$4 at Amazon. OK, it was about $7 shipped. I've got one, works perfectly. It might be $50 from Verizon/CinglAT&T/TMobile, but you can get them cheap online.
Not really, they know what is best for THEM. Nintendo in particular has cultivated a reputation for being a "family friendly" console. They want parents to think that they can be safe with most any game for a Nintendo platform for little Jimmy without really having to do much research into it. Maybe look at the box art/description/rating, but not much more than that. If Nintendo were to let a bunch of ultra-violent, sex ridden games out on the Wii, DS, GBA, whatever, they would lose that reputation overnight. Nintendo wants to be known for FUN games that the whole family can play. That is their marketing image, and that means a LOT to many people out there that are looking to purchase consoles and games. They have spent a lot of time and money getting that image to where that want it to be and they aren't going to want to throw it away just because a few "hardcore" gamers want to play those kids of games. That isn't even the market Nintendo is targeting, they want the casual gamers and those that don't play much at all. They are leaving the "hardcore" crowd to Sony and Microsoft. And that strategy is working VERY well. My mother, that has never played video games before, wanted me to get her a DS and Brain Age. My parents also really liked the Wii and Wii Sports. That says a lot to me about Nintendo's marketing strategy.
Bottom line, if you are the kind of gamer that wants this sort of game, you really aren't Nintendo's intended target. I'm sure they are happy you bought a Wii anyway.:)
As for Sony and MS, I'm kind of surprised they aren't all over this game, at first glance anyway. They cater more to the "hardcore" gamers. Nobody else is willing to drop $600+ on a PS3, for example. Perhaps they don't think they will get good press either. And they might be right. The last thing a game console maker wants to be known as to the soccer mom crowd is the guys that have nothing but sex and violence on their console. And you know that's what the thought-police crowd does, they will run around screaming to anyone that will listen that the PS3 (for example) is all about sex and violence and you should protect your children and keep that smut out of your house or your kids will turn out to be serial killers or rapists or something. It doesn't matter that maybe 1% of the games for that platform have AO ratings, they will act like they all do because of that 1%. And many people will believe them. So is it any wonder that manufacturers are being cautious? I would too if I had millions on the line tied up in a next-gen console!
Personally, I think that's exactly what we need. The F-Prize. $10M to the first team to create independently verified, sustained, controlled, energy positive fusion at say, 2x input power. If it takes 100W to run, I want to see 200W out. In fact, I'd probably make something like 200W the minimum. It needs to be enough to be useful. Perhaps a bonus or second prize for scaling up?
Specifically, the rules should allow for ANY fusion system, hot, cold, IEC, tokomak, whatever. The independent verification should weed out any crackpots that break the laws of thermodynamics.:)
in Virginia traffic school, which I had to attend at age 16 over half my life ago. They said you do not have any obligation to move or go faster than the speed-limit whatsoever. This was from the county-enforced state-approved course taught AT the courthouse. Honestly, I think your type are assholes. But I'm too tired for a flame war right now so I will probably ignore your response.
It probably depends on location and time. I seem to remember hearing that in traffic school at 16, but a few years ago I did a defensive driving course and the Highway Patrol officer teaching it specifically said that you must yield the left lane to faster traffic regardless of your present speed or the posted speed limits. This is Utah about 1 year ago.
My mother-in-law (yes, a married slashdotter, we do exist) bought one. It works well enough, but no better than my 10 year old Sears canister vac did. Yes, we did the whole stupid vacuum the room twice test. Both picked up things the other missed, about the same amount. The only thing I can see useful about them is the lack of a bag. So what? I replace the bag when the suction goes down a bit, or I replace the filters when the suction goes down a bit. What's the difference? They both have about the same "suck", they both hold about as much stuff without losing the "suck", they both have the rotating brushes, they both cost about the same to run when all is said and done. Okay, the Dyson is prettier, not even my wife cares about that. It's not like you leave it out in the room for guests to look at.
I just built a new house, and I'll pit my central vac against Dyson any day of the week. That thing has more power than I've ever seen in a vacuum, powered brushes for carpets, and is built like a tank. And the noisy motor is out in the garage, so I don't have to listen to it. We can run it with someone sleeping in the same room and it doesn't bother them. It's also nice not to push or pull more than a lightweight hose and whatever attachment we're using at the time.
CableCard can do multiple streams with a single card. So you have multi-tuner there. Get a decent mobo with SPDIF out and you don't need to worry about sound. Get an Nvidia 6150 based board and you don't need to worry about video either, it's more than enough for HD. I just bought such a board for AMD X2 CPUs for $45 at NewEgg. For your tuners you can also do a device like the HDHomeRun by SiliconDust that takes 2 ATSC or QAM streams and puts them out over ethernet! I'm running one and it works flawlessly! If CableCard were more open, SiliconDust could build one that you could put a card into and you're done. Instant HD Cable over ethernet.
Personally, I think the FCC should require CableCard AND Satelite TV to be 100% open source for the card drivers. The keys are on the smartcards, and you can't steal cable/sat with the code to run the card, you have to hack the card itself. Use a decent card design and you can prevent most of that sort of thing. It seems to work fine for Europe with DVB, I see no reason it can't work here in the US as well.
I keep seeing CFL articles on here. I don't like the CFLs I have used or seen used in other's homes over the years for the following reasons:
1) Color temp is all wrong. It needs to have a similiar full-spectrum output to the GE "Reveal" incandesant bulbs to be accepted by my wife or my self. The Reveal box does not list color temp, so I don't know what to compare it to. Does anyone on here know?
2) Turn-on delay. It must be less than 500ms and it must STAY THAT WAY. Even in the cold basement or garage. And after a few years of use.
3) Flicker. Though I understand from reading the comments that some new ones use 10KHz+ switchers. Those sound like they would work. 60Hz flicker will NOT be tollerated.
