1.) who cares what it's written in as long as it's available for popular platforms. and MUMPS is still commonly used in the healthcare industry because it was specifically developed for managing medical databases. it's highly scalable, low maintenance, and much faster than conventional (relational) databases. 2.) why should a system meant to share medical records across a national medical network generate bills?
adding non-essential functionality to a medical database and forcing all hospitals to change their billing system would drive up costs and make the system unnecessarily complex. each hospital should be able to choose their own billing system. it's better to have a handful of systems that each perform a single role really well rather than have a single system that tries to serve 20 purposes and does it in a mediocre fashion.
yea, that was 1960. and the Nedelin disaster was an ICBM test; it was not space-related.
so far NASA astronauts have a mortality rate of 4.1% (17 deaths), whereas only 4 Russian cosmonauts have died, which is 0.9% of all the cosmonauts launched.
eh, so when the "old hardware" was first used, how did NASA know it would work in space? did they look at the test data from the ancient Mayan space flights?
the whole "we use old hardware because we know it works" excuse is a ton of baloney. every space technology has to be tested and tried for the first time initially. sticking to the tried and true is not a blanket excuse to oppose change or to stubbornly hold onto archaic & outdated technology; otherwise, we'd never make any kind of technological progress.
we know enough about space that vital equipment can be tested on earth by simulating space environments before they're employed on an actual space mission. it's the same principle as building equipment for use in the arctic or the deep ocean. if you don't try new things you won't be able to improve on existing systems.
part of what NASA has been doing over the past 4 decades is learning more and more about environmental conditions in space and how this affects human-beings and equipment. that lets us theorize/predict how new equipment will behave in space, and allows us to design better space technology. space isn't this unknowable mystery or some supernatural realm that magically breaks new equipment for no reason. the best way to know if LCD screens will work in space is to send one up for non-mission-critical use. and if it does break unexpectedly from an unknown interaction, then that's something that we need to investigate as it could shed light on aspects of space that we are not currently privy to.
if something doesn't work in space, we should learn why it doesn't work. likewise, if something does work in space, we should learn why it works. by taking a rational scientific approach to space exploration, we can improve on existing systems and employ new technologies in space without rolling dice. sticking to outmoded technologies due to a fear of change is a very reactionary attitude that does not belong in space exploration.
actually, Florida extends further south than Texas.
-Houston, Texas is located at 294546N -Merritt Island, Florida is located at 282128N
also, the Saturn V rockets were designed & built at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, which is a heck of a lot closer to Florida than to Texas. and it should also be noted that just because Johnson Space Center is the Mission Control of all manned space flights in the U.S. does not mean all manned space missions take off from Houston. the Apollo 11 mission was actually launched from Kennedy Space Center.
wouldn't it be easier just to change your own wireless AP setting? making everyone else change their frequencies is just being an asshole. if everyone behaved like that, then none of you would ever get a decent signal.
of course, the best solution is just to: a.) consolidate your WiFi networks so you have 1 or 2 shared WiFi networks rather than 10-12 different competing networks. that's one advantage to having municipal WiFi/WiMax--there's less crowding of the spectrum. additionally, you have greater wireless coverage by everyone sharing the same network and extending it with their own APs. instead of only being able to access the internet from home, you can access it anywhere. heck, you could install a WiFi-enabled system in your car so that you can stream internet radio while driving. b.) merge proprietary single-purpose communication networks like TV, radio & cellular networks with the internet, which is general-purpose open network. this would free up a large chunk of the radio spectrum for WiFi networks, which could then be used for internet TV/radio and VoIP. this would replace a lot of redundant communication infrastructure and put shared resources to better use that gives maximum benefit to the public. additionally, WiFi protocols have far greater spectral efficiency than either TV, radio, or cellular networks. so allocating these frequency ranges to WiFi devices would allow for more data to be transmitted over the limited radio spectrum that's available.
just because it doesn't serve the same purpose as regular blogs doesn't mean it's not serving it purpose. i mean, post-it notes aren't going to provide you with the same depth/quality of content as an academic paper, but that isn't to say they're not useful. "unimportant," perhaps, but there are clearly lots of practical uses for such disposable micro-stationary.
these days people increasingly are connected to the internet/web more and more. they're on the web at work; they're on the web at school (even in class); they're on the web when they're at home relaxing; and, with smart phones, they're on the web even when they go out. sure, if you really need to reach someone you can always just call them, and make sure they receive the information, but that is not always warranted. micrblogs provide an alternate communication medium that is passive and unintrusive. microblogs vs cellphones can be compared to one-way multicast vs two-way unicast.
like blogs and just about any other medium, there will be lots of cruft. but also like blogs, it's just one more communication tool that's available to people to be used when appropriate. if people find away messages and status updates useful, then why not microblogs? and with the option of updating your microblog via SMS, you can post status updates regardless of where you are.
i mean, when you chat with your friends, you don't always have a lot to say. we're social creatures, and casual social interaction comes naturally to us. you probably won't find the microblogs of complete strangers interesting, but that's besides the point.
most people i know pirate music. that is often how they are first exposed to new artists/bands. as a result of this exposure, they go out and see shows by these artists and buy their albums & merchandise. the artist & record labels benefit from this, but their initial pirated download is still considered illegal. so it doesn't matter if 95% of music downloads are illegal. illegal downloads don't cost musicians or record labels any money. and if the result is a net increase in overall sales, then it's still good for business.
what you do or don't consider a good thing is meaningless as you seem to have a very poor grasp of economics. also, i'm glad you think that it's ok for people to be screwed over as long as it's not you. clearly you're a very enlightened person. luckily not everyone thinks that way, and it's certainly not why i promote file sharing. if i thought that file sharing hurt record labels, then i would not be promoting it, as i work for one, and they sign my paychecks.
