If it doesn't, then you are likely in non-populous areas where the drivers typically don't know how to drive (e.g. PA - which is better around Philly/Pittsburgh than the rest of the state).
What?!!!! I want what you're smoking. I can attest to the pathetic driving capabilities of people from Philadelphia. Forget about stopping at a stop sign when there's oncoming traffic. Red light? Sure, we can fit five more cars through as the opposing traffic advances.
Merging traffic? Naw, you don't need to merge. Just stick your nose in. If the guy hits you, keep driving.
More referring to their tendency to stop at yield signs, or speeding up to keep you from merging in front of them, despite their being more than adequate room and an empty lane next to them on the highway. True, you get this in nearly every state to some degree, but PA is among the worst of it from what I've seen. Philly and Pittsburgh drivers are, on the whole, better than PA drivers elsewhere in the state - not saying they're good either, but that they're better than the rest of the state.
and required response time may not leave time for signaling or other kinds of politeness.
The only excuse for not using your turn signal is in an emergency situation or if you are the only car on the road at 2 AM. Other than that, turn signals should always be used.
Sorry but that's bull...go find some real traffic (e.g. Northern Jersey, NY) and see if you say the same. When things happen you don't have time to either think about being courteous or taking the extra time to think which way you are going and then hit the turn signal appropriately - you only have time to react and keep from hitting the obstacles in front of you - whether it is a deer running into the road, or someone hitting their brakes.
Turn signals are a courtesy, nothing else. They allow you to communicate your intentions, and while when possible they should be used, there is no reason to use them when unnecessary. IF you've driven in real traffic conditions, then you'd recognize their proper use and how to use them both aggressively and courteously and when it just isn't worth it (like when you have a half mile between you and surrounding vehicles, which is more often than not the case in most of the U.S.).
Not only were the cameras weighing 45+ pounds each, but the kite itself was made of lead!!
(See illustration)
http://activetectonics.asu.edu/kites/06eq.html While your picture refers the leading kite...I don't see how a lead (Pb) would be a problem.
The MythBusters (production #112, 1/23/2008) have already shown that a lead balloon is quite possible - i think I would have done it slightly differently (by plying together a few layers of the lead foil they used to make a stronger foil surface), but it did work. I see no reason why a Lead (Pb) kite wouldn't be possible either, though certainly not trivial to do. (BTW, their Lead Balloon used Lead Foil and at least what appeared to be Scotch tape filled with a mixture of Helium and Air. They mixed in air because they thought they might get too much lift out of just Helium; which from their results (see the episode) they were 100% right on.)
One thing I don't understand about the american mobile phone pricing scheme is the idea of charging someone to receive calls or messages. Maybe it makes sense technically (you're using the network). But from a revenue maximization point of view it just doesn't make sense at all. The reason is, when you know that the person you're calling (or sms-ing) has to pay to receive your call, you'd think twice about whether you want to do that.
I personally feel a lot more comfortable getting in touch with people when I don't have to worry about them paying anything. As opposed to the other poster...
You can't really tell here in the US whether someone is on land-line or cell. Since most land-line plans are now unlimited (calling or receiving) people have just gotten into the habit of not really paying attention to minutes, thus allowing the phone companies to do what they will for the most part. Still, cell phone users will be more likely to stay within their paid allotments as the costs go extremely high if they go out of it.
I think this further extends with the cell phone, as people don't really think about the cell as costing much so new services added are used as it is just convenient which lets the companies then collect exorbitant rates - you hear the people complain when the bill comes, but not when they use the services. Some respond by using the pre-pain cell phones, but most just pay the bill.
This is probably most prevalent among the youth that have cells as their parents pay the bills, not them. So they just use it. I've heard/read a number of stories about youth who when they get their own phones stop using 90% of the services they did before because they now have to pay 100% of the bill for it.
Your post surprised me as the advantages of texting seem very obvious to me. As I see it, they are:
It's less intrusive to the recipient than a call. It's not demanding immediate attention, it doesn't make them stop what they're doing, it can be replied to at their convenience or not at all. I would certainly not agree with that one as you are costing that person money.
I disabled texting on the cell phones I pay for simply for that reason. When I first got them, I left it on and just said "I won't use it". But then several friends kept texting me (despite my telling them not to). While they may have had an "unlimited" texting plan, or were even willing to pay the cost of their texting - they would force me to pay for the texting too as costs are involved for both sending and receiving, and the phones don't differentiate between texts and pages - and pages are 100% free to receive.
