Sadly nuclear has better paid lobbysist than the renewables industry.
True. And also true that Exxon has an even better lobby than the nukes. It would not be surprising to trace Greenpeace donations back to Exxon/Mobil/Citgo etc.
That aside, nuclear power for short term use until we can transition to the renewable energy sources is not a bad thing. It will cut greenhouse gas emissions now, which we desparately need (although I might invest in beachfront property in Greenland; I can get it cheap now, before it becomes the Riviera of the 21st century).
I agree with you that nuclear is not a good long term solution. We need renewable, non-polluting energy sources ASAP. But as long as the oil cartels hold sway, we need to do what we can now.
Digital SLR's are very cool - I own a Nikon D70, and it's replaced my trusty Nikon FM10 for most applications. EXCEPT for astrophotography. Try taking an 8 hour guided shot with a digital SLR and you will discover 1) hot pixels 2) batteries only last about 30 minutes (Nikon has an AC cord, so this is not a showstopper, but running an AC cord to a dark location is not always practical). The noise reduction system is not perfect, and really long exposure shots suffer from hot pixels like you wouldn't believe. That said, I agree that for most normal photography that you would do with a 35mm film camera, a digital SLR is a more than adequate replacement. I'll keep my FM10 for taking photos in the dark, though (as long as they keep making film for it; after that I'll have to switch to a cooled CCD astrocam, I guess).
Not necessarily. Very few of the 5075 items in my collection were downloaded from iTunes (175 to date - no Britany Spears). The other 4900 songs are ripped from the 500+ CD's/LP's I have bought over the years. I've been able to confuse the new "feature" quite regularly with my music. I'm actually kind of surprised that it knew about Gentle Giant.
Not "series" like a "trilogy", but rather several novels written against the same milieu. Niven's "Protector" is wholly devoted to the Pak, but they are also featured in:
"The Ringworld Engineers"
"The Ringworld Throne"
"Ringworld's Children"
why the heck the iPod doesn't have a radio is completely beyond my understanding
Once again, one of the basic concepts of high fidelity audio is that the less circuitry, the less noise is generated and therefore a cleaner signal. When you go to Best Buy and get a mass market receiver, you'll get every gizmo known to man thrown in with it: bass boost, graphic equalizer, etc, etc, etc. Go to a high end audio store and you'll see that all-in-one receivers are rare. The radio, preamplifier and amplifier are separate components. Preamplifiers usually only have a source selector and gain controls. In higher end systems, you'll find separate component amplifiers for each channel. This is all to prevent noise leakage. Noting that MP3 does not have great sound quality to begin with, anything that improves the signal is welcome. iPods are the best sounding MP3 players I've heard. I'd guess that a big part of the reason my iPod sounds noticeably better than my RioVolt playinng the same MP3 file is due to the simplicity of the circuitry without the extra crap.
There are plenty of folks out there who are willing to sacrifice sound quality for the convenience of an all-in-one device, and that is a valid position. They just need to realize that they are in fact making a sacrifice for that convenience. The same could be said for MP3's in general: the convenience of taking my 500 CD collection with me in my pocket is pretty cool, but I don't expect my iPod to sound anywhere near as good as my hifi at home.
Slashdot Mirror
+10 Insightful
I would second all the points you made, but you made them so eloquently, I probably don't need to.
OK Mr Gates, we know that's you!
Does this mean the event happened 440 million years ago and we're just now detecting it because information about it has finally arrived?
Yes, exactly right.
Double 'a', actually.
Sadly nuclear has better paid lobbysist than the renewables industry.
True. And also true that Exxon has an even better lobby than the nukes. It would not be surprising to trace Greenpeace donations back to Exxon/Mobil/Citgo etc.
That aside, nuclear power for short term use until we can transition to the renewable energy sources is not a bad thing. It will cut greenhouse gas emissions now, which we desparately need (although I might invest in beachfront property in Greenland; I can get it cheap now, before it becomes the Riviera of the 21st century).
