That's what I want to know. All the SRB's I'm familiar with are essentially just tubes with a nozzle on the end, so what's to stop the water from heading up the nozzle and filling the thing in? From the head-down camera, the thing actually eventually ends up sitting straight up and down in the water! I'd like to know how they managed that...
I don't think these security words are convenient anymore, not when mine was "fished"
1) People in EVERY political district idealistic enough that they fully believe that they can and want to change the system for the good of the people and 2) people to vote for them. 1 is relatively easy, if you can get them to run. Getting them on the ballot is hard because of the voting laws. And it gets harder as you move up in political power because the "traditional" parties (you know the two I'm talking about) are the only ones that get press. Think about the "presidential debates" people see on tv. How many candidates do you see there? Two. How many actual presidential candidates are there? About half a dozen.
2 is a bigger problem though, because there are LOTS of people who refuse to vote outside their party. Not to mention how many many people vote on how much they like or dislike the candidate, which has absolutely nothing to do with how they should be voting. No research to see whose policies stand out among the rest, nothing. Its just another one of the circuses to them. And many of the people wise to their schemes don't even vote! And you'll find a lot of them right here on slashdot! Consider this: If the 30-40% of the people in the US who don't vote in each election did vote for someone outside the two party system, where would we be then? We'd be the majority party, that's where we'd be, since the D's and R's are usually split right down the middle, give or take a few percent.
I just shot an average on the productions and added them together, using 60,000,000 barrels per day total production. Multiply by 365 days a year, 30 years, 19.5 gallons of gas in a barrel, 20 pounds of CO2 in a gallon of gas. Divide that by 2000 lbs in a ton and you get somewhere around 130 billion tons of CO2. If you use the same source for CO2 in a gallon of gas, which says roughly 8 pounds of water come from burning a gallon of gas, then you're talking about around 50 billion tons of water vapor. Add those together and (with the figures from Phase Shifter) and you're talking about 3.6% of the existing mass we've produced in the last 30 years alone. I tried to dig up some figures on the deforestation but didn't have much luck, but trees (which we're cutting) and grass (which we're paving over) are large consumers of CO2 and H20, so losing them is compounding the effect.
To think that dumping billions of tons of CO2 (and slightly less H20) into the atmosphere over the last 30 years alone (rough calculations indicate around 130 billion tons from early 70s to early 00s), while simultaneously deforesting much of the world's forests as fast as they can be cut, has little to no effect on the environment is the height of ignorance. CO2, the #2 greenhouse gas out there, right with H20 (which also comes from that gas combustion). And lets not forget that even modern gas engines aren't 100% efficient, so there's all that waste heat and energy dumped into the atmosphere that was previously buried underground. And this is only considering gasoline produced in the past 30 years. Figure the long-term gas use/production, not to mention coal and natural gas, and it is enough to make you sick (if you care, that is).
What we need are real solutions to undo what we've done and at least bring the global temperature down a bit. Remember that article about how the temp is as high as it has ever been for as long as we have accurate records? Yeah, what we're doing is real, you can feel it when you walk outside. Blocking the sun just gives us an excuse to keep doing as we've been doing, not to mention F'ing up the ecosystem in the process.
It takes a MASSIVE amount of ice to put even a small amount of it above the water line. That's because the density of ice isn't so much less than that of liquid water. The buoyant force caused by the density difference is only slightly larger than the weight of the ice. That's why icebergs are 90% below the water line and only 10% above (actual figures may vary, but its close to that). The water level WILL go down because the density increases as the ice melts, decreasing the overall volume. Density goes up, volume goes down, basic science class stuff.
Lets take an iceberg at 100,000kg. The density of ice is 920kg per cubic meter. So that much ice occupies 108.7 cubic meters. If you assume a 90/10 split, the berg will be 97.8m^3 below the water line. The same mass of water (sea water density is ~1025kg/m^3) occupies 97.6 cubic meters. Overall actual volume drop is ~.2 m^3. That's not much, but considering average icebergs weigh from 100-200,000,000 kg (100x more than the one I used), and there are LOTS of them, it adds up.