One of those friends said they do it because its cheaper (for them) than calling. Guess it used less time on the pre-payed cell phone or something. But it led to costing me. (BTW, calling me didn't cost me because they were on the same network, which for me at least was free, but even then I had enough minutes I didn't care. Texting, however, cost more money just to receive it.)
Honestly, I think carriers should just charge the sender for the text and let the delivery be free. Then I'd have no problem with it, and would probably re-enable it for those friends that wanted to use it; but I'm not going to do so until then - I don't want to pay for it, nor do I want to use it - I want my phone (cell or otherwise) to be just that - a phone.
there was a study done recently which showed that the difference in attention payed to traffic between drivers that were using hands-free phones and hand-held phones negligible
I'd love to see a study that compared cell phone talking to having a conversation with a passenger and having your kids in the car. With luck we can get having multiple car occupants banned as a safety hazard. After that food, anything that can be read, the radio, etc... There's just no end to what we can ban!
While I can't say whether such a study has been done...from what I am aware other passengers that are in the vehicle with you while they may talk to you (the driver), distract you, etc. they also have the ability to see things coming and help you avoid them.
Where as when you are on the phone, the other person(s) may not even be aware you are driving and even they were aware of it cannot do anything to help you avoid anything unless they are in some kind of aerial vehicle above you - but at least presently that is near zero chances for anyone - and watching you, but then they might hit something themselves, and cause other problems for traffic too as they come landing on the road.
If you think CT is bad, try crossing the border to Rhode Island. I seriously think the reason the majority of them don't use their turn signals is because they don't want to reveal their plan to the enemy. Personally, I think this is more of a time issue. When dealing with heavier traffic, you have to respond, and required response time may not leave time for signaling or other kinds of politeness.
That said, I do try to use signals more often in heavier traffic (e.g. D.C, Greater NYC area [NJ, NY, CT, MA, RI, etc.], random heavy traffic) when I know I'm going to do so something; but will more or less ignore using them in less populous areas (everywhere else), unless I am trying to do something and there is a vehicle I know is going to be quite close because they are being a pain...
If this post makes any sense to you then you know the conditions I am talking about. If it doesn't, then you are likely in non-populous areas where the drivers typically don't know how to drive (e.g. PA - which is better around Philly/Pittsburgh than the rest of the state).
Tired of Peeping Toms? Does the person "watching" you drive you nuts? Well get watched no more. New from Wicked Lasers, it's The Torch!!! now, just point The Torch at that peeping Tom, press the button, and burn his/her retinas away in seconds! Do yourself a favor and see what a life free of peeping toms can be like. Buy the Torch!!! Just 60 easy payments of $5/week. Act now!
Actually, graphics power isn't fast enough yet, and it will likely never be fast enough. With high-resolution monitors (1920x1200, and such), graphics cards don't yet have the ability to push that kind of resolution at good framerates (~60fps) on modern games. 20-ish FPS on Crysis at 1920x1200 is barely adequate. This tug-of-war that goes on between the software and hardware is going to continue nearly forever.
Me, I'll be waiting for the card that can do Crysis set to 1920x1200, all the goodies on, and 50-60fps. Until then, my 7900GT SLI setup is going to have to be enough. But then you'd just be complaining that resolution Xres+1 x Yres+1 can't be pushed as FPS N+1. Honestly, you only need 24 to 32 FPS as that is pretty much where your eyes are at (unless you have managed to time travel and get ultra-cool ocular implants that can decode things faster). It's the never ending b(#%*-fest of gamers - it's never fast enough - doesn't matter that you're using all the resources of the NCC-1701-J Enterprise to play your game.
Another point I forgot to mention in my other post - not all public transportation works for people. For example, my wife & I use to live in Johnstown, PA. She started working in Pittsburgh. We figured she could just hop the train (Amtrak) every day. However, the train only runs from Pittsburgh to Johnstown in the morning, and versus in the evening. Same with the buses - unless she got up even earlier to catch the first stop of the bus, but then it would add more time to her commute, which was already 1.5 to 2 hours.
As to the point about people working 'fuzzy' hours, well this is exactly the kind of situation congestion pricing is trying to encourage, that is to get employers to realize not everyone needs to be at the office at exactly 9am. By encouraging employers to look hard at who really needs to be in the office at that time we can hopefully spread out the road usage over greater time, thus reducing congestion, which will save fuel and reduce pollution.
Also, for those people not living and/or working in a major city I very much doubt they have congestion trouble that needs fixing.