exactly. that's why i've been trying to convince my employer to take advantage of file sharing rather than fight it. viral marketing is the best kind of promotion one can have. statistically speaking, word of mouth has a higher success rate of drawing new fans and generating purchases than any other form of marketing or advertising. people will gloss right over a magazine ad that costs hundreds of dollars to put up or completely ignore radio commercials that cost thousands of dollars to air, but if their friend recommends a band to them or burns them a CD, then they're almost guaranteed to check out that artist. and ultimately that's what it's all about--getting people to actually listen to the music. and if the music is good, it will sell itself.
right now record labels have to pay radio stations (through "independent promoters," but it's the same old payola scheme) to get their artists on the air. this often costs millions of dollars, but it's worth it because it's a proven method of generating sales. so if you're willing to spend money to get people to listen to your music, then why not exploit file sharing as an opportunity for free exposure? people will continue to buy albums that are worth purchasing in order to own a physical copy of it and to have the official artwork, not to mention the additional merch sales that a larger fanbase will bring.
i actually wanted to set up a BitTorrent tracker on our site. not only would it be a good way to promote our music, but it would also provide a place for unsigned bands to get their music out. and if an unsigned artist's torrent becomes really popular, perhaps they could even be offered a record deal.
that's certainly a plausible explanation. i think the only way to know for sure is to determine the exact pharmacokinetics of the various active compounds found in alcoholic beverages. otherwise, you're just identifying health correlations of various lifestyle choices, which, of course, can be caused by any number of a vast and complex set of factors.
this is somewhat similar to the misconceptions held by a large segment of the public and medical community regarding the health effects of narcotics like heroin. heroin/diacetylmorphine is an exogenous opioid just like morphine, codeine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone. in potency it has a MEDD factor of somewhere between morphine and oxycodone (the active ingredient of OxyContin). and while the process of psychological addiction is highly complex, and there is still much to be learned about it, the general pharmacology and mechanism of action of opiates like morphine and diacetylmorphine are well understood.
however, after drug prohibition went into effect and the opiate-using demographic shifted from well to do upper-class whites like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas De Quincy, and Edgar Allen Poe, as well as other normal everyday people, to lower-class minorities and the poor/homeless, people began associating opiate usage--and especially heroin abuse--with a wide variety of detrimental health effects, including weight-loss, tooth decay, anemia, and general poor health.
this public perception was shaped by prohibitionist propaganda, what was portrayed in the media, and reinforced by the masses of drug addicts living in the streets. however, when physicians actually conducted research into the health effects of heroin use, they found that it caused none of these effects in normal healthy individuals. instead, they discovered that almost all of the negative health effects commonly attributed to heroin use was caused by concurrent use of other more physically harmful substances (like crack/cocaine/meth) or some other lifestyle factor, such as homelessness, poverty and years of living on the streets--and the resultant malnutrition, poor dental hygiene, and lack of medical care.
through empirical research it was discovered that heroin, just like any other opiate, has very little toxicity and isn't particularly harmful to one's body. it's not neurotoxic like alcohol, PCP, and stimulants such as cocaine & meth; it's not cardiotoxic like cocaine, meth, caffeine and other stimulants; and it's not hepatotoxic (liver-damaging) like alcohol and OTC painkillers such as APAP/acetaminophen (a.k.a. Tylenol)--which is the leading cause of liver damage & acute liver failure in western nations.
in fact, as a CNS depressant and hypotensive, heroin actually lower's one's blood pressure and can be therapeutic (or at least attenuate the cardiotoxicity of stimulants). instead of making people age faster the way that meth/coke/crack does, heroin abuse actually slows down aging, and oftentimes chronic users who start using at a young age can look like they haven't hit puberty even as they reach adulthood.
of course, since it's not socially acceptable like tobacco or alcohol use, and opiate dependence is considered a crime in our society, those that can lead functional lives on opiates keep their habit to themselves. so even though there are many doctors who are closet morphine addicts, or businessmen and lawyers who are pill poppers, it's generally the stereotypical gaunt & destitute-looking homeless heroin addicts that are the most visible to the public and consequently receive a disproportionate amount of media attention, leading to erroneous conclusions being drawn about the effects of chronic opiate use.
speed might vary from brand to brand, but it shouldn't vary by that much, and certainly not on comparable systems by the same vendor.
the point of the submission is to solicit other people's experiences, not to present this as breaking news. and by the 300+ comments already posted to the discussion, i'd say that placing this submission on the front page was a sound decision.
and generally Microsoft OSes have better driver support than Linux, or at least that's what common knowledge dictates. and if there's a way to double your download speed simply by installing a new driver, then that certainly is a big deal. likewise, if one OS provides nearly double the download speed of another OS, then that is a big deal as well. and it would be worth finding out which OS is faster and why that is.
but you've neither demonstrated that there is such a significant disparity between Ubuntu and XP, nor how different drivers can account for one Compaq D515 desktop having twice the download speed of another Compaq D515 desktop. basically all you've said is that you don't have any idea what's causing the author's benchmark results.
yea, it's pretty idiotic that a a "setup disc" is involved with DSL installation. it's usually just to install the ISP's rebranded browser and IE toolbar, or in some cases software to ensure that you're not using a router and only have one computer using the DSL connection.
in any case, even if a broadband service somehow "requires" client software, it's not too unreasonable to expect the ISP to provide Mac & Linux options. we're not talking about a 3D game or some complex application like a video editing suite. providing support for the 3 most common OSes should be a given for basic services like internet access.
