Actually, Helium 4 (and especially Helium 3) escape out of Earth's atmosphere continuously into space. (As well as Hydrogen)
It is not merely that it is too expensive to extract Helium from the upper atmosphere, but it is also that the atmosphere is leaking Helium into space, lost forever.
Excellent Point! I would bet there is some fine print in the Microsoft Vendor OS OEM sales contracts preventing that very practice. Probably OEM's risk losing their MS OS pricing.
Anyone have a copy they'd like to post here on/.? I'd read it.
If 39% of new PCs initially Shipped with Vista in 2007, what percentage were promptly un-boxed, reformatted, and then a *better* OS was then installed?
Mitochondria are the manufacturers of nearly all ATP (Adenosine TriPhosphate) in the body... Just find a way to incorporate them "cybernetically" with the flagellated nanobots and you would need to just add simple sugars to power your sperm-tailed nanobots. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion
Of course, I can see a possible application... A new form of Cybernetic birth-control, where nanobots kill any real sperm that try to inseminate the egg, acting like a phalanx to prevent fertilization. (Or they could attack the egg, killing it. But that would have even more theologians up in arms... there are millions of sperm but (typically) only one egg.)
I agree there is some interoperability. But, often in our complex documents (mainly large multi-tabbed Excel Spreadsheets) formatting is "lost in translation" between the native Office format through a downloaded MS conversion add-in or if a differing version of MS Office Application is used. Based on out results with one version or another, many of us who have other versions of MS Office, (including Office XP, Office 2000, or Office 2007), we usually have Office 2003 installed somewhere on some computer to verify the formatting of the fine document before transfer to the 'client'. (I believe there is a dedicated set of workers in the office who re-proof all work and they "tweak" all work pre-client submission.
No matter what your precision and accuracy may be for the final product, having your formatting appearing all *screwed-up* in the final product is unprofessional for our 'clients' and we take significant strides to avoid it. I am not a programmer, but I believe there are and have been far too many cooks in the kitchen in the MS Office Product development group for some time. If only the 'formatting' for Office documents was as precise and accurate between conversion engines as the 'formatting' of True Type fonts is. It is true that the various versions can be mostly read and written cross-version in MS Office, but reformatting AGAIN an otherwise print-perfect research report with data spreadsheet is not acceptable in my line work. If I were in charge, perhaps we'd utilize Open Office or something more reliable and consistent on formatting and editable between versions, but alas I am not. It is what it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
Examples:
-No DirectX 10.x API for WinXP or Win2k. (The nature of the API to be a higher-level Application Programming Interface, I'd forgive not developing for Win2k as it is no longer for sale, but there's NO good reason to deny the API in WinXP, other than to force clearly Planned Obsolescence)
-No IE7 for Win2k. (interestingly, Firefox still bests ALL versions of IE..)
-No Support on your year-old PC for Full Windows Vista use. (Again, why? Even Apple and Linux have pretty eye-candied desktops working on older hardware)
-No to the Sale of WinXP to OEM (non-Business) customers this month http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/12/microsoft-pulling-oem-windows-xp-next-january/.
-Etc... (insert your own here)
I know that in my present line of work, my colleagues and I write meticulous research reports for our multi-million dollar clients.
Our clients specifically require us to NOT use *any* MS Office 2007 file format; We are to utilize 'not newer than MS Office 2003 format'. (Typically Excel, Access, and Word formats are used).
Our clients have gone on to clarify, specifically, that the Office 2007 file formats are incompatible with the older MS Office versions and necessitate needless corporate updating for their thousands of internal users, (not to mention the client has decades of reports on file that get updated every 10 to 20 years, often utilizing the original editable report document).
I too will soon be installing in Open Office very soon. (Hopefully the Excel 2003 formulas and those dating back to Excel 2.0 all work properly in Open Office?)...
It appears that this "update" is not so much for security or even for ease of development (because it WAS previously WORKING in situ). It stragetically forces users of the older versions of MS Office to update to the new version (or rather adopt the new format) due to interoperability issues.
If MS Office 2003 did 'it' before and it does not do 'it' now, post-SP3... that is *Intentional*, not "For Your Protection".
-This would be akin to IE8 not opening 'older' web page formats at all because they used some older and (potentially) unsafe format of html, CSS, Scripting etc.. it deemed unsafe!