So then how do you account for how mass transit only typically works between certain hours? For example, I use to live in Northern Virginia. I could take a bus to/from the metro, but only between 5:30 AM and 9 AM, and 4 PM and 6:30 PM. Kinda sucks if you have to do something in between, or go somewhere else.
Likewise, I now live in the Pittsburgh area, and my wife takes the bus in for her job. She can get a bus around town, but the buses only run out to the outter parking areas between 5:30 AM and 8 AM, and 3/4 PM and 6:30 PM. Again, sucks if you have to do something in between.
And in both areas, parking is already expensive if you park in town. (DC is more so than Pittsburgh.)
Unless you live and do everything within the central transit ranges (i.e. within the range of the metro/bus system for DC, NY, or Chicago) you're pretty much screwed for doing anything else - such as doctor's appointments, having commute hours outside of those dictated by the transit system governance board, etc.
And the places where metros are are already high congestion. As the OP said, it only really works if the whole system works to do it, like in Europe, Japan, and other areas of the world.
Oh - and before you say "take a taxi" - are you going to pay for a taxi to take you 20+ miles to go run an errand? For example, you can pick up a Loudoun County bus to go for the metro at
Great Falls Plaza in Sterling, VA which takes a route like that in the map to the Vienna metro station. (I've only done it a couple times.) So, how then do you propose to be able to get back to your car, parked at Great Falls Plaza, when the bus isn't running? Suppose too that all your friends commute in a similar manner. Remember, it's expensive for the taxi - here's a sample taxi rate for area, which taking the identical route of 22 miles, yields the following cost:
Don't forget that you might want to go back to work afterwards, which may mean doubling that cost, which is already in addition to your normal commuting costs (see for Washington Metro rates - both bus and metro). Granted, you could try to park at the metro, see here for parking fares, but then you are chancing it at getting a parking spot during the middle of the day, and you are still commuting most of that distance. (Done that too.)
Nope. I know about killing or replacing explorer. Seriously, Server 2008 can boot pretty stripped down with minimalist services and components. It was running a web server with less than 60 megs of memory. Windows Server 2003 minus explorer is not going to use less than 60 megs of memory.
True...however, that is still what they have basically done - just replaced the shell to get it to the command-line. It still presents a GUI. From an Information Week article emphasis added:
Microsoft's development team is touting a new installation option for Windows Server 2008, called "Server Core." Andrew Mason, principal program manager in the Windows Server team, says the genesis of Server Core is the role-based fashion in which customers deploy Windows Server. It's been years, Mason says, since he's heard a customer say, "This is my Windows server." Instead, machines might be DNS servers, say, or domain controllers. As a result, Server Core was designed to be a modular, role-based system that addresses the need for a reduced attack surface and footprint.
So what does Server Core look like? Fans of MS-DOS rejoice, because for the first time in a long time, when you boot a Microsoft server OS, your screen will look something like this: C:\>
Server Core is a nongraphical, completely command-line-driven version of Windows Server 2008. What this means: To start, a server installation footprint of 1 Gbyte versus 6 Gbytes and elimination of many client-based apps, such as IE, that have created security threats. Because of the reduced attack surface, Microsoft says the number of server updates should be cut by around 40%.
For those more comfortable in a GUI environment, a Server Core box can be managed via MMC snap-ins running on remote servers. In addition, a limited number of graphical tools can be run on a Server Core build, including Task Manager, Notepad, and Regedit. If you have grand virtualization plans, you should be able to pack plenty of Server Core VMs onto your favorite VMware or Xen machine, and Hyper-V later this year. Roles that can be run on a Server Core build are limited to core Microsoft networking services.
So, IOW, they have taken it, replaced the explorer shell with cmd.exe, minimized the number of services running to just what is required for the role, and removed some stuff such as IE that is only known to give security problems. True, it won't run the same GUI applications that a normal system would (whether server or desktop), but it is still like starting X Windows and just running Xterm instead of KDE, GNOME, Enlightment, or any other full WM.
Since it can still run GUI programs such as Notepad, Task Manager, and Regedit - it is still a GUI. Just one that provides a command-line interface. IOW, they could drop another good chunk of the RAM requirement by dropping the GUI entirely. Perhaps this is what MinWin does, but I doubt it.
This strengthens the impression that Vista is the second iteration of Windows Me which was also replaced by a new OS rater quickly (about a year) after being found to suck donkey balls.
Well, if you remember, Windows 2000 was suppose to have a "Customer Edition" that was suppose to replace Win9x. They failed to get it ready in time, and then later released WinME. They continued to push forward and then released XP, which then had a successful home edition below below XP Pro.
