As for the nonsensical button names, I've never had an issue with that. Certainly they can be a little tricky to type if you want to use the symbols when writing a FAQ or something (I generally use X, O, [], Triangle) - but aside from that it's been a complete non-issue.
I refer to them by their original SNES designations, which always gets funny looks from the young'uns that grew up with PSX or PS2. I tend to color-code them according to the SFC controller's button colors as well (also used on the very excellent AsciiPad, which was sold in North America).
A = right, red B = bottom, yellow X = top, blue Y = left, green
Which brings up a question... How did the ZABIE hint work in Chrono Trigger when it was re-released for the PSX? That specifically relied on your ability to press X-A-B-Y.
Personally, I have the exact opposite sentiment, and here's why:
Open an empty folder in Windows. There will be a slight pause while it checks to see if there's anything in the folder, then it opens a window. Now do the same on Mac OS. It opens a window instantly and allows you to interact with it.
Now, let's go to the other extreme. Open a jam-packed-full folder on Windows (with more than 1000 items). There will be a long pause as it finds all the stuff in that folder, sorts them, and finally opens a window and displays the contents of the folder. Now do the same on the Mac OS. It opens a window instantly and allows you to interact with it. It adds things to that folder as it finds them, making some of the items "moving targets" (and nearly impossible to interact with until things settle down), but if all you wanted to do was open a subfolder (which will be found and displayed first), you can do that and skip messing with the rest of the files in that folder. It's partly a benefit of the HFS/HFS+ file system (both in FS seek structure and in the amount of time Apple has been tweaking the code for it), and partly a timing issue with the UI. Microsoft has to put up with the limitations of the FAT/FAT32 and NTFS file systems, and they still don't bother to do common sense things like open the window first and add things later (and they've had live-updating windows for a long time).
The Mac OS is full of little things like that that actually save you real time, rather than cutting back on minor visual effects. Also, it's worth noting that the vast majority of visual effects 1) serve a purpose in making the UI "feel right" either logically or spatially (for instance, Finder windows "zoom" open from the icon you clicked rather than just appearing from nowhere) and 2) aren't distracting and/or stupid. And the ones that violate #2 can be turned off (genie effect, for example). There aren't any delay times for displaying menus (though there is a fade-out on them). Windows seems to have stupid UI tricks just for the sake of having them. Who wanted menus to spontaneously hide options that you haven't used in a while? Probably not even the poor sap who had to code it.
The point of the article is that the Wii's CPU is really microarchitecturally similar to the Gecko, down to the number of FP pipelines and such, and is basically a 90nm shrink of the old chip with higher clock speeds.
And the article is flat-out wrong. The "Gekko" used in the Gamecube is a PPC4xx derivative. The PowerPC 400-series is a high-performance PLC chip family, and was started at the same time as the PPC750 family. Both are based on the PPC603. The 400-series is drastically scaled down and is more power efficient. The "Broadway" is a full-blown PPC750CL, which makes it a cousin to the 400-series. The PPC750 is a desktop chip and has been on the 90nm process since the 750FX (which was the first PPC to break the GHz barrier, about 5 or 6 years ago). Since the 750FX is rated at a big, fat 8-15W of heat dissipation, there hasn't been much reason to move to 65nm or lower.
The 750-based "Broadway" has probably twice the number of integer pipelines of the 4xx-derived "Gekko". It also probably has a shrunken-head version of the famed (and berated) "Altivec" SIMD unit (IBM finally got the rights to use it in the 750 after Motorola spun off Freescale), which "Gekko" didn't have. That makes it a good deal more powerful than the "Gekko". Not to mention that it has a 800-1100 MHz clock, compared to the Gekko's 400-500 MHz. (And yes, these are comparable, as they're not THAT different in architecture, just in parallel-pipe count and clock rate). I would imagine that the SIMD is clocked independently (with a separate multiplier) from the main ALU, and does not degrade the fairness of that comparison until you get into "real-world" testing.
Isn't a 'bonnet' a type of hat, as opposed to an engine cover?
To be fair, so is a "hood". And if you think about it, if the "bonnet" (a head covering) is on one end of the car, wouldn't the "boot" (a foot covering) be at the other end? Sure, it sounds odd to an American, but it does have a slight logic to it.