4) They must work reliably in recesed fixtures. Our new home has many "can-lights" and I'm not willing to replace them with surface mounted fixtures.
5) Noise. No buzzing will be tollerated. If I can hear it at 3ft, it's too loud.
6) Dimmers, I like dimmers. Yes, they make dimmable CFLs, see #7.
7) Price. $3/ea is about the most I will pay for a standard size light bulb/CFL.
8) Looks. For exposed bulbs, I don't want to look at the twisty shape. Put a cover on it.
If you know of a CFL that can meet those requirements, please post the brand and such. The posts saying "don't buy a cheap bulb!" are useless. I want exact models and a place to buy them. A URL to an online store product would be great.
I was irritated at having to find room for ANOTHER wall-wart outputting 5V@300mA to a propriatary plug..
I figgure we need about 3 connectors....
#1 - Mini USB for small power devices, phones, ipods, PDAs etc. Dishonorable mention here goes to Palm for the Zire72 that has mini USB AND a barrel connector on the bottom. The power supply it comes with outputs, you guessed it, 5V@500mA. Yet the Zire72 will only trickle-charge from USB. Interesting since a $5 cable from Ebay that breaks out the power lines into that barrel connector can charge it at full rate.
#2 - A higher wattage plug for high-drain devices like laptops and high power battery chargers. Something like the larger port from one of those old universal power adapters from the 80s would get the job done. 24V@5A should be enough. The Dell I'm on now (Core Duo, 2GB, 100GB@7200 RPM) is 19.5V@4.62A, so that leaves some headroom. Perhaps bumping to 10A would be usefull.
#3 - An in-between port. Something smaller than the big plug from #2 so that they can't be confused or connected to the wrong things. 12V@5A should be plenty.
Those would cover every small device I've ever seen use a power supply. Most everything that needs more power than that goes to 120V/220V directly, perhaps with an internal power supply, and isn't portable. And yes, I included iPods in that list. While I don't mind the dock connector overmuch, it would be nice to have a mini-USB on there as well to charge and sync with so that I don't need a special cord just for the iPod. It would also cost Apple next to nothing to include on future iPods.
I've only covered the device plugs here, the connector on the other end could be a standardized 4-pin. One for each + line and a ground. One could then use whichever voltage you wanted, or all of them.
I don't know if it's the best idea for this stuff, but it summs up my mussings from this morning. It would result in a standard connector and voltage for every device and a single power supply to drive them. Something I would love to see. It also doesn't cover data, but I would add that I would require devices charging from mini-USB can NOT require any handshaking to block the charger like some Motorola phones do.
Data is a little tricker, but it should be possible to create a standard interface profile for all phones, for instance.
Odd, took about 5 minutes start to finish on my Wii. I agree that the error handling should be better, but it worked fine here. Try the fixes mentioned when the last update came out, Channel 1 or 11 and mixed mode on your router. That fixed it for me in the last round and I had no problems at all this time.
While LttP is an amazing game, and I'd buy and play more games based on that engine, I find OoT and TP much more fun to play. Also, my wife likes to watch me play and point out things to check. She's even played some herself, which is amazing because she has a hard time with control in 3D games.
Someone also mentioned camera control. It's easy, use the "C" button on the Wii and you can point the camera (and yourself) anywhere you want to! There is a similiar feature in OoT. I played it on the GameCube though, so I don't know if that version added that feature or if the N64 version had it as well. That really makes the jumping puzzles a LOT eaiser to handle.
If you want more 2D Zelda fun, get Minish Cap. It's a fun game that keeps the best of the 2D Zelda games alive. It's a little short, and not quite as good as LttP, but it's well worth the time and money.
I have legit XP-Pro for my Windows machines. I think I'll just keep that. Vista doesn't seem to offer me anything except idiotic restrictions and high costs. All the end-user features have been stripped out at this point and it's just a big DRM bomb as far as I can tell. No thanks, M$. Perhaps I'll try Linux on the desktop again, it's been working great on my servers.
The trick is to teach them like a History or Science class. Don't teach that any particular religion/morality is RIGHT, teach what they all think, and cover the similarities and differences between them. They didn't do this when I was in school, and I wish they had. The lack of understanding is a big part of the problem between "believers". Witness the idea that Mormons have horns, tails, and many wives, even today. I've heard that when I've traveled outside of Utah. Some are joking, and we all laugh. The really scary ones aren't. Not that education can solve the whole problem, but it can help move things in the right direction.
Of course, my kid sister's History teacher taught about a few religion's beliefs as part of a class discussion and had parents of some of the students trying to get him fired for "teaching apostate views". For those not familiar with LDS terminology, that's teaching about something that is not Mormon faith. This was in Layton, Utah not long ago.
As disclosure, I grew up in Utah and in the LDS/Mormon religion. I no longer practice the religion, for reasons too numerous to mention. However, I have no anger toward them. I do, however, still live in Utah. I'll probably vote for Ashdown just because I'm so damn tired of Hatch. It probably won't change anything, but I'll do it anyway. I usually vote Libertarian for similar reasons.
that they just don't get it. This will sell exactly as well as DVD-A (which is probably what it is) and SACD. There isn't a big enough improvement to justify having to buy new players and probably have to buy the CD twice so that normal people can listen in thier cars and such. I have 4 devices that can play DVD-A, and 0 that can play SACD. Well, maybe 2 for SACD if it works in computers, I don't remember on that one. I have a dozzen or so that can play CD-A. Even those I don't use much, preffering my iPod.
Not to mention, that most bands seem incapable of putting out a GOOD CD, so I end up only listening to 30% or less of the music I paid for in the first place. So now I can't just rip the songs I like onto my computer for burning to MP3-CD mixes and my iPod. That interests me how? Oh yeah, it doesn't.