Perhaps they're doing something similar this time, only benefiting from the modularity they recently devised and committed towards - e.g. MinWin, WinCore, etc.
I've obviously been in *nix land for too long, I'm still of the impression that 256 Mb is pretty much all one needs for most tasks. Even EMACS!
256MB? My old Linux server (a P90 that ran Slackware 7.2, and more recently 11) ran just fine with 48 MB - databases, routing, ssh, firewall, e-mail, dns, and more. I recently upgraded to a newer one (PII/233) with 190MB - though, I did give it a couple gig for swap space - and it's running Gentoo.;-)
I've also got an older 486 Laptop with 8 MB RAM and a 300 MB hard drive - with some hardware problems so there's really only 4 MB usable - that runs Gentoo. The PCMCIA NIC drivers for Win32 require 32MB RAM and a P60 or better, but it still gets screaming throughput (full-speed, full-duplex, 100 Mbit net) without any difficulty.
1 - Microsoft says they learned from their mistakes, and have been deconstructing Windows to remove bloat, and make the whole thing run faster. Windows Server can even run sans-GUI now, and they're building up from a minimalist stack. This is a really good thing.
Yes, they've broken it down - which means more versions to choose from. However, it really only runs "sans-GUI" in the same way that Windows 2k/XP does - just change the following registry key value from "Explorer.exe" to "cmd.exe":
There is also a per-User registry key for this too - I just couldn't find it off hand. (Likely the same key but under HKCU (for your own user) instead.
I hardly consider that to be "sans-GUI". (Yes, I've done this before.)
Argh...just after I posted the parent, I remembered that Win95 also had several versions that were subsequent releases and that probably affects the version numbers too. There were:
Windows 95 Original release (4.0)
Windows 95 a
Windows 95 b
Windows 95 B (OSR2.1)
Windows 95 c
...
There was something like 6 versions. FAT32 arrived in 'b', and USB 1.0/1.1 was introduced in OSR2.1, and a bunch of the handicap stuff wasn't in there until 'c'; there were also a few more obscure versions - all totaled about six versions all under the single name of "Windows 95" - though they did differentiate between "Windows 95" and "Windows 95 OSR2.1", otherwise, they were pretty much all released without really saying much to the public. This probably also means that Win98 was not 4.1, but something higher too.
lol, the interesting thing her is that even tho they whant me to spend a fortune on not so backwards compatible upgrades evry 2 or 3 years, they them self have a system that goes back 10+ years:D:D
That's because they're rebooting the Windows under the virtual machine every day. The host OS is Linux, which only reboots for kernel updates.
A credit score is a little more of a stretch, but using the logic "bad credit == deadbeat", it could be a stand-in for proper hiring practices.
Actually, that's more indicative of someone who could be "bought off" easily. Do you want someone working for you that might be bribed to do something (e.g. corporate espionage, etc.) because they have a lot of debt and need the money? I think not.
Not saying everyone with bad credit would, but it would certainly be tempting to them...
Actually, I think the issue is that MS doesn't release the specs to underlying OS APIs so that competitive browsers and office applications can function at the level of IE/Office. I think it's more of a fight to allow the user to totally replace IE with Opera/FF/Konquerer, file browser and all.
Probably a lot of truth in that, but then you also have to stop third-party software from hard coding in things like IE, or WMP. For example - I wanted to use AutoTools on Windows. The MingW/MingSys versions run just fine but you run into a problem with Perl - it can't recursively call make because it hard codes the COMSPEC to be cmd.exe (ActiveState's Windows Perl port, btw). So even writing a wrapper shell just to handle the file like Bash does (came pretty close to finishing it too!) didn't work because Perl had COMSPEC hard coded so I couldn't get Perl to call my shell instead. (Yes - I could have gotten the source, fixed Perl, and rebuilt it - but then my code would have been dependent on my fork of ActiveState's Perl, and it would have been problematic to work with other developers since they would now be dependent on my fork too. So no, that was not an option.)
Needless to say, the issue in the proprietary world is even greater when it comes to third parties hard coding the location of the IE executable - or even the name of the IE executable - instead of just relying the Windows APIs to load up the right app - e.g. running "start " to load the correct app against mime-types, or using the internal APIs to do so - which are known or easily replaced (e.g. registry lookup against the extension and then execute). This is also why I have to keep my WinXP installation at work set to IE for the default browser even though I almost entirely use Firefox - because doing otherwise breaks some applications and causes a lot of headaches. Not as bad as what it once was, but its still an issue. (And yes, I'm talking about not being able to change it through "Set Program Access and Defaults" tab in Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs functionality.