And to you brits that are going to come back and say "yeah! And where did 'trunk' come from? It's not logical!", well, in the early days, the ass-end of a car carried a wooden travel trunk. So plug it.
Actually, I see the Wiimote as being more of a step toward PC gaming. Why? Because it's a pointer. The keyboard is NOT the main difference between console and PC games. The mouse is. Console controllers have been steadily gaining more buttons for years now, some even arranged in number pads and other keyboard-like arrangements (like the Atari Jaguar). They've all been lacking a mouse, though. (Except for niche peripherals like the SNES mouse, which was used for a grand total of 2 or 3 games... and can you name any of them other than Mario Paint? Not likely. I think Yoshi's Cookie and Simcity 2000 used it.) Now the DS has a stylus and it has opened the system up to all sorts of games that couldn't otherwise be made on a console.
The Wiimote will do the same for home consoles. It's not just motion-sensitive, it's also position-sensitive (due to the "sensor bar"). That makes it a fully functional 3D pointing device. It can sense velocity/tilt on 3 axes as well as pointing position relative to the sensor bar, which can be used together to calculate "depth". 2D "x,y" positioning only requires the sensor bar. Now you can hit a button to bring up your menu, point to an item, and "poke" at it to select it (or hit a button), then go back to the action and press another button to use the item you just selected at any point you can see on the screen, and any depth you can see on the screen.
I'd love to see MLB absorb the Japanese league, as well as start up teams in other nations. One rule, though, should be that a team must represent a city or state/province/county not a nation.
BTW, who won the Japanese series this year? I'm a Cardinals fan, and I would love to see them play an international game. It's good to dream, I guess.
It's more of a Central American thing, really. Three well-liked local players are from that region. Perhaps you've heard of them. Albert Pujols and Juan Encarnacion are from the Dominican Republic. Yadier Molina is from Puerto Rico.
Most US-dwellers would tell you they're "from [insert city or state here]". We don't use the -ian suffix much. We're all "from" somewhere.
Remember, each state in the USA is (on average) only slightly smaller than a nation in Europe, and is run as a separate sub-government with full self-authority (except secession from the union). That makes it entirely correct to refer to yourself as a resident of a state rather than the nation as a whole. It also gives more important information about the speaker, since the USA is a big place with a lot of smaller cultural segments that can be distinguished (usually) by regions, states, and even cities (even as far down as suburbs, but you'd have to be a local to know).
In light of your obvious mental state (that of being british), we excuse your inept attempt at humor.
1. We use Merriam-Webster's dictionary. It defines "revocation" roughly the same way as your Oxford version. It, however, lists "aluminium" as a foreign (and therefore, secondary) spelling and pronunciation. In addition, that word sounds too much like "condominium", which, aside from the old electrical wiring, has nothing to do with alumin[i]um. The letter "u" is not pronounced in words like "humor" and "color", and therefore is unnecessary, proving your redundance. The same holds true for "-ize". If we used "-ise", we would have to make too many hissing noises. And as for vocabulary, well, at least we have an understandable one. I rarely see bloody items, I'm not your "chap" ("chaps" here are protective pants for cowboys), and you certainly shouldn't be lecturing about "inefficient" forms of communication.
2. We don't care what you tell Microsoft. You can bomb them for all we care. And we don't speak "US English". We speak American English. Or did you think Canada had their own dialect? Canada? Something original? Yeah, right.
3. We already have that song here. We call it "God Bless America", and it's quite outdated. For that matter, so is "The Star-Spangled Banner", and it's hard to sing as well. I think we should just change it to "We Will Rock You".
4. Better yet, how about we celebrate nothing? July 4 is a bunch of useless pomp and circumstance anyway, all over a fight with some pansy-ass brits 230 years ago. That's not really worth celebrating, as anyone can kick a pansy-ass brit's ass.
5. How about we just shoot all the pansy-ass brits?
6. Don't lecture us about German cars. You've seen what has happened to Daimler-Benz since they merged with Chrysler. None of the fancy German engineering and quality has shown up in Chrysler products, but the suckage was quickly transferred the other way. We'll buy Japanese, thankyouverymuch. And metric sucks as bad as imperial units, so don't give me any of that crap, either. Invent a well-defined standard and we'll talk. And if you don't know what I mean by "well-defined", ponder this: What is a gram? What is a liter? What is a meter? What are any of them based on? Now how is that different from pounds, gallons, or feet?
