If you drank heavy water or ate something containing a heavy water the deuterium in the heavy water becomes incorporated into your body as the hydrogen in regular water would. There is always a small amount of heavy water in any sample of regular water so you are already ingesting some. The problem only comes when you have large amount of deuterium replacement in your body. As I understand it the very slight difference in bonding energies between hydrogen and deuterium can affect DNA replication.
Personally, and this is probably only me, I would like to see a separate ring in each room rather than on a per floor basis. At the moment, to the best of my knowledge there are generally three rings for a house: kitchen, ground floor, first floor.
I've seen sockets with round pin holes but on on a couple of places that hadn't been touched for an age and a half. The three rectangular pins are the only thing in real use in the UK. Shaver sockets are becoming more popular in bathrooms but they are something of a special case. Don't they work off induced current and have a limit of a few watts?
Once windows is at the log in screen there is still quite a bit to do, generally, before the machine is fully ready for use. Unlike Linux a lot of stuff starts after login. I also noticed that my Linux box tends to run a lot more services than my windows box. Perhaps that is because I develop on Linux and play on Windows...
All in all I think the boot times are probably comparable. Windows might have the edge slightly. To be honest I think it's impossible to compare accurately. One thing I would like to see is a sexier boot sequence for Debian. It's very helpful to see what's loading but also terrifying for new users.
I wonder if what you say is actually true. It would be my guess that no one has every actually studied the link between annoying customers with difficult cancellations causing an increase turn over against lost (and never realized) customers due to that same bad service being reported via word of mouth. The problem is that it's too difficult to track so a company is forced to guess. Some guess that they can make more because people will just hang on due to the difficultly others think they will make more through good customer service. I recently had to cancel a couple of accounts. One gouged me for a further 3 months subscription the other asked me when I would like to cancel. When I said ASAP it was done there and then. I know which one I will be going back to.
I agree no one really cares but I still think we will be seeing HD content of one type or another in a couple of years. The problem is that the media companies have built it up to be some great thing and invested millions probably even billions into the whole HD idea. They will force it though whether people want it or not. Combine that with the fact that all HD formats have a ton of DRM and the media companies have a reason to upgrade. What won't happen (and what the media companies would like) is people rushing out to replace their DVDs with HD versions of the same film. I've got a decent sized DVD collection and the quality of the content suits me fine. If HD content was a similar price (both drives and films) I would buy new films on it but the increase in quality really leaves me cold.
While I don't have a problem with Google placing it's own services at the top on it's own site I am concerned with the fact that they make it appear as if their adverts are like any other. This may lead people to believe they can in fact compete whereas the reality seems to be that they can't. This could easily lead to people paying far more for ads than is necessary. It would be more acceptable if Google were to indicate that your ad will always feature below their ad so that you can make a more informed decision about whether it is worth your money.
Sometimes code is bad because the programmer is not very good (vast majority of cases).
I hear this quite a bit and I think it's probably a flawed assumption or at least to simple a statement to describe the truth. The vast majority of developers can't be below average or the average would drop. What we can say is that a good portion of developers seem to have a poor grasp of basic software development skills. What we need to ask then is why.
In my experience there seems to be far more variation in skill level between software developers than I have seen in any other profession. Perhaps this is simply because I am only familiar with software development and there is the same spectrum width in other professions as well but I somehow doubt it. I suspect, however, that software development is actually a very very hard process that only a small number of people truly have the mental discipline for. Since that number is less than the number of developers required we need to do something to make software development easier for the masses of developers. This is similar to the way cabinets were made. The master cabinet maker would produce the top and front and the less skilled (apprentice) would produce the frame (since it's easier).
The problem is that the "good" things were probably things you just take for granted like play lists and good sound quality. I've had pieces of hardware that had so many bad points it was impossible even see adequate let alone good points. It's almost as if the bad points push the good points into the corner and start waving at you at that point even thinking about the device makes you froth at the mouth with anger.