I'd still shop there, why? Still no DRM, ANY format I want (I love oggs), and priced as it should be (read: more than now, but less than itunes). A lossy, DRM encumbered file shouldn't cost the same as a DRM encumbered (or not) but lossless CD. 5 bucks for a whole album, or, at most, 50 cents a track, is all I, and I suspect many, are willing to pay for mp3s. How about pricing things according to what you actually get like other businesses? You want the high end car, you pay the high end bucks. Same goes for music quality. I've bought music from allofmp3.com simply because it is the best store there is. The alltunes program they built is just great, simple, clean and efficient. Order what you want, when its encoded in the format you want, download away. No forced formats or tie-ins only with one brand of device (I'm looking at you itunes).
The only reason you have to do this is because ATi and nVidia (and seriously, what's with the F'd up capitalization people!) won't release their drivers as open source. Since Linux is all GPL'd, it can't be distributed with software that won't include its source code. So the graphics drivers have to remain a seperate process. So don't blame Linux, blame your graphics card makers.
Now, I don't really see why someone who knew what they were doing (read: not me) could make a shell script that would properly edit the config files and do the install properly for such a unified distro as ubuntu and pack it into the ubuntu package manager, but I digress...
Marketing. People rarely buy a player based on the music store, and itunes isn't the first music store in the world to offer single track purchases. Once they opened it up to the windows market and ran enough commercials to make it the stylish thing to have, people bought it. Most people weren't really aware of mp3 players because they never saw commercials for it, apple was the first to do it successfully because they're one of the few that have the capital to execute it properly.
But the trade-off, more time for gaming yet no girlfriend, isn't that appealing.
This is slashdot, the trade off isn't exactly optional here;)
The game itself is ok so far but it lacks the depth of puzzle pirates though. Not to say that is a bad thing, YPP in its current state can be a little overwhelming to some. But there is so much to do there that it makes it kind of fun, and you can spend as little or as much time in it as you want.
Even if they do raise the price, it won't be for over 250. Sure some people may pay more than that at launch (ebayers) but retail will not be over 250. And that's the biggest selling point nintendo has. Their consoles have never been cutting edge. They haven't needed to be to be fun to play.
Think about it, games aren't going to get cheaper. That's because they've already worked the public into being (relatively) comfortable paying what they pay for games. If the game makers add in game ads, they won't lower the price, they'll just use it to increase profits. It won't help in immersiveness, people are trying to escape that crap, not get more into it. There are a very few games where you could replace the nondescript coke machines with actual coke machines but it would be more distracting than anything. And they're going to use MY bandwidth to change the ads around? I don't think so! I personally won't buy a game if I know it has ads in it, because it doesn't benefit me one bit.
I think one of the only places where it works is sponsorship bits for sim games. Like it was mentioned earlier, getting a greddy turbo for your car in a racing game or some brand name clubs in a golf game. Then maybe the advertisers will be too busy arguing about why one person's brand of clubs gives them more of a benefit than the others to think up any new an annoying schemes. Ads anywhere else it will be annoying, out of place and invasive.
I took a look at the apple page before replying to this. Probably the most common laptops available equate to the low end macbook pro. 15.4 in screen, mid range processor, etc. All basically the same as most general purpose Dell, HP, Gateway laptops. The low end macbook pro STARTS at 2 grand. Dell will sell you a 15.4 in laptop at 699. Lets even say there needs to be some upgrades to match the specs and call the dell in at a grand. That is still HALF.
Desktops? Sure, the mac mini is relatively cheap. But you also don't get a keyboard, mouse or monitor either. Add those things to a mac mini and you're sitting at around a grand (you've got to get the stylish mac accessories, right? right.). The dell is still 4-600. Price is still a big factor, is it the deal breaker? Not always, but simply ignoring it is idiotic.
People who don't care about hardware configuring will just buy prebuilt systems reguardless of who makes them. I'd say 90% of people who buy dells don't change the hardware options much, maybe just add some ram. And I garauntee you a similar percentage of people who buy apples do exactly the same. Don't fool yourself into thinking it is something other than the masses following the advertisers around like so many sheep. Remember that the ipod didn't suddenly become popular because it was better, hell it was the 3rd generation hardware at the time. But you run a few commercials and make people think its the hip thing to have...
So, the sewage output of a town of 26,000 people can produce 1 million litres of usable fuel. As it was stated above, NZ consumes around 8.8 billion liters of fuel per year. With a population of 4.1 million, that is ~2150 liters of fuel, per person, per year. This plant is producing around 38 litres per person. So they've covered roughly 2% of the fuel use per person. Granted, 2% isn't much, but it is locally produced (removing most of the transportation inefficiencies) and I'm sure it isn't as optimal as it is going to get. It is a start at least. And say you get it to 10%, well that is 10% from something that has just been an eyesore previously.
