Computers are far more fragile than books, and more expensive to boot.
I don't know how much it costs to boot a schoolbook, by my laptop boots for free..
(couldn't help myself, sorry)
I can find dozens of blogs and opinion pieces dating back to around March or so on this, but nothing from a traditional news source ... I would like to read an objectively written fact based story behind this and not just a lot of reactionary Bush bashing.
That's just the problem. This story is (a) not "sexy", and (b) not directly in conflict with the interests of Time/Warner, Murdoch, etc.
This is how the Bush administration has gotten away with so much. By slowly undercutting seemingly trivial programs, they've changed significantly the political environment. It's much harder for corporations or government agencies to be taken to task for the things they do to hurt the public. It's like the boiling frog analogy, but the neo-conservatives have figured out how to boil targeted vital organs with no need for a pot full of water.
ok, let's talk about cutting spending.
The 2006 budget for defense was $420 billion. A nice little bar chart to put that in perspective. (notice how the EPA compares, by the way)
Bush is the biggest-spending president in US history. He way outdid Carter and everybody in this respect.
The way I read it, you're arguing that we'll just keep producing and using more and more power as the years go by. That's the mentality that's caused most of the environmental problems we're facing today.
The fact is, if we want our society to be sustainable (read: a place where our children and grandchildren have enough to eat) we'll have to do a lot more than rely on a mysterious and ever-increasing "supply". We'll have to reduce demand at the household level and at the industrial level, we'll have to come up with better ways to produce the energy we are using (nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, thermal, etc.), and we'll have to try to become a culture of moderation rather than one of insatiable excess.
Relying on new technologies to fix all the problems technology and growth have caused is a fallacy we've been believing in for far too long. And the idea that progress can only involve continual expansion and growth becomes even more dangerous as we reach the limits of our essentially closed system.
Power plants spend an enormous amount of effort figuring out exactly how much power they are going to need to produce. Remember the old law of supply and demand? The electric companies don't want to waste coal either. Granted overproducing is much better from their point of view than underproducing, but if people reduce their power consumption, the plants are gonna reduce their production.
It's the I-can't-make-a-difference attitude that makes widescale change so difficult. People have to remember that the load on power plants isn't just god-given, it's made up of a hell of a lot of individuals' light bulbs, computers and air-conditioners.
If only I had mod points. It's so true. Even more so because the nonchalance of the one-line eulogy. Sure, the feeling passes, but its trace lingers on in the depths of your little @-shaped soul.
To bring this discussion full-circle:
One of my favorite ways to deal with the troll problem is simply to kill them once so they become %, then eat them. They ain't regenerating in my gut.
Oh, and to defend my original statement:
Yes, % can kill you in nethack, but to summarize the game as "versus %" is a bit much.
(and on yet a third note, this is my first time seeing/. in its fancy new css clothes. freaky but nice.)
the heading for the nethack section was (and i quote) "@ versus the evil %".
'%' in nethack represents food, not any enemy. sure, when enemies die their corpses are considered food, but still not quite the point.
'C','c','&', or pretty much any other character on the keyboard would have sufficed, but I think the title should have been "@ versus the evil @".
But maybe that's just me.
...is actually quite fantastic. I've bought lord knows how many laptops from them, with not a single dead pixel, ever. Never a failed hard drive, never a faulty component.
Where first-gen Apple products do have issues is not with QA, but with design stubornness. They used the scratchy ipod plastic not because they didn't know it was scratchy, but because Steve liked the look of it. The heat issues are not an issue of "whoops! look at that, processors produce heat!" They know that the machines will run hot, but want to keep the sleek form factor anyway.
All in all, I think Apple products have few overall bugs, but the tight design all around makes those few design flaws stick out like sore thumbs. (damn you, TiBook hinges!)
FTFA: What Soucy and MTI CEO Peng Lim envision is a world where instead of recharging your phone's battery, you'll buy disposable fuel cells that last longer than the batteries that come with cell phones today and are more eco-friendly.
I'm not sure exactly how this is supposed to be more eco-friendly. A disposable cartridge system rather than a rechargeable battery? OK, maybe fuel cells can get a somewhat higher fuel efficiency than centralized generation and transmission to individual buildings. But then take into account the energy it takes to make the special enclosure for the cartridges, then to pump them full of methanol. This would need to happen for each cartridge. Plus, carbon-based fuels get more expensive and the power companies start relying more on wind/solar technologies, this tech will still need to use 100% carbon fuel to run at all. Just 'cause it says `fuel cell' does not mean it is `eco-friendly.'
On OS X, it's all about SubEthaEdit
on
Vim 7 Released
·
· Score: 2, Informative
For years I tried to indoctrinate myself with vi, too.
Then i found SubEthaEdit for mac os x.