I mean really, who wants this? The 1% of music listeners that we call "audiophiles"? MP3 is good enough for most people, so better sound isn't going to sell more shiney plastic things. Think about it, what do people clammor to pay for? Easy, convience. Make it EASY TO DO WHAT THEY WANT IT TO. This is so amazingly simple. Apple is the closest of the legal providers to "getting it". iTMS is fast, easy, and the restrictions aren't bad enough that it bothers most people. I still don't use them for the same reason I don't use DVD-A and SACD, I have a dozzen devices that can play MP3, I have 4 that can play AAC, encrypted or not. The point is, I recognize I may be a minority in that case and see the value for users.
Personally, the best I have seen is AllOfMP3. Yes, they may not be legal, however, thier system that allows you to choose the encoding format and bitrate is "the way it ought to be" (tm). Those who are happy with MP3 can have it, those who want FLAC have to pay a little more, but they have have it. You OGG lovers can have yours as well. I think the music industry should buy AOMP3, charge a little more, and call it a day. If I could have a legal download in any format I want starting at, say,.50 for 64K MP3, to $1 for 160K MP3/AAC, to maybe $1.50 for FLAC, I know I would be all over that. But the files have to be in the format I need, MP3 or FLAC so I can convert to whatever I want, and they need to be unencrypted. That's the online service I would use, and it's the online service people WANT. You could even set it up so that the user could say "I have an iPod" and it would default to AAC. A legal service like that would get slashdotted in minutes with people wanting to give you thier money.
Yes, some people would share some music. Reality check, people do that now and they aren't going to stop. If you make it fast, easy, and reasonably cheap, it's eaiser for me to just get on the site and download from you directly. Perhaps the files could be wattermarked? I don't know. I do know that if I were using AOMP3 a lot, I wouldn't bother to ask friends and family if they had a song, I would just go get it myself.
As for physical retailers, have a setup where people can come in and download songs to thier devices. People don't want to have to go to the store all the time to get things like music. Deal with it. But if you have something like this, people can drop in and grab a song they just heard on the radio or something. Or perhaps retail music is dead, will anyone really miss it?
I'm starting to think that an old idea I read about is the only soultion..
Break the companies into 2 entities, one that provides transport for data, and one that provides services using that transport. Along with this would be a strict requirement that the two NEVER merge and that the data transport company must provide access to anyone that wants it for the same price and service level as anyone else. So if Joe down the street wants 256Kbit to Jim, he can get it for the same price and service level and BigCorpA getting 256Kbit to BigCorpB.
That doesn't mean that BigCorpA can't pay more for more bandwidth or a better SLA, but that Jim can get the exact same service for the exact same price should he want to pay for it.
Now the transport carrier has a huge incentive to upgrade the networks, they can charge more for higher throughput, lower latency, or just plain by-the-gig. It also means anyone can be an ISP and compete over those lines for all the same customers. So all the big corps can have thier own stuff and a local ISP can get on and offer something else. So, over the same lines, you can have ISPs that can compete over various services, prices, etc..
So the local church can have a porn-filtering ISP.... The local Linux User Group can have a wide-open anything goes ISP... The Windows User Group can have a blocks all spyware ports ISP...;) The security paranoid can have a blocks all inbound connections ISP... The cheap bastards can have a cheap, slow ISP...
and on and on and on.....
That's competition. That's also exactly what the telcos/cablecos don't want. IMO, tax dollars paid for the whole thing anyway, so maybe it's time for taxpayers to take it back.
As much as I preffer to have less government intervention, the government created this problem, and it's gotten to the point that I'm not sure there is another way to fix it. *sigh*
That there is one very compelling reason NOT to buy legal downloads. DRM. No, not for the tinfoil hat reasons, but for one very simple one: interoperability. I can't take my DRMed iTunes AAC file and play it with my MP3-CD car radio. I can't play it via HMO on my TiVo. I can't play it in any other portable device. While I do own an iPod, I also own other devices that I listen to music on. Those can't play AAC, let alone DRM AAC. And I'm not even going to get into WMA-DRM.
Burning it to CDA and re-ripping it doesn't count. It's annoying and drops all the metadata, in addition to the transcoding quality loss. If they want to sell me music, it MUST be in a non-DRM format that I can use on ALL of my devices, MP3 for example. If they refuse, I'll take my money/time elsewhere. Indy, filesharing, certain russian sites, etc.. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. I'd be happy to pay $1/song, for high-quality (LAME-Standard minimum) MP3 or FLAC audio files. Hell, let me pick the format and bitrate and charge me a little more for the bandwidth for the higher filesizes. Oh, wait, someone else allready does that.....
What you want is called the "On the Go" playlist. To add tracks to it, hold the select button (center of the click/scroll wheel) for a couple seconds. Poof, there you go.
Of course, what you're asking for is a primitive as hell way of doing things, but it's there, and has been for quite a while. My third gen has it. I never use it though. Google "smart playlist" sometime and see where the real power is. Or just install iTunes and play with them. It's a DATABASE, not a collection of files. And you get all the neat stuff you can do with a database. For example: "All songs that are rated 3 stars or higher, not played in the last 24 hours, random selection". And that's just the tip of the iceburg, you can also do subqueries by including rules like "is in playlist: New songs".
Not to mention, using Explorer to load your player is like using cp instead of rsync for backing up a networked computer. Why the hell would you do that? All I have to do is plug my iPod into the USB port. ITunes automaticly finds it, figgures out what changed since last time, syncs playcounts and ratings, copies any new songs and playlists, and updates all the smart playlists all in a few seconds.
There is more to an iPod than just playing music, that's the easy part. The advanced features, quick updates, and ease of use are a big part of what makes an iPod desirable. And those are acomplished via iTunes. Apple was smart about this, and what they did was make it possible for them to sell LOTS of iPods. People here will bitch and moan about niche stuff like special apps, gapless playback and ogg support, but 99% of people couldn't care less about that stuff. Nor should they. They want it to play music, be easy to use, and have a nice interface on the computer to load it up. iPod and iTunes do this VERY well. No other player I have used comes close.
