Concerning the price of oil/gas, do you think that if prices keep rising like they are (+$0.15 this past weekend alone), do you think we'll even be able to afford space travel in the future? It used to be that the hardware was the expensive part. Imagine if the cost of fuel eventually rises above the cost of the shuttles themselves.
It is misleading to extrapolate short term price fluctuations, which tend to reflect global politics and production quotas more than actual oil and gas reserves. In any case, the cost of fuels will not rise indefinitely, because eventually they will become competitive with fuels produced by renewable energy sources, and price will plateau. An additional source of energy in the medium term is likely to be nuclear power, because with newer reactor designs, and greater awareness of the environmental damage from combustible fuels, the hazards of nuclear power no longer look quite so daunting.
Conservation isn't the answer because of that unlimited energy assumption. We need budget energy like we do cash reserves. If say we only got, pulling a number out of my ass here, 10K watts a month we would learn to live within that budget.
For the most part, supply and demand takes care of that, so we don't really need a separate energy budget. As energy gets scarcer, the price rises and we use less of it in order to stay within our financial budget. When the electric bill starts to hurt, you start remembering to turn off your lights.
The main problem is that technological development is sufficiently slow that it tends to lag behind need. By the time the price of oil and gas is high enough to encourage investment in development of alternative energy sources, we can't wait another ten or twenty years for the technology to mature. So we have to be investing in basic energy research all along, and building the infrastructure a bit before it is really cost-effective.
The things that "transhumanists" describe simply will not be possible? It has nothing to do with technology: it's resources. We're seeing oil prices soar right now. With oil and other basic resources that we need for a modern society quickly dwindling: breathable air, drinkable water, etc. society as we know it will collapse long before most of these pie-in-the-sky ideals are reached.
Actually, there is plenty of energy. The sun pumps out far more than we need. We just aren't very good yet at capturing even the little bit that falls on our own planet, not to mention the bulk of it that is radiated off to space. This is very much a matter of technology. As for drinkable water and breathable air, those have actually been improving, and there is potential for technological improvements there as well.
They can buy Apple hardware right now if they want, but they don't. And they still won't in your scenario. Why? Same reason as today: because they'll take one look at the price and buy a Dell instead.
But these days, the price difference between Apple and Dell is pretty small. People buy Dell not so much to save money (if you really want to save money, you'll buy a generic PC, not a Dell), but for compatibility with the world of Windows software. Buy an Apple and you get OS X to use routinely, and you can get Windows too if you want to run your favorite FPS.
and I'll say it again: people go and install OSX on a cheap machine, realise how great it is, and then when they want a new machine, they get another cheap machine, and install OSX on that one. I can't see any reason why someone would pirate it the first time, then go out and spend extra to get an Apple machine, when can get (or build) a similar (albeit stylistically challenged) machine cheaper.
Because the hacked versions will always be a minor pain in the butt. Apple won't support it, because it's not on their hardware, and your PC manufacturer won't support it because it's not the OS they shipped the system with. Every time Apple comes out with a system or application update, there will be problems on non-Apple systems and you'll have to search the internet for patches. Hackers will take pride in showing off OS X running on their non-Apple software, and a lot of people will probably download a copy to try it out, but most people won't want the aggravation of running it long-term on non-Apple hardware.
I would hope that Apple does not ever release their OS for the standard PC. It would be terrible for their image. Sure the Mac OS works great on Apple's machines, but start throwing it on people custom machines and trying to run all kinds of crazy hardware setups and OS X isn't going to run so swell anymore. The reason the Mac OS runs so well is because it and the hardware it runs on are meant to run together.
My guess is that Apple will lock OS X up about as tightly as they lock up iTunes Music Shop music. You can't just freely copy it as is, but if you really want to, you can strip off the DRM--but it requires a bit of effort and the result is not quite as good as the original.
In the case of OS X, I expect that hacked versions will have problems with updates and nonstandard hardware--not serious problems, just enough to deter anybody who doesn't enjoy having to hack these things. And Apple won't get the blame when the hacked OS X crashes, because nobody expects a hacked OS to run perfectly, anyway.