7. Screw that crap. You can keep your expensive "petrol". We'll keep our cheap gasoline, thanks.
8. Chips are precisely that. Chips hacked off of a potato or other starchy vegetable. They can be baked or deep-fried. Perhaps what you call "chips" would be better suited to the name "slices of starch fried and drenched in nasty sour stuff". Also, everyone knows you should eat fries with ketchup, not mayo. The closest thing to what you describe is a Canadian specialty called "poutine", but that uses white gravy rather than mayo.
9. Waiters and waitresses can be trained however the restaurant owner wants to train them, but it won't guarantee that people will put up with poor service.
10. Beer is any beverage brewed with yeast and hops. I don't see how weak beer is "not beer". I also don't see how nasty, chewable beer is the "one true way", either.
11. James Bond is always the good guy. And don't tell me it's not "Hollywood", since it's released in the US first, and by MGM. That makes it fully "Hollywood". And in case you lost your Oxford English Dictionary, an "actor" is someone who pretends to be someone they're not for the purpose of storytelling and/or role-play. Hugh Laurie plays a doctor on TV and does a fine job of disguising his british accent. If anything is to be done, just don't watch movies with bad fake-british accents in them. It's that whole "capitalism" idea. Or would you rather revert to a feudal society where serfs are told what to do by the manor lord?
12. The only change needed for "american football" is that it needs a real (and distinct) name. "Soccer" is descriptive enough that nobody needs to ask "is that type-a soccer or type-b soccer?" It's just "soccer". It's
Get rid of term limits (if there are any). But add one restriction... no consecutive terms. Force them to change things around every election rather than allowing one guy to put down roots. But don't limit the number of times one person can be elected. Do this at all levels - local, state, national, and for all branches (which includes the POTUS/VPOTUS and state officials).
If that text is in the binary, then you just violated Apple's copyright by posting that snippet of text (note the part about publicly displaying it). Unless you have Apple's authorization, that is.
That said, when has the DMCA stopped anyone on/. from trying to figure out what makes stuff tick? It's not like it's law outside of the USA, or anything, nor is it particularly valid inside the USA. It's just that nobody has allowed its validity to be tested, thus it stands... for now. It's a paper tiger. It looks mean, but it can't hurt you (if you're on solid legal ground, anyway), and it'll burn easily enough if you can just get it in contact with open flame.
Commercials almost always have their peaks clipped. That way, they don't seem louder (painful to hear, usually), but seem more intense than normal and get your attention.
It has the unfortunate side-effect of fooling software/hardware/whatever-ware that detects commercials as "louder" (some fancy early VCR's did this back when commercials were actually louder than the shows). The waveform amplitude is jacked up in a premix, then clipped down to a standard level used by most TV programming, thus it doesn't have a higher amplitude than anything else. The reason it seems more intense is because those clipped peaks translate into square-wave pops, which sound very harsh. Newer algorithms could keep a running average count of peak-clipped samples and when that goes above a threshold, it considers the offending portion (back to the previous "quiet" section) to be a commercial block.
NES - challenged weakly by Sega, gained huge acceptance, solidified the Nintendo name, tons of games, but many were mediocre SNES - challenged strongly by Sega, gained even more acceptance than the NES, kept Nintendo going strong, tons of games, many were good N64 - challenged overpoweringly by Sony, lost acceptance, lost much of Nintendo's brand strength, few games, some were good
PSX - challenged weakly by Nintendo, gained huge acceptance, solidified the Sony name (for games), tons of games but many were mediocre PS2 - challenged strongly by Microsoft, gained even more acceptance than the PSX, kept Sony going strong, tons of games, many were good PS3 - ??? (I'm betting it looks about like the N64's downfall.)
I'm hoping Nintendo comes in and takes the crown back, but I wouldn't count Microsoft out either. And there may well be an unknown waiting in the wings to win us all over.