Re:You are confusing two issues
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Reining in Google
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· Score: 2, Insightful
>In neither of these cases are there copies made. Google is making copies!!! If you fail to see that >difference you really amazes me. It is the creation of those copies that are the copyright infringement.
It's always been my understanding that Copyright doesn't cover MAKING copies, only DISTRIBUTING them. There is a HUGE difference in the two. This means that I can go to the store, buy a CD, and rip it to MP3 to put on my iPod. That makes 3 copies of the work (the rip to WAV (even if it's just in RAM, it's still a copy), compression to MP3, putting it on my iPod). Am I violating copyright there? The courts say no (IIRC, the lawsuit against the Rio covered this). However, I am violating copyright if I give someone else a copy of my MP3s.
As I see it, Google Print is pretty much the same. They index the copies they make (and keep to themselves) and give only a few lines of text in the search results. That's like me giving 1 second of an MP3 to a friend. It's excerpting and generally accepted as fair use. Honestly, for public domain works, I don't see a problem with making the entire text downloadable. For in copyright works, I see no moral or legal problem with giving out only a few lines of text and a listing of what book it came from. Obviously, they can't let me download the whole book, and I see no indication that Google intends to allow any such thing. They aren't so stupid as to not realize that is a clear violation.
If publishers were smart, they would set up a website that google could link results to for purchasing the book. Even just linking to Amazon would be great. I could get on, search, find a book that looks to have the info I want, click buy and it shows up a few days later. Perfect. But no, they just have to keep thier buggy whips moving....... Copyright isn't a guarantee that you can make ever increasing profits by doing the same thing for all eternity. It's a guarantee that I can't give away or sell full copies of your work. Making money on it becomes your problem. If a service like Google indexing your book causes you to loose money, it's your business model that is flawed and needs updating.
It's funny how poeople here revile the RIAA and MPAA for the same sort of antics, but defend book publishers for the same crap. Technology is moving along and your customers want the world to move with it. Your job as an author or publisher is to provide the customers what they want, and find a way to make money out of it. If you can't do that, it's time to step aside for the next generation that can. The future is a steamroller and you're getting run over. Are you going to do something to get ahead of it, or are you going to sit there an be crushed? Doesn't matter one way or the other to me. I'll happily pay whoever is providing the services I want. If nobody is willing to take my money for what I want, I'll find another way, as will a vast majority of people. There IS money to be made here, but you have to change your perspective to make it. Hint: People are more than willing to pay for convience.
The author was talking about the fact that a hybrid needs to be driven for something like 66,000 miles per year to realize a savings of fuel costs versus price of the car.
That makes good print, but what did he compare to? The cost of buying the car alone? Well that's disingenious. That only matters if you were not going to buy a car AT ALL. If you were buying one anyway, getting a hybrid vs. normal car causes that difference to drop quickly. For the Prius, the best comparison is to a Camry (they have about the same interior space). I did the math a while back and found I could make up the cost difference in less than 2 years with my current commute of about 90 miles/day at the then current gas prices of about $2.20/gal. Gas is set to hit over $3/gal soon in this area, so I'm probably down to 1 year now.
He also went in to the eventual disposal of the giant battery/batteries in these cars. Not a pretty picture.
I don't know about the others, but Toyota offers a buyback for the batteries, and owns a battery plant. They recycle the batteries as the Nickel used in them is valuable. They use Ni-MH for now, possibly Li based in the future. Both can be recycled. Normal lead-acid batteries are far more dangerous to the enviornment and have a very high compliance rate for recycling. I see no reason Hybrid batteries are any worse.
The Honda Accord hybrid looks like a regular Honda Accord so they are not selling nearly as well.
I doubt that is the reason. The Accord Hybrid is designed for more power, not more milage. Hybrids are in the news for milage, so the Accord gets kind of overlooked. As gas prices shoot up, more and more people are wanting to get the costs of commuting down. A Prius will do that, an Accord will not. The Prius has also been around longer, and has had great marketing and has been noticed by the masses. Name recognition wins elections in this country, it's not suprising that it sells cars as well.
I have adblock on and it worked fine. Update your rules. No different than spam filtering really. General rules like "ad" are going to get false positives. Of course, I only use adblock on the really annoying ones. Simple banners and such I usually leave alone.
They are not reffering to any particular government. They are reffering to government in the general sense. What they are asking about is why you think those services are so important. Forget the US system of government, they are reffering to a hypothetical "ideal" government. As that is basicly what you are reffering to when you list the services you want paid for by government, it's perfectly reasonable.
So the question is: "Why should everyone be forced, at gunpoint, to pay for the services you listed, and no other ones?"
Someone else replied about Asus. Gigabyte A64 boards can flash from Windows as well. Their utility even has the ability to check the internet and download the latest version if I want it to. I've done it a couple times on my XP box. It can boot from USB flash drives and CD/DVD just fine as well. No need to read the BIOS image off USB as I can do it from WinXP.
Mine even has a backup BIOS chip that I can flash to a known good version. There is even a BIOS utility to copy the good flash to the backup, and to swtich to booting from the backup (it will do it automaticly if a boot fails as well).
In short, buy a good motherboard. You might pay a little more upfront, but you get what you pay for.
Of course there is a violation: Thinking for yourself. Everyone knows that you have to let the government do all your thinking for you and just tell you what's good for you.:)
Check out white saphire. My wife suggested it when we bought her ring and it looks REALLY good. We've had to tell jewelers what it is because they can't tell without the special testers. Go to a small mom-and-pop type jeweler, they will be able to get what you want. I was able to have hers custom made to my specs and with stones I specified.
