Well, the sticker on my Sable says assembled in Chicago and my Taurus, assembled in Toronto (IIRC), but doesn't matter, Toyota, Ford... all parts made in Taiwan.:-)
I've grown up with Ford and GMC and Chyrsler products. And I realize that buy American really isn't anymore.
Maybe a Subaru next time - I really like that well-cut guy telling me how "green" their new plant is.
As an aside, when the hell did 2008 become the year of "green"? Did I miss the memo or something?
I certainly would love to get into the minutia of running a shard ala Civ or SimCity style. Waging wars on my enemies, rallying PCs as generals, spies, etc.
Battlefield 2 sort of did for the FPS what you envision for MMOs. Commanders can control the battlefield to some extent, squad leaders give tactical advantage in respawning capability.
No, but why wouldn't simple autoboxing of displays not work? You can screenscrape IE or Photoshop already, the next step is conning the OS to paint these apps to a random 2D plane inside a 3D engine. The technology is certainly in place for it.
Who says it needs to be 2D? Why not wrap a virtual IE around a virtual telephone pole or table in SL?
It's not a matter of technology, but of will and necessity. That, and screen resolutions aren't really there yet. When we're all using 60" widescreen displays to interact with our computers this might be viable, but we aren't there yet.
You make the claim that the climate has changed much faster than it ever has in the past.
I assert that we cannot make such a claim. Though our understanding of the fossil record is great, it is not complete. There could be a two hundred year period 100,000 years ago that led directly to the evolution of H.sapiens, and we might never know it.
Collapse and destruction of ocean (floating) glaciers will have zero impact on rising sea levels, because they consume more volume as ice than the water they contain (hence why they float).
The risk to rising sea levels is the shrinking glaciers in Alaska, Siberia, Greenland, and the risk that if the Ross Ice Shelf disappears, Antarctica will begin a catastrophic defrosting dumping all the surface ice (up to 2m thick) into the oceans.
By who. By my estimation, the only thing that ME had against it was that broke a shit-ton of DOS apps by removing some compatibility, exactly as planned. Paving the way for the nearly 7 year reign of WindowsXP.
It's sort of like how they found that Soviet submarine that the Glomar Explorer tried to pick up. Using sonar from several different sources and triangulating back. Exploding submarines are not quiet, and the Atlantic we being riddled with sonar detection networks during the 60's.
You've obviously never seen that Mythbusters episode where they towed a schoolbus behind a 747 going full-tilt-boogy on all four engines. Yah. Spectacular. I've never seen a bus fly before.:-)
Wing-tip vortices are nothing compared to 240,000 pounds of thrust.
A point you're ignoring is that *YOU*, without significant bribes to Microsoft, cannot resurrect VB for MS-DOS, but that you COULD resurrect Python, say, if people stopped developing it, or even port it to MS-DOS if you needed it that badly.
You have options available with open source you don't with proprietary products.
Whether it's generally applicable or not, it's still a valid point, while OSS may be EOLed all the time, there is always the possibility of resurrection by completely unrelated parties.
There was initially resistance to using the windows 95 UI on NT 3.51 where I worked, but for the most part, every OS MS has released has been better than the last, to the W2K series, and XP is the pinnacle of their consumer brand. Windows Server 2003 is definitely a major improvement over W2K and I expect the same of 2008.
Actually, strategically, I really don't consider Vista a failure, like I really don't consider WinME to have been a failure.
Commercially, they would never have stood on their own, but to the development community, they signaled important changes were coming. WinME broke lots of DOS compatibility and drivers, and Vista broke the braindead security mindset that plagued XP (though I still consider UAC to be too little and too invasive).
Windows needs a new model, something similar to the Mac and it's application packages, ActiveX sandboxes. Something to stand between the user and the OS and prevent significant damage, even if the user is a retard and charges straight thru the UAC prompts, or turns it off altogether.