1) This was an IBM/Boeing datacenter. I'm pretty sure that it's considered "MAJOR". The main rooms were approximately 30000 square feet each, and there were 4 floors of them. There were several additional buildings with smaller datacenters in this same complex, all powered and cooled from the same central plant. 2) I didn't say anything about cooling towers. There were 4 huge chillers, 1 large cooling tower (with 4 fans, thus making it roughly equivalent to 4 "packaged" towers), and 1 WATER TOWER that stored chilled water for later use. I worked in HVAC controls at the time (my company's system didn't control those chillers, though), and I'm quite aware of how chilled water systems work. 3) The "datacenter" at the ISP I work with now (not directly employed by them, but part of the same parent company) has a small, broken diesel generator. That would be the "server room" situation. I do know the difference.
Thinking back on it, however, the thing I think I was wrong about was the generator specs. I don't think it was 12.5kW each, I think they produced at 12.5kV. Which would probably put them more in the range of the generators you're talking about.
The only major data center I've been in had 6 diesel 12.5kW generators. It also had power feeds from two different grids, water from two different mains, and a water tower that could keep enough chilled water to keep the place running for 2 hours if the chillers all failed. We're talking a MAJOR data center with plenty of redundancy. It did not need 2MW generators. It only needed a total of 75kW.
There's also a hydroelectric dam located near where I grew up. It could produce 20-30MW, and the tour guide mentioned that it could power a town of about 20,000 people. Clearly, 2MW is way too much power for a datacenter.
A guy I work with sent this to me a few months ago.
America: OK guys, Hezbollah has given us a lot of trouble in the past, uh does anybody need anything off these guys or can we ignore them? Britain: Uhh, I think Israel needs something from this guy. America: Oh, does he need those kidnapped soldiers? Doesn't - isn't he gonna try to work something out? Britain: Yeah, but that will help him look better, he'll have more credibility. America: [sighs] Christ. OK, uhh well what we'll do, I'll run in first, uh gather up all the soldiers, we can kinda just, ya know blast them all down with artillery. Um, I will use shock and awe, to kinda scatter'em, so we don't have to fight a whole bunch of them at once. Uhh, when my shocks are done, uhh, I'll need Poland to come in and drop his shock too, uh so we can keep them scattered and not have to fight too many. Um, when his is done, Norway of course will need to run in and do the same thing. Uhh, we're gonna need cover for our jets, uhh so they can, uhh, bomb, uh so we can of course get them down fast, cause we're bringing all these guys, I mean, we'll be in trouble if we don't take them down quick. Uhh I think this is a pretty good plan, we should be able to pull it off this time. Uhh, what do you think Britain? Can you give me a number crunch real quick? Britain: Uhhh.. yeah gimme a sec... I'm coming up with thirty-two point three three, repeating of course, percentage, of survival. America: That's a lot better than we usually do, uhh, alright, you think we're ready guys? [interrupted] Israel: All right chums, I'm back! Let's do this! LEEROOOOOOOY JEEENKIIIIIINSSS!!! [runs into Lebanon]
-Short pause-
Spain: [incredulous]... Oh my God he just ran in. [runs in] Italy: Save him! America: Oh jeez, stick to the plan. Spain: Oh jeez, let's go, let's go! [follows] Britain [laughing]: Stick to the plan chums! America: Stick to the plan! Spain: Oh jeez, oh fark. Australia: Gimme some cover, hurry up. America: Shoutin'! Australia: It's saying I can't cast! I can't move, am I lagging, guys? Japan: I can't move! Spain: What the--what the hell? Japan: I can't bomb! Spain: Oh my God... Britain: The terrorists just keep respawning! More respawning!! Spain: I don't think you can bomb with that shiat on! Japan: Oh my God! Israel: We got em, we got em! South Korea: I got it! I got it! [muffled shouts] America: America's down. America's down. Spain: Oh my God.. America: Goddamnit Israel! Spain: Goddamnit... Britain: Israel you moron! [various put-downs of Israel amongst group] Italy: I'm on it. Ukraine: It's on Ukraine. America: This is ridiculous. Spain: I'm down, Spain down. Goddamnit. Ukraine: Ukraine is down. Britain: This is the somethingth time we've died on this, God! Britain: Japan, rez us! Japan, rez us! America: Why do you do this shiat Israel? Japan: I'm trying! Israel [crying]: It's not my fault! Spain [noticing everybody is dead]:... Oh God... America + Others: Oh for - [sighs] Great job! Britain: Leeroy, you are just stupid as hell. Japan: Nimrod.