We just didn't feel that shiny rocks were worth that much when we needed to buy a house, car, pay bills, and prepare for having kids. The white saphire is a nice medium. It's not soft like CZ so it doesn't scratch easily, but it has a very nice white color like diamond without the high price.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.amazon.com/BR50-Motorola-Battery-Origi
$4 at Amazon. OK, it was about $7 shipped. I've got one, works perfectly. It might be $50 from Verizon/CinglAT&T/TMobile, but you can get them cheap online.
Not really, they know what is best for THEM. Nintendo in particular has cultivated a reputation for being a "family friendly" console. They want parents to think that they can be safe with most any game for a Nintendo platform for little Jimmy without really having to do much research into it. Maybe look at the box art/description/rating, but not much more than that. If Nintendo were to let a bunch of ultra-violent, sex ridden games out on the Wii, DS, GBA, whatever, they would lose that reputation overnight. Nintendo wants to be known for FUN games that the whole family can play. That is their marketing image, and that means a LOT to many people out there that are looking to purchase consoles and games. They have spent a lot of time and money getting that image to where that want it to be and they aren't going to want to throw it away just because a few "hardcore" gamers want to play those kids of games. That isn't even the market Nintendo is targeting, they want the casual gamers and those that don't play much at all. They are leaving the "hardcore" crowd to Sony and Microsoft. And that strategy is working VERY well. My mother, that has never played video games before, wanted me to get her a DS and Brain Age. My parents also really liked the Wii and Wii Sports. That says a lot to me about Nintendo's marketing strategy.
:)
Bottom line, if you are the kind of gamer that wants this sort of game, you really aren't Nintendo's intended target. I'm sure they are happy you bought a Wii anyway.
As for Sony and MS, I'm kind of surprised they aren't all over this game, at first glance anyway. They cater more to the "hardcore" gamers. Nobody else is willing to drop $600+ on a PS3, for example. Perhaps they don't think they will get good press either. And they might be right. The last thing a game console maker wants to be known as to the soccer mom crowd is the guys that have nothing but sex and violence on their console. And you know that's what the thought-police crowd does, they will run around screaming to anyone that will listen that the PS3 (for example) is all about sex and violence and you should protect your children and keep that smut out of your house or your kids will turn out to be serial killers or rapists or something. It doesn't matter that maybe 1% of the games for that platform have AO ratings, they will act like they all do because of that 1%. And many people will believe them. So is it any wonder that manufacturers are being cautious? I would too if I had millions on the line tied up in a next-gen console!
Personally, I think that's exactly what we need. The F-Prize. $10M to the first team to create independently verified, sustained, controlled, energy positive fusion at say, 2x input power. If it takes 100W to run, I want to see 200W out. In fact, I'd probably make something like 200W the minimum. It needs to be enough to be useful. Perhaps a bonus or second prize for scaling up?
:)
Specifically, the rules should allow for ANY fusion system, hot, cold, IEC, tokomak, whatever. The independent verification should weed out any crackpots that break the laws of thermodynamics.
It probably depends on location and time. I seem to remember hearing that in traffic school at 16, but a few years ago I did a defensive driving course and the Highway Patrol officer teaching it specifically said that you must yield the left lane to faster traffic regardless of your present speed or the posted speed limits. This is Utah about 1 year ago.
My mother-in-law (yes, a married slashdotter, we do exist) bought one. It works well enough, but no better than my 10 year old Sears canister vac did. Yes, we did the whole stupid vacuum the room twice test. Both picked up things the other missed, about the same amount. The only thing I can see useful about them is the lack of a bag. So what? I replace the bag when the suction goes down a bit, or I replace the filters when the suction goes down a bit. What's the difference? They both have about the same "suck", they both hold about as much stuff without losing the "suck", they both have the rotating brushes, they both cost about the same to run when all is said and done. Okay, the Dyson is prettier, not even my wife cares about that. It's not like you leave it out in the room for guests to look at.
I just built a new house, and I'll pit my central vac against Dyson any day of the week. That thing has more power than I've ever seen in a vacuum, powered brushes for carpets, and is built like a tank. And the noisy motor is out in the garage, so I don't have to listen to it. We can run it with someone sleeping in the same room and it doesn't bother them. It's also nice not to push or pull more than a lightweight hose and whatever attachment we're using at the time.
One "Hello World" coming right up!
CableCard can do multiple streams with a single card. So you have multi-tuner there. Get a decent mobo with SPDIF out and you don't need to worry about sound. Get an Nvidia 6150 based board and you don't need to worry about video either, it's more than enough for HD. I just bought such a board for AMD X2 CPUs for $45 at NewEgg. For your tuners you can also do a device like the HDHomeRun by SiliconDust that takes 2 ATSC or QAM streams and puts them out over ethernet! I'm running one and it works flawlessly! If CableCard were more open, SiliconDust could build one that you could put a card into and you're done. Instant HD Cable over ethernet.
Personally, I think the FCC should require CableCard AND Satelite TV to be 100% open source for the card drivers. The keys are on the smartcards, and you can't steal cable/sat with the code to run the card, you have to hack the card itself. Use a decent card design and you can prevent most of that sort of thing. It seems to work fine for Europe with DVB, I see no reason it can't work here in the US as well.
I keep seeing CFL articles on here. I don't like the CFLs I have used or seen used in other's homes over the years for the following reasons:
1) Color temp is all wrong. It needs to have a similiar full-spectrum output to the GE "Reveal" incandesant bulbs to be accepted by my wife or my self. The Reveal box does not list color temp, so I don't know what to compare it to. Does anyone on here know?
2) Turn-on delay. It must be less than 500ms and it must STAY THAT WAY. Even in the cold basement or garage. And after a few years of use.
3) Flicker. Though I understand from reading the comments that some new ones use 10KHz+ switchers. Those sound like they would work. 60Hz flicker will NOT be tollerated.