in any case, this girl sounds like a moron. you don't need a computer to "go back to school." and chances are if she'd just asked/looked around campus she could have found someone to help her solve these trivial problems. heck, a simple search on Google from the school library could have guided her in the right direction.
so should we ban the sale of lock picking kits, books, and locksmithing educational resources? after all, such information can help criminals as much as they help legitimate professionals.
the way to ensure security is to test the system rigorously, not to discourage the testing of such systems. and the best way to facilitate such security auditing is for the security community to share information and penetration testing resources with one another and foster public discourse.
ultimately, this type of brute-forcing tool is only useful for cracking relatively weak passwords. and the best way to protect vulnerable systems is to identify them and enforce stronger passwords. the worse thing you can do is to hide such weak passwords from security experts (or yourself) in hopes that this will also hide them from attackers.
what the hell kind of "basic" security measures are you using that takes hours for the system to become ready? even if you used two-factor strong authentication it shouldn't take more than a minute to log in. heck, you could provide voice + fingerprint + retinal identification, use multiple synchronous dynamic password tokens, implement the two-man rule, and still complete authentication in under 10 minutes.
what, is your computer lab in some sort of subterranean bunker locked behind a 55-ton door that can only be unlocked by providing a small blood, urine, and sperm sample, and reciting the first 8000 digits of Pi or something?
boot-up time is how long it takes for a computer to boot into the OS and become ready for use. it's not how long it takes for the video card drivers to load or how long it takes to render a partial GUI. and it's also not how long it takes for you to start up your browser or video game. that would be the startup time for that application--which is likewise how long it takes from when the user first initiates the program to when it is first ready to be used. what's so difficult to understand about this?
i mean, do you consider a program fully loaded the second it displays a splash screen?
actually, that's what we started doing about a year ago. and it does make a huge difference--we have the living room and hallway vents closed as far as they will go. so now my room is one of the cooler areas in the apartment when the AC is actually turned on, and this has cut down on our cooling costs quite a bit.
i suppose i could also just hang out in the living room during the summer, but i don't watch TV and i have my computer in my room.
only if you consider promoting environmental responsibility and lobbying for environmental reforms "lecturing" you.
personally, i don't drive a gas-electric hybrid, and i'm probably not as green as i should be. but i don't see how his raising awareness about environmental issues is a bad thing. in the end a more sustainable society and healthier environment benefits all of us.
i mean, i've read parts of his book and seen videos of a few of his speeches, and none of it really comes off as him lecturing the public or attacking people. in fact, the only things being attacked are ignorant mindsets and fallacious arguments. and it seems like he's the one who's attacked most of the time, mostly because it's easier to criticize a spokesperson than to refute his arguments logically.
i mean, if someone is promoting road safety and encouraging people to wear seatbelts while discouraging drunk driving, even if they personally don't wear seatbelts and drive under the influence, i wouldn't criticize them for actually promoting safe habits--nor would i stop wearing seatbelts just to spite them.
frankly, i'd rather have a polluter (which Gore's not, as raw energy expenditure does not equate to pollution) promoting environmental awareness and encouraging public discourse on environmental issues than for most of society to completely ignore these issues and continue to live in an unsustainable and ecologically irresponsible manner.
do you live in an apartment or a house? the author lives in a house, so that immediately makes their power needs much greater than say a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment. the author also states:
Our power usage is unusually high for a typical, four person nuclear family. A big part of that is because I have a PC lab and network in the basement. Both my wife and I work out of the house much of the time, with her time almost 100% in the home office. Plus, we have two teenage girls and a pretty beefy HDTV and home audio setup in the family room.
The net result is annual power consumption in the Case house of 17,400kW hours. That will go down a bit--probably about 5-10% for each girl when our daughters head off to college.
here in Southern California our tiny 2-bedroom apartment easily costs well over $100 a month to keep reasonably cool (80 degrees) during the summer. part of this is probably due to the building's old AC system (it was just upgraded 2 weeks ago, but we haven't really used it yet), but it is also partly due to the side of the building our unit resides on. also, for whatever reason my room is usually about 7~8 degrees hotter than the rest of the apartment, so to get my room down to a tolerable temperature the rest of the apartment needs to be cooled down even more.
heating is cheap compared to cooling, which can use a ton of electricity. and the greater the volume of space you need to cool, the greater your power expenditure. it would be silly to compare the electric bill in an apartment unit in NY to that of a house of California.
what difference does it make whether you have a constant internet connection or not? if you're going to download RSS feeds from the internet onto your gadget, you could do the same with a Java applet or Flash. it's not like streaming video where you need an internet connection to view it.
they're just another form of digital multimedia. and just like photos, not every article needs them, but when it's appropriate they can add a lot to the article. i mean, why hold back when the technology is available, costs nothing, and is easy to use? if there's a story on a new space mission, why not let readers see the accompanying photos or video footage?
this isn't the 90's. we're living in an age now when almost everyone has a cellphone or some other sort of portable device with storage capacity measured in gigabytes and capable of displaying rich multimedia like images/video and play CD-quality audio. so if you're writing a game review, why not include a video clip of the gameplay? if necessary, content publishers can use a format (like MIME) that degrades gracefully. if your device can't play video, it'll just show the images and rich text--or just plain text.
images will probably still be the most common type of media accompanying news stories, but there's no reason for us to arbitrarily limit ourselves to text and images. it's not going to "save" journalism (because there's nothing to be saved), but it would be cool to read a story about a new space vehicle and be able to view a rotatable 3D model of the vehicle.
so because Apple didn't want to buy some anonymous company's untested FireWire controller, that means they've withdrawn support for future FireWire speeds? right...