It tastes exactly like yellow Triaminic. That's the most disgusting stuff ever.
On a related note, Absolut Mandarin smells like orange Triaminic. And that's the best-tasting cough medicine ever. Though I'd rather just drink the vodka these days.
I had to send an email to iTMS customer support once when it b0rked a download.
Back in the iTunes 4 days (right after the iTMS showed up on the scene), you would download the song, and when it was done downloading, it would notify the remote-side (the iTMS) that the file was received, then it would generate the DRM wrapper (which required further calls to iTMS). Once, after it had already downloaded the track but had not yet generated the DRM, it timed out when connecting to the iTMS and dropped the file into the ether. I didn't get the song, but the iTMS had already been notified that the download had finished, therefore it wouldn't allow me to get the song again (without paying, that is). I sent an email to their customer service address, and the next day, the file was waiting in the download queue for my account. I haven't had any problems since then. That particular issue was fixed in iTunes 4.1. Now it doesn't flag it as "downloaded" until it generates the DRM wrapper.
Slashdot Mirror
And from Ebay:
As for the nonsensical button names, I've never had an issue with that. Certainly they can be a little tricky to type if you want to use the symbols when writing a FAQ or something (I generally use X, O, [], Triangle) - but aside from that it's been a complete non-issue.
I refer to them by their original SNES designations, which always gets funny looks from the young'uns that grew up with PSX or PS2. I tend to color-code them according to the SFC controller's button colors as well (also used on the very excellent AsciiPad, which was sold in North America).
A = right, red
B = bottom, yellow
X = top, blue
Y = left, green
Which brings up a question... How did the ZABIE hint work in Chrono Trigger when it was re-released for the PSX? That specifically relied on your ability to press X-A-B-Y.
But... but... but Apple's RMA's are all shiny and smooth and sleek and white and are printed up in that oh-so-classy Apple Garamond font face!
Personally, I have the exact opposite sentiment, and here's why:
Open an empty folder in Windows. There will be a slight pause while it checks to see if there's anything in the folder, then it opens a window. Now do the same on Mac OS. It opens a window instantly and allows you to interact with it.
Now, let's go to the other extreme. Open a jam-packed-full folder on Windows (with more than 1000 items). There will be a long pause as it finds all the stuff in that folder, sorts them, and finally opens a window and displays the contents of the folder. Now do the same on the Mac OS. It opens a window instantly and allows you to interact with it. It adds things to that folder as it finds them, making some of the items "moving targets" (and nearly impossible to interact with until things settle down), but if all you wanted to do was open a subfolder (which will be found and displayed first), you can do that and skip messing with the rest of the files in that folder. It's partly a benefit of the HFS/HFS+ file system (both in FS seek structure and in the amount of time Apple has been tweaking the code for it), and partly a timing issue with the UI. Microsoft has to put up with the limitations of the FAT/FAT32 and NTFS file systems, and they still don't bother to do common sense things like open the window first and add things later (and they've had live-updating windows for a long time).
The Mac OS is full of little things like that that actually save you real time, rather than cutting back on minor visual effects. Also, it's worth noting that the vast majority of visual effects 1) serve a purpose in making the UI "feel right" either logically or spatially (for instance, Finder windows "zoom" open from the icon you clicked rather than just appearing from nowhere) and 2) aren't distracting and/or stupid. And the ones that violate #2 can be turned off (genie effect, for example). There aren't any delay times for displaying menus (though there is a fade-out on them). Windows seems to have stupid UI tricks just for the sake of having them. Who wanted menus to spontaneously hide options that you haven't used in a while? Probably not even the poor sap who had to code it.
Unless you happen to live in Greenwich, or maybe one or two time zones in either direction, using UTC would be nothing but a pain in the ass.
Or if you happen to be a sailor in the Navy. They use it too, but they call it "Zulu". Zulu = GMT = UTC. (With minor, cosmetic differences.)
The point of the article is that the Wii's CPU is really microarchitecturally similar to the Gecko, down to the number of FP pipelines and such, and is basically a 90nm shrink of the old chip with higher clock speeds.