And that is actually quite a lot of fuel per person. That's around 11 US gallons PER WEEK. I myself use about half that much (I live in the US), so a little energy consumption curbing in NZ could make a large impact on the percentage.
I think that unions are really only helpful if the company is sufficiently large. Think about it, if EA's employees were unionized, do you think they'd still be taking it up the ass? Would the turn around time be less than a year? I doubt it. Unions give people the courage and ability to stand up to benefit cuts, shitty hours and shitty pay. If one is built correctly, it doesn't really hinder anything. Yes the mandatory raises are kind of lame (the last one here was 1.5% though, its really only keeping up with inflation, I myself got ~8.5% raise, which is huge). We still get hired, fired and get raises in the same ways others do though (I work in an engineering unit). But we also keep the company from slicing benefits for people that are about to retire, get a say in what kind of healthcare we are provided with, retirement investments, etc. It is actually a pretty sweet deal and I'm glad for it. And I'm glad that, if the company ever really tries to screw me over, my fellow employees and I can do something about it instead of trying to find a new job and start over.
Trust me, when we all walk out the door and refuse to work, they lose a LOT of money, every minute we are gone. We, however, aren't quite as readily replaced as programmers might be because the tribal knowledge that is gained here is pretty valuable. No I don't think, for most IT companies, it would make sense. But I bet if you put EA under a union the working conditions would improve...
Perhaps they initially decided that they could introduce enough compatibility with the 360 to negate the need. Now, with the relatively abyssmal backwards compatibility they have right now, they might consider building one. But who wants to buy a $100 3 year old tech xbox when you can get the newest one for 300? Smaller PS2's are only still selling because they're still making games for them. Microsoft should have put out a SFF xbox for christmas and held on to the 360 until they could get HD-DVD in it. Now though, it doesn't make much sense.
But that's because of crap hardware drivers (Cheap ass VIA chipset), it has nothing to do with the OS. As is probably 90-95% of the BSoD in windows these days, some obscure or shitty piece of hardware that someone bought just because it was cheap.
I'm pretty sure that my DVI connection is capable of carrying a signal at 1920x1080 at 60Hz (go check wikipedia if you don't believe me, 1920x1200@60Hz is in single-link specs). So if they want me to change my equipment just for some content protection they can go to hell.
I'll wait to see which comes out on top, then get a drive for my HTPC which will then be "liberated."
How about the part where the traction control is absolutely atrocious in snow? This isn't the first example of traction control actually screwing up the car's dynamics, and in one of the trickiest situations to drive in. For a person with the ability to control their car in the snow the traction control does more harm than good. Rain is fairly predictable, its just wet pavement (or standing water), snow is another matter entirely and I think that is where an algorithm is going to fail. I'd like to see that thing tested in various cold conditions (ice, snow, packed snow) to see how it does. As far as we know, MOST of the time, its going to help, but it only takes one instance where it hurts. Are you willing to bet YOUR life on that? I'll take my good driving practices over a computer's limited view of conditions any day.
There is no system where there is no loss, but I think he was trying to lump coal-generated electricity into that statement. The reality is that the electricity to produce the hydrogen probably came from a coal fired plant anyway. Though I would venture a guess that there is less power loss by creating H2 at a factory and piping it to wherever you need it rather than pushing electricity over lines. Total energy cost is harder to predict though and most people rarely take into account needing to truck the stuff around, the extra energy required to carry the fuel, etc. etc. There's no way you're going to get that much info out of a short news clip.
A "MAC" is a PC. So they DO sell OS X to PC users, they just also happen to make the only PCs they run on. I would have expected Slashdot to get the naming right, but I guess that was too much to hope for.
That aside, what you've described is also why Windows has such a huge user base. You can plug in just about any piece of hardware you've got, dig up a driver for it and it works relatively well. Cost/performance ratios are important to a lot of people, they want a lot of bang for their buck. That's why they buy $500 windows machines from dell instead of apple's considerably pricier solutions.
It seems to me that Nintendo is targeting anyone who isn't a "gamer." And by that, I mean people that don't care about graphics, don't care about shooting people, don't care about sports simulations or any other simulation, etc. These people are kids and adults alike. They're people that want to play games for the fun of it, games you can get in and out of, not games you can make a lifestyle from. They don't care if they're the best at Game X, they just like to play it. Its fun and its different. These games don't need to run at 1080p because it doesn't make a difference.
