say in 99.9999% of the cases of homeschooling, this is NOT the case. Much more likely is that they have some weird beliefs that most of society doesn't subscribe to and they don't want their children to be influenced by say a public education, which might *gasp* actually educate them.
As a result whenever I hear about someone that was "home schooled", I am immediately filled with skepticism about how normal, un-weird, and not fucked up they are. Seems most are taught to believe the earth is 5000 years old, or that humans rode dinosaurs, or that Jews are bad, or any of a host of unlikely or offensive things.
I know of perhaps one couple that might be able to do it that would (they are slightly hippy), as I would consider the mother very smart and not ignorant (was grasping for a better word and gave up), and as it is I believe the kids likely (or will) go to public school, but I could see her additionally augmenting their education (which is probably the way to go anyway if you have the time and ability).
Even throwing out the whole moral or ethical side of things, from a purely corporate perspective it makes no sense.
A perfect example, is that a few years ago I was working on a project that included a particular DB dev. Part way though the project she leaves on parental leave. Another is assigned. She has to start pretty much from scratch and be brought up to speed. A few months later, she goes on leave. Another is assigned. Repeat. The last one managed to stick around until completion. But the project was very delayed by this. For myself I was frustrated and couldn't believe the manager assigned several pregnant women to my project in a row. Then again, managers are likely not supposed to discriminate against that. Fine. They have those rights and I would never argue against that, however from a purely empirical perspective of getting work done for a project... sorry it happens. Women get pregnant and leave the workplace/projects. Even allowing for men to do the same, it is more often and longer.
I look around me and most women I have worked with have had at least one or two at this point over a period of the last few years. This means you are supporting a work force of nearly half that are not actually "working". Meanwhile I have been here the whole time working for years more than many of them. Then when you think about pay level and seniority, etc... how is that fair to men? Anyway that is not to say that I won't participate in having a child or taking time off, however I haven't thus far...
Anyway it is a double standard. Actually there was an author that recently was on the CBC promoting his new book, and he actually had the balls to point out that statistically women actually shouldn't make as much money as men simply because they do not work as much due to pregnancy. If you are trying to be totally fair, and not getting into the morality argument etc...
I suppose. I wasn't really thinking laptops. But you are right on laptops integrated video is more common, and dedicated is horribly expensive for even a middling card. Which is why I would not really consider gaming on a laptop.
So I suppose as a target, it will make some difference for those that wish to play some games on their laptop. At any rate it will raise the bar as to which games are possible VS impossible to play on a regular laptop that doesn't cost 2 grand.
Not sure I would trust those benchmarks.
First: Metro is all on lowest settings and scores between 11-25FPS
Second: Crisis I am not sure how performance is higher than mainstream... unless "performance" is just a nicer way to say lowest quality, highest performance.
Third: The resolutions they are talking about are 1366x768 which might have been relevant 10 years ago, but are hardly what I would call modern.
So if you are saying that these integrated solutions will barely play modern games if at all on their lowest settings, then yes OK I agree.
What I was making fun of is that saying something has 1.5-3x the power, isn't so significant when it is multiplied by very little in the first place.
One could argue that the increase will allow some casual lower end gaming on integrated video to be improved. However one might also argue that newer modern games that come out will also *gasp* have higher demands on video anyway, and so your gains are moot. Unless you just want to play old games etc...
Then again if you are worried about video, you likely want to play games, and the new ones that come out.
Don't get me wrong, I think this is a good step, and one that will eventually see a level of integration that may allow for real integration of video for gaming purposes. Particularly now that new systems can have 64bit OS/CPU and more than 3.5GB of memory to possibly share with the video. The trouble is sharing all that bandwidth across a single architecture, which seems to be where all the current development is.
Wow so rather than the 11 FPS you were getting, you might be able to get 22 FPS!
You can almost play a video game at those speeds! Well done!
Many of the coal plants in China I doubt meet any sort of regulations. On top of that I am sure a bunch do, however the fact is coal is used for a lot more than just power generation. The population uses it personally. You can buy cakes or bricks of the stuff and it is used for heating, cooking, etc... none of which is going to have ANY of the environmental scrubbers and the like. Now it does sound like much, but expand that usage to the number of citizens... Even if China refit every one of their power generation plants to be the most environmentally friendly ever, they still have a much larger problem.