I am not a programmer, but it appears using proprietary closed architectures such as Flash/Shockwave might not be the wisest and most secure solution for an active browser plug-in.
(Or did the inventing source coders/programmers get 86ed following the Adobe acquisition of Macromedia and now Adobe can't put Humpty-Dumpty back together again?)
Are there any GPL'd Open Source browser plug-ins that can preform equivalent functionality to Flash/Shockwave?
Or... are we either left without, or to install.NET v1, v2, v3, v3.5, etc... and then utilize the proprietary Microsoft Silverlight plug-in? (And is it any better, safer, or more trustworthy?) http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/faq.aspx
What of the non-Windows users who can't install ".NET Libraries"?
Executive: "How can we get ahold of some of that Mars glacial ice? We could make a killing selling it to the bottled water crowd!"
R&D: "We could make it a dilute 'blend' with filtered municipal tap water and disclose (in small print) that it is 'filtered for your purity'."
Marketing: "The bottle cost should be just under $0.05 each (with printing) and we could put on its side in BOLD TYPE: 'Contains REAL Mars Water' and actual unit cost could be $1000 each. Then we could spread a rumor that it has aphrodisiac properties, it worked for the rhinoceros horn market!"...
NASA Administration Plebe to NASA Director: "Sir, I think I have found a new way to raise REAL corporate money for our manned Mars missions..."
*The 15 Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007*
#1. No Wow, No How: Windows Vista
#2. What Is It Good For: The High-Def Format War
#3. The Anti-Social Network: Facebook Beacon
#4. In a Sorry State: Yahoo
#5. The Great, The Bad, The Ugly: Apple iPhone
#6. Un-Neutral: The Broadband Industry
#7. Cannot be Completed as Dialed: Voice Over IP
#8. Needs To Change Its Spots: Apple "Leopard" OS 10.5
#9. Sorry, We Already Gave: Office 2007
#10. Is Anyone Listening?: Wireless Carriers
#11. Singing an Old Familiar Zune: Microsoft Zune
#12. Just Another Oxymoron: Internet Security
#13. Web 2 Woe: Social Networks
#14. Screwed up to the Max: Municipal WiMax
#15. Box Unpopuli: Amazon Unbox
Yes, Thank You for the correction, I did mean Halo 2 (for PC), not Halo 3.
Interestingly, Halo 3 is even further crippled by Microsoft so it will ONLY work on their XBox360 console. (Good thing Microsoft does not author the games I prefer to play.)
Imagine if General Motors, Ford, or Toyota only produced a car/truck that will only operate using their own specific brands of fuel!
That may be accurate in some cases, but it appears that it has more to do with the REQUIREMENT from Microsoft to only use their SOFTWARE mixer in Vista, thus breaking nearly all Hardware audio effects (my read is: for *DRM* requirements):
"...DirectSound3D on Windows Vista
With Microsoft's decision to remove the audio hardware layer in Windows Vista, legacy DirectSound 3D games will no longer use hardware 3D algorithms for audio spatialization. Instead they will have to rely upon the new Microsoft software mixer that is built into Windows Vista. This new software mixer will give the users basic audio support for their old Direct Sound games but since it has no hardware layer, all EAX® effects will be lost, and no individual per-voice processing can be performed using dedicated hardware processing.
EAX has become the de facto standard for real-time effects processing. It has been incorporated in hundreds of games and has become the method of choice for game developers wanting to add interactive environment effects to their titles. Some of the best selling games of all time use the EAX extensions to DirectSound 5.0 and beyond, including Warcraft3, Diablo2, World of Warcraft, Half Life, Ghost Recon, F.E.A.R. and many others. Under Windows Vista, these games will be losing the hardware support that came as standard under the previous Windows Operating Systems, and will no longer provide real-time interactive effects, making them sound empty and lifeless by comparison to the way they sound on Windows XP.