Do I think it will be the best selling console in the US? No. But when you can't buy a goddamn DS in japan except USED and for a higher price than retail, I'd say they're doing something right, at least where they are...
Because everyone is clamoring for PCI-E, they made their chips PCI-E native. Those are the people that make nVidia the most money, so that's who they cater to. You might be able to argue that workstation cards like the Quattro series make them more money, I don't have the economics in front of me, but that's beside the point.
The first PCI-E cards were more expensive because they had to use a bridge chip to make them work. They used AGP-based GPUs. Now, since the majority of new cards bought are PCI-E, the GPUs have become PCI-E based. So the AGP cards have to use the bridge chip now, and that's why they are so expensive. Face it, AGP is disappearing. Yeah, it sucks, you have to buy a new motherboard, but don't count on the graphics companies making AGP cards forever because that market segment is shrinking rapidly.
Now, if you had upgraded your motherboard 6-12 months ago when AGP and PCI-E were about level in terms of popularity, it would have been relatively easy to find a board that supported your hardware and had a PCI-E slot. Now, however, the components have changed enough that a change in MoBo and Processor is almost required, as well as probably ram. There ARE boards out there that support both AGP and PCI-E if you look hard enough though.
It would also almost totally negate any ISP's attempt at shaping VOIP traffic to try and get people to buy their service instead. This has been somewhat of a question in recent months, but if you can encrypt your stream, then there's not much chance they can slow your packets. I'm all for the increased security as well. Now if we can only get them to cut down on the spam....
Its not like what you transmit to a search engine via the internet is private and secured. Its fully open to the public and viewable by all. What the administration is trying to do is get google to do the legwork for them using the courts. Google doesn't want to do it, doesn't want to get tangled into what it could lead to. Its not like the NSA or someone else couldn't aggregate the data.
And it is bullshit, they shouldn't have to. Others have to pay a lot of money for this data, and google doesn't even want to be in the data selling business (read: non-evil;).
Slashdot Mirror
That's what I want to know. All the SRB's I'm familiar with are essentially just tubes with a nozzle on the end, so what's to stop the water from heading up the nozzle and filling the thing in? From the head-down camera, the thing actually eventually ends up sitting straight up and down in the water! I'd like to know how they managed that...
I don't think these security words are convenient anymore, not when mine was "fished"
1) People in EVERY political district idealistic enough that they fully believe that they can and want to change the system for the good of the people and 2) people to vote for them. 1 is relatively easy, if you can get them to run. Getting them on the ballot is hard because of the voting laws. And it gets harder as you move up in political power because the "traditional" parties (you know the two I'm talking about) are the only ones that get press. Think about the "presidential debates" people see on tv. How many candidates do you see there? Two. How many actual presidential candidates are there? About half a dozen.
2 is a bigger problem though, because there are LOTS of people who refuse to vote outside their party. Not to mention how many many people vote on how much they like or dislike the candidate, which has absolutely nothing to do with how they should be voting. No research to see whose policies stand out among the rest, nothing. Its just another one of the circuses to them. And many of the people wise to their schemes don't even vote! And you'll find a lot of them right here on slashdot! Consider this: If the 30-40% of the people in the US who don't vote in each election did vote for someone outside the two party system, where would we be then? We'd be the majority party, that's where we'd be, since the D's and R's are usually split right down the middle, give or take a few percent.
Assuming the charts are relatively accurate
2 88.htm
t ml
Non-OPEC production:
http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/PAPRPNT.gif
OPEC production:
http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/PAPRPOP.gif
Gallons of gas in a barrel of oil:
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99
CO2 (and H20) in a gallon of gas:
http://www.terrapass.com/terrablog/posts/000181.h
I just shot an average on the productions and added them together, using 60,000,000 barrels per day total production. Multiply by 365 days a year, 30 years, 19.5 gallons of gas in a barrel, 20 pounds of CO2 in a gallon of gas. Divide that by 2000 lbs in a ton and you get somewhere around 130 billion tons of CO2. If you use the same source for CO2 in a gallon of gas, which says roughly 8 pounds of water come from burning a gallon of gas, then you're talking about around 50 billion tons of water vapor. Add those together and (with the figures from Phase Shifter) and you're talking about 3.6% of the existing mass we've produced in the last 30 years alone. I tried to dig up some figures on the deforestation but didn't have much luck, but trees (which we're cutting) and grass (which we're paving over) are large consumers of CO2 and H20, so losing them is compounding the effect.