The black lung smog over London in the industrial age wasn't only due to factories, but due to the fact that everyone used it for everything. Heck my parents house still has a "coal chute", which was eventually converted to Oil, and that is in Canada.
Sounds to me like the Computer in question had a "tell". Seems fine to me to take advantage of that. More realistic that way!
Otherwise it is like whining, hey no fair, you can figure out when I am bluffing or not, give me all the money I lost back. To which the response should be, well either don't play or become ( or design) a better poker player...
"Holy Living shit" might be hard to interpret in court. I suggest making it longer using specific examples.
I would also suggest you only print it on XXXXL size shirts as it will have to be that big in order to hold it all.
In addition, on the inside of the tag, make sure you use the standard "This agreement is valid upon visual inspection, and may be amended at any time and in any way in my head and I need only notify you verbally after said beating."
This is my primary problem with the Green Party up here in Canada. When they started out, they seemed a reasonable choice. Then they decided they needed to be a "National" party and run a candidate in every riding. Which means they accepted any nutbar into their ranks as they needed warm bodies to lose races.
This has twisted a reasonable green party focused on sensible environmental policy combined with a more conservative fiscal policy. Now it is a more radical leftist environmental fear mongering hippy silliness. Were their policy decisions seem less based on real science and more based on ideology, which is what you are normally voting against in the normal Conservatives! All it is, is the other side of the coin, but no better.
It is my belief that Nuclear Energy isn't getting a fair shake. About the only thing I agree is that the traditional reactors do take a long time to build, and are very costly initially to construct. That isn't to say new more modern technologies are not more viable. What really gets me, is that people put the blinders on, and don't even want to further our research into these areas. I think it is absurd.
Hydro is great. It really has only two big issues. One it can only exist in certain physical places, and once you run out, you have no more places for Hydro. Secondly, is as the environmentalist will point out, but its very nature, you are basically flooding a LARGE area in order to create a resovoir. This irreversibly destroys habitat and ecology... though some might point out it creates a new one... i.e. a lake. I know in Canada, many of these have been in Quebec, and what has been a sticking point is that in may involve Native groups in one way or another (their land, disputed land, etc...) which is also a concern.
Hydro is also hugely important in that it is one of the ONLY sources of energy we use that can be used as a great big potential energy battery. I.e. when it is sunny out use solar, when it is windy out use wind, and power pumps to move water to higher gravity. Then when the sun goes out, or the wind dies down, you open the sluice gates, and produce hydro energy using the water you just stored. There are inefficiencies in the translation, but otherwise you have nothing. You are left with always on Nuclear, or easy to spin up Gas/Coal generation.
Solar is SLOWLY getting better. However per Watt is by far the most expensive. Also those panels have to come from someplace. That someplace is China. The production of them and the materials needed to construct them, and their life span... not great. Though I think government could do a lot more to promote this for individuals. Remove the barriers to sell power back to grid. Subsidize that. Let individuals and companies take care of the rest. Also from an electrical distribution perspective it makes much more sense, as you lose a lot in translation as it were moving current from one geographic area to another. Keeping generation local is a big plus.
"as there would be no anti-trust laws to keep them from colluding, price-fixing, etc. and any competitor who tried to enter the field would be crushed before they could get a foothold."
LOL! (wipes away tear). Funniest thing I have heard all day. I think you are being overly optimistic that this isn't already your reality.
Many have mentioned, good reasons already. Such as the fees that are changed, the percentage that VISA/MC/etc... all charge, which is all passed on to customer, peer-to-peer transactions, etc...
The real reason is of course control, or lack of it. Pretty much all "electronic" currency right now is handled in 2 forms. Debit, which is governed by "Interact", and Credit Cards, which for all intents and purposes are VISA/MC. That is a lot of power consolidated into 3 groups, that are not "national" or at least not "national Canada". Given their recent actions against Wikileaks, one might argue they are "national US". Who at the whim of a national government decided to eliminate their services from an individual, who not only isn't, of that nation, but also wasn't physically in that nation, nor actually changed by anyone associated with that.