Hacked copies of OS X running around will probably help Apple more than hurt them. People will play around with OS X on their Dell PCs, and the next time they buy a PC, they'll be thinking about whether it might be worth a few extra bucks to get an Apple-branded model that will run OS X out of the box.
1. OSX86 as shipped will not install on a non-Apple PC, and the license agreement will limit its use to Apple hardware.
2. Within a few weeks, a program along the lines of XPostFacto will be available to install OSX86 on generic Intel-compatible hardware. A new version will be required for every major OS X system update.
3. Apple will add "call-home" registration and serial numbering to insure that each copy of OSX will run on only a single computer. The protection will be cracked, but will be restored (and need to be re-cracked) with every system update.
4. People with non-Apple hardware who call up Apple seeking OS X support will get a standard reply: "Buy a real Mac, it will run OS X without any problems, and it can run Windows, too!"
5. Hackers will run OS X on generic hardware. Anybody who wants to do anything serious with it will buy a Mac.
This advice might be good for the next year, but beyond that you'll have to keep this machine off the Internet.
Apple isn't going to be releasing security updates for it, so it's effectively dead.
I wouldn't worry about this too much. Macs aren't a major attack target, anyway, and most major security holes will probably be closed by the time Apple discontinues security updates for Panther. And I expect that Firefox will continue to run under Panther for a while yet, so there will be a security-updated browser available if some gaping hole in Panther Safari is discovered.
I have the somewhat later model clamshell iBook "366" clamshell iBook, which has a firewire port, and runs Tiger just fine without the need for XPostFacto. It can be booted in Firewire target disk mode, which was how I installed Tiger, since it has only a CD drive (Tiger can be obtained on CD, but is a special order item). It will hold 320 MB RAM, which is (just) adequate for Tiger. It also has a composite video output, which could be useful for presentations. I agree that the clamshell iBook is quite robust, and a good choice for younger students. It even has a handle.
Too slow to run flashy games or play movies of course, but that is not necessarily a bad thing for a student laptop. It is just fine for web browsing, word processing, and most educational software. And not valuable enough to be a major theft target.
I don't know what the moderator who marked this as a troll was thinking. Inkjets are a marketing gimmick (even if they weren't always). They have a significantly higher TCO than an equivalent laser printer, offset by the fact that they have a much lower capital investment cost.
However, for color printing, color laser printers simply do not approach the quality of an inkjet on high-quality paper. Indeed, I can barely distinguish the output of a modern $100-200 ink jet from our $9500 Kodak dye-sub.
By comparison, color prints from our >$1000 HP color laser printer have dull, less saturated color.
There are way too many variables to draw any meaning from that statement.
However, you can make the following statement: "Either videogames reduce youth violence or the effect of videogames on youth violence is small in comparison to other social and demographic factors"
Since neither possibility supports regulation of videogames, the conclusion is clear.
Compared to what some of the poor, victimized by evil customers (thank you best buy) retail stores do, the "rampant rise of fraud" pales.
Let's take a look at what some / virtually all of the stores do....
So your point is what? Two wrongs make a right. If a store engages in unethical business practices, you are entitled to report them, sue them, or complain about them to your friends, the Better Business Bureau, and everybody on the internet. It doesn't entitle you to steal from them.
And the "virtually all" bit is a transparent rationalization for stealing. In my experience, most retailers (well, except for Best Buy) are pretty honest and fair. Indeed, many give the benefit of the doubt to the consumer, if only because it doesn't pay to piss off customers, even if they are in the wrong.
Then again, some American conventions are strange as well; like inserting a comma before 'and' in a list, such as 'apples, bananas, and grapes are fruit' compared to the British style 'apples bananas and grapes are fruit'.
As an American, I learned that both are acceptable. However, I prefer the comma, as it adds the potential for an additional shading of meaning with reduced ambiguity, e.g.
"Food combinations that go well together are rice and beans, steak and potatoes, and liver and onions." (note the potential confusion from omission of the last comma)
Some years ago, there was in the city of York, a society of magicians. Seems, at least to me, that this writer and his editor need to read the proper use of commas.
Somebody does. Rule of thumb: The number of commas between the subject of a sentence and its verb must be either zero or an even number.