To think that dumping billions of tons of CO2 (and slightly less H20) into the atmosphere over the last 30 years alone (rough calculations indicate around 130 billion tons from early 70s to early 00s), while simultaneously deforesting much of the world's forests as fast as they can be cut, has little to no effect on the environment is the height of ignorance. CO2, the #2 greenhouse gas out there, right with H20 (which also comes from that gas combustion). And lets not forget that even modern gas engines aren't 100% efficient, so there's all that waste heat and energy dumped into the atmosphere that was previously buried underground. And this is only considering gasoline produced in the past 30 years. Figure the long-term gas use/production, not to mention coal and natural gas, and it is enough to make you sick (if you care, that is).
What we need are real solutions to undo what we've done and at least bring the global temperature down a bit. Remember that article about how the temp is as high as it has ever been for as long as we have accurate records? Yeah, what we're doing is real, you can feel it when you walk outside. Blocking the sun just gives us an excuse to keep doing as we've been doing, not to mention F'ing up the ecosystem in the process.
It takes a MASSIVE amount of ice to put even a small amount of it above the water line. That's because the density of ice isn't so much less than that of liquid water. The buoyant force caused by the density difference is only slightly larger than the weight of the ice. That's why icebergs are 90% below the water line and only 10% above (actual figures may vary, but its close to that). The water level WILL go down because the density increases as the ice melts, decreasing the overall volume. Density goes up, volume goes down, basic science class stuff.
Lets take an iceberg at 100,000kg. The density of ice is 920kg per cubic meter. So that much ice occupies 108.7 cubic meters. If you assume a 90/10 split, the berg will be 97.8m^3 below the water line. The same mass of water (sea water density is ~1025kg/m^3) occupies 97.6 cubic meters. Overall actual volume drop is ~.2 m^3. That's not much, but considering average icebergs weigh from 100-200,000,000 kg (100x more than the one I used), and there are LOTS of them, it adds up.
I'd still shop there, why? Still no DRM, ANY format I want (I love oggs), and priced as it should be (read: more than now, but less than itunes). A lossy, DRM encumbered file shouldn't cost the same as a DRM encumbered (or not) but lossless CD. 5 bucks for a whole album, or, at most, 50 cents a track, is all I, and I suspect many, are willing to pay for mp3s. How about pricing things according to what you actually get like other businesses? You want the high end car, you pay the high end bucks. Same goes for music quality. I've bought music from allofmp3.com simply because it is the best store there is. The alltunes program they built is just great, simple, clean and efficient. Order what you want, when its encoded in the format you want, download away. No forced formats or tie-ins only with one brand of device (I'm looking at you itunes).
The only reason you have to do this is because ATi and nVidia (and seriously, what's with the F'd up capitalization people!) won't release their drivers as open source. Since Linux is all GPL'd, it can't be distributed with software that won't include its source code. So the graphics drivers have to remain a seperate process. So don't blame Linux, blame your graphics card makers.
Now, I don't really see why someone who knew what they were doing (read: not me) could make a shell script that would properly edit the config files and do the install properly for such a unified distro as ubuntu and pack it into the ubuntu package manager, but I digress...
Marketing. People rarely buy a player based on the music store, and itunes isn't the first music store in the world to offer single track purchases. Once they opened it up to the windows market and ran enough commercials to make it the stylish thing to have, people bought it. Most people weren't really aware of mp3 players because they never saw commercials for it, apple was the first to do it successfully because they're one of the few that have the capital to execute it properly.
But the trade-off, more time for gaming yet no girlfriend, isn't that appealing.
;)
This is slashdot, the trade off isn't exactly optional here
The game itself is ok so far but it lacks the depth of puzzle pirates though. Not to say that is a bad thing, YPP in its current state can be a little overwhelming to some. But there is so much to do there that it makes it kind of fun, and you can spend as little or as much time in it as you want.
Even if they do raise the price, it won't be for over 250. Sure some people may pay more than that at launch (ebayers) but retail will not be over 250. And that's the biggest selling point nintendo has. Their consoles have never been cutting edge. They haven't needed to be to be fun to play.