We, especially the children of the platinum card spend-all 1980's need to take a minute (or a class) in personal finance and household economics. Where our parents might not have even had credit cards in their 20's and 30's, we grew up in their midst, moreso without the feel and smell of Bejamin Franklin in our back pocket on Friday. Plastic spends easier than cash.
True...a few different articles and books I've come across have come to the conclusion of about 33% less spending if using solely cash - namely b/c you tend to think twice about it.
That said, I think the debt issue is a lot larger and plays more of a primary role. The debt is just too big, and most - both people and businesses - are trying to live in debt, which is just not good. Eventually it will catch up. For businesses, that means having a 10 or 20 year plan and not looking at the present, year past, and year future quarterly reports (which is all too common-place to do now); for people, it means running a budget and using more cash - and yes, Visa's commercials that credit is faster are pure lie - cash is faster. (I hate those commercials!)
Until we get out of the mindset of living in debt - it'll be a problem.
I got nailed in the Bomb, like a lot of us. Went through 4 companies in 3 years, and only one of them still existed after I left it (for another 3 whole months). Leaves you with nothing but crap on your resume; can't even prove the companies existed, more less get a reference.
You can prove the company existed and you can get a reference - (a) old pay stubs will prove it existed, and (b) keeping in contact with co-workers or managers from the company will do both - assuming any of them would be kind enough to give a reference, but that's just like with any other company. So you can, it's just more work, but sites like LinkedIn help with that too.;-)
Kind of reminds me of the connector for the original NES...I had one, and the NES Cleaner kit pulled one of the pins around. It was $45 for the fix (replace the board), or $50 for the newer NES console (the 2nd gen form factor) at the time. We opted for the $50 instead of replacing it. (Good we did, as the 2nd gen form factor never required cleaning!)...any how...
I could see the same kind of thing happening on these USB3 connectors - some snags a pin, and now you have a bad connector and no way to fix it - replace the cable or the motherboard/hub/device (depending on where it happened). May be...just may be...they figured out a solution to that problem...here's hoping...
I know you're joking, but I've seen it happen. I worked at a high school for a while and we monitored all traffic looking for keywords. Also, any AIM traffic was logged, and any traffic to/from myspace was logged. We caught a bunch of kids doing some really stupid shit because they updated their myspace pages from school. I believe some of them lost scholarships over it. Oops.
As long as you weren't keylogging, I think your site had a pretty good policy.;-)
I'm pretty ok with internet filters on school systems - but that said, it should be limited to High School and below; it does not belong on a college network. (Incidentally, my college put one on - namely for PR reasons - instead of enforcing the ISP agreement that they had with students. Kind of a hypocritical action since they were about "Responsible Freedom".)
Any how...in high school we had one kid who like to use WinNuke against another student - causing him to lose his work rather untimely; it took advantage of the TCP double packet exploit in Win95 (if two identical packets were received, the first was processed, the second would cause a system crash). When they went to do a search through the student account on the servers for the software, he some how got it cracked into and zero'd out a chunk of the hard drives before they were able to stop it. About 1/3 of the students lost their personal files due to the crack. However, he had an alibi and they were unable to implicate him in any way - so while we knew he had something to do with it, there was no proof. Had they had something like what you describe, they might of had the proof (don't know). Needless to say, a lot of people were really pissed.
Needless to say - I know where you're coming from.
Your gas guage is NOT a good indicator. Fill your car and drive 100 miles. Fill it again, see how much gas you used, and drive back with cruise and fill it again. See how much gas you used/saved. You're NOT going to get better mileage without cruise than with, on any car.
Well...I watch it. With Cruise on, I get about 95 miles per quarter tank. With it off, I can do 100 miles or better per quarter tank. Same roads. I've done that a few times, and I usually put the same amount of gas in. (No, I don't play games with trying to top it off either.) I get pretty reliable gas mileage, and I do keep a record of how much fuel I put in and what the vehicles mileage is when I do it (as well as what I spend!). I haven't recorded in there (yet) whether or not I used cruise, so it would be hard to use that record for proving it, but I'm pretty confident it would. As I don't have any computer display to show distance to empty (DTE) or mileage estimates, I do use this to estimate my DTE and to approximate how much gas I'll be putting in when I do fill up, and I'm usually very close to on the mark with my estimations - if anything, I have more fuel in reserve than I though.;-)
And yes, a manual transmission will get better mileage than an automatic, unless it;'s a newer automatic with a locking overdrive; when in overdrive/high newer cars don't have the slippage necessary in an older automatic.