If you absolutely insist on adding commas to the sentence, which is probably better without them, it would be:
"Some years ago, there was, in the city of York, a society of magicians. "
Re:Pokemon Ripoff of Magic
on
Power Up
·
· Score: 1
But Pokemon? Pokemon was a huge phenomenon(sp). They did the card games. The toys. The TV show. The Gameboy games (which deserve extra mention, they are quite good games). The multitude of games for other Nintendo platforms. The crappy tie-ins, the worthwhile tie-ins, the movies, etc.
Yes, the impressive thing about Pokemon was how it managed to combine so many addictive elements into one product: Cute animals, collectable card games, RPG video games, anime, plush dolls.
Unfortunately, the Xbox generally doesn't provide aspect ratio control in 480p, so with a 16:9 TV games get stretched horizontally. I'm encouraged the XBox360 games are all supposed to support widescreen TVs
what I want to know is how the games will support HD without a HD-dvd drive...
You can store HD video on a regular DVD--or even a CD, for that matter. You can just fit more of it onto a HD-DVD. And remember that most of the video for games is not stored on the disk as videos, but generated on the fly from digital models. This can be done to whatever resolution is desired. Many PC games already generate HD-quality displays.
I read this as an admission that the PS3 is in trouble, perhaps because developers are finding its complex architecture harder to develop for than expected. So Sony needs to lay the groundwork for delaying the PS3 rollout. Now, they'll be able to say that it was because the XBox360 was a flop. That should be an easy charge to make--the initial crop of games for a new platform rarely completely live to the hype, and the XBox360 will doubtless be no exception.
I thought Apple had finally swallowed their pride and submitted to making a 2 button mouse, something they _seemed_ to be against.
Apple was never "against" multi-button mice--the OS has supported them for years. However, Apple has never before shipped a multibutton mouse, firmly believing that a single button was best for beginners, and Macs are nothing if not beginner-friendly. Advanced users could go to Radio Shack and spend the 10 bucks for a multibutton mouse.
What changed their mind? Probably just that they managed to come up with a single design that functions just like a one-button mouse for beginners, but acts like a 3-button mouse for advanced users.
By the way, if consistence is Apple's objection to more than one button, then they should simply try and make the feature consistent through some guideline, like they do with everything else. Some people may not like right clicks and contextual menus when things can be found in normal menus and toolbars, but there are certain programs (for example 3D drawing apps) where having contextual menus can make you work much much faster.
Nothing prevents developers from using contextual menus, and most do. After all, many people have multibutton mice, and those who don't can access contextual menus via keyboard modifiers. But making the single button standard causes developers to take extra care to provide full functionality with only a single button, and not to rely too heavily upon contextual menus for critical functions.
Thanks for the link to iScroll2; I didn't know that my PowerBook trackpad was capable of two-finger scrolling. It doesn't work for all G4's, however; I tried in on a G4 Titanium PB and it reported that the trackpad was not compatible.
That is a 360 degree "roll" for whatever application might use that. They implemented vertical and horizontal scroll across that mini-trackball from what I can tell of their moving diagram. Which would really suck to use now that I think about it. You're scrolling up really far and right in the middle of that you roll over a mini-trackball.
I'll be surprised if the mini-trackball actually rolls. After all, Apple has moved away from an actual spinning scroll wheel on the iPod. And the ball looks a little small. My guess is that you run your finger over or around the little ball, and the software interprets your gesture in terms of a "virtual trackball." A real spinning ball seems far more trouble-prone and expensive to manufacture. I should know soon, because I ordered one today.
I've got an 8-button mouse here, and only 2 of them work with the Mac.
Actually, the OS supports thousands of buttons, but Apple's standard driver is more limited. If the manufacturer of your mouse didn't bother to provide you with an OS X driver, you can probably get what you want with a 3rd party driver such as USB Overdrive
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to well-designed software and hardware is that some people's sense of self-worth is derived from the "Rainman"-like talent of being able to figure out poorly-designed interfaces. Such comforting, self-serving delusions vanish quickly once you start coming into contact with really brilliant people (the ones who accomplish things that actually matter), and discover how many of them have trouble with computer interfaces.