Anyway, one could argue that Mint is a POS, and given that the Canadian Mint is behind it maybe it is. However I think there is a very easy reason for it. Also the other electronic transactions, are exactly that, transactions, whereby various currencies may be used and exchanged (at high fees), where as the idea behind mint is that it is an actual currency... perhaps, I haven't really looked into it all that much to be honest.
Still, might fail, seems better than, will fail. I guess the risk/reward is: "What are the odds of it failing within the first 4 years?"
I would have to think part of the problem is having to insulate electronic components against hard radiation, while at the same time trying to cool them.
You would think the best method would be simply to use a peltier with a big ass heat sink protruding into vacuum. Zero moving parts, no liquid coolants. Then again, ultra low temperature might be hard to hit this way, depending what ultra low is. Or the wattage required for such a device might exceed what is realistically gathered from solar. Then again something like a RTG, though expensive might provide perhaps enough power.
Though looking a terrestrial CPU overclocking, if you want to hit those ultra low temperatures, you have to use a compressor based system, or LN2. Which is more or less the only options being discussed.
Seriously, other than multiple other flaws, how is this going to work with a battery?
Is it going to have a cord so you can plug it in? Sorry power cord won't reach! :) Or even if it has a battery , you pick it up and the battery is dead, so useless... and how might you charge it? Like an iPhone? And how is that going to work when locked in a safe or gun cabinet?
Reload! No no no. Reload the batteries! lol
or does naming ships like "Freedom" sound a bit too dystopic.
Also perhaps I am the only one that thinks it is funny that eventually someone is going to get killed by Freedom... It is a Warship after all.
"Today Freedom killed thousands of people, truly a great day for Freedom!" LOL
I recall reading Animal Farm, 1984, and Brave New World all in the same year as curriculum. I think it was Grade 9.
Did A Wrinkle in Time and Dune on my own dime.
Couldn't agree more with the politician. I think I am mostly just surprised that a good idea came from a politician. He must have good staff or something.
Then again, unless they tackle the whole creationism thing down there, it's a bit of a mess. I mean trying to promote science and math by getting kids excited about science fiction on one hand and yet teaching them anti-science in creationism on the other... doesn't make a lot of sense.
Being delusional makes you less depressed. Makes sense.
Someone mentioned to me that these are already crossfire, so you are really buying two 500$ cards, which isn't as crazy really.
That said, these things were never meant to generate sales, only media and "prestige".
I liken it to car companies making racing cars, even those they only sell a few and loose money on everyone. However for the rest of us shmucks that buy the 30,000$ car that has that race car pedigree... i.e. AMD or nVidia want to prove them against each other at the very highest end, hoping that people will buy into the idea that, because my 200$ card might use some vaguely similar technology that their's might be somehow more powerful than the others.
What most people don't seem to get is that video cards are produced in such a way as to limit their functionality and features purposefully for the only reason of hitting different markets and price points. The same way CPU's are/were binned, and OC born. Disconnecting stuff simply to disable it to make it not compete with a more expensive version. Other than is certain extreem examples, the manufacturing costs differences are likely pretty minimal (modified by RAM size, but usually only 1-2GB anyway, or a high bin rate of a certain die size perhaps).
Anyway, as alluded to, it is penis waving to generate sales of shittier cards.
Ah, I guess that would make sense, sorta, insomuch as a 1000$ video card makes sense. Though at the same time if what you say is true (and I didn't RTFA), then really this is more like bulk buying two 500$ video cards, which realistically have been around for long time as a "reasonable" price point. I think the old nVidia Geforce 500TI started at 500$ and that was like 13 years ago or something.
Anyway there will be fools who want to "quad" these things out, so 750W would still apply. Regardless 375W is still stupid. Maybe not as stupid as 270Wx2, but still stupid.
LOL, so at full load you will need pretty much a secondary PSU to run the damn thing... really decent power management I guess! Though I guess considering the stupid 1000$ price tag, you probably don't care about buying a 200$ 1200-1500W PSU I suppose.
Then again if you want to run a crossfire configuration, that's a 750W under load minimum. As a few HD and a high end processor, well you are hitting some PSU limits!
That said if I had unlimited money I might buy it, though even then probably not as it is such a waste.
Also htf did they pick the name "Malta"? I mean at least nVidia had the good sense to call their penis "Titan" for gods sake!