Apple isn't in charge of developing IEEE 1394b. IEEE has already approved the specs for S1600 and S3200, and Symwave has already developed an S1600 Physical Layer prototype, the FirePHY-1600, which is fully backwards compatible with S800 and S400 and is expected to cost the same as current S800 PHY chips. so there is plenty of incentive for manufacturers to switch to S1600 as soon as the new S1600 chips start hitting the market.
plus, it doesn't matter if Apple doesn't include S1600 controllers in their computers. using an S1600 cable + an S1600 device, you can still achieve the 1.6 Gbps transfer speeds on FireWire 800 ports. heck, even if computer/motherboard manufacturers suddenly stop including FireWire as a standard interface (which is not likely to happen) the people who use FireWire on a regular basis, and depend on it for their day-to-day work, would in all likelihood be more than willing to shell out $30-40 to pick up a PCIe FireWire adapter.
USB was designed primarily with the aim of providing a low cost peripheral interface. FireWire was designed for performance and thus fills a separate niche. it would be nice if i could believe that USB 3.0 will deliver the transfer rates it promises, but unless USB has switched to full DMA it will come nowhere near its max theoretical speeds. and Apple isn't going to drop FireWire so long as FireWire remains the only viable option for professional users needing high speed data transfers.
then i guess we just need to boost the Earth's magnetic field.
perhaps we can build a large electric pipeline coiling from one pole to the other to form a sort of solenoid around the planet. though we might need a few thousand nuclear power plants to generate a strong enough current to cause any significant change in the earth's magnetic field.
why does it surprise you? have you never been to google.com or seen the official Google logo?
from the very start Google's used clashing primary colors with a homely serif font for their official logo. at first i thought it looked tacky & unprofessional (and it was), but over time it's grown on me. it's kinda refreshing to have a major IT company whose site doesn't have the stereotypical cold/sterile corporate look. sure, Google's logo comes off as very candid and a little bit childish, but it also elicits a warm & cheerful feelings.
something that's very sleek & glossy or highly-stylized just wouldn't fit with Google's familiar spartan (and slightly offbeat) image. i mean, if you look at Google's web services like Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, etc., they all have fairly plain and simple layouts. their designs are functional and modest. this is in stark contrast with the flashy, and often cluttered, web pages of companies like Yahoo!, Microsoft, and the popular early search portals.
it's a little ironic as Google is primarily an advertising company, but they don't have that 'multi-million-dollar marketing budget' look. this probably contributes to their popularity as Google's web services aren't as intimidating to non-geeks and computer novices who may be turned off by the slick interfaces and flashy layouts other sites strive for.
maybe not by a lot, but certainly by a measurable amount. even an '09 Honda Accord is just a bit faster (+2 HP) than an '08 of the same class; and the '08 is faster (+24 HP) than the '07; the '07 is faster (+9 HP) than the '06; so on and so forth. these incremental improvements exist between generations of almost every car, if only for the reason that the same technology/performance gets cheaper to produce with each passing year. heck, this trend can be seen in nearly any product, regardless of whether it's a car, a video game console, or a web service.
and what you suggest is already being done by a lot of people. that's why most computers come with both IEEE 1394 and USB. many people use FireWire for hooking up their external hard drives, digital (cinema) cameras, audio production equipment, etc. and use USB for keyboard, mouse, printer, and everything else. USB 3.0 isn't likely to change this.
magnetic hard drives store data for years. so do you also abhor hard drives?
if you're that paranoid, it's fairly easy to have the OS wipe all user & program data from the memory at shutdown. just because it's non-volatile doesn't mean it's not erasable or re-writable (or it wouldn't be very useful for computer memory). but most people who actually have a need for data security would simply encrypt the data just like people do on their hard drives.
and this is a good thing because memristors can replace transistors which are several times larger. and non-volatile memory has always had lots of useful application. this would provide high speed non-volatile memory with much higher density than conventional hard drives--when this technology matures, it could be used to build hard drives with 100 Gb per square centimeter.
additionally, when memristors catch up to the speed of DRAM, they can be used to build instant-on devices, both due to the high data density as well as its non-volatile memory state. you could turn off the computer each night to save power and then flip it back on each morning like you currently do with your monitor.
i guess that's the difference between hard sci-fi and sci-fi/fantasy, or perhaps between real literature and children's books.
most adult readers prefer stories based on life-like characters which they can relate to. that includes characters with realistic jobs and responsibilities. yes, books often offer a relaxing diversion from the monotony/stresses of day-to-day life, but just because a story is fictional doesn't mean it has to be set in an idealized utopian paradise; just because the real world is filled with problems and conflict doesn't mean that a fictional story should be devoid of these things.
it shouldn't be a surprise that sci-fi writers create fictional universes which parallel the real-world in many ways. it adds realism and depth to a story. and even though writers do background research in the real world, they still write stories with creative and original plots. just because you're writing a work of fiction doesn't mean you have to include fairies and unicorns or that you can't include mundane characters like plumbers or office clerks.
even in real life ordinary people with ordinary routines can have remarkable things happen to them or become involved in extraordinary events. there's no reason fiction should be any different. often the most compelling stories are the ones where the unexpected happens to everyday people. and writers frequently base their fictional characters off of people they encounter or observe in real life.
doing a short residency at a place like the synchrotron is a great way to see first-hand how real scientists work/live/talk/behave. that would certainly help an author to create realistic portrayals of scientists and capture their demeanor on paper. besides, the synchrotron isn't exactly a mundane place to work. sure, the researchers who work there probably have their share of tedious work to do, but so do rock stars and star athletes. nothing is 100% glamorous, fun & exciting. if that's what you want then read Harry Potter.