Think about it, games aren't going to get cheaper. That's because they've already worked the public into being (relatively) comfortable paying what they pay for games. If the game makers add in game ads, they won't lower the price, they'll just use it to increase profits. It won't help in immersiveness, people are trying to escape that crap, not get more into it. There are a very few games where you could replace the nondescript coke machines with actual coke machines but it would be more distracting than anything. And they're going to use MY bandwidth to change the ads around? I don't think so! I personally won't buy a game if I know it has ads in it, because it doesn't benefit me one bit.
I think one of the only places where it works is sponsorship bits for sim games. Like it was mentioned earlier, getting a greddy turbo for your car in a racing game or some brand name clubs in a golf game. Then maybe the advertisers will be too busy arguing about why one person's brand of clubs gives them more of a benefit than the others to think up any new an annoying schemes. Ads anywhere else it will be annoying, out of place and invasive.
I took a look at the apple page before replying to this. Probably the most common laptops available equate to the low end macbook pro. 15.4 in screen, mid range processor, etc. All basically the same as most general purpose Dell, HP, Gateway laptops. The low end macbook pro STARTS at 2 grand. Dell will sell you a 15.4 in laptop at 699. Lets even say there needs to be some upgrades to match the specs and call the dell in at a grand. That is still HALF.
Desktops? Sure, the mac mini is relatively cheap. But you also don't get a keyboard, mouse or monitor either. Add those things to a mac mini and you're sitting at around a grand (you've got to get the stylish mac accessories, right? right.). The dell is still 4-600. Price is still a big factor, is it the deal breaker? Not always, but simply ignoring it is idiotic.
People who don't care about hardware configuring will just buy prebuilt systems reguardless of who makes them. I'd say 90% of people who buy dells don't change the hardware options much, maybe just add some ram. And I garauntee you a similar percentage of people who buy apples do exactly the same. Don't fool yourself into thinking it is something other than the masses following the advertisers around like so many sheep. Remember that the ipod didn't suddenly become popular because it was better, hell it was the 3rd generation hardware at the time. But you run a few commercials and make people think its the hip thing to have...
So, the sewage output of a town of 26,000 people can produce 1 million litres of usable fuel. As it was stated above, NZ consumes around 8.8 billion liters of fuel per year. With a population of 4.1 million, that is ~2150 liters of fuel, per person, per year. This plant is producing around 38 litres per person. So they've covered roughly 2% of the fuel use per person. Granted, 2% isn't much, but it is locally produced (removing most of the transportation inefficiencies) and I'm sure it isn't as optimal as it is going to get. It is a start at least. And say you get it to 10%, well that is 10% from something that has just been an eyesore previously.
And that is actually quite a lot of fuel per person. That's around 11 US gallons PER WEEK. I myself use about half that much (I live in the US), so a little energy consumption curbing in NZ could make a large impact on the percentage.
I think that unions are really only helpful if the company is sufficiently large. Think about it, if EA's employees were unionized, do you think they'd still be taking it up the ass? Would the turn around time be less than a year? I doubt it. Unions give people the courage and ability to stand up to benefit cuts, shitty hours and shitty pay. If one is built correctly, it doesn't really hinder anything. Yes the mandatory raises are kind of lame (the last one here was 1.5% though, its really only keeping up with inflation, I myself got ~8.5% raise, which is huge). We still get hired, fired and get raises in the same ways others do though (I work in an engineering unit). But we also keep the company from slicing benefits for people that are about to retire, get a say in what kind of healthcare we are provided with, retirement investments, etc. It is actually a pretty sweet deal and I'm glad for it. And I'm glad that, if the company ever really tries to screw me over, my fellow employees and I can do something about it instead of trying to find a new job and start over.
Trust me, when we all walk out the door and refuse to work, they lose a LOT of money, every minute we are gone. We, however, aren't quite as readily replaced as programmers might be because the tribal knowledge that is gained here is pretty valuable. No I don't think, for most IT companies, it would make sense. But I bet if you put EA under a union the working conditions would improve...
Perhaps they initially decided that they could introduce enough compatibility with the 360 to negate the need. Now, with the relatively abyssmal backwards compatibility they have right now, they might consider building one. But who wants to buy a $100 3 year old tech xbox when you can get the newest one for 300? Smaller PS2's are only still selling because they're still making games for them. Microsoft should have put out a SFF xbox for christmas and held on to the 360 until they could get HD-DVD in it. Now though, it doesn't make much sense.
But that's because of crap hardware drivers (Cheap ass VIA chipset), it has nothing to do with the OS. As is probably 90-95% of the BSoD in windows these days, some obscure or shitty piece of hardware that someone bought just because it was cheap.