4) They must work reliably in recesed fixtures. Our new home has many "can-lights" and I'm not willing to replace them with surface mounted fixtures.
5) Noise. No buzzing will be tollerated. If I can hear it at 3ft, it's too loud.
6) Dimmers, I like dimmers. Yes, they make dimmable CFLs, see #7.
7) Price. $3/ea is about the most I will pay for a standard size light bulb/CFL.
8) Looks. For exposed bulbs, I don't want to look at the twisty shape. Put a cover on it.
If you know of a CFL that can meet those requirements, please post the brand and such. The posts saying "don't buy a cheap bulb!" are useless. I want exact models and a place to buy them. A URL to an online store product would be great.
I was irritated at having to find room for ANOTHER wall-wart outputting 5V@300mA to a propriatary plug..
I figgure we need about 3 connectors....
#1 - Mini USB for small power devices, phones, ipods, PDAs etc. Dishonorable mention here goes to Palm for the Zire72 that has mini USB AND a barrel connector on the bottom. The power supply it comes with outputs, you guessed it, 5V@500mA. Yet the Zire72 will only trickle-charge from USB. Interesting since a $5 cable from Ebay that breaks out the power lines into that barrel connector can charge it at full rate.
#2 - A higher wattage plug for high-drain devices like laptops and high power battery chargers. Something like the larger port from one of those old universal power adapters from the 80s would get the job done. 24V@5A should be enough. The Dell I'm on now (Core Duo, 2GB, 100GB@7200 RPM) is 19.5V@4.62A, so that leaves some headroom. Perhaps bumping to 10A would be usefull.
#3 - An in-between port. Something smaller than the big plug from #2 so that they can't be confused or connected to the wrong things. 12V@5A should be plenty.
Those would cover every small device I've ever seen use a power supply. Most everything that needs more power than that goes to 120V/220V directly, perhaps with an internal power supply, and isn't portable. And yes, I included iPods in that list. While I don't mind the dock connector overmuch, it would be nice to have a mini-USB on there as well to charge and sync with so that I don't need a special cord just for the iPod. It would also cost Apple next to nothing to include on future iPods.
I've only covered the device plugs here, the connector on the other end could be a standardized 4-pin. One for each + line and a ground. One could then use whichever voltage you wanted, or all of them.
I don't know if it's the best idea for this stuff, but it summs up my mussings from this morning. It would result in a standard connector and voltage for every device and a single power supply to drive them. Something I would love to see. It also doesn't cover data, but I would add that I would require devices charging from mini-USB can NOT require any handshaking to block the charger like some Motorola phones do.
Data is a little tricker, but it should be possible to create a standard interface profile for all phones, for instance.
Odd, took about 5 minutes start to finish on my Wii. I agree that the error handling should be better, but it worked fine here. Try the fixes mentioned when the last update came out, Channel 1 or 11 and mixed mode on your router. That fixed it for me in the last round and I had no problems at all this time.
While LttP is an amazing game, and I'd buy and play more games based on that engine, I find OoT and TP much more fun to play. Also, my wife likes to watch me play and point out things to check. She's even played some herself, which is amazing because she has a hard time with control in 3D games.
Someone also mentioned camera control. It's easy, use the "C" button on the Wii and you can point the camera (and yourself) anywhere you want to! There is a similiar feature in OoT. I played it on the GameCube though, so I don't know if that version added that feature or if the N64 version had it as well. That really makes the jumping puzzles a LOT eaiser to handle.
If you want more 2D Zelda fun, get Minish Cap. It's a fun game that keeps the best of the 2D Zelda games alive. It's a little short, and not quite as good as LttP, but it's well worth the time and money.
I have legit XP-Pro for my Windows machines. I think I'll just keep that. Vista doesn't seem to offer me anything except idiotic restrictions and high costs. All the end-user features have been stripped out at this point and it's just a big DRM bomb as far as I can tell. No thanks, M$. Perhaps I'll try Linux on the desktop again, it's been working great on my servers.
How about ALL of them?
The trick is to teach them like a History or Science class. Don't teach that any particular religion/morality is RIGHT, teach what they all think, and cover the similarities and differences between them. They didn't do this when I was in school, and I wish they had. The lack of understanding is a big part of the problem between "believers". Witness the idea that Mormons have horns, tails, and many wives, even today. I've heard that when I've traveled outside of Utah. Some are joking, and we all laugh. The really scary ones aren't. Not that education can solve the whole problem, but it can help move things in the right direction.
Of course, my kid sister's History teacher taught about a few religion's beliefs as part of a class discussion and had parents of some of the students trying to get him fired for "teaching apostate views". For those not familiar with LDS terminology, that's teaching about something that is not Mormon faith. This was in Layton, Utah not long ago.
As disclosure, I grew up in Utah and in the LDS/Mormon religion. I no longer practice the religion, for reasons too numerous to mention. However, I have no anger toward them. I do, however, still live in Utah. I'll probably vote for Ashdown just because I'm so damn tired of Hatch. It probably won't change anything, but I'll do it anyway. I usually vote Libertarian for similar reasons.
that they just don't get it. This will sell exactly as well as DVD-A (which is probably what it is) and SACD. There isn't a big enough improvement to justify having to buy new players and probably have to buy the CD twice so that normal people can listen in thier cars and such. I have 4 devices that can play DVD-A, and 0 that can play SACD. Well, maybe 2 for SACD if it works in computers, I don't remember on that one. I have a dozzen or so that can play CD-A. Even those I don't use much, preffering my iPod.
.50 for 64K MP3, to $1 for 160K MP3/AAC, to maybe $1.50 for FLAC, I know I would be all over that. But the files have to be in the format I need, MP3 or FLAC so I can convert to whatever I want, and they need to be unencrypted. That's the online service I would use, and it's the online service people WANT. You could even set it up so that the user could say "I have an iPod" and it would default to AAC. A legal service like that would get slashdotted in minutes with people wanting to give you thier money.