I once worked with a guy who used to maintain fairly large superconducting NMR magnets. According to him they procedure was essentially as follows Step 1: Connect wires to the magnet taking great care not to quench the magnet in the process (e.g. stop it super conducting). Step 2: Place a large resistive load between the wires and bleed off the stored energy.
Not quite. Microwaves heat (water) due to dipole rotation. It is the that rotation causes the heating. Assuming that a dipole has the correct frequency a microwave will induce heating. The microwave source in a conventional oven is tuned to heat water but IIRC it also catches some of the dipoles in sugars as well.
When we hurt ourselves there is a natural instinct to lick the wound so I'm not that surprised that there is a pain killer in saliva. The primary reason for licking a wound is to clean it but if there was a pain killer included as well that would increase the reason for licking the wound and, thus, probably increase the chance of survival of the animal. Natural selection would quickly select those animals that produced the pain killer.
Sure thermodynamics stops the CO2 --> C + O2 idea but what compressing the CO2 and burying it / shooting it into space / filling a big ballon with it. I suspect that it would be simpler and cheaper to just stop producing CO2 and let nature deal with the current excess but it might be a last ditch partial solution if thigns get really bad.
Spot on. Why oh why is drawing a circle so difficult? The one thing that I always want to do with gimp which is doens't support is draw an arrow. The reason being the I often want to point at something in a photo or screen grab. Why this simple little function isn't present is beyond me. I realize that drawing arrows has little to do with photo manipulation but come on I don't want to have to learn another application to draw an arrow (and yes I know Inkscape but that isn't really suited to teh job either). Looks like I'll be moving to krita...
If anything I would say that your resolutions are way to low. For a full wall display of ultra high quality I would guess at 10000x4500 (for roughly anamorphic). I would also up it to 50 FPS for a really smooth display at 48 bpp a two hour movie is ~100TB for the video alone. Trouble wouldn't be storing it - it would be getting it off the device fast enough.
Evolution works to make the thing that is evolving better suited to live in its surroundings. You could argue that this has the side effect of making the things as simple as possible for a given task (e.g. gathering food). Any simpler and it (the organism) wouldn't be able to perform the task any more complex and a simpler variant will take over because simpler variants are "fitter" (they use less energy).
The fact that GUIs are becoming more complex would indicate that there is either a driving force making them more complex or there is an unexploited area. Look at animals. The first animals that evolved to eat single celled organisms probably did so because the single celled organisms were an unexploited (energy) resource. That evolutionary step was an increase in complaxity but one that was required to exploit the resource. We might be seeing the same with computer GUIs.
I certainly agree with most of what you say and especially that Debian unstable isn't a good introduction. In my defence the computer they were using was only in the next room so it was easy for me to go and fix things.
As for installing programs though I'd say you don't paint and completely fair picture. Most Windows programs come with a very easy to use installer that simply needs double clicking - an opperation most people seem to fully understand now. Combined that with auto-run when you insert a CD and lets face it installing programs couldn't get much simpler. I admit that Ubuntus "Add New Programs" feature makes it equally simple for the most part perhaps evern simpler but there is still one gotcha. My experience of Linux boxes is that they break with frightening regularity. I admit that is probably mainly caused by my use of testing and unstable Debian but I wan't to be at least close to up-to-date. Unlike on Windows a breakage in one place rarely breaks the whole system but I do find I do less maintenance on Windows machines. In reality I suppose I should really just stop compaining and use a stable release...
But is Linux actually "better" for them? The problem is that better means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To my parents and grandparents Windows is better than Linux because they understand it. The only thing that could make Linux better is if it's functionally _exactly_ the same but more secure and quite frankly that probably wouldn't make it better enough to spend the time installing it.
On the other hand for me, as a software developer, I would kick Windows off my machine in a heart beat if I could (wishing there was a Linux edition of SQLServer).
That's why I think this review is deeply flawed. Perhaps Linux will never have the largest market share but so what. Two seater sports cars won't ever have the largest market share either but theres no shortage of people producing them.