Slashdot Mirror
Concerning the price of oil/gas, do you think that if prices keep rising like they are (+$0.15 this past weekend alone), do you think we'll even be able to afford space travel in the future? It used to be that the hardware was the expensive part. Imagine if the cost of fuel eventually rises above the cost of the shuttles themselves.
It is misleading to extrapolate short term price fluctuations, which tend to reflect global politics and production quotas more than actual oil and gas reserves. In any case, the cost of fuels will not rise indefinitely, because eventually they will become competitive with fuels produced by renewable energy sources, and price will plateau. An additional source of energy in the medium term is likely to be nuclear power, because with newer reactor designs, and greater awareness of the environmental damage from combustible fuels, the hazards of nuclear power no longer look quite so daunting.
Conservation isn't the answer because of that unlimited energy assumption. We need budget energy like we do cash reserves. If say we only got, pulling a number out of my ass here, 10K watts a month we would learn to live within that budget.
For the most part, supply and demand takes care of that, so we don't really need a separate energy budget. As energy gets scarcer, the price rises and we use less of it in order to stay within our financial budget. When the electric bill starts to hurt, you start remembering to turn off your lights.
The main problem is that technological development is sufficiently slow that it tends to lag behind need. By the time the price of oil and gas is high enough to encourage investment in development of alternative energy sources, we can't wait another ten or twenty years for the technology to mature. So we have to be investing in basic energy research all along, and building the infrastructure a bit before it is really cost-effective.
The things that "transhumanists" describe simply will not be possible? It has nothing to do with technology: it's resources. We're seeing oil prices soar right now. With oil and other basic resources that we need for a modern society quickly dwindling: breathable air, drinkable water, etc. society as we know it will collapse long before most of these pie-in-the-sky ideals are reached.
Actually, there is plenty of energy. The sun pumps out far more than we need. We just aren't very good yet at capturing even the little bit that falls on our own planet, not to mention the bulk of it that is radiated off to space. This is very much a matter of technology. As for drinkable water and breathable air, those have actually been improving, and there is potential for technological improvements there as well.
They can buy Apple hardware right now if they want, but they don't. And they still won't in your scenario. Why? Same reason as today: because they'll take one look at the price and buy a Dell instead.
But these days, the price difference between Apple and Dell is pretty small. People buy Dell not so much to save money (if you really want to save money, you'll buy a generic PC, not a Dell), but for compatibility with the world of Windows software. Buy an Apple and you get OS X to use routinely, and you can get Windows too if you want to run your favorite FPS.
and I'll say it again: people go and install OSX on a cheap machine, realise how great it is, and then when they want a new machine, they get another cheap machine, and install OSX on that one. I can't see any reason why someone would pirate it the first time, then go out and spend extra to get an Apple machine, when can get (or build) a similar (albeit stylistically challenged) machine cheaper.
Because the hacked versions will always be a minor pain in the butt. Apple won't support it, because it's not on their hardware, and your PC manufacturer won't support it because it's not the OS they shipped the system with. Every time Apple comes out with a system or application update, there will be problems on non-Apple systems and you'll have to search the internet for patches. Hackers will take pride in showing off OS X running on their non-Apple software, and a lot of people will probably download a copy to try it out, but most people won't want the aggravation of running it long-term on non-Apple hardware.
I would hope that Apple does not ever release their OS for the standard PC. It would be terrible for their image. Sure the Mac OS works great on Apple's machines, but start throwing it on people custom machines and trying to run all kinds of crazy hardware setups and OS X isn't going to run so swell anymore. The reason the Mac OS runs so well is because it and the hardware it runs on are meant to run together.
My guess is that Apple will lock OS X up about as tightly as they lock up iTunes Music Shop music. You can't just freely copy it as is, but if you really want to, you can strip off the DRM--but it requires a bit of effort and the result is not quite as good as the original.
In the case of OS X, I expect that hacked versions will have problems with updates and nonstandard hardware--not serious problems, just enough to deter anybody who doesn't enjoy having to hack these things. And Apple won't get the blame when the hacked OS X crashes, because nobody expects a hacked OS to run perfectly, anyway.
Hacked copies of OS X running around will probably help Apple more than hurt them. People will play around with OS X on their Dell PCs, and the next time they buy a PC, they'll be thinking about whether it might be worth a few extra bucks to get an Apple-branded model that will run OS X out of the box.