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1.) who cares what it's written in as long as it's available for popular platforms. and MUMPS is still commonly used in the healthcare industry because it was specifically developed for managing medical databases. it's highly scalable, low maintenance, and much faster than conventional (relational) databases.
2.) why should a system meant to share medical records across a national medical network generate bills?
adding non-essential functionality to a medical database and forcing all hospitals to change their billing system would drive up costs and make the system unnecessarily complex. each hospital should be able to choose their own billing system. it's better to have a handful of systems that each perform a single role really well rather than have a single system that tries to serve 20 purposes and does it in a mediocre fashion.
yea, that was 1960. and the Nedelin disaster was an ICBM test; it was not space-related.
so far NASA astronauts have a mortality rate of 4.1% (17 deaths), whereas only 4 Russian cosmonauts have died, which is 0.9% of all the cosmonauts launched.
eh, so when the "old hardware" was first used, how did NASA know it would work in space? did they look at the test data from the ancient Mayan space flights?
the whole "we use old hardware because we know it works" excuse is a ton of baloney. every space technology has to be tested and tried for the first time initially. sticking to the tried and true is not a blanket excuse to oppose change or to stubbornly hold onto archaic & outdated technology; otherwise, we'd never make any kind of technological progress.
we know enough about space that vital equipment can be tested on earth by simulating space environments before they're employed on an actual space mission. it's the same principle as building equipment for use in the arctic or the deep ocean. if you don't try new things you won't be able to improve on existing systems.
part of what NASA has been doing over the past 4 decades is learning more and more about environmental conditions in space and how this affects human-beings and equipment. that lets us theorize/predict how new equipment will behave in space, and allows us to design better space technology. space isn't this unknowable mystery or some supernatural realm that magically breaks new equipment for no reason. the best way to know if LCD screens will work in space is to send one up for non-mission-critical use. and if it does break unexpectedly from an unknown interaction, then that's something that we need to investigate as it could shed light on aspects of space that we are not currently privy to.
if something doesn't work in space, we should learn why it doesn't work. likewise, if something does work in space, we should learn why it works. by taking a rational scientific approach to space exploration, we can improve on existing systems and employ new technologies in space without rolling dice. sticking to outmoded technologies due to a fear of change is a very reactionary attitude that does not belong in space exploration.
actually, Florida extends further south than Texas.
-Houston, Texas is located at 294546N
-Merritt Island, Florida is located at 282128N
also, the Saturn V rockets were designed & built at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, which is a heck of a lot closer to Florida than to Texas. and it should also be noted that just because Johnson Space Center is the Mission Control of all manned space flights in the U.S. does not mean all manned space missions take off from Houston. the Apollo 11 mission was actually launched from Kennedy Space Center.
does that mean any 12-year-old can fly one?
joking aside, that's probably an apt comparison. i wonder how much it cost to develop/build/operate the Soyuz compared the Shuttle.
Russia was not a 3rd world country during the cold war.
wouldn't it be easier just to change your own wireless AP setting? making everyone else change their frequencies is just being an asshole. if everyone behaved like that, then none of you would ever get a decent signal.
of course, the best solution is just to:
a.) consolidate your WiFi networks so you have 1 or 2 shared WiFi networks rather than 10-12 different competing networks. that's one advantage to having municipal WiFi/WiMax--there's less crowding of the spectrum. additionally, you have greater wireless coverage by everyone sharing the same network and extending it with their own APs. instead of only being able to access the internet from home, you can access it anywhere. heck, you could install a WiFi-enabled system in your car so that you can stream internet radio while driving.
b.) merge proprietary single-purpose communication networks like TV, radio & cellular networks with the internet, which is general-purpose open network. this would free up a large chunk of the radio spectrum for WiFi networks, which could then be used for internet TV/radio and VoIP. this would replace a lot of redundant communication infrastructure and put shared resources to better use that gives maximum benefit to the public. additionally, WiFi protocols have far greater spectral efficiency than either TV, radio, or cellular networks. so allocating these frequency ranges to WiFi devices would allow for more data to be transmitted over the limited radio spectrum that's available.
but you've just described a use for twitter.
just because it doesn't serve the same purpose as regular blogs doesn't mean it's not serving it purpose. i mean, post-it notes aren't going to provide you with the same depth/quality of content as an academic paper, but that isn't to say they're not useful. "unimportant," perhaps, but there are clearly lots of practical uses for such disposable micro-stationary.
these days people increasingly are connected to the internet/web more and more. they're on the web at work; they're on the web at school (even in class); they're on the web when they're at home relaxing; and, with smart phones, they're on the web even when they go out. sure, if you really need to reach someone you can always just call them, and make sure they receive the information, but that is not always warranted. micrblogs provide an alternate communication medium that is passive and unintrusive. microblogs vs cellphones can be compared to one-way multicast vs two-way unicast.
like blogs and just about any other medium, there will be lots of cruft. but also like blogs, it's just one more communication tool that's available to people to be used when appropriate. if people find away messages and status updates useful, then why not microblogs? and with the option of updating your microblog via SMS, you can post status updates regardless of where you are.
i mean, when you chat with your friends, you don't always have a lot to say. we're social creatures, and casual social interaction comes naturally to us. you probably won't find the microblogs of complete strangers interesting, but that's besides the point.
yea, you need to learn how to read... your post makes no sense, and your claims are not supported by reality.
most people i know pirate music. that is often how they are first exposed to new artists/bands. as a result of this exposure, they go out and see shows by these artists and buy their albums & merchandise. the artist & record labels benefit from this, but their initial pirated download is still considered illegal. so it doesn't matter if 95% of music downloads are illegal. illegal downloads don't cost musicians or record labels any money. and if the result is a net increase in overall sales, then it's still good for business.