And the article is flat-out wrong. The "Gekko" used in the Gamecube is a PPC4xx derivative. The PowerPC 400-series is a high-performance PLC chip family, and was started at the same time as the PPC750 family. Both are based on the PPC603. The 400-series is drastically scaled down and is more power efficient. The "Broadway" is a full-blown PPC750CL, which makes it a cousin to the 400-series. The PPC750 is a desktop chip and has been on the 90nm process since the 750FX (which was the first PPC to break the GHz barrier, about 5 or 6 years ago). Since the 750FX is rated at a big, fat 8-15W of heat dissipation, there hasn't been much reason to move to 65nm or lower.
The 750-based "Broadway" has probably twice the number of integer pipelines of the 4xx-derived "Gekko". It also probably has a shrunken-head version of the famed (and berated) "Altivec" SIMD unit (IBM finally got the rights to use it in the 750 after Motorola spun off Freescale), which "Gekko" didn't have. That makes it a good deal more powerful than the "Gekko". Not to mention that it has a 800-1100 MHz clock, compared to the Gekko's 400-500 MHz. (And yes, these are comparable, as they're not THAT different in architecture, just in parallel-pipe count and clock rate). I would imagine that the SIMD is clocked independently (with a separate multiplier) from the main ALU, and does not degrade the fairness of that comparison until you get into "real-world" testing.
Isn't a 'bonnet' a type of hat, as opposed to an engine cover?
To be fair, so is a "hood". And if you think about it, if the "bonnet" (a head covering) is on one end of the car, wouldn't the "boot" (a foot covering) be at the other end? Sure, it sounds odd to an American, but it does have a slight logic to it.
And to you brits that are going to come back and say "yeah! And where did 'trunk' come from? It's not logical!", well, in the early days, the ass-end of a car carried a wooden travel trunk. So plug it.
I hate raisins, and you couldn't "roll" me even if you weren't hung over, you boozy canuck.
See? I'm from Missouri and I can understand you just fine. Brits, on the other hand, are a different story.
Actually, I see the Wiimote as being more of a step toward PC gaming. Why? Because it's a pointer. The keyboard is NOT the main difference between console and PC games. The mouse is. Console controllers have been steadily gaining more buttons for years now, some even arranged in number pads and other keyboard-like arrangements (like the Atari Jaguar). They've all been lacking a mouse, though. (Except for niche peripherals like the SNES mouse, which was used for a grand total of 2 or 3 games... and can you name any of them other than Mario Paint? Not likely. I think Yoshi's Cookie and Simcity 2000 used it.) Now the DS has a stylus and it has opened the system up to all sorts of games that couldn't otherwise be made on a console.
The Wiimote will do the same for home consoles. It's not just motion-sensitive, it's also position-sensitive (due to the "sensor bar"). That makes it a fully functional 3D pointing device. It can sense velocity/tilt on 3 axes as well as pointing position relative to the sensor bar, which can be used together to calculate "depth". 2D "x,y" positioning only requires the sensor bar. Now you can hit a button to bring up your menu, point to an item, and "poke" at it to select it (or hit a button), then go back to the action and press another button to use the item you just selected at any point you can see on the screen, and any depth you can see on the screen.
Pretty much. He died during the pre-release hype-storm.
Don't you know? God speaks to Americans, not to those unholy brits.
I'd love to see MLB absorb the Japanese league, as well as start up teams in other nations. One rule, though, should be that a team must represent a city or state/province/county not a nation.
BTW, who won the Japanese series this year? I'm a Cardinals fan, and I would love to see them play an international game. It's good to dream, I guess.
It's more of a Central American thing, really. Three well-liked local players are from that region. Perhaps you've heard of them. Albert Pujols and Juan Encarnacion are from the Dominican Republic. Yadier Molina is from Puerto Rico.
Yeah, I'm a Cardinals fan.
Most US-dwellers would tell you they're "from [insert city or state here]". We don't use the -ian suffix much. We're all "from" somewhere.
Remember, each state in the USA is (on average) only slightly smaller than a nation in Europe, and is run as a separate sub-government with full self-authority (except secession from the union). That makes it entirely correct to refer to yourself as a resident of a state rather than the nation as a whole. It also gives more important information about the speaker, since the USA is a big place with a lot of smaller cultural segments that can be distinguished (usually) by regions, states, and even cities (even as far down as suburbs, but you'd have to be a local to know).
In light of your obvious mental state (that of being british), we excuse your inept attempt at humor.