1. OSX86 as shipped will not install on a non-Apple PC, and the license agreement will limit its use to Apple hardware.
2. Within a few weeks, a program along the lines of XPostFacto will be available to install OSX86 on generic Intel-compatible hardware. A new version will be required for every major OS X system update.
3. Apple will add "call-home" registration and serial numbering to insure that each copy of OSX will run on only a single computer. The protection will be cracked, but will be restored (and need to be re-cracked) with every system update.
4. People with non-Apple hardware who call up Apple seeking OS X support will get a standard reply: "Buy a real Mac, it will run OS X without any problems, and it can run Windows, too!"
5. Hackers will run OS X on generic hardware. Anybody who wants to do anything serious with it will buy a Mac.
This advice might be good for the next year, but beyond that you'll have to keep this machine off the Internet.
Apple isn't going to be releasing security updates for it, so it's effectively dead.
I wouldn't worry about this too much. Macs aren't a major attack target, anyway, and most major security holes will probably be closed by the time Apple discontinues security updates for Panther. And I expect that Firefox will continue to run under Panther for a while yet, so there will be a security-updated browser available if some gaping hole in Panther Safari is discovered.
I have the somewhat later model clamshell iBook "366" clamshell iBook, which has a firewire port, and runs Tiger just fine without the need for XPostFacto. It can be booted in Firewire target disk mode, which was how I installed Tiger, since it has only a CD drive (Tiger can be obtained on CD, but is a special order item). It will hold 320 MB RAM, which is (just) adequate for Tiger. It also has a composite video output, which could be useful for presentations. I agree that the clamshell iBook is quite robust, and a good choice for younger students. It even has a handle.
Too slow to run flashy games or play movies of course, but that is not necessarily a bad thing for a student laptop. It is just fine for web browsing, word processing, and most educational software. And not valuable enough to be a major theft target.
I don't know what the moderator who marked this as a troll was thinking. Inkjets are a marketing gimmick (even if they weren't always). They have a significantly higher TCO than an equivalent laser printer, offset by the fact that they have a much lower capital investment cost.
However, for color printing, color laser printers simply do not approach the quality of an inkjet on high-quality paper. Indeed, I can barely distinguish the output of a modern $100-200 ink jet from our $9500 Kodak dye-sub.
By comparison, color prints from our >$1000 HP color laser printer have dull, less saturated color.
There are way too many variables to draw any meaning from that statement.
However, you can make the following statement: "Either videogames reduce youth violence or the effect of videogames on youth violence is small in comparison to other social and demographic factors"
Since neither possibility supports regulation of videogames, the conclusion is clear.
Compared to what some of the poor, victimized by evil customers (thank you best buy) retail stores do, the "rampant rise of fraud" pales.
Let's take a look at what some / virtually all of the stores do....
So your point is what? Two wrongs make a right. If a store engages in unethical business practices, you are entitled to report them, sue them, or complain about them to your friends, the Better Business Bureau, and everybody on the internet. It doesn't entitle you to steal from them.
And the "virtually all" bit is a transparent rationalization for stealing. In my experience, most retailers (well, except for Best Buy) are pretty honest and fair. Indeed, many give the benefit of the doubt to the consumer, if only because it doesn't pay to piss off customers, even if they are in the wrong.
According to the Nov 2002 National Retail Security Survey, almost 50% of all theft was committed by employees, not consumers.
So what? I am sure that retailers are anxious to detect and stop employee theft, too.
Then again, some American conventions are strange as well; like inserting a comma before 'and' in a list, such as 'apples, bananas, and grapes are fruit' compared to the British style 'apples bananas and grapes are fruit'.
As an American, I learned that both are acceptable. However, I prefer the comma, as it adds the potential for an additional shading of meaning with reduced ambiguity, e.g.
"Food combinations that go well together are rice and beans, steak and potatoes, and liver and onions." (note the potential confusion from omission of the last comma)
Some years ago, there was in the city of York, a society of magicians. Seems, at least to me, that this writer and his editor need to read the proper use of commas.