In some cases, where a game specifically looks for a hardware audio path, it may even fall back to plain stereo output. This will be a very different landscape for 3D audio than the one that both Creative Labs and Aureal Technologies® pioneered 8 years ago. Both companies dedicated hardware power to rendering increasing numbers of 3D voices, with each voice taking full advantage of HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) technology, wave tracing and other advanced processing. With the native Windows Vista audio APIs, all this advanced, hardware-based 3D audio processing will be inaccessible. Instead, basic mapping to a generic speaker placement scheme will be employed, and all interactive processing and rendering will be dependent on the host CPU. While it is true that CPUs continue to get faster, the Vista audio architecture intentionally simplifies things, such that the potential processing load for multiple 3D voices is limited. Inevitably there is a tradeoff. This will be especially true for gamers that have come to depend on the kind of high-end 3D audio experience available from products like the SoundBlaster X-Fi, with its advanced headphone 3D audio processing and dedicated hardware DSP effects. For gamers this would be the most noticeable loss in Windows Vista, and it would be a definite step backwards for PC gaming audio if developers only had the option of using native Windows Vista audio APIs. However, they do have a legitimate, proven alternative in OpenAL..." http://www.openal.org/openal_vista.html
Other than DX10.x in Vista for purposefully DX10.x limited specific games releases (HALO 3, et al), what IS the killer app in Vista?
(Don't flame me man! I am serious, what is the Real "advantage" to Vista for gamers?) What is the performance advantage? Is it designed to fully take advantage of future generations of multiple quad-core processors with 8+GB of RAM and not really current hardware which is not optimized to utilize it?
Not intending to get into a flame war at all, I have used Vista and I just don't get it.. why the bloat? Why so much DRM? Why specifically break Direct3d and EAX and force the rapid development of OpenAL sound cards and drivers, etc.. Why completely eliminate the look and feel of the UI users have mastered since Win9x/2k (or at least leave a Classic Win2k option for the UI) I play my games in XP and I love it. Once WINE, etc.. can match the performance in gaming of native XP, this discussion will then be between XP and XP emulation.
Dr. Evil: You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have?
Number Two: Sea Bass.
Dr. Evil: [pause] Right.
Number Two: They're mutated sea bass.
Dr. Evil: Are they ill tempered?
Number Two: Absolutely.
Dr. Evil: Oh well, that's a start.
Mandatory: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118655/
Sure they do...
-They plan on building a decent digital animation render-farm to produce a Pixar-esqe version of this: http://www.ifilm.com/video/2855424?ns=1
A business colleague I once worked with was *given* a brand new Matrix 5000 by APC for writing an actually true Kudos real-life-APC's-UPS-saved-my-IT-ass letter to APC following another major Ice Storm back in '01. (I think those matrix 5000 batteries may actually be heavier than car batteries.) I am looking forward to the UPS industry offering LiON or LiPO batteries (at least to those of us who actually have to install/move the darn things...) Of course we all remember this: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=109923
And Yes, that's exactly what my generator is doing at this moment... powering the blower and thermostat on my *gas* furnace. and powering my APC UPS et al. (too bad NG is so high!)
I think your Matrix 5000 would be a very good standard item for most homes (plus an automatic transfer switch and generator tie-in)... but just like burglar alarms in homes, people don't change the batteries.
For the record, cell service just came back up... well, actually it didn't...it now says 'network busy'. Probably a puny mobile cell site trailer... have to go look for it in the morning.
Speaking of which, I have been looking around but I still don't see that Aussie-accented-guy standing in any ponds or holes around here touting the new 'AT&T Wireless Broadband Network'...
Sure, what else to do after an Ice storm (after getting your power working).. but Post on/.
I have remarkably reliable Cable Internet/Digital Cable service and it is *always* working.
My Cable provider's nodes have UPS battery boxes w/Natural Gas generators attached to each fiber/analog node breakout box (sitting beside it).
One of these nodes happens to be located 30 feet from my house in my yard's edge. (I know this because I lifted off its plastic cover to see what the hell I have been mowing around...) I truly enjoy the low latency (LPB) of having my cable provider's fiber-to-coax node so close to my home. (And the DOCSIS loop sharing, etc.. is not an issue (yet) in my neighborhood. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS)
And yes, I have a decent 5kw generator and several UPS' of my own doing frequent 'line conditioning' operations on the sags and spikes of the generator's voltage regulators being slow. Extension cords abound. (Apparently some ice covered trees took out the feed lines going to the sub-station (which is one block away).. according to my power utility provider. That will probably take days to fix... Crews have been called in from other states to 'help'...