1. We use Merriam-Webster's dictionary. It defines "revocation" roughly the same way as your Oxford version. It, however, lists "aluminium" as a foreign (and therefore, secondary) spelling and pronunciation. In addition, that word sounds too much like "condominium", which, aside from the old electrical wiring, has nothing to do with alumin[i]um. The letter "u" is not pronounced in words like "humor" and "color", and therefore is unnecessary, proving your redundance. The same holds true for "-ize". If we used "-ise", we would have to make too many hissing noises. And as for vocabulary, well, at least we have an understandable one. I rarely see bloody items, I'm not your "chap" ("chaps" here are protective pants for cowboys), and you certainly shouldn't be lecturing about "inefficient" forms of communication.
2. We don't care what you tell Microsoft. You can bomb them for all we care. And we don't speak "US English". We speak American English. Or did you think Canada had their own dialect? Canada? Something original? Yeah, right.
3. We already have that song here. We call it "God Bless America", and it's quite outdated. For that matter, so is "The Star-Spangled Banner", and it's hard to sing as well. I think we should just change it to "We Will Rock You".
4. Better yet, how about we celebrate nothing? July 4 is a bunch of useless pomp and circumstance anyway, all over a fight with some pansy-ass brits 230 years ago. That's not really worth celebrating, as anyone can kick a pansy-ass brit's ass.
5. How about we just shoot all the pansy-ass brits?
6. Don't lecture us about German cars. You've seen what has happened to Daimler-Benz since they merged with Chrysler. None of the fancy German engineering and quality has shown up in Chrysler products, but the suckage was quickly transferred the other way. We'll buy Japanese, thankyouverymuch. And metric sucks as bad as imperial units, so don't give me any of that crap, either. Invent a well-defined standard and we'll talk. And if you don't know what I mean by "well-defined", ponder this: What is a gram? What is a liter? What is a meter? What are any of them based on? Now how is that different from pounds, gallons, or feet?
7. Screw that crap. You can keep your expensive "petrol". We'll keep our cheap gasoline, thanks.
8. Chips are precisely that. Chips hacked off of a potato or other starchy vegetable. They can be baked or deep-fried. Perhaps what you call "chips" would be better suited to the name "slices of starch fried and drenched in nasty sour stuff". Also, everyone knows you should eat fries with ketchup, not mayo. The closest thing to what you describe is a Canadian specialty called "poutine", but that uses white gravy rather than mayo.
9. Waiters and waitresses can be trained however the restaurant owner wants to train them, but it won't guarantee that people will put up with poor service.
10. Beer is any beverage brewed with yeast and hops. I don't see how weak beer is "not beer". I also don't see how nasty, chewable beer is the "one true way", either.
11. James Bond is always the good guy. And don't tell me it's not "Hollywood", since it's released in the US first, and by MGM. That makes it fully "Hollywood". And in case you lost your Oxford English Dictionary, an "actor" is someone who pretends to be someone they're not for the purpose of storytelling and/or role-play. Hugh Laurie plays a doctor on TV and does a fine job of disguising his british accent. If anything is to be done, just don't watch movies with bad fake-british accents in them. It's that whole "capitalism" idea. Or would you rather revert to a feudal society where serfs are told what to do by the manor lord?
12. The only change needed for "american football" is that it needs a real (and distinct) name. "Soccer" is descriptive enough that nobody needs to ask "is that type-a soccer or type-b soccer?" It's just "soccer". It's
Get rid of term limits (if there are any). But add one restriction... no consecutive terms. Force them to change things around every election rather than allowing one guy to put down roots. But don't limit the number of times one person can be elected. Do this at all levels - local, state, national, and for all branches (which includes the POTUS/VPOTUS and state officials).
If that text is in the binary, then you just violated Apple's copyright by posting that snippet of text (note the part about publicly displaying it). Unless you have Apple's authorization, that is.
/. from trying to figure out what makes stuff tick? It's not like it's law outside of the USA, or anything, nor is it particularly valid inside the USA. It's just that nobody has allowed its validity to be tested, thus it stands... for now. It's a paper tiger. It looks mean, but it can't hurt you (if you're on solid legal ground, anyway), and it'll burn easily enough if you can just get it in contact with open flame.