Goodness. Everyone who talks of the hydrogen economy fails to recognize that if you have CHEAP hydrogen, and I mean ungodly cheap, tons per $, then any number of hydrocarbon fuels are equally as cheap, methane, propane, gasoline, all can be created from a decent source of hydrogen.
But until a ton of hydrogen is almost as cheap as free air, talking about transporting or storing it is pointless. It's not meant to be transported or stored - it's meant to be made, and then turned into stable fuels.
Cheap fuel has allowed local retailers to die at the hands of megacorps like WalMart, Target, Kohls, etc. Not that I think this is altogether bad, Walmart, et al. have brought certain excellent efficiencies to the free market which the rest of the world can adopt, but cheap fuel has allowed the economy to build huge mega shopping centers at the expense of local retail.
Expensive fuel makes having retailers closer to home, fewer trucks eating fuel delivering product. Hmm...
.Net had one purpose, and one purpose only - stop the bleeding from the onslaught of VB/C++ programmers moving to J2EE and breaking their desktop lock-in. That's it. It's no major improvement on Windows development, IMNSHO. It's better, but not radically, and not enough to move me from Java.
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I'm interested in reading up on the political environment of the twenty years prior to the civil war, any good recommendations?
No single law should ever be more wordy than the constitution itself.
Congress gets to pass 10 laws per year, and none can be longer than 1 8x11" sheet of paper with 1/16" block-type letters with 1" margins.
If it can't be understood by a majority of the bottom 50 percentile of sixth graders, it can't become law.
Any law found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court results in a years jail-time for anyone who voted for it.
I can conceive of lots of ways to restrain the power of Congress, but they'll just redefine the definition of an inch...
But no law should ever be more complex than the constitution.
Whatever happened to just plain "do no evil"?
Well, the sticker on my Sable says assembled in Chicago and my Taurus, assembled in Toronto (IIRC), but doesn't matter, Toyota, Ford... all parts made in Taiwan. :-)
I've grown up with Ford and GMC and Chyrsler products. And I realize that buy American really isn't anymore.
Maybe a Subaru next time - I really like that well-cut guy telling me how "green" their new plant is.
As an aside, when the hell did 2008 become the year of "green"? Did I miss the memo or something?
Okay, maybe it's an American manufacturer thing. I buy American, whatever that's worth, so I never shop Hyundai, Toyota or Honda. :-/
The difference is whether you want to roll off the lot with a new car, or wait 4-6 weeks for one to be delivered customized to your specifications.
Most dealerships will not stock manual transmission vehicles unless it's a normal selling point (Jeeps, BMWs, Mercedes, etc.).
I certainly would love to get into the minutia of running a shard ala Civ or SimCity style. Waging wars on my enemies, rallying PCs as generals, spies, etc.
Battlefield 2 sort of did for the FPS what you envision for MMOs. Commanders can control the battlefield to some extent, squad leaders give tactical advantage in respawning capability.
No, but why wouldn't simple autoboxing of displays not work? You can screenscrape IE or Photoshop already, the next step is conning the OS to paint these apps to a random 2D plane inside a 3D engine. The technology is certainly in place for it.
Who says it needs to be 2D? Why not wrap a virtual IE around a virtual telephone pole or table in SL?
It's not a matter of technology, but of will and necessity. That, and screen resolutions aren't really there yet. When we're all using 60" widescreen displays to interact with our computers this might be viable, but we aren't there yet.
You make the claim that the climate has changed much faster than it ever has in the past.
I assert that we cannot make such a claim. Though our understanding of the fossil record is great, it is not complete. There could be a two hundred year period 100,000 years ago that led directly to the evolution of H.sapiens, and we might never know it.
Collapse and destruction of ocean (floating) glaciers will have zero impact on rising sea levels, because they consume more volume as ice than the water they contain (hence why they float).