I've really found no need for anything else since. I highly recommend anybody on an apple try it out. I feel like it follows the philosophy of vi (lightweight, responsive, simple, functional), but integrates well with the rest of the OS (uses apple's spell check, plays well with os x services and keyboard shortcuts). and, though i know this isn't for everyone, it follows apple's emacs-style ctrl-f, ctrl-b, etc navigation.
As far as I can tell, this entire hullabaloo is based on a three-sentence letter allegedly posted by the defendent's lawyer, an Inquirer article about as long and detail-rich as as the back of my cerial box, and a blog entry taken almost word-for-word from that article.
What and where are the sources? The the lawyers just call the Inquirer and tell them that they have a story? How 'bout we do some source checking before we post inflamatory articles to slashdo?
excellent point about the climate control.\br
I worked in the energy-information industry for a while, and in the U.S., at least, the biggest predictor of energergy consumption on a particular day is temperature. a 1-degree-farrenheit change in temperature can cause a 1% increase in energy use.
\br
I think that largely what we need is more of a conscienciousness about energy use. yes, tumble-drying uses way more energy than your microwave on standby, but hell, we should applaud the mentality of noticing excessive uses of energy.
after i posted the original thread here i went and found a similar comparison and was confused by the results. I was referring to my car. I have a Jetta TDI and I rarely get under 46mpg. on the highway without my bike on top i expect over 55, and in town i expect somewhere around 50. I'm also very conscious of my driving style (smooth acceleration, higher gears when i don't need the power, etc.), which may explain the difference.
here's a page with some data, but i'm not sure about its trustworthiness.
anyway, it claims that CO_2 emissions are proportional to volume of fuel used, so that if a diesel is 35% more efficient than its regular counterpart, it will emit 35% less CO_2.
It also states that diesel emits "virtually no" carbon monoxide (CO).
NO_x (nitrous oxides) are supposed to be higher in diesels while the engine is new, but lower while the engine is old, so it all about evens out.
Hydrocarbons such as benzene are "much less" in diesels.
diesel releases much smaller amounts of greenhouse gasses (CO_2, CO, SO_2, etc)
diesel releases more particulates that contribute to smog and cause asthma.
Slashdot Mirror
Computers are far more fragile than books, and more expensive to boot.
I don't know how much it costs to boot a schoolbook, by my laptop boots for free..
(couldn't help myself, sorry)
Except that you've given your money to PepsiCo, which in my book is ten times worse than FairPlay.
I can find dozens of blogs and opinion pieces dating back to around March or so on this, but nothing from a traditional news source
...
I would like to read an objectively written fact based story behind this and not just a lot of reactionary Bush bashing.
That's just the problem. This story is (a) not "sexy", and (b) not directly in conflict with the interests of Time/Warner, Murdoch, etc.
This is how the Bush administration has gotten away with so much. By slowly undercutting seemingly trivial programs, they've changed significantly the political environment. It's much harder for corporations or government agencies to be taken to task for the things they do to hurt the public. It's like the boiling frog analogy, but the neo-conservatives have figured out how to boil targeted vital organs with no need for a pot full of water.
ok, let's talk about cutting spending.
The 2006 budget for defense was $420 billion. A nice little bar chart to put that in perspective. (notice how the EPA compares, by the way)
Bush is the biggest-spending president in US history. He way outdid Carter and everybody in this respect.
The way I read it, you're arguing that we'll just keep producing and using more and more power as the years go by. That's the mentality that's caused most of the environmental problems we're facing today.
The fact is, if we want our society to be sustainable (read: a place where our children and grandchildren have enough to eat) we'll have to do a lot more than rely on a mysterious and ever-increasing "supply". We'll have to reduce demand at the household level and at the industrial level, we'll have to come up with better ways to produce the energy we are using (nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, thermal, etc.), and we'll have to try to become a culture of moderation rather than one of insatiable excess.
Relying on new technologies to fix all the problems technology and growth have caused is a fallacy we've been believing in for far too long. And the idea that progress can only involve continual expansion and growth becomes even more dangerous as we reach the limits of our essentially closed system.
Power plants spend an enormous amount of effort figuring out exactly how much power they are going to need to produce. Remember the old law of supply and demand? The electric companies don't want to waste coal either. Granted overproducing is much better from their point of view than underproducing, but if people reduce their power consumption, the plants are gonna reduce their production.
It's the I-can't-make-a-difference attitude that makes widescale change so difficult. People have to remember that the load on power plants isn't just god-given, it's made up of a hell of a lot of individuals' light bulbs, computers and air-conditioners.
If only I had mod points. It's so true. Even more so because the nonchalance of the one-line eulogy. Sure, the feeling passes, but its trace lingers on in the depths of your little @-shaped soul.
An excellent example of the clarifying power of hyphens.