Let's just say that I now know where that extra money went when I purchased one of these... http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=SUA1000XL
It may only be 1000VA, but it has a monster battery and is very responsive to line conditions (plus has lots of indicator lights on the front that finally I get to see in action)... -Z
I am currently in a power outage with NO Cellular Service (of any type)! This actually *sucks* and is inexcusable (considering what I pay!) Those Damn Ice Storms here in the Central US (today and yesterday). (Generators/UPS are so so nice!)
Had Cell Service (with AT&T/Cingular) for about 3 hours following the outage (currently the largest single outage in my state's history)... but apparently the cell-site UPS batteries drained and the tower site did not have a generator...
I am going to ask for a prorated refund for my service plan (and they will legally HAVE TO give me that discount for my contracted service being out).
If EVERYONE called up their service providers and asked specifically for their prorated discount for service being out (on that given day)... I bet they would invest in UPS/Generator combos at the cell tower sites... -Z
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Helium 4 (and especially Helium 3) escape out of Earth's atmosphere continuously into space. (As well as Hydrogen)
It is not merely that it is too expensive to extract Helium from the upper atmosphere, but it is also that the atmosphere is leaking Helium into space, lost forever.
http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=247
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/specific_arguments/helium.html
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i2/helium.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium
Excellent Point! I would bet there is some fine print in the Microsoft Vendor OS OEM sales contracts preventing that very practice. Probably OEM's risk losing their MS OS pricing. /.? I'd read it.
Anyone have a copy they'd like to post here on
If 39% of new PCs initially Shipped with Vista in 2007, what percentage were promptly un-boxed, reformatted, and then a *better* OS was then installed?
(I know of 2 new OEM PCs in my home business that were immediately 'Upgraded' to XP fresh out of their Vista promoting boxes in PY2007.) http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/15/1944206
IANAL, but it seems that Art. Lebedev Studio could just negotiate a fat licensing fee for the technology/idea with Apple and both would win from the collaboration...?
Surely that beats a costly Patent fight?
What about Prior Art?
Re: Optimus Keyboard With OLED Display Keys http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/14/1335215
Re: Optimus OLED Keyboard Pre-Orders Start Dec. 12 http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/19/1911235
I would love to see this technology in an affordable Laptop/Notebook keyboard. (Particularly one that has open source GPL'd base drivers.)
More on this discussion: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/26/1425201
Tin foil billfolds and passport covers are already being sold: http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&safe=off&q=RFID+blocking+wallet&btnG=Search
Nothing a microwave oven on high for 2-3 seconds (or a hammer and hard surface) won't solve: http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&safe=off&q=RFID+disabling+passport&btnG=Search
Mitochondria are the manufacturers of nearly all ATP (Adenosine TriPhosphate) in the body... Just find a way to incorporate them "cybernetically" with the flagellated nanobots and you would need to just add simple sugars to power your sperm-tailed nanobots. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion
Of course, I can see a possible application... A new form of Cybernetic birth-control, where nanobots kill any real sperm that try to inseminate the egg, acting like a phalanx to prevent fertilization. (Or they could attack the egg, killing it. But that would have even more theologians up in arms... there are millions of sperm but (typically) only one egg.)
Then again, there are quite a few people that believe that "Every Sperm Is Sacred": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNgotUM4gk8
I agree there is some interoperability. But, often in our complex documents (mainly large multi-tabbed Excel Spreadsheets) formatting is "lost in translation" between the native Office format through a downloaded MS conversion add-in or if a differing version of MS Office Application is used. Based on out results with one version or another, many of us who have other versions of MS Office, (including Office XP, Office 2000, or Office 2007), we usually have Office 2003 installed somewhere on some computer to verify the formatting of the fine document before transfer to the 'client'. (I believe there is a dedicated set of workers in the office who re-proof all work and they "tweak" all work pre-client submission.