what you do or don't consider a good thing is meaningless as you seem to have a very poor grasp of economics. also, i'm glad you think that it's ok for people to be screwed over as long as it's not you. clearly you're a very enlightened person. luckily not everyone thinks that way, and it's certainly not why i promote file sharing. if i thought that file sharing hurt record labels, then i would not be promoting it, as i work for one, and they sign my paychecks.
exactly. that's why i've been trying to convince my employer to take advantage of file sharing rather than fight it. viral marketing is the best kind of promotion one can have. statistically speaking, word of mouth has a higher success rate of drawing new fans and generating purchases than any other form of marketing or advertising. people will gloss right over a magazine ad that costs hundreds of dollars to put up or completely ignore radio commercials that cost thousands of dollars to air, but if their friend recommends a band to them or burns them a CD, then they're almost guaranteed to check out that artist. and ultimately that's what it's all about--getting people to actually listen to the music. and if the music is good, it will sell itself.
right now record labels have to pay radio stations (through "independent promoters," but it's the same old payola scheme) to get their artists on the air. this often costs millions of dollars, but it's worth it because it's a proven method of generating sales. so if you're willing to spend money to get people to listen to your music, then why not exploit file sharing as an opportunity for free exposure? people will continue to buy albums that are worth purchasing in order to own a physical copy of it and to have the official artwork, not to mention the additional merch sales that a larger fanbase will bring.
i actually wanted to set up a BitTorrent tracker on our site. not only would it be a good way to promote our music, but it would also provide a place for unsigned bands to get their music out. and if an unsigned artist's torrent becomes really popular, perhaps they could even be offered a record deal.
that's certainly a plausible explanation. i think the only way to know for sure is to determine the exact pharmacokinetics of the various active compounds found in alcoholic beverages. otherwise, you're just identifying health correlations of various lifestyle choices, which, of course, can be caused by any number of a vast and complex set of factors.
this is somewhat similar to the misconceptions held by a large segment of the public and medical community regarding the health effects of narcotics like heroin. heroin/diacetylmorphine is an exogenous opioid just like morphine, codeine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone. in potency it has a MEDD factor of somewhere between morphine and oxycodone (the active ingredient of OxyContin). and while the process of psychological addiction is highly complex, and there is still much to be learned about it, the general pharmacology and mechanism of action of opiates like morphine and diacetylmorphine are well understood.
however, after drug prohibition went into effect and the opiate-using demographic shifted from well to do upper-class whites like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas De Quincy, and Edgar Allen Poe, as well as other normal everyday people, to lower-class minorities and the poor/homeless, people began associating opiate usage--and especially heroin abuse--with a wide variety of detrimental health effects, including weight-loss, tooth decay, anemia, and general poor health.
this public perception was shaped by prohibitionist propaganda, what was portrayed in the media, and reinforced by the masses of drug addicts living in the streets. however, when physicians actually conducted research into the health effects of heroin use, they found that it caused none of these effects in normal healthy individuals. instead, they discovered that almost all of the negative health effects commonly attributed to heroin use was caused by concurrent use of other more physically harmful substances (like crack/cocaine/meth) or some other lifestyle factor, such as homelessness, poverty and years of living on the streets--and the resultant malnutrition, poor dental hygiene, and lack of medical care.
through empirical research it was discovered that heroin, just like any other opiate, has very little toxicity and isn't particularly harmful to one's body. it's not neurotoxic like alcohol, PCP, and stimulants such as cocaine & meth; it's not cardiotoxic like cocaine, meth, caffeine and other stimulants; and it's not hepatotoxic (liver-damaging) like alcohol and OTC painkillers such as APAP/acetaminophen (a.k.a. Tylenol)--which is the leading cause of liver damage & acute liver failure in western nations.
in fact, as a CNS depressant and hypotensive, heroin actually lower's one's blood pressure and can be therapeutic (or at least attenuate the cardiotoxicity of stimulants). instead of making people age faster the way that meth/coke/crack does, heroin abuse actually slows down aging, and oftentimes chronic users who start using at a young age can look like they haven't hit puberty even as they reach adulthood.
of course, since it's not socially acceptable like tobacco or alcohol use, and opiate dependence is considered a crime in our society, those that can lead functional lives on opiates keep their habit to themselves. so even though there are many doctors who are closet morphine addicts, or businessmen and lawyers who are pill poppers, it's generally the stereotypical gaunt & destitute-looking homeless heroin addicts that are the most visible to the public and consequently receive a disproportionate amount of media attention, leading to erroneous conclusions being drawn about the effects of chronic opiate use.
speed might vary from brand to brand, but it shouldn't vary by that much, and certainly not on comparable systems by the same vendor.
the point of the submission is to solicit other people's experiences, not to present this as breaking news. and by the 300+ comments already posted to the discussion, i'd say that placing this submission on the front page was a sound decision.
and generally Microsoft OSes have better driver support than Linux, or at least that's what common knowledge dictates. and if there's a way to double your download speed simply by installing a new driver, then that certainly is a big deal. likewise, if one OS provides nearly double the download speed of another OS, then that is a big deal as well. and it would be worth finding out which OS is faster and why that is.
but you've neither demonstrated that there is such a significant disparity between Ubuntu and XP, nor how different drivers can account for one Compaq D515 desktop having twice the download speed of another Compaq D515 desktop. basically all you've said is that you don't have any idea what's causing the author's benchmark results.
yea, it's pretty idiotic that a a "setup disc" is involved with DSL installation. it's usually just to install the ISP's rebranded browser and IE toolbar, or in some cases software to ensure that you're not using a router and only have one computer using the DSL connection.