That said, when has the DMCA stopped anyone on
Commercials almost always have their peaks clipped. That way, they don't seem louder (painful to hear, usually), but seem more intense than normal and get your attention.
It has the unfortunate side-effect of fooling software/hardware/whatever-ware that detects commercials as "louder" (some fancy early VCR's did this back when commercials were actually louder than the shows). The waveform amplitude is jacked up in a premix, then clipped down to a standard level used by most TV programming, thus it doesn't have a higher amplitude than anything else. The reason it seems more intense is because those clipped peaks translate into square-wave pops, which sound very harsh. Newer algorithms could keep a running average count of peak-clipped samples and when that goes above a threshold, it considers the offending portion (back to the previous "quiet" section) to be a commercial block.
Here's the pattern I see:
:)
NES - challenged weakly by Sega, gained huge acceptance, solidified the Nintendo name, tons of games, but many were mediocre
SNES - challenged strongly by Sega, gained even more acceptance than the NES, kept Nintendo going strong, tons of games, many were good
N64 - challenged overpoweringly by Sony, lost acceptance, lost much of Nintendo's brand strength, few games, some were good
PSX - challenged weakly by Nintendo, gained huge acceptance, solidified the Sony name (for games), tons of games but many were mediocre
PS2 - challenged strongly by Microsoft, gained even more acceptance than the PSX, kept Sony going strong, tons of games, many were good
PS3 - ??? (I'm betting it looks about like the N64's downfall.)
I'm hoping Nintendo comes in and takes the crown back, but I wouldn't count Microsoft out either. And there may well be an unknown waiting in the wings to win us all over.
I'll forever be a Nintendo fanboy, though.
1) This was an IBM/Boeing datacenter. I'm pretty sure that it's considered "MAJOR". The main rooms were approximately 30000 square feet each, and there were 4 floors of them. There were several additional buildings with smaller datacenters in this same complex, all powered and cooled from the same central plant.
2) I didn't say anything about cooling towers. There were 4 huge chillers, 1 large cooling tower (with 4 fans, thus making it roughly equivalent to 4 "packaged" towers), and 1 WATER TOWER that stored chilled water for later use. I worked in HVAC controls at the time (my company's system didn't control those chillers, though), and I'm quite aware of how chilled water systems work.
3) The "datacenter" at the ISP I work with now (not directly employed by them, but part of the same parent company) has a small, broken diesel generator. That would be the "server room" situation. I do know the difference.
Thinking back on it, however, the thing I think I was wrong about was the generator specs. I don't think it was 12.5kW each, I think they produced at 12.5kV. Which would probably put them more in the range of the generators you're talking about.
All of your points are pretty much spot-on.
The only major data center I've been in had 6 diesel 12.5kW generators. It also had power feeds from two different grids, water from two different mains, and a water tower that could keep enough chilled water to keep the place running for 2 hours if the chillers all failed. We're talking a MAJOR data center with plenty of redundancy. It did not need 2MW generators. It only needed a total of 75kW.
There's also a hydroelectric dam located near where I grew up. It could produce 20-30MW, and the tour guide mentioned that it could power a town of about 20,000 people. Clearly, 2MW is way too much power for a datacenter.
It tastes exactly like yellow Triaminic. That's the most disgusting stuff ever.
On a related note, Absolut Mandarin smells like orange Triaminic. And that's the best-tasting cough medicine ever. Though I'd rather just drink the vodka these days.
I've heard of Sysco, but they don't have a 4507.
The chocolate pizza looks good, though.
I had to send an email to iTMS customer support once when it b0rked a download.
Back in the iTunes 4 days (right after the iTMS showed up on the scene), you would download the song, and when it was done downloading, it would notify the remote-side (the iTMS) that the file was received, then it would generate the DRM wrapper (which required further calls to iTMS). Once, after it had already downloaded the track but had not yet generated the DRM, it timed out when connecting to the iTMS and dropped the file into the ether. I didn't get the song, but the iTMS had already been notified that the download had finished, therefore it wouldn't allow me to get the song again (without paying, that is). I sent an email to their customer service address, and the next day, the file was waiting in the download queue for my account. I haven't had any problems since then. That particular issue was fixed in iTunes 4.1. Now it doesn't flag it as "downloaded" until it generates the DRM wrapper.