One of my favorite ways to deal with the troll problem is simply to kill them once so they become %, then eat them. They ain't regenerating in my gut.
Oh, and to defend my original statement:
Yes, % can kill you in nethack, but to summarize the game as "versus %" is a bit much.
(and on yet a third note, this is my first time seeing
the heading for the nethack section was (and i quote) "@ versus the evil %".
'%' in nethack represents food, not any enemy. sure, when enemies die their corpses are considered food, but still not quite the point.
'C','c','&', or pretty much any other character on the keyboard would have sufficed, but I think the title should have been "@ versus the evil @".
But maybe that's just me.
...is actually quite fantastic. I've bought lord knows how many laptops from them, with not a single dead pixel, ever. Never a failed hard drive, never a faulty component.
Where first-gen Apple products do have issues is not with QA, but with design stubornness. They used the scratchy ipod plastic not because they didn't know it was scratchy, but because Steve liked the look of it. The heat issues are not an issue of "whoops! look at that, processors produce heat!" They know that the machines will run hot, but want to keep the sleek form factor anyway.
All in all, I think Apple products have few overall bugs, but the tight design all around makes those few design flaws stick out like sore thumbs. (damn you, TiBook hinges!)
http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html has been for a while now. works great.
I want to see a low-rez jpg of of a jpg next to a low-rez jpg of a wdp to compare the qualities...
(kidding, kidding..)
FTFA:
What Soucy and MTI CEO Peng Lim envision is a world where instead of recharging your phone's battery, you'll buy disposable fuel cells that last longer than the batteries that come with cell phones today and are more eco-friendly.
I'm not sure exactly how this is supposed to be more eco-friendly. A disposable cartridge system rather than a rechargeable battery? OK, maybe fuel cells can get a somewhat higher fuel efficiency than centralized generation and transmission to individual buildings. But then take into account the energy it takes to make the special enclosure for the cartridges, then to pump them full of methanol. This would need to happen for each cartridge. Plus, carbon-based fuels get more expensive and the power companies start relying more on wind/solar technologies, this tech will still need to use 100% carbon fuel to run at all. Just 'cause it says `fuel cell' does not mean it is `eco-friendly.'
For years I tried to indoctrinate myself with vi, too.
Then i found SubEthaEdit for mac os x.
I've really found no need for anything else since. I highly recommend anybody on an apple try it out. I feel like it follows the philosophy of vi (lightweight, responsive, simple, functional), but integrates well with the rest of the OS (uses apple's spell check, plays well with os x services and keyboard shortcuts). and, though i know this isn't for everyone, it follows apple's emacs-style ctrl-f, ctrl-b, etc navigation.
how long has this hole been in X11, i wonder?
I remember a time not too long ago when Apple was about to die and everybody was talking about Sun bying Apple.
Oh, how times change.
And where was he/she being held? I hope it wasn't guantánamo.
No kidding. The jury is still *way* out on that point.
As far as I can tell, this entire hullabaloo is based on a three-sentence letter allegedly posted by the defendent's lawyer, an Inquirer article about as long and detail-rich as as the back of my cerial box, and a blog entry taken almost word-for-word from that article.
What and where are the sources? The the lawyers just call the Inquirer and tell them that they have a story? How 'bout we do some source checking before we post inflamatory articles to slashdo?
excellent point about the climate control.\br I worked in the energy-information industry for a while, and in the U.S., at least, the biggest predictor of energergy consumption on a particular day is temperature. a 1-degree-farrenheit change in temperature can cause a 1% increase in energy use. \br I think that largely what we need is more of a conscienciousness about energy use. yes, tumble-drying uses way more energy than your microwave on standby, but hell, we should applaud the mentality of noticing excessive uses of energy.
after i posted the original thread here i went and found a similar comparison and was confused by the results. I was referring to my car. I have a Jetta TDI and I rarely get under 46mpg. on the highway without my bike on top i expect over 55, and in town i expect somewhere around 50. I'm also very conscious of my driving style (smooth acceleration, higher gears when i don't need the power, etc.), which may explain the difference.
anyway, it claims that CO_2 emissions are proportional to volume of fuel used, so that if a diesel is 35% more efficient than its regular counterpart, it will emit 35% less CO_2.
It also states that diesel emits "virtually no" carbon monoxide (CO).
NO_x (nitrous oxides) are supposed to be higher in diesels while the engine is new, but lower while the engine is old, so it all about evens out.
Hydrocarbons such as benzene are "much less" in diesels.
diesel releases much smaller amounts of greenhouse gasses (CO_2, CO, SO_2, etc)
diesel releases more particulates that contribute to smog and cause asthma.
so you're right in part.
anyway. the reference was to fuel efficiency.
yup. all the more proof that these Priuses etc. are not the most fuel efficient cars on the road.