I converted a few people over to Linux over the years. All bar one have been developers so they have been computer literate and willing to just try things out (something most people won't do). The transition has generally been painful as I've found that Linux has a very steep initial learning curve.
The one non-developer I have converted, however, was actually the most painless transition of the lot. I set the machine up and told them to just use it. I advised them that if they got stuck just try what seemed right and I would fix anything that broke. They took to it like a duck to water. After a couple of weeks I showed them how to update the system (I had it running Debian unstable) - well ok that didn't go brilliantly but unstable is heavy going even for someone with experience. This person now loves Linux despite it's quirks.
While I am loathed to tell people who know a lot more about economics than me how they should do their jobs I can't help feeling that they might have failed to (correctly) factor in some considerations. Not least is the consideration that Linux is free and always will be where as Windows will pretty much always be pay for even if it has a nominal price. Yes Microsoft could give Windows away in order to sell Office or other applications but that is a fundamental shift in the market and I don't think anyone could truly predict what the outcome of that could be.
Assuming that Linux continues to advance at the pace it is currently advancing it will match Windows for ease of use and features in a couple of years. The stumbling block is, of course, drivers but lets face it 98% of computers fall into one of two camps: those that never suffer driver upgrades because they are bought from "Dell" or they are run by people who know what they are doing.
You rush out and spend god knows how much on the latest and greatest next gen DVD player, you throw away your perfectly good TV / projector / box that emits coloured light and buy a new one that supports HDMI (and HD). Finally, you then cough up more hard earned cash to buy a movie you probably already own on regular DVD for twice the price. You do all this in the hopes of getting a fantasic picture with amazing sound.
Why, oh why, would anyone with two brain cells to rub together then install a wireless connection that uses lossy compression?
Still, fair play for getting that many bits through the air. Personally, I won't be standing anywhere near the transmitter.
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If you drank heavy water or ate something containing a heavy water the deuterium in the heavy water becomes incorporated into your body as the hydrogen in regular water would. There is always a small amount of heavy water in any sample of regular water so you are already ingesting some. The problem only comes when you have large amount of deuterium replacement in your body. As I understand it the very slight difference in bonding energies between hydrogen and deuterium can affect DNA replication.
Personally, and this is probably only me, I would like to see a separate ring in each room rather than on a per floor basis. At the moment, to the best of my knowledge there are generally three rings for a house: kitchen, ground floor, first floor.
I've seen sockets with round pin holes but on on a couple of places that hadn't been touched for an age and a half. The three rectangular pins are the only thing in real use in the UK. Shaver sockets are becoming more popular in bathrooms but they are something of a special case. Don't they work off induced current and have a limit of a few watts?
I've noticed this too and had a think about it.
Once windows is at the log in screen there is still quite a bit to do, generally, before the machine is fully ready for use. Unlike Linux a lot of stuff starts after login. I also noticed that my Linux box tends to run a lot more services than my windows box. Perhaps that is because I develop on Linux and play on Windows...
All in all I think the boot times are probably comparable. Windows might have the edge slightly. To be honest I think it's impossible to compare accurately. One thing I would like to see is a sexier boot sequence for Debian. It's very helpful to see what's loading but also terrifying for new users.
I wonder if what you say is actually true. It would be my guess that no one has every actually studied the link between annoying customers with difficult cancellations causing an increase turn over against lost (and never realized) customers due to that same bad service being reported via word of mouth. The problem is that it's too difficult to track so a company is forced to guess. Some guess that they can make more because people will just hang on due to the difficultly others think they will make more through good customer service. I recently had to cancel a couple of accounts. One gouged me for a further 3 months subscription the other asked me when I would like to cancel. When I said ASAP it was done there and then. I know which one I will be going back to.
I agree no one really cares but I still think we will be seeing HD content of one type or another in a couple of years. The problem is that the media companies have built it up to be some great thing and invested millions probably even billions into the whole HD idea. They will force it though whether people want it or not. Combine that with the fact that all HD formats have a ton of DRM and the media companies have a reason to upgrade. What won't happen (and what the media companies would like) is people rushing out to replace their DVDs with HD versions of the same film. I've got a decent sized DVD collection and the quality of the content suits me fine. If HD content was a similar price (both drives and films) I would buy new films on it but the increase in quality really leaves me cold.