in any case, even if a broadband service somehow "requires" client software, it's not too unreasonable to expect the ISP to provide Mac & Linux options. we're not talking about a 3D game or some complex application like a video editing suite. providing support for the 3 most common OSes should be a given for basic services like internet access.
in any case, this girl sounds like a moron. you don't need a computer to "go back to school." and chances are if she'd just asked/looked around campus she could have found someone to help her solve these trivial problems. heck, a simple search on Google from the school library could have guided her in the right direction.
so should we ban the sale of lock picking kits, books, and locksmithing educational resources? after all, such information can help criminals as much as they help legitimate professionals.
the way to ensure security is to test the system rigorously, not to discourage the testing of such systems. and the best way to facilitate such security auditing is for the security community to share information and penetration testing resources with one another and foster public discourse.
ultimately, this type of brute-forcing tool is only useful for cracking relatively weak passwords. and the best way to protect vulnerable systems is to identify them and enforce stronger passwords. the worse thing you can do is to hide such weak passwords from security experts (or yourself) in hopes that this will also hide them from attackers.
what the hell kind of "basic" security measures are you using that takes hours for the system to become ready? even if you used two-factor strong authentication it shouldn't take more than a minute to log in. heck, you could provide voice + fingerprint + retinal identification, use multiple synchronous dynamic password tokens, implement the two-man rule, and still complete authentication in under 10 minutes.
what, is your computer lab in some sort of subterranean bunker locked behind a 55-ton door that can only be unlocked by providing a small blood, urine, and sperm sample, and reciting the first 8000 digits of Pi or something?
boot-up time is how long it takes for a computer to boot into the OS and become ready for use. it's not how long it takes for the video card drivers to load or how long it takes to render a partial GUI. and it's also not how long it takes for you to start up your browser or video game. that would be the startup time for that application--which is likewise how long it takes from when the user first initiates the program to when it is first ready to be used. what's so difficult to understand about this?
i mean, do you consider a program fully loaded the second it displays a splash screen?
actually, that's what we started doing about a year ago. and it does make a huge difference--we have the living room and hallway vents closed as far as they will go. so now my room is one of the cooler areas in the apartment when the AC is actually turned on, and this has cut down on our cooling costs quite a bit.
i suppose i could also just hang out in the living room during the summer, but i don't watch TV and i have my computer in my room.
only if you consider promoting environmental responsibility and lobbying for environmental reforms "lecturing" you.
personally, i don't drive a gas-electric hybrid, and i'm probably not as green as i should be. but i don't see how his raising awareness about environmental issues is a bad thing. in the end a more sustainable society and healthier environment benefits all of us.
i mean, i've read parts of his book and seen videos of a few of his speeches, and none of it really comes off as him lecturing the public or attacking people. in fact, the only things being attacked are ignorant mindsets and fallacious arguments. and it seems like he's the one who's attacked most of the time, mostly because it's easier to criticize a spokesperson than to refute his arguments logically.
i mean, if someone is promoting road safety and encouraging people to wear seatbelts while discouraging drunk driving, even if they personally don't wear seatbelts and drive under the influence, i wouldn't criticize them for actually promoting safe habits--nor would i stop wearing seatbelts just to spite them.
frankly, i'd rather have a polluter (which Gore's not, as raw energy expenditure does not equate to pollution) promoting environmental awareness and encouraging public discourse on environmental issues than for most of society to completely ignore these issues and continue to live in an unsustainable and ecologically irresponsible manner.
do you live in an apartment or a house? the author lives in a house, so that immediately makes their power needs much greater than say a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment. the author also states:
here in Southern California our tiny 2-bedroom apartment easily costs well over $100 a month to keep reasonably cool (80 degrees) during the summer. part of this is probably due to the building's old AC system (it was just upgraded 2 weeks ago, but we haven't really used it yet), but it is also partly due to the side of the building our unit resides on. also, for whatever reason my room is usually about 7~8 degrees hotter than the rest of the apartment, so to get my room down to a tolerable temperature the rest of the apartment needs to be cooled down even more.
heating is cheap compared to cooling, which can use a ton of electricity. and the greater the volume of space you need to cool, the greater your power expenditure. it would be silly to compare the electric bill in an apartment unit in NY to that of a house of California.
what difference does it make whether you have a constant internet connection or not? if you're going to download RSS feeds from the internet onto your gadget, you could do the same with a Java applet or Flash. it's not like streaming video where you need an internet connection to view it.
they're just another form of digital multimedia. and just like photos, not every article needs them, but when it's appropriate they can add a lot to the article. i mean, why hold back when the technology is available, costs nothing, and is easy to use? if there's a story on a new space mission, why not let readers see the accompanying photos or video footage?
this isn't the 90's. we're living in an age now when almost everyone has a cellphone or some other sort of portable device with storage capacity measured in gigabytes and capable of displaying rich multimedia like images/video and play CD-quality audio. so if you're writing a game review, why not include a video clip of the gameplay? if necessary, content publishers can use a format (like MIME) that degrades gracefully. if your device can't play video, it'll just show the images and rich text--or just plain text.
images will probably still be the most common type of media accompanying news stories, but there's no reason for us to arbitrarily limit ourselves to text and images. it's not going to "save" journalism (because there's nothing to be saved), but it would be cool to read a story about a new space vehicle and be able to view a rotatable 3D model of the vehicle.
so because Apple didn't want to buy some anonymous company's untested FireWire controller, that means they've withdrawn support for future FireWire speeds? right...