Not to mention, that most bands seem incapable of putting out a GOOD CD, so I end up only listening to 30% or less of the music I paid for in the first place. So now I can't just rip the songs I like onto my computer for burning to MP3-CD mixes and my iPod. That interests me how? Oh yeah, it doesn't.
I mean really, who wants this? The 1% of music listeners that we call "audiophiles"? MP3 is good enough for most people, so better sound isn't going to sell more shiney plastic things. Think about it, what do people clammor to pay for? Easy, convience. Make it EASY TO DO WHAT THEY WANT IT TO. This is so amazingly simple. Apple is the closest of the legal providers to "getting it". iTMS is fast, easy, and the restrictions aren't bad enough that it bothers most people. I still don't use them for the same reason I don't use DVD-A and SACD, I have a dozzen devices that can play MP3, I have 4 that can play AAC, encrypted or not. The point is, I recognize I may be a minority in that case and see the value for users.
Personally, the best I have seen is AllOfMP3. Yes, they may not be legal, however, thier system that allows you to choose the encoding format and bitrate is "the way it ought to be" (tm). Those who are happy with MP3 can have it, those who want FLAC have to pay a little more, but they have have it. You OGG lovers can have yours as well. I think the music industry should buy AOMP3, charge a little more, and call it a day. If I could have a legal download in any format I want starting at, say,
Yes, some people would share some music. Reality check, people do that now and they aren't going to stop. If you make it fast, easy, and reasonably cheap, it's eaiser for me to just get on the site and download from you directly. Perhaps the files could be wattermarked? I don't know. I do know that if I were using AOMP3 a lot, I wouldn't bother to ask friends and family if they had a song, I would just go get it myself.
As for physical retailers, have a setup where people can come in and download songs to thier devices. People don't want to have to go to the store all the time to get things like music. Deal with it. But if you have something like this, people can drop in and grab a song they just heard on the radio or something. Or perhaps retail music is dead, will anyone really miss it?
You can still use the blue plastic cups.
Oh, sorry.....
I'm starting to think that an old idea I read about is the only soultion..
;)
Break the companies into 2 entities, one that provides transport for data, and one that provides services using that transport. Along with this would be a strict requirement that the two NEVER merge and that the data transport company must provide access to anyone that wants it for the same price and service level as anyone else. So if Joe down the street wants 256Kbit to Jim, he can get it for the same price and service level and BigCorpA getting 256Kbit to BigCorpB.
That doesn't mean that BigCorpA can't pay more for more bandwidth or a better SLA, but that Jim can get the exact same service for the exact same price should he want to pay for it.
Now the transport carrier has a huge incentive to upgrade the networks, they can charge more for higher throughput, lower latency, or just plain by-the-gig. It also means anyone can be an ISP and compete over those lines for all the same customers. So all the big corps can have thier own stuff and a local ISP can get on and offer something else. So, over the same lines, you can have ISPs that can compete over various services, prices, etc..
So the local church can have a porn-filtering ISP....
The local Linux User Group can have a wide-open anything goes ISP...
The Windows User Group can have a blocks all spyware ports ISP...
The security paranoid can have a blocks all inbound connections ISP...
The cheap bastards can have a cheap, slow ISP...
and on and on and on.....
That's competition. That's also exactly what the telcos/cablecos don't want. IMO, tax dollars paid for the whole thing anyway, so maybe it's time for taxpayers to take it back.
As much as I preffer to have less government intervention, the government created this problem, and it's gotten to the point that I'm not sure there is another way to fix it. *sigh*
That there is one very compelling reason NOT to buy legal downloads. DRM. No, not for the tinfoil hat reasons, but for one very simple one: interoperability. I can't take my DRMed iTunes AAC file and play it with my MP3-CD car radio. I can't play it via HMO on my TiVo. I can't play it in any other portable device. While I do own an iPod, I also own other devices that I listen to music on. Those can't play AAC, let alone DRM AAC. And I'm not even going to get into WMA-DRM.
Burning it to CDA and re-ripping it doesn't count. It's annoying and drops all the metadata, in addition to the transcoding quality loss. If they want to sell me music, it MUST be in a non-DRM format that I can use on ALL of my devices, MP3 for example. If they refuse, I'll take my money/time elsewhere. Indy, filesharing, certain russian sites, etc.. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. I'd be happy to pay $1/song, for high-quality (LAME-Standard minimum) MP3 or FLAC audio files. Hell, let me pick the format and bitrate and charge me a little more for the bandwidth for the higher filesizes. Oh, wait, someone else allready does that.....
What you want is called the "On the Go" playlist. To add tracks to it, hold the select button (center of the click/scroll wheel) for a couple seconds. Poof, there you go.
Of course, what you're asking for is a primitive as hell way of doing things, but it's there, and has been for quite a while. My third gen has it. I never use it though. Google "smart playlist" sometime and see where the real power is. Or just install iTunes and play with them. It's a DATABASE, not a collection of files. And you get all the neat stuff you can do with a database. For example: "All songs that are rated 3 stars or higher, not played in the last 24 hours, random selection". And that's just the tip of the iceburg, you can also do subqueries by including rules like "is in playlist: New songs".
Not to mention, using Explorer to load your player is like using cp instead of rsync for backing up a networked computer. Why the hell would you do that? All I have to do is plug my iPod into the USB port. ITunes automaticly finds it, figgures out what changed since last time, syncs playcounts and ratings, copies any new songs and playlists, and updates all the smart playlists all in a few seconds.
There is more to an iPod than just playing music, that's the easy part. The advanced features, quick updates, and ease of use are a big part of what makes an iPod desirable. And those are acomplished via iTunes. Apple was smart about this, and what they did was make it possible for them to sell LOTS of iPods. People here will bitch and moan about niche stuff like special apps, gapless playback and ogg support, but 99% of people couldn't care less about that stuff. Nor should they. They want it to play music, be easy to use, and have a nice interface on the computer to load it up. iPod and iTunes do this VERY well. No other player I have used comes close.