I agree with you that nuclear is not a good long term solution. We need renewable, non-polluting energy sources ASAP. But as long as the oil cartels hold sway, we need to do what we can now.
Cheers!
Beowulf Schaeffer
Louis Wu
Speaker To Animals
Gil "The Arm" Hamilton
Nessus the Puppeteer
Elephant
Larry Greenberg
Niven is of course much better with the technical details than charaterization. But his characters weren't totally forgettable...
But in an effort to stop the cloning of the OS...
The question is, why would anyone want to clone Windows?
Digital SLR's are very cool - I own a Nikon D70, and it's replaced my trusty Nikon FM10 for most applications. EXCEPT for astrophotography. Try taking an 8 hour guided shot with a digital SLR and you will discover 1) hot pixels 2) batteries only last about 30 minutes (Nikon has an AC cord, so this is not a showstopper, but running an AC cord to a dark location is not always practical). The noise reduction system is not perfect, and really long exposure shots suffer from hot pixels like you wouldn't believe. That said, I agree that for most normal photography that you would do with a 35mm film camera, a digital SLR is a more than adequate replacement. I'll keep my FM10 for taking photos in the dark, though (as long as they keep making film for it; after that I'll have to switch to a cooled CCD astrocam, I guess).
Not necessarily. Very few of the 5075 items in my collection were downloaded from iTunes (175 to date - no Britany Spears). The other 4900 songs are ripped from the 500+ CD's/LP's I have bought over the years. I've been able to confuse the new "feature" quite regularly with my music. I'm actually kind of surprised that it knew about Gentle Giant.
... I've got two daughters. Same concept, except I have to send them to college.
So what you're saying is that we only have 49.5 years before the magnetic pole is in Siberia?
180 degree line where the flat image was wrapped around the sphere...
So it both blows AND sucks?
Release Marineboy on any media and I'm there...
or is it getting warm in here?
It'll work great until Congress changes Daylight Savings Time yet again...
Yup. :^)
Not "series" like a "trilogy", but rather several novels written against the same milieu. Niven's "Protector" is wholly devoted to the Pak, but they are also featured in:
:^)
"The Ringworld Engineers"
"The Ringworld Throne"
"Ringworld's Children"
As I'm sure you know, based on your handle.
It's toward the galactic core. It was destroyed in the core explosion, 10000 years ago.
The original poster was referring to Larry Niven's Pak from the Known Space series of books, specifically "Protector."
Hell they should have dug in the back of my refrigerator; I've got noodles WAY older than that back there...
Yes, but if we did that, who would be left to govern? :^)
There's nothing worth watching on anyway. Now where'd I leave that book?
According to the Rules of Engagement, I invoke Godwin's Law.
why the heck the iPod doesn't have a radio is completely beyond my understanding
Once again, one of the basic concepts of high fidelity audio is that the less circuitry, the less noise is generated and therefore a cleaner signal. When you go to Best Buy and get a mass market receiver, you'll get every gizmo known to man thrown in with it: bass boost, graphic equalizer, etc, etc, etc. Go to a high end audio store and you'll see that all-in-one receivers are rare. The radio, preamplifier and amplifier are separate components. Preamplifiers usually only have a source selector and gain controls. In higher end systems, you'll find separate component amplifiers for each channel. This is all to prevent noise leakage. Noting that MP3 does not have great sound quality to begin with, anything that improves the signal is welcome. iPods are the best sounding MP3 players I've heard. I'd guess that a big part of the reason my iPod sounds noticeably better than my RioVolt playinng the same MP3 file is due to the simplicity of the circuitry without the extra crap.
There are plenty of folks out there who are willing to sacrifice sound quality for the convenience of an all-in-one device, and that is a valid position. They just need to realize that they are in fact making a sacrifice for that convenience. The same could be said for MP3's in general: the convenience of taking my 500 CD collection with me in my pocket is pretty cool, but I don't expect my iPod to sound anywhere near as good as my hifi at home.
The Bild is Germanys largest tabloid and is well known for not always reporting overly accurate, to put it mildly.
So that would be kind of like CNN here in the States?