While I don't have a problem with Google placing it's own services at the top on it's own site I am concerned with the fact that they make it appear as if their adverts are like any other. This may lead people to believe they can in fact compete whereas the reality seems to be that they can't. This could easily lead to people paying far more for ads than is necessary. It would be more acceptable if Google were to indicate that your ad will always feature below their ad so that you can make a more informed decision about whether it is worth your money.
Sometimes code is bad because the programmer is not very good (vast majority of cases).
I hear this quite a bit and I think it's probably a flawed assumption or at least to simple a statement to describe the truth. The vast majority of developers can't be below average or the average would drop. What we can say is that a good portion of developers seem to have a poor grasp of basic software development skills. What we need to ask then is why.
In my experience there seems to be far more variation in skill level between software developers than I have seen in any other profession. Perhaps this is simply because I am only familiar with software development and there is the same spectrum width in other professions as well but I somehow doubt it. I suspect, however, that software development is actually a very very hard process that only a small number of people truly have the mental discipline for. Since that number is less than the number of developers required we need to do something to make software development easier for the masses of developers. This is similar to the way cabinets were made. The master cabinet maker would produce the top and front and the less skilled (apprentice) would produce the frame (since it's easier).
The problem is that the "good" things were probably things you just take for granted like play lists and good sound quality. I've had pieces of hardware that had so many bad points it was impossible even see adequate let alone good points. It's almost as if the bad points push the good points into the corner and start waving at you at that point even thinking about the device makes you froth at the mouth with anger.
I once worked with a guy who used to maintain fairly large superconducting NMR magnets. According to him they procedure was essentially as follows Step 1: Connect wires to the magnet taking great care not to quench the magnet in the process (e.g. stop it super conducting). Step 2: Place a large resistive load between the wires and bleed off the stored energy.
Apparently you only screw up step one once.
Not quite. Microwaves heat (water) due to dipole rotation. It is the that rotation causes the heating. Assuming that a dipole has the correct frequency a microwave will induce heating. The microwave source in a conventional oven is tuned to heat water but IIRC it also catches some of the dipoles in sugars as well.
When we hurt ourselves there is a natural instinct to lick the wound so I'm not that surprised that there is a pain killer in saliva. The primary reason for licking a wound is to clean it but if there was a pain killer included as well that would increase the reason for licking the wound and, thus, probably increase the chance of survival of the animal. Natural selection would quickly select those animals that produced the pain killer.
Sure thermodynamics stops the CO2 --> C + O2 idea but what compressing the CO2 and burying it / shooting it into space / filling a big ballon with it. I suspect that it would be simpler and cheaper to just stop producing CO2 and let nature deal with the current excess but it might be a last ditch partial solution if thigns get really bad.
Spot on. Why oh why is drawing a circle so difficult? The one thing that I always want to do with gimp which is doens't support is draw an arrow. The reason being the I often want to point at something in a photo or screen grab. Why this simple little function isn't present is beyond me. I realize that drawing arrows has little to do with photo manipulation but come on I don't want to have to learn another application to draw an arrow (and yes I know Inkscape but that isn't really suited to teh job either). Looks like I'll be moving to krita...
If anything I would say that your resolutions are way to low. For a full wall display of ultra high quality I would guess at 10000x4500 (for roughly anamorphic). I would also up it to 50 FPS for a really smooth display at 48 bpp a two hour movie is ~100TB for the video alone. Trouble wouldn't be storing it - it would be getting it off the device fast enough.
If only I had mod points... I struggle to believe you need to tell people that there isn't a magic life force.
Evolution works to make the thing that is evolving better suited to live in its surroundings. You could argue that this has the side effect of making the things as simple as possible for a given task (e.g. gathering food). Any simpler and it (the organism) wouldn't be able to perform the task any more complex and a simpler variant will take over because simpler variants are "fitter" (they use less energy).