>In neither of these cases are there copies made. Google is making copies!!! If you fail to see that >difference you really amazes me. It is the creation of those copies that are the copyright infringement.
It's always been my understanding that Copyright doesn't cover MAKING copies, only DISTRIBUTING them. There is a HUGE difference in the two. This means that I can go to the store, buy a CD, and rip it to MP3 to put on my iPod. That makes 3 copies of the work (the rip to WAV (even if it's just in RAM, it's still a copy), compression to MP3, putting it on my iPod). Am I violating copyright there? The courts say no (IIRC, the lawsuit against the Rio covered this). However, I am violating copyright if I give someone else a copy of my MP3s.
As I see it, Google Print is pretty much the same. They index the copies they make (and keep to themselves) and give only a few lines of text in the search results. That's like me giving 1 second of an MP3 to a friend. It's excerpting and generally accepted as fair use. Honestly, for public domain works, I don't see a problem with making the entire text downloadable. For in copyright works, I see no moral or legal problem with giving out only a few lines of text and a listing of what book it came from. Obviously, they can't let me download the whole book, and I see no indication that Google intends to allow any such thing. They aren't so stupid as to not realize that is a clear violation.
If publishers were smart, they would set up a website that google could link results to for purchasing the book. Even just linking to Amazon would be great. I could get on, search, find a book that looks to have the info I want, click buy and it shows up a few days later. Perfect. But no, they just have to keep thier buggy whips moving....... Copyright isn't a guarantee that you can make ever increasing profits by doing the same thing for all eternity. It's a guarantee that I can't give away or sell full copies of your work. Making money on it becomes your problem. If a service like Google indexing your book causes you to loose money, it's your business model that is flawed and needs updating.
It's funny how poeople here revile the RIAA and MPAA for the same sort of antics, but defend book publishers for the same crap. Technology is moving along and your customers want the world to move with it. Your job as an author or publisher is to provide the customers what they want, and find a way to make money out of it. If you can't do that, it's time to step aside for the next generation that can. The future is a steamroller and you're getting run over. Are you going to do something to get ahead of it, or are you going to sit there an be crushed? Doesn't matter one way or the other to me. I'll happily pay whoever is providing the services I want. If nobody is willing to take my money for what I want, I'll find another way, as will a vast majority of people. There IS money to be made here, but you have to change your perspective to make it. Hint: People are more than willing to pay for convience.
That makes good print, but what did he compare to? The cost of buying the car alone? Well that's disingenious. That only matters if you were not going to buy a car AT ALL. If you were buying one anyway, getting a hybrid vs. normal car causes that difference to drop quickly. For the Prius, the best comparison is to a Camry (they have about the same interior space). I did the math a while back and found I could make up the cost difference in less than 2 years with my current commute of about 90 miles/day at the then current gas prices of about $2.20/gal. Gas is set to hit over $3/gal soon in this area, so I'm probably down to 1 year now.
He also went in to the eventual disposal of the giant battery/batteries in these cars. Not a pretty picture.
I don't know about the others, but Toyota offers a buyback for the batteries, and owns a battery plant. They recycle the batteries as the Nickel used in them is valuable. They use Ni-MH for now, possibly Li based in the future. Both can be recycled. Normal lead-acid batteries are far more dangerous to the enviornment and have a very high compliance rate for recycling. I see no reason Hybrid batteries are any worse.
The Honda Accord hybrid looks like a regular Honda Accord so they are not selling nearly as well.
I doubt that is the reason. The Accord Hybrid is designed for more power, not more milage. Hybrids are in the news for milage, so the Accord gets kind of overlooked. As gas prices shoot up, more and more people are wanting to get the costs of commuting down. A Prius will do that, an Accord will not. The Prius has also been around longer, and has had great marketing and has been noticed by the masses. Name recognition wins elections in this country, it's not suprising that it sells cars as well.
I have adblock on and it worked fine. Update your rules. No different than spam filtering really. General rules like "ad" are going to get false positives. Of course, I only use adblock on the really annoying ones. Simple banners and such I usually leave alone.
They are not reffering to any particular government. They are reffering to government in the general sense. What they are asking about is why you think those services are so important. Forget the US system of government, they are reffering to a hypothetical "ideal" government. As that is basicly what you are reffering to when you list the services you want paid for by government, it's perfectly reasonable.
So the question is: "Why should everyone be forced, at gunpoint, to pay for the services you listed, and no other ones?"
Someone else replied about Asus. Gigabyte A64 boards can flash from Windows as well. Their utility even has the ability to check the internet and download the latest version if I want it to. I've done it a couple times on my XP box. It can boot from USB flash drives and CD/DVD just fine as well. No need to read the BIOS image off USB as I can do it from WinXP.
Mine even has a backup BIOS chip that I can flash to a known good version. There is even a BIOS utility to copy the good flash to the backup, and to swtich to booting from the backup (it will do it automaticly if a boot fails as well).
In short, buy a good motherboard. You might pay a little more upfront, but you get what you pay for.
Of course there is a violation: Thinking for yourself. Everyone knows that you have to let the government do all your thinking for you and just tell you what's good for you. :)
Check out white saphire. My wife suggested it when we bought her ring and it looks REALLY good. We've had to tell jewelers what it is because they can't tell without the special testers. Go to a small mom-and-pop type jeweler, they will be able to get what you want. I was able to have hers custom made to my specs and with stones I specified.
We just didn't feel that shiny rocks were worth that much when we needed to buy a house, car, pay bills, and prepare for having kids. The white saphire is a nice medium. It's not soft like CZ so it doesn't scratch easily, but it has a very nice white color like diamond without the high price.