Somebody does. Rule of thumb: The number of commas between the subject of a sentence and its verb must be either zero or an even number.
If you absolutely insist on adding commas to the sentence, which is probably better without them, it would be:
"Some years ago, there was, in the city of York, a society of magicians. "
But Pokemon? Pokemon was a huge phenomenon(sp). They did the card games. The toys. The TV show. The Gameboy games (which deserve extra mention, they are quite good games). The multitude of games for other Nintendo platforms. The crappy tie-ins, the worthwhile tie-ins, the movies, etc.
Yes, the impressive thing about Pokemon was how it managed to combine so many addictive elements into one product: Cute animals, collectable card games, RPG video games, anime, plush dolls.
Unfortunately, the Xbox generally doesn't provide aspect ratio control in 480p, so with a 16:9 TV games get stretched horizontally. I'm encouraged the XBox360 games are all supposed to support widescreen TVs
what I want to know is how the games will support HD without a HD-dvd drive...
You can store HD video on a regular DVD--or even a CD, for that matter. You can just fit more of it onto a HD-DVD. And remember that most of the video for games is not stored on the disk as videos, but generated on the fly from digital models. This can be done to whatever resolution is desired. Many PC games already generate HD-quality displays.
I read this as an admission that the PS3 is in trouble, perhaps because developers are finding its complex architecture harder to develop for than expected. So Sony needs to lay the groundwork for delaying the PS3 rollout. Now, they'll be able to say that it was because the XBox360 was a flop. That should be an easy charge to make--the initial crop of games for a new platform rarely completely live to the hype, and the XBox360 will doubtless be no exception.
I thought Apple had finally swallowed their pride and submitted to making a 2 button mouse, something they _seemed_ to be against.
Apple was never "against" multi-button mice--the OS has supported them for years. However, Apple has never before shipped a multibutton mouse, firmly believing that a single button was best for beginners, and Macs are nothing if not beginner-friendly. Advanced users could go to Radio Shack and spend the 10 bucks for a multibutton mouse.
What changed their mind? Probably just that they managed to come up with a single design that functions just like a one-button mouse for beginners, but acts like a 3-button mouse for advanced users.
By the way, if consistence is Apple's objection to more than one button, then they should simply try and make the feature consistent through some guideline, like they do with everything else. Some people may not like right clicks and contextual menus when things can be found in normal menus and toolbars, but there are certain programs (for example 3D drawing apps) where having contextual menus can make you work much much faster.
Nothing prevents developers from using contextual menus, and most do. After all, many people have multibutton mice, and those who don't can access contextual menus via keyboard modifiers. But making the single button standard causes developers to take extra care to provide full functionality with only a single button, and not to rely too heavily upon contextual menus for critical functions.
Thanks for the link to iScroll2; I didn't know that my PowerBook trackpad was capable of two-finger scrolling. It doesn't work for all G4's, however; I tried in on a G4 Titanium PB and it reported that the trackpad was not compatible.
That is a 360 degree "roll" for whatever application might use that. They implemented vertical and horizontal scroll across that mini-trackball from what I can tell of their moving diagram. Which would really suck to use now that I think about it. You're scrolling up really far and right in the middle of that you roll over a mini-trackball.
I'll be surprised if the mini-trackball actually rolls. After all, Apple has moved away from an actual spinning scroll wheel on the iPod. And the ball looks a little small. My guess is that you run your finger over or around the little ball, and the software interprets your gesture in terms of a "virtual trackball." A real spinning ball seems far more trouble-prone and expensive to manufacture. I should know soon, because I ordered one today.
I've got an 8-button mouse here, and only 2 of them work with the Mac.
Actually, the OS supports thousands of buttons, but Apple's standard driver is more limited. If the manufacturer of your mouse didn't bother to provide you with an OS X driver, you can probably get what you want with a 3rd party driver such as USB Overdrive
seriously. please dont let these people breed.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to well-designed software and hardware is that some people's sense of self-worth is derived from the "Rainman"-like talent of being able to figure out poorly-designed interfaces. Such comforting, self-serving delusions vanish quickly once you start coming into contact with really brilliant people (the ones who accomplish things that actually matter), and discover how many of them have trouble with computer interfaces.