Tracking some vehicles (Mazda3 and Mazda5 for instance) reveals that even with newer models the manual transmission does better. It's closer than it use to be, but the manual is still superior - even after the EPA mileage estimation adjustment that happened. For instance, with the 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 Mazda3's the manual outperforms in mileage by 1 or 2 miles per gallon both city and highway per EPA estimates. (I've noticed my 2005 Mazda3 is pretty consistent, and regularly gets at least the estimate it was given - 26 mpg city, 32 mpg highway - and sometimes even exceeds it.)
I would as long as I was buying the gasoline! Your brakes turn the momentum you bought with gasoline into heat and throws it away. I'm cheap, I don't like throwing good money away.
That's assuming an entirely combustion engine. By the time the tech hits the streets, it'll at least be a hybrid electric of some sort, and likely a full electric drive train with combustion assist - thus, it'll likely use the braking to help recharge the batteries like the current gen, poorly designed hybrids already do. So, no - you wouldn't be throwing any money away - unless you were in a different vehicle that was a pure combustion and had to respond to them.;-)
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What?!!!! I want what you're smoking. I can attest to the pathetic driving capabilities of people from Philadelphia. Forget about stopping at a stop sign when there's oncoming traffic. Red light? Sure, we can fit five more cars through as the opposing traffic advances.
Merging traffic? Naw, you don't need to merge. Just stick your nose in. If the guy hits you, keep driving.
More referring to their tendency to stop at yield signs, or speeding up to keep you from merging in front of them, despite their being more than adequate room and an empty lane next to them on the highway. True, you get this in nearly every state to some degree, but PA is among the worst of it from what I've seen. Philly and Pittsburgh drivers are, on the whole, better than PA drivers elsewhere in the state - not saying they're good either, but that they're better than the rest of the state. and required response time may not leave time for signaling or other kinds of politeness.The only excuse for not using your turn signal is in an emergency situation or if you are the only car on the road at 2 AM. Other than that, turn signals should always be used.
Sorry but that's bull...go find some real traffic (e.g. Northern Jersey, NY) and see if you say the same. When things happen you don't have time to either think about being courteous or taking the extra time to think which way you are going and then hit the turn signal appropriately - you only have time to react and keep from hitting the obstacles in front of you - whether it is a deer running into the road, or someone hitting their brakes.Turn signals are a courtesy, nothing else. They allow you to communicate your intentions, and while when possible they should be used, there is no reason to use them when unnecessary. IF you've driven in real traffic conditions, then you'd recognize their proper use and how to use them both aggressively and courteously and when it just isn't worth it (like when you have a half mile between you and surrounding vehicles, which is more often than not the case in most of the U.S.).
The MythBusters (production #112, 1/23/2008) have already shown that a lead balloon is quite possible - i think I would have done it slightly differently (by plying together a few layers of the lead foil they used to make a stronger foil surface), but it did work. I see no reason why a Lead (Pb) kite wouldn't be possible either, though certainly not trivial to do. (BTW, their Lead Balloon used Lead Foil and at least what appeared to be Scotch tape filled with a mixture of Helium and Air. They mixed in air because they thought they might get too much lift out of just Helium; which from their results (see the episode) they were 100% right on.)
You can't really tell here in the US whether someone is on land-line or cell. Since most land-line plans are now unlimited (calling or receiving) people have just gotten into the habit of not really paying attention to minutes, thus allowing the phone companies to do what they will for the most part. Still, cell phone users will be more likely to stay within their paid allotments as the costs go extremely high if they go out of it.
I think this further extends with the cell phone, as people don't really think about the cell as costing much so new services added are used as it is just convenient which lets the companies then collect exorbitant rates - you hear the people complain when the bill comes, but not when they use the services. Some respond by using the pre-pain cell phones, but most just pay the bill.
This is probably most prevalent among the youth that have cells as their parents pay the bills, not them. So they just use it. I've heard/read a number of stories about youth who when they get their own phones stop using 90% of the services they did before because they now have to pay 100% of the bill for it.
It's less intrusive to the recipient than a call. It's not demanding immediate attention, it doesn't make them stop what they're doing, it can be replied to at their convenience or not at all.
I would certainly not agree with that one as you are costing that person money.
I disabled texting on the cell phones I pay for simply for that reason. When I first got them, I left it on and just said "I won't use it". But then several friends kept texting me (despite my telling them not to). While they may have had an "unlimited" texting plan, or were even willing to pay the cost of their texting - they would force me to pay for the texting too as costs are involved for both sending and receiving, and the phones don't differentiate between texts and pages - and pages are 100% free to receive.