No matter what your precision and accuracy may be for the final product, having your formatting appearing all *screwed-up* in the final product is unprofessional for our 'clients' and we take significant strides to avoid it. I am not a programmer, but I believe there are and have been far too many cooks in the kitchen in the MS Office Product development group for some time. If only the 'formatting' for Office documents was as precise and accurate between conversion engines as the 'formatting' of True Type fonts is. It is true that the various versions can be mostly read and written cross-version in MS Office, but reformatting AGAIN an otherwise print-perfect research report with data spreadsheet is not acceptable in my line work. If I were in charge, perhaps we'd utilize Open Office or something more reliable and consistent on formatting and editable between versions, but alas I am not. It is what it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
Examples:
-No DirectX 10.x API for WinXP or Win2k. (The nature of the API to be a higher-level Application Programming Interface, I'd forgive not developing for Win2k as it is no longer for sale, but there's NO good reason to deny the API in WinXP, other than to force clearly Planned Obsolescence)
-No IE7 for Win2k. (interestingly, Firefox still bests ALL versions of IE..)
-No Support on your year-old PC for Full Windows Vista use. (Again, why? Even Apple and Linux have pretty eye-candied desktops working on older hardware)
-No to the Sale of WinXP to OEM (non-Business) customers this month http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/12/microsoft-pulling-oem-windows-xp-next-january/.
-Etc... (insert your own here)
I know that in my present line of work, my colleagues and I write meticulous research reports for our multi-million dollar clients.
Our clients specifically require us to NOT use *any* MS Office 2007 file format; We are to utilize 'not newer than MS Office 2003 format'. (Typically Excel, Access, and Word formats are used).
Our clients have gone on to clarify, specifically, that the Office 2007 file formats are incompatible with the older MS Office versions and necessitate needless corporate updating for their thousands of internal users, (not to mention the client has decades of reports on file that get updated every 10 to 20 years, often utilizing the original editable report document).
I too will soon be installing in Open Office very soon. (Hopefully the Excel 2003 formulas and those dating back to Excel 2.0 all work properly in Open Office?)...
It appears that this "update" is not so much for security or even for ease of development (because it WAS previously WORKING in situ). It stragetically forces users of the older versions of MS Office to update to the new version (or rather adopt the new format) due to interoperability issues.
If MS Office 2003 did 'it' before and it does not do 'it' now, post-SP3... that is *Intentional*, not "For Your Protection".
-This would be akin to IE8 not opening 'older' web page formats at all because they used some older and (potentially) unsafe format of html, CSS, Scripting etc.. it deemed unsafe!
Clarification: That is ...'2o7.net' as in 'Two-Ocsar-Seven.net' *NOT* 'Two-Zero-Seven.net'
The Opt-Out "Explanation" page is here: http://www.omniture.com/privacy/2o7
Still, the dubious address http://192.168.112.2o7.net/ appears to be some variation of Social Engineering. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(computer_security)
This might explain some of Adobe's seeming software bloating (like Acrobat Reader, etc...) http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Acrobat+reader+bloat
Chuck Norris does NOT post, the threads post to Him!
I am not a programmer, but it appears using proprietary closed architectures such as Flash/Shockwave might not be the wisest and most secure solution for an active browser plug-in.
.NET v1, v2, v3, v3.5, etc... and then utilize the proprietary Microsoft Silverlight plug-in? (And is it any better, safer, or more trustworthy?) http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/faq.aspx
(Or did the inventing source coders/programmers get 86ed following the Adobe acquisition of Macromedia and now Adobe can't put Humpty-Dumpty back together again?)
Are there any GPL'd Open Source browser plug-ins that can preform equivalent functionality to Flash/Shockwave?
Or... are we either left without, or to install
What of the non-Windows users who can't install ".NET Libraries"?
Executive: "How can we get ahold of some of that Mars glacial ice? We could make a killing selling it to the bottled water crowd!"
R&D: "We could make it a dilute 'blend' with filtered municipal tap water and disclose (in small print) that it is 'filtered for your purity'."
Marketing: "The bottle cost should be just under $0.05 each (with printing) and we could put on its side in BOLD TYPE: 'Contains REAL Mars Water' and actual unit cost could be $1000 each. Then we could spread a rumor that it has aphrodisiac properties, it worked for the rhinoceros horn market!"...
NASA Administration Plebe to NASA Director: "Sir, I think I have found a new way to raise REAL corporate money for our manned Mars missions..."