The risk to rising sea levels is the shrinking glaciers in Alaska, Siberia, Greenland, and the risk that if the Ross Ice Shelf disappears, Antarctica will begin a catastrophic defrosting dumping all the surface ice (up to 2m thick) into the oceans.
That's the risk.
HAND.
By who. By my estimation, the only thing that ME had against it was that broke a shit-ton of DOS apps by removing some compatibility, exactly as planned. Paving the way for the nearly 7 year reign of WindowsXP.
Sure didn't crash on me like 95, or 98 did.
Well, after the blight wipes out all banana crops, bananas might be the most expensive food on earth!
Can I ask a serious question? What weapon ever invented has ever been used for another purpose other than to fight or prevent a war?
It's sort of like how they found that Soviet submarine that the Glomar Explorer tried to pick up. Using sonar from several different sources and triangulating back. Exploding submarines are not quiet, and the Atlantic we being riddled with sonar detection networks during the 60's.
You've obviously never seen that Mythbusters episode where they towed a schoolbus behind a 747 going full-tilt-boogy on all four engines. Yah. Spectacular. I've never seen a bus fly before. :-)
Wing-tip vortices are nothing compared to 240,000 pounds of thrust.
Oh I so wish I could mod you up.
Newegg and Egghead.com are NOT related.
A point you're ignoring is that *YOU*, without significant bribes to Microsoft, cannot resurrect VB for MS-DOS, but that you COULD resurrect Python, say, if people stopped developing it, or even port it to MS-DOS if you needed it that badly.
You have options available with open source you don't with proprietary products.
Whether it's generally applicable or not, it's still a valid point, while OSS may be EOLed all the time, there is always the possibility of resurrection by completely unrelated parties.
There was initially resistance to using the windows 95 UI on NT 3.51 where I worked, but for the most part, every OS MS has released has been better than the last, to the W2K series, and XP is the pinnacle of their consumer brand. Windows Server 2003 is definitely a major improvement over W2K and I expect the same of 2008.
Actually, strategically, I really don't consider Vista a failure, like I really don't consider WinME to have been a failure.
Commercially, they would never have stood on their own, but to the development community, they signaled important changes were coming. WinME broke lots of DOS compatibility and drivers, and Vista broke the braindead security mindset that plagued XP (though I still consider UAC to be too little and too invasive).
Windows needs a new model, something similar to the Mac and it's application packages, ActiveX sandboxes. Something to stand between the user and the OS and prevent significant damage, even if the user is a retard and charges straight thru the UAC prompts, or turns it off altogether.
Since this election is pretty much a Republican given, vote for Huckabee! :-)
I'm pissed. Somewhere in one of my many moves I lost my Go stones. :(
Got the board, but no stones. boo hoo.
Goodness. Everyone who talks of the hydrogen economy fails to recognize that if you have CHEAP hydrogen, and I mean ungodly cheap, tons per $, then any number of hydrocarbon fuels are equally as cheap, methane, propane, gasoline, all can be created from a decent source of hydrogen.
But until a ton of hydrogen is almost as cheap as free air, talking about transporting or storing it is pointless. It's not meant to be transported or stored - it's meant to be made, and then turned into stable fuels.
Cheap fuel has allowed local retailers to die at the hands of megacorps like WalMart, Target, Kohls, etc. Not that I think this is altogether bad, Walmart, et al. have brought certain excellent efficiencies to the free market which the rest of the world can adopt, but cheap fuel has allowed the economy to build huge mega shopping centers at the expense of local retail.
Expensive fuel makes having retailers closer to home, fewer trucks eating fuel delivering product. Hmm...
.Net had one purpose, and one purpose only - stop the bleeding from the onslaught of VB/C++ programmers moving to J2EE and breaking their desktop lock-in. That's it. It's no major improvement on Windows development, IMNSHO. It's better, but not radically, and not enough to move me from Java.
No, it's not. The reason is Office, Outlook, and backwards compatibility, and not necessarily in that order.