One of those friends said they do it because its cheaper (for them) than calling. Guess it used less time on the pre-payed cell phone or something. But it led to costing me. (BTW, calling me didn't cost me because they were on the same network, which for me at least was free, but even then I had enough minutes I didn't care. Texting, however, cost more money just to receive it.)
Honestly, I think carriers should just charge the sender for the text and let the delivery be free. Then I'd have no problem with it, and would probably re-enable it for those friends that wanted to use it; but I'm not going to do so until then - I don't want to pay for it, nor do I want to use it - I want my phone (cell or otherwise) to be just that - a phone.
I'd love to see a study that compared cell phone talking to having a conversation with a passenger and having your kids in the car. With luck we can get having multiple car occupants banned as a safety hazard. After that food, anything that can be read, the radio, etc... There's just no end to what we can ban!
While I can't say whether such a study has been done...from what I am aware other passengers that are in the vehicle with you while they may talk to you (the driver), distract you, etc. they also have the ability to see things coming and help you avoid them.Where as when you are on the phone, the other person(s) may not even be aware you are driving and even they were aware of it cannot do anything to help you avoid anything unless they are in some kind of aerial vehicle above you - but at least presently that is near zero chances for anyone - and watching you, but then they might hit something themselves, and cause other problems for traffic too as they come landing on the road.
That said, I do try to use signals more often in heavier traffic (e.g. D.C, Greater NYC area [NJ, NY, CT, MA, RI, etc.], random heavy traffic) when I know I'm going to do so something; but will more or less ignore using them in less populous areas (everywhere else), unless I am trying to do something and there is a vehicle I know is going to be quite close because they are being a pain...
If this post makes any sense to you then you know the conditions I am talking about. If it doesn't, then you are likely in non-populous areas where the drivers typically don't know how to drive (e.g. PA - which is better around Philly/Pittsburgh than the rest of the state).
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Me, I'll be waiting for the card that can do Crysis set to 1920x1200, all the goodies on, and 50-60fps. Until then, my 7900GT SLI setup is going to have to be enough. But then you'd just be complaining that resolution Xres+1 x Yres+1 can't be pushed as FPS N+1. Honestly, you only need 24 to 32 FPS as that is pretty much where your eyes are at (unless you have managed to time travel and get ultra-cool ocular implants that can decode things faster). It's the never ending b(#%*-fest of gamers - it's never fast enough - doesn't matter that you're using all the resources of the NCC-1701-J Enterprise to play your game.
Another point I forgot to mention in my other post - not all public transportation works for people. For example, my wife & I use to live in Johnstown, PA. She started working in Pittsburgh. We figured she could just hop the train (Amtrak) every day. However, the train only runs from Pittsburgh to Johnstown in the morning, and versus in the evening. Same with the buses - unless she got up even earlier to catch the first stop of the bus, but then it would add more time to her commute, which was already 1.5 to 2 hours.
Just a thought to ponder.
Likewise, I now live in the Pittsburgh area, and my wife takes the bus in for her job. She can get a bus around town, but the buses only run out to the outter parking areas between 5:30 AM and 8 AM, and 3/4 PM and 6:30 PM. Again, sucks if you have to do something in between.
And in both areas, parking is already expensive if you park in town. (DC is more so than Pittsburgh.)
Unless you live and do everything within the central transit ranges (i.e. within the range of the metro/bus system for DC, NY, or Chicago) you're pretty much screwed for doing anything else - such as doctor's appointments, having commute hours outside of those dictated by the transit system governance board, etc.
And the places where metros are are already high congestion. As the OP said, it only really works if the whole system works to do it, like in Europe, Japan, and other areas of the world.
Oh - and before you say "take a taxi" - are you going to pay for a taxi to take you 20+ miles to go run an errand? For example, you can pick up a Loudoun County bus to go for the metro at Great Falls Plaza in Sterling, VA which takes a route like that in the map to the Vienna metro station. (I've only done it a couple times.) So, how then do you propose to be able to get back to your car, parked at Great Falls Plaza, when the bus isn't running? Suppose too that all your friends commute in a similar manner. Remember, it's expensive for the taxi - here's a sample taxi rate for area, which taking the identical route of 22 miles, yields the following cost:
2.80 +
Don't forget that you might want to go back to work afterwards, which may mean doubling that cost, which is already in addition to your normal commuting costs (see for Washington Metro rates - both bus and metro). Granted, you could try to park at the metro, see here for parking fares, but then you are chancing it at getting a parking spot during the middle of the day, and you are still commuting most of that distance. (Done that too.)