I'm pretty sure that my DVI connection is capable of carrying a signal at 1920x1080 at 60Hz (go check wikipedia if you don't believe me, 1920x1200@60Hz is in single-link specs). So if they want me to change my equipment just for some content protection they can go to hell.
I'll wait to see which comes out on top, then get a drive for my HTPC which will then be "liberated."
How about the part where the traction control is absolutely atrocious in snow? This isn't the first example of traction control actually screwing up the car's dynamics, and in one of the trickiest situations to drive in. For a person with the ability to control their car in the snow the traction control does more harm than good. Rain is fairly predictable, its just wet pavement (or standing water), snow is another matter entirely and I think that is where an algorithm is going to fail. I'd like to see that thing tested in various cold conditions (ice, snow, packed snow) to see how it does. As far as we know, MOST of the time, its going to help, but it only takes one instance where it hurts. Are you willing to bet YOUR life on that? I'll take my good driving practices over a computer's limited view of conditions any day.
There is no system where there is no loss, but I think he was trying to lump coal-generated electricity into that statement. The reality is that the electricity to produce the hydrogen probably came from a coal fired plant anyway. Though I would venture a guess that there is less power loss by creating H2 at a factory and piping it to wherever you need it rather than pushing electricity over lines. Total energy cost is harder to predict though and most people rarely take into account needing to truck the stuff around, the extra energy required to carry the fuel, etc. etc. There's no way you're going to get that much info out of a short news clip.
A "MAC" is a PC. So they DO sell OS X to PC users, they just also happen to make the only PCs they run on. I would have expected Slashdot to get the naming right, but I guess that was too much to hope for.
That aside, what you've described is also why Windows has such a huge user base. You can plug in just about any piece of hardware you've got, dig up a driver for it and it works relatively well. Cost/performance ratios are important to a lot of people, they want a lot of bang for their buck. That's why they buy $500 windows machines from dell instead of apple's considerably pricier solutions.
It seems to me that Nintendo is targeting anyone who isn't a "gamer." And by that, I mean people that don't care about graphics, don't care about shooting people, don't care about sports simulations or any other simulation, etc. These people are kids and adults alike. They're people that want to play games for the fun of it, games you can get in and out of, not games you can make a lifestyle from. They don't care if they're the best at Game X, they just like to play it. Its fun and its different. These games don't need to run at 1080p because it doesn't make a difference.
Do I think it will be the best selling console in the US? No. But when you can't buy a goddamn DS in japan except USED and for a higher price than retail, I'd say they're doing something right, at least where they are...
Because everyone is clamoring for PCI-E, they made their chips PCI-E native. Those are the people that make nVidia the most money, so that's who they cater to. You might be able to argue that workstation cards like the Quattro series make them more money, I don't have the economics in front of me, but that's beside the point.
The first PCI-E cards were more expensive because they had to use a bridge chip to make them work. They used AGP-based GPUs. Now, since the majority of new cards bought are PCI-E, the GPUs have become PCI-E based. So the AGP cards have to use the bridge chip now, and that's why they are so expensive. Face it, AGP is disappearing. Yeah, it sucks, you have to buy a new motherboard, but don't count on the graphics companies making AGP cards forever because that market segment is shrinking rapidly.
Now, if you had upgraded your motherboard 6-12 months ago when AGP and PCI-E were about level in terms of popularity, it would have been relatively easy to find a board that supported your hardware and had a PCI-E slot. Now, however, the components have changed enough that a change in MoBo and Processor is almost required, as well as probably ram. There ARE boards out there that support both AGP and PCI-E if you look hard enough though.
any other player that doesn't play AAC's, DRM'd or not.
It would also almost totally negate any ISP's attempt at shaping VOIP traffic to try and get people to buy their service instead. This has been somewhat of a question in recent months, but if you can encrypt your stream, then there's not much chance they can slow your packets. I'm all for the increased security as well. Now if we can only get them to cut down on the spam....
Its not like what you transmit to a search engine via the internet is private and secured. Its fully open to the public and viewable by all. What the administration is trying to do is get google to do the legwork for them using the courts. Google doesn't want to do it, doesn't want to get tangled into what it could lead to. Its not like the NSA or someone else couldn't aggregate the data.
;).
And it is bullshit, they shouldn't have to. Others have to pay a lot of money for this data, and google doesn't even want to be in the data selling business (read: non-evil