Apple isn't in charge of developing IEEE 1394b. IEEE has already approved the specs for S1600 and S3200, and Symwave has already developed an S1600 Physical Layer prototype, the FirePHY-1600, which is fully backwards compatible with S800 and S400 and is expected to cost the same as current S800 PHY chips. so there is plenty of incentive for manufacturers to switch to S1600 as soon as the new S1600 chips start hitting the market.
plus, it doesn't matter if Apple doesn't include S1600 controllers in their computers. using an S1600 cable + an S1600 device, you can still achieve the 1.6 Gbps transfer speeds on FireWire 800 ports. heck, even if computer/motherboard manufacturers suddenly stop including FireWire as a standard interface (which is not likely to happen) the people who use FireWire on a regular basis, and depend on it for their day-to-day work, would in all likelihood be more than willing to shell out $30-40 to pick up a PCIe FireWire adapter.
USB was designed primarily with the aim of providing a low cost peripheral interface. FireWire was designed for performance and thus fills a separate niche. it would be nice if i could believe that USB 3.0 will deliver the transfer rates it promises, but unless USB has switched to full DMA it will come nowhere near its max theoretical speeds. and Apple isn't going to drop FireWire so long as FireWire remains the only viable option for professional users needing high speed data transfers.
then i guess we just need to boost the Earth's magnetic field.
perhaps we can build a large electric pipeline coiling from one pole to the other to form a sort of solenoid around the planet. though we might need a few thousand nuclear power plants to generate a strong enough current to cause any significant change in the earth's magnetic field.
it's either that or drill into the earth's core and set of a series of perfectly synchronized nuclear explosions...
why does it surprise you? have you never been to google.com or seen the official Google logo?
from the very start Google's used clashing primary colors with a homely serif font for their official logo. at first i thought it looked tacky & unprofessional (and it was), but over time it's grown on me. it's kinda refreshing to have a major IT company whose site doesn't have the stereotypical cold/sterile corporate look. sure, Google's logo comes off as very candid and a little bit childish, but it also elicits a warm & cheerful feelings.
something that's very sleek & glossy or highly-stylized just wouldn't fit with Google's familiar spartan (and slightly offbeat) image. i mean, if you look at Google's web services like Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, etc., they all have fairly plain and simple layouts. their designs are functional and modest. this is in stark contrast with the flashy, and often cluttered, web pages of companies like Yahoo!, Microsoft, and the popular early search portals.
it's a little ironic as Google is primarily an advertising company, but they don't have that 'multi-million-dollar marketing budget' look. this probably contributes to their popularity as Google's web services aren't as intimidating to non-geeks and computer novices who may be turned off by the slick interfaces and flashy layouts other sites strive for.
maybe not by a lot, but certainly by a measurable amount. even an '09 Honda Accord is just a bit faster (+2 HP) than an '08 of the same class; and the '08 is faster (+24 HP) than the '07; the '07 is faster (+9 HP) than the '06; so on and so forth. these incremental improvements exist between generations of almost every car, if only for the reason that the same technology/performance gets cheaper to produce with each passing year. heck, this trend can be seen in nearly any product, regardless of whether it's a car, a video game console, or a web service.
and what you suggest is already being done by a lot of people. that's why most computers come with both IEEE 1394 and USB. many people use FireWire for hooking up their external hard drives, digital (cinema) cameras, audio production equipment, etc. and use USB for keyboard, mouse, printer, and everything else. USB 3.0 isn't likely to change this.
magnetic hard drives store data for years. so do you also abhor hard drives?
if you're that paranoid, it's fairly easy to have the OS wipe all user & program data from the memory at shutdown. just because it's non-volatile doesn't mean it's not erasable or re-writable (or it wouldn't be very useful for computer memory). but most people who actually have a need for data security would simply encrypt the data just like people do on their hard drives.
and this is a good thing because memristors can replace transistors which are several times larger. and non-volatile memory has always had lots of useful application. this would provide high speed non-volatile memory with much higher density than conventional hard drives--when this technology matures, it could be used to build hard drives with 100 Gb per square centimeter.
additionally, when memristors catch up to the speed of DRAM, they can be used to build instant-on devices, both due to the high data density as well as its non-volatile memory state. you could turn off the computer each night to save power and then flip it back on each morning like you currently do with your monitor.
i guess that's the difference between hard sci-fi and sci-fi/fantasy, or perhaps between real literature and children's books.
most adult readers prefer stories based on life-like characters which they can relate to. that includes characters with realistic jobs and responsibilities. yes, books often offer a relaxing diversion from the monotony/stresses of day-to-day life, but just because a story is fictional doesn't mean it has to be set in an idealized utopian paradise; just because the real world is filled with problems and conflict doesn't mean that a fictional story should be devoid of these things.
it shouldn't be a surprise that sci-fi writers create fictional universes which parallel the real-world in many ways. it adds realism and depth to a story. and even though writers do background research in the real world, they still write stories with creative and original plots. just because you're writing a work of fiction doesn't mean you have to include fairies and unicorns or that you can't include mundane characters like plumbers or office clerks.
even in real life ordinary people with ordinary routines can have remarkable things happen to them or become involved in extraordinary events. there's no reason fiction should be any different. often the most compelling stories are the ones where the unexpected happens to everyday people. and writers frequently base their fictional characters off of people they encounter or observe in real life.
doing a short residency at a place like the synchrotron is a great way to see first-hand how real scientists work/live/talk/behave. that would certainly help an author to create realistic portrayals of scientists and capture their demeanor on paper. besides, the synchrotron isn't exactly a mundane place to work. sure, the researchers who work there probably have their share of tedious work to do, but so do rock stars and star athletes. nothing is 100% glamorous, fun & exciting. if that's what you want then read Harry Potter.