Amen to that brother!: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=390286&cid=21712080
This was under discussion (again) just the other day... http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/15/1944206
Here is the full PC World Magazine's list http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,140583/printable.html#
*The 15 Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007*
#1. No Wow, No How: Windows Vista
#2. What Is It Good For: The High-Def Format War
#3. The Anti-Social Network: Facebook Beacon
#4. In a Sorry State: Yahoo
#5. The Great, The Bad, The Ugly: Apple iPhone
#6. Un-Neutral: The Broadband Industry
#7. Cannot be Completed as Dialed: Voice Over IP
#8. Needs To Change Its Spots: Apple "Leopard" OS 10.5
#9. Sorry, We Already Gave: Office 2007
#10. Is Anyone Listening?: Wireless Carriers
#11. Singing an Old Familiar Zune: Microsoft Zune
#12. Just Another Oxymoron: Internet Security
#13. Web 2 Woe: Social Networks
#14. Screwed up to the Max: Municipal WiMax
#15. Box Unpopuli: Amazon Unbox
Yes, Thank You for the correction, I did mean Halo 2 (for PC), not Halo 3.
Interestingly, Halo 3 is even further crippled by Microsoft so it will ONLY work on their XBox360 console. (Good thing Microsoft does not author the games I prefer to play.)
Imagine if General Motors, Ford, or Toyota only produced a car/truck that will only operate using their own specific brands of fuel!
That may be accurate in some cases, but it appears that it has more to do with the REQUIREMENT from Microsoft to only use their SOFTWARE mixer in Vista, thus breaking nearly all Hardware audio effects (my read is: for *DRM* requirements):
"...DirectSound3D on Windows Vista
With Microsoft's decision to remove the audio hardware layer in Windows Vista, legacy DirectSound 3D games will no longer use hardware 3D algorithms for audio spatialization. Instead they will have to rely upon the new Microsoft software mixer that is built into Windows Vista. This new software mixer will give the users basic audio support for their old Direct Sound games but since it has no hardware layer, all EAX® effects will be lost, and no individual per-voice processing can be performed using dedicated hardware processing.
EAX has become the de facto standard for real-time effects processing. It has been incorporated in hundreds of games and has become the method of choice for game developers wanting to add interactive environment effects to their titles. Some of the best selling games of all time use the EAX extensions to DirectSound 5.0 and beyond, including Warcraft3, Diablo2, World of Warcraft, Half Life, Ghost Recon, F.E.A.R. and many others. Under Windows Vista, these games will be losing the hardware support that came as standard under the previous Windows Operating Systems, and will no longer provide real-time interactive effects, making them sound empty and lifeless by comparison to the way they sound on Windows XP.
In some cases, where a game specifically looks for a hardware audio path, it may even fall back to plain stereo output. This will be a very different landscape for 3D audio than the one that both Creative Labs and Aureal Technologies® pioneered 8 years ago. Both companies dedicated hardware power to rendering increasing numbers of 3D voices, with each voice taking full advantage of HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) technology, wave tracing and other advanced processing. With the native Windows Vista audio APIs, all this advanced, hardware-based 3D audio processing will be inaccessible. Instead, basic mapping to a generic speaker placement scheme will be employed, and all interactive processing and rendering will be dependent on the host CPU. While it is true that CPUs continue to get faster, the Vista audio architecture intentionally simplifies things, such that the potential processing load for multiple 3D voices is limited. Inevitably there is a tradeoff. This will be especially true for gamers that have come to depend on the kind of high-end 3D audio experience available from products like the SoundBlaster X-Fi, with its advanced headphone 3D audio processing and dedicated hardware DSP effects. For gamers this would be the most noticeable loss in Windows Vista, and it would be a definite step backwards for PC gaming audio if developers only had the option of using native Windows Vista audio APIs. However, they do have a legitimate, proven alternative in OpenAL..." http://www.openal.org/openal_vista.html
Browse the Dell laptop sales pages.. both for Home/Home Office and Business... most notebooks (except the top DX10 capable models) are NOW being offered with Windows XP. It seems businesses buying Dells are demanding XP over Vista: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/winxp_inspnnb?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
Other than DX10.x in Vista for purposefully DX10.x limited specific games releases (HALO 3, et al), what IS the killer app in Vista?
(Don't flame me man! I am serious, what is the Real "advantage" to Vista for gamers?) What is the performance advantage? Is it designed to fully take advantage of future generations of multiple quad-core processors with 8+GB of RAM and not really current hardware which is not optimized to utilize it?