The fact that GUIs are becoming more complex would indicate that there is either a driving force making them more complex or there is an unexploited area. Look at animals. The first animals that evolved to eat single celled organisms probably did so because the single celled organisms were an unexploited (energy) resource. That evolutionary step was an increase in complaxity but one that was required to exploit the resource. We might be seeing the same with computer GUIs.
I certainly agree with most of what you say and especially that Debian unstable isn't a good introduction. In my defence the computer they were using was only in the next room so it was easy for me to go and fix things.
As for installing programs though I'd say you don't paint and completely fair picture. Most Windows programs come with a very easy to use installer that simply needs double clicking - an opperation most people seem to fully understand now. Combined that with auto-run when you insert a CD and lets face it installing programs couldn't get much simpler. I admit that Ubuntus "Add New Programs" feature makes it equally simple for the most part perhaps evern simpler but there is still one gotcha. My experience of Linux boxes is that they break with frightening regularity. I admit that is probably mainly caused by my use of testing and unstable Debian but I wan't to be at least close to up-to-date. Unlike on Windows a breakage in one place rarely breaks the whole system but I do find I do less maintenance on Windows machines. In reality I suppose I should really just stop compaining and use a stable release...
But is Linux actually "better" for them? The problem is that better means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To my parents and grandparents Windows is better than Linux because they understand it. The only thing that could make Linux better is if it's functionally _exactly_ the same but more secure and quite frankly that probably wouldn't make it better enough to spend the time installing it.
On the other hand for me, as a software developer, I would kick Windows off my machine in a heart beat if I could (wishing there was a Linux edition of SQLServer).
That's why I think this review is deeply flawed. Perhaps Linux will never have the largest market share but so what. Two seater sports cars won't ever have the largest market share either but theres no shortage of people producing them.
I converted a few people over to Linux over the years. All bar one have been developers so they have been computer literate and willing to just try things out (something most people won't do). The transition has generally been painful as I've found that Linux has a very steep initial learning curve.
The one non-developer I have converted, however, was actually the most painless transition of the lot. I set the machine up and told them to just use it. I advised them that if they got stuck just try what seemed right and I would fix anything that broke. They took to it like a duck to water. After a couple of weeks I showed them how to update the system (I had it running Debian unstable) - well ok that didn't go brilliantly but unstable is heavy going even for someone with experience. This person now loves Linux despite it's quirks.
And they pay people to come up with this stuff?
While I am loathed to tell people who know a lot more about economics than me how they should do their jobs I can't help feeling that they might have failed to (correctly) factor in some considerations. Not least is the consideration that Linux is free and always will be where as Windows will pretty much always be pay for even if it has a nominal price. Yes Microsoft could give Windows away in order to sell Office or other applications but that is a fundamental shift in the market and I don't think anyone could truly predict what the outcome of that could be.
Assuming that Linux continues to advance at the pace it is currently advancing it will match Windows for ease of use and features in a couple of years. The stumbling block is, of course, drivers but lets face it 98% of computers fall into one of two camps: those that never suffer driver upgrades because they are bought from "Dell" or they are run by people who know what they are doing.
I can't quite decide whether to laugh or cry. I really hope you're joking.
You rush out and spend god knows how much on the latest and greatest next gen DVD player, you throw away your perfectly good TV / projector / box that emits coloured light and buy a new one that supports HDMI (and HD). Finally, you then cough up more hard earned cash to buy a movie you probably already own on regular DVD for twice the price. You do all this in the hopes of getting a fantasic picture with amazing sound.
Why, oh why, would anyone with two brain cells to rub together then install a wireless connection that uses lossy compression?
Still, fair play for getting that many bits through the air. Personally, I won't be standing anywhere near the transmitter.
Hey I want to go by getting hit by a meteorite as well. AFAIK there is no record of a human ever being killed by a meteorite.
Media player is probably either doing some sort of licence check or an ID3 tag look up (or both).