Why is it that microsoft piracy is always someone elses fault? If the OS and other microsoft software was less expensive, you'd get more people buying it. At $100ish for OEM versions or XP Home upgrade editions and upwards of $300 for a full version of XP Pro, it's no wonder people pirate this stuff.
How many kids in school do you know who have put their own computers together out of older parts scavenged from friends and family? Everyone in my family did it. My first computer cost me $30 for a case, the rest I made from parts. Now when it comes time for an operating system, a kid in that situation is faced with $100 or more for an OEM version, up to $300, for a full version, going with Linux, or continuing his scavenging hunt and obtaining a pirated version of windows.
Really, who's going to spend 3-4 times the cost of their entire computer on the operating system when there are cheaper/free versions (both pirated and legitimate) available?
I recently upgraded 4 computers at my house, and due to the cost of the OS I still have win98 running on one of those 4 because I'm not going to spend $100 on a software upgrade for a computer I built out of spare parts. If it was $50 or so, I could buy a new OS every year and not worry about it but as the price gets between $75 and $100, it becomes "real money" even to someone like me who's held a well paying job for the last 14 years. Cost alone has kept me from buying a single version of office, ever. I've been using the office 97 edition that came with my first laptop and not only does it still work just fine, replacing it even with an upgrade edition would cost $250. If that upgrade cost was, say $50, or even $100 for the basic office suite, I would have replaced it over a year ago. Instead, I use office 97 and the openoffice.org suite whenever I run across a document that office 97 can't handle.
You can argue that microsoft has either lost $350 from me since I haven't upgraded my old office product, or that they would have $100 from me had they priced their products at a level I was comfortable paying. Heck, if it was $50 I'd buy a copy for my laptop, my wife's laptop, my desktop, and probably even my multimedia computer while I'm at it. So they'd have gotten $200 from me at the cost of $5ish for each boxed set and CD, a net gain of $180 that they're otherwise never going to get out of me.
So does it REALLY cost so much to run microsoft that the higher volume they'd sell if they charged lower prices wouldn't make up for what they're losing now to piracy? Maybe it would be better to get SOMETHING for their work instead of griping about getting NOTHING from people stealing their software... Heck, maybe MS could offer a downloadable version for $50. You get nothing but a license key and either the installation files or a CDROM/DVD image. It would be easy, cheap, and maybe a few people would actually pay for it instead of just stealing it.
IT managers and other network maintainers need to be careful about deploying this on multi-user systems because of security problems. Home users however don't need to worry (yet) unless one spouse or family member is trying to hide their pRoN browsing from the rest of the family.
How is this different from the usual state of affiars with ANY new software? A network manager who installs anything on shared computers without doing a security assessment is an idiot, and as usual a home user couldn't care less because they're probably not using multiple user logins so anything on the computer is visible to all users anyhow.
It sure seems like a lot of people are jumping all over Google for launching some software that merely points out the natural order of such things, the necessity for corporate users to do security assessments for any software and the fact that home users couldn't care less about physical security (ie. access to the physical computer itself). It's all a bunch of shouting over nothing, at least nothing new anyhow.
Now when there's a remote exploit to the google search tool, THEN there is something to worry about. But that's not the *BIG NEWS* being reported and shouted about is it? It's a powerful utility and like any powerful utility, it's not something you want available on public terminals. What's so unusual about that? A systems manager who installs or allows this on corporate computers needs to be fired, but he's the only one who ought to be concerned.
Maybe I'm going against the grain here, but I am pleased to see a patent for an actual physical implementation of a technology being defended, instead of all the bogus so-called "software patents" we've been hearing about for the last few years. Some patents are quite reasonable and legit, but with all the st00pid bogus patents getting all the press lately even legit patents are getting a bad rap.
Kudos for Honeywell, a company you don't hear about throwing it's weight around all the time, defending a patent that describes a process and physical implementation that actually DOES something. If they'd patented a method for vertical alignment of viewing sensors in front of a display apparatus to maximize contrast and enhance look-angle (ie. the up-down adjustment on your office chair), then we'd have reason to throw rotten fruit, but this patent seems to be a legitimate technological concept.
Give them a break... Rightous patents should be defended rigorously or there is no incentive to do core research. Don't let the flood of worthless patents or the incompetence of the patent examiners destroy the legitimate use of the patent system.
Yea. We should wait until some dictator or new-age fascist develops and uses the weapon first. Then we can go to bed feeling good about how although we're now under the rule of some freakjob whacko invader, at least WE weren't the ones who developed the weapons that let him take over the world.
Or maybe it's just one more really big stick we'll have as a deterrant but won't use, just like the really big thermonuclear weapons we have and never use.
Sooner or later someone is going to develop antimatter technology into a weapon, and I'm not ashamed to say I'd rather those weapons be on my side, not someone elses.
It's not a gag order, it's a reminder of the Non-Disclosure Agreement anyone with a security clearance must sign, and a reminder that certain projects will always be covered by the NDA. Not only that, any project you don't specifically know *isn't* covered by the NDA must be assumed to be covered by the NDA.