Since it can still run GUI programs such as Notepad, Task Manager, and Regedit - it is still a GUI. Just one that provides a command-line interface. IOW, they could drop another good chunk of the RAM requirement by dropping the GUI entirely. Perhaps this is what MinWin does, but I doubt it.
Perhaps they're doing something similar this time, only benefiting from the modularity they recently devised and committed towards - e.g. MinWin, WinCore, etc.
I've also got an older 486 Laptop with 8 MB RAM and a 300 MB hard drive - with some hardware problems so there's really only 4 MB usable - that runs Gentoo. The PCMCIA NIC drivers for Win32 require 32MB RAM and a P60 or better, but it still gets screaming throughput (full-speed, full-duplex, 100 Mbit net) without any difficulty.
Yes, I love Linux. There's nothing better.
I hardly consider that to be "sans-GUI". (Yes, I've done this before.)
- Windows 95 Original release (4.0)
- Windows 95 a
- Windows 95 b
- Windows 95 B (OSR2.1)
- Windows 95 c
- ...
There was something like 6 versions. FAT32 arrived in 'b', and USB 1.0/1.1 was introduced in OSR2.1, and a bunch of the handicap stuff wasn't in there until 'c'; there were also a few more obscure versions - all totaled about six versions all under the single name of "Windows 95" - though they did differentiate between "Windows 95" and "Windows 95 OSR2.1", otherwise, they were pretty much all released without really saying much to the public. This probably also means that Win98 was not 4.1, but something higher too.Never ran Windows 98 - so I can't say anything there - but you also missed Win98 SE, which was more likely to be 4.2 or higher.
Not saying everyone with bad credit would, but it would certainly be tempting to them...
Needless to say, the issue in the proprietary world is even greater when it comes to third parties hard coding the location of the IE executable - or even the name of the IE executable - instead of just relying the Windows APIs to load up the right app - e.g. running "start " to load the correct app against mime-types, or using the internal APIs to do so - which are known or easily replaced (e.g. registry lookup against the extension and then execute). This is also why I have to keep my WinXP installation at work set to IE for the default browser even though I almost entirely use Firefox - because doing otherwise breaks some applications and causes a lot of headaches. Not as bad as what it once was, but its still an issue. (And yes, I'm talking about not being able to change it through "Set Program Access and Defaults" tab in Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs functionality.
So there really is a two fold battle here.
That said, I think the debt issue is a lot larger and plays more of a primary role. The debt is just too big, and most - both people and businesses - are trying to live in debt, which is just not good. Eventually it will catch up. For businesses, that means having a 10 or 20 year plan and not looking at the present, year past, and year future quarterly reports (which is all too common-place to do now); for people, it means running a budget and using more cash - and yes, Visa's commercials that credit is faster are pure lie - cash is faster. (I hate those commercials!)
Until we get out of the mindset of living in debt - it'll be a problem.
Kind of reminds me of the connector for the original NES...I had one, and the NES Cleaner kit pulled one of the pins around. It was $45 for the fix (replace the board), or $50 for the newer NES console (the 2nd gen form factor) at the time. We opted for the $50 instead of replacing it. (Good we did, as the 2nd gen form factor never required cleaning!)...any how...
I could see the same kind of thing happening on these USB3 connectors - some snags a pin, and now you have a bad connector and no way to fix it - replace the cable or the motherboard/hub/device (depending on where it happened). May be...just may be...they figured out a solution to that problem...here's hoping...
I'm pretty ok with internet filters on school systems - but that said, it should be limited to High School and below; it does not belong on a college network. (Incidentally, my college put one on - namely for PR reasons - instead of enforcing the ISP agreement that they had with students. Kind of a hypocritical action since they were about "Responsible Freedom".)
Any how...in high school we had one kid who like to use WinNuke against another student - causing him to lose his work rather untimely; it took advantage of the TCP double packet exploit in Win95 (if two identical packets were received, the first was processed, the second would cause a system crash). When they went to do a search through the student account on the servers for the software, he some how got it cracked into and zero'd out a chunk of the hard drives before they were able to stop it. About 1/3 of the students lost their personal files due to the crack. However, he had an alibi and they were unable to implicate him in any way - so while we knew he had something to do with it, there was no proof. Had they had something like what you describe, they might of had the proof (don't know). Needless to say, a lot of people were really pissed.
Needless to say - I know where you're coming from.