Not intending to get into a flame war at all, I have used Vista and I just don't get it.. why the bloat? Why so much DRM? Why specifically break Direct3d and EAX and force the rapid development of OpenAL sound cards and drivers, etc.. Why completely eliminate the look and feel of the UI users have mastered since Win9x/2k (or at least leave a Classic Win2k option for the UI) I play my games in XP and I love it. Once WINE, etc.. can match the performance in gaming of native XP, this discussion will then be between XP and XP emulation.
Dr. Evil: You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have?
Number Two: Sea Bass.
Dr. Evil: [pause] Right.
Number Two: They're mutated sea bass.
Dr. Evil: Are they ill tempered?
Number Two: Absolutely.
Dr. Evil: Oh well, that's a start.
Mandatory: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118655/
Software controlled radios are becoming the new big thing for HAMs also. Any plans to write more 'flexible' software for the FLEX-5000A radio?
http://www.flex-radio.com/
Icom also has a neat receiver-only radio: http://icomamerica.com/en/products/receivers/pc/pcr2500/default.aspx
Sure they do...
-They plan on building a decent digital animation render-farm to produce a Pixar-esqe version of this: http://www.ifilm.com/video/2855424?ns=1
A business colleague I once worked with was *given* a brand new Matrix 5000 by APC for writing an actually true Kudos real-life-APC's-UPS-saved-my-IT-ass letter to APC following another major Ice Storm back in '01. (I think those matrix 5000 batteries may actually be heavier than car batteries.) I am looking forward to the UPS industry offering LiON or LiPO batteries (at least to those of us who actually have to install/move the darn things...) Of course we all remember this: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=109923
And Yes, that's exactly what my generator is doing at this moment... powering the blower and thermostat on my *gas* furnace. and powering my APC UPS et al. (too bad NG is so high!) I think your Matrix 5000 would be a very good standard item for most homes (plus an automatic transfer switch and generator tie-in)... but just like burglar alarms in homes, people don't change the batteries.
For the record, cell service just came back up... well, actually it didn't ...it now says 'network busy'. Probably a puny mobile cell site trailer... have to go look for it in the morning.
/.
Speaking of which, I have been looking around but I still don't see that Aussie-accented-guy standing in any ponds or holes around here touting the new 'AT&T Wireless Broadband Network'...
Sure, what else to do after an Ice storm (after getting your power working).. but Post on
I have remarkably reliable Cable Internet/Digital Cable service and it is *always* working.
My Cable provider's nodes have UPS battery boxes w/Natural Gas generators attached to each fiber/analog node breakout box (sitting beside it).
One of these nodes happens to be located 30 feet from my house in my yard's edge. (I know this because I lifted off its plastic cover to see what the hell I have been mowing around...) I truly enjoy the low latency (LPB) of having my cable provider's fiber-to-coax node so close to my home. (And the DOCSIS loop sharing, etc.. is not an issue (yet) in my neighborhood. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS)
And yes, I have a decent 5kw generator and several UPS' of my own doing frequent 'line conditioning' operations on the sags and spikes of the generator's voltage regulators being slow. Extension cords abound. (Apparently some ice covered trees took out the feed lines going to the sub-station (which is one block away).. according to my power utility provider. That will probably take days to fix... Crews have been called in from other states to 'help'...
Let's just say that I now know where that extra money went when I purchased one of these... http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=SUA1000XL
It may only be 1000VA, but it has a monster battery and is very responsive to line conditions (plus has lots of indicator lights on the front that finally I get to see in action)... -Z
I am currently in a power outage with NO Cellular Service (of any type)! This actually *sucks* and is inexcusable (considering what I pay!)
Those Damn Ice Storms here in the Central US (today and yesterday). (Generators/UPS are so so nice!)
Had Cell Service (with AT&T/Cingular) for about 3 hours following the outage (currently the largest single outage in my state's history)... but apparently the cell-site UPS batteries drained and the tower site did not have a generator...
I am going to ask for a prorated refund for my service plan (and they will legally HAVE TO give me that discount for my contracted service being out).
If EVERYONE called up their service providers and asked specifically for their prorated discount for service being out (on that given day)... I bet they would invest in UPS/Generator combos at the cell tower sites... -Z