It's part of the standard security procedures, so a reminder isn't anything special unless someone makes a sensationalist statement using emotionally loaded phrases like "gag order" to describe a standard security process.
Besides, when it's a national security issue of high importance, it's pretty stupid to go blabbing or speculating about stuff you may have heard about or have a pet theory about. When it comes to weapons technology, "free speech" whackos can cry all they want but frankly they don't need to know so they'll never get the whole story.
Aren't there laws against one company trying to intimidate other companies? This is a clear case of a large company threatening legal action and forcing the smaller company to take action to defend itself regardless of whether it's broken the law or not. Seems to me that the mafia used to do this kind of thing and there are many laws against it.
Why the hell isn't the "G-man" stepping in to stop this unlawful intimidation? What's next, paying the MPAA protection money? Oh wait, some universities are already doing that.
Forget the legal recourse, just check the more shady BT repositories for the CD set because you KNOW someone's going to leak it out of spite. I give it a month after release before the "Office 2005 davelopers soarce kit pack" hits the streets on the pacific rim and a week more before it gets to middle eastern markets to be bought for 10 dinars by returning US servicemen/women.
CDs marked "Windows 99" were on the street in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia before I even bought my first win98 upgrade cd, and this probably won't be any different.
Try a used el-cheapo bookpc. Get one with a pci riser card so you can put a second network card in it. They're small and relatively easy to work on, and the one I had (i810 based) ran linux just fine. You should be able to find one really cheap on ebay or new/refurbished at a retailer. They take full sized hard drives and cdrom drives, but are still very small.
Geeks have plenty of uses for a knife. I've spliced together hundreds of electrical connectors and done many many other computer maintenance tasks with nothing other than a small knife, mostly because it was what I had with me. From troubleshooting your car's electrical system in a snowstorm to cutting off a frayed shoelace, not too many items are as useful as a swiss army knife.
Some other posters have hit the nail on the head regarding the portability of this item... They simply can't be taken with you when travelling by air because the airport security terrorists will steal it from you, fine you if you complain, and detain you if you press them for such details as the name or badge number of the goon who stole your stuff.
But for those who don't have to travel by air, this little gadget would be a very cool and useful thing to slip into your pocket. Add come-as-you-are antivirus and other system recovery services to your list of things you can do without any other hardware or tools. Neato.
Why not stuff a GPS in there too? That would be cool. Sell a ruggedized version with optional topo map software, maybe even a location-based voice note taking setup. The hardware is all out there, just begging to be integrated. DeLorme has packages with all the hardware and software alreay put together, so there's even a potential tech partner to help them avoid re-inventing the wheel.
Most Dell computers come with these little speakers "standard". Better speakers are usually a reasonably priced upgrade to go to a set that are more suitable, and then they typically have some sort of premium speakers that are another $200 or so.
I think they might only send the cheapest speakers because many (most?) serious gamers are going to be picky about their speakers and wouldn't be satisfied with *any* Dell supplied speaker options.
As an example, I already have a nice set of digital 5.1 speakers so if I was in the market for a new computer, I would get the cheapest speakers they offer because I already have a nice set.
I guess it depends on what they're trying to get from the reviewers. A site that is going to only review what comes in the box should be sent everything Dell wants to highlight, including their absolute best speakers. But if the reviewer has to order the system himself and is careless in what he gets or just gets the standard base configuration, then of course he's going to get the base options including the crappy base speakers. I consider this to be the fault of the review more than Dell, although a Dell PR person would have been well advised to ensure that a review site gets sent the best of what they have to offer in a premium setup like this.
My employer licenses the full office suite, and plain old MS Outlook puts it all in one interface. There are even templates available around the net that can print your to-do list in a format that fits into any type of binder you might be using, including a regular size 3-ring binder, 6-ring dayplanner, or even custom spiral bound paper packs.
I wouldn't buy office pro for home use since it's damn expensive to buy just one license, but since I have it at work I can put due dates/times on almost any item including email and calendar entries, and set up automatic reminders, print or view them in whatever format I like. Although I don't do it because of strict security restrictions at work, outlook and palm OS PDAs work together pretty well so it would be trivial to sync my entire schedule, task list, etc. with my palm pilot even from home over a vpn connection. Any costs associated with this would be at worst a 2 or 4 year software update cycle.
It's part of the MS empire and sometimes I feel like I should be wearing a white stormtrooper helmet and when I use it, but outlook is more than good enough and I have felt no desire whatsoever to find an alternative email, calendar, note, and task manager.
MS also makes a standalone product designed more for tablets that integrates with outlook and allows for freeform notes and other journal/notebook style entries, but I forget what it's called. OneNote or something like that. Again, it just works and again if you can get your company to buy it for you, it's more than good enough.
There is enough wind on Mars, even with the extremely thin atmosphere, that it's possible the dust will stop building up before the power output of the cells drops below the amount required to run the rovers. Even at reduced cell output, the rovers could be run on a day-on day-off cycle (for example) until the batteries can no longer hold a charge or the cell output drops below what is necessary to charge the batteries.
The point I think that NASA is making is that their predictive models used fairly pessimistic assumptions as to how badly the solar cells would degrade over time, and the actual cell performance and dust coverage is proving to be better than their predictive models anticipated. That plus the fact that they've managed to almost completely overcome the relatively few hardware failures suffered so far, is grounds for being optimistic about the rover's lifespan.
The flip side of the coin - somewhere a budget analyst is kicking himself because he let the engineers talk the rover team into building in excess power margin based on a more pessimistic prediction on solar cell dust coverage. In a "perfect world" according to the budget people, they'd spend only enough to ensure that the rover dropped dead the day AFTER it completed the planned mission. It now looks like they apparently overbuilt the rovers based on what's happened with the 2 rovers at widely separated mission locations, and that's bad news for whoever controls the checkbook. Hopefully the next set of landers won't fail prematurely due to a redundancy or excess margin backlash because of how well these rovers have performed.
Does Microsoft REALLY want to alienate the 1-2 million loyal customers who are using those 20 codes?
*/sarcasm*
It doesn't sound much different to me than charging higher insurance rates to people who have multiple traffic violations or at-fault accidents, and it apparently won't affect more than... maybe... 20 legitimate customers who can pick up the phone and call Microsoft if they need to update properly licensed installations.
The only thing I'd worry about is if SP2 breaks backwards compatibility, once again using their de-facto OS monopoly to force EVERYONE to upgrade, just because they want to hurt software pirates or sell their next generation OS. That would be unfortunate and annoying.
FINALLY something worth patenting
on
Metal Velcro
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· Score: 1
Finally, a company comes out with an idea and technology worth patenting. It's a process that makes something physical, they put a lot of work into making it, it's not something everyone has been doing for years, and it solves a problem in a way that doesn't have a ton of nearly identical alternatives.
I bet the USPTO sits on the patent application. They wouldn't know innovation if it velcroed itself to their butt.
Can SOMEONE PLEASE patent the idea of patents, so we can put the USPTO out of business? Call it "A specific process to uniquely identify the orignator of materials and processes in order to facilitate distribution of rights associated with production, sale, and use of such materials and processes."
I bet it would be approved if dressed up right with some technical mumbo jumbo.
How about when campers/hikers enter the park, they're offered a lightweight RFID tag to voluntarily carry with them? It should be durable, weatherproof, have some sort of nondestructive clip mechanism, and have simple messages printed on them such as:
Voluntarily carrying this tag may help rescue personnel locate you if you need assistance.
Please return tag to the drop-box when you leave the park.
Have a safe park visit! Carry your safety tag when you hike.
Please pack out your trash, keep our parks beautiful.
Make it bright orange with some sort of cute animals on it (to entice kids to wear it), and suggest that the tag be clipped to the outside of packs, clothing, or to a hiker's belt to enhance visibility.
The important key is that parks should foster a sense of responsible freedom, so the tags really need to be voluntary. If necessary, incentives could be given to encourage their use. For example, offer 25% off vehicle entry fees during your next park visit if a visitor carries the safety tag and returns it to the ranger station when they leave. The savings in search and rescue expenses would likely more than offset the revenue loss from the incentive discount.
The RFID tag companies might even be happy to offer bargain prices on scanners and tags if they can advertise that the park service is using them to enhance safety, because this would be one of the few truly "white hat" uses of such technology.
A possible further incentive - Allow hikers to get a printout or simple computer generated map showing which scanner stations they passed during their hikes. Sell nicer maps showing their progress as memorabilia so hikers can proudly display or remember the route they took as they hiked around the park. If the scanners are linked via wireless, it would be a reasonably straigtforward challenge to have the data uploaded in near real-time so it's available when the visitor leaves the park. As they exit the park, the park service employee or ranger hands them a scan summary in exchange for the safety tag. Neat eh?
The company is going away, so the only thing remaining is to ensure that the people responsible for unleashing the lawsuits and threats don't come away from this mess with any extra cash in their pockets. They started the whole lawsuit thing to get rich off of other people's work, and it would be a shame if the top management who dreamed up the scheme got away with more than cab fare in their pockets.
Of course the lawyers are getting away with most of the profit, but everyone knows that shooting lawyers is the only way to keep them from getting rich off of everyone else's problems so there's no polite solution there.
He didn't even read the website, didn't even LOOK at the carboat in question, and posted up some lame incorrect points about why he thinks carboats are stupid in general, nevermind the actual facts or any features of the carboat under discussion.
Semantic content of his post - zero. It's as far off topic as the "what really killed ***" posts because it had nothing to do whatsoever with the original subject other than an unsubstantiated "blah blah sucks blah blah".
carboats suck because his seadoo carries 3 people? What the heck does that have to do with a carboat that looks like a camaro? A blanket statement to the effect of "all carboats handle poorly" without bothering to see that this carboat in particular has a weight and dimensions rather well suited for the corvette suspension it utilizes? Again, what the heck does that have to do with the carboat in the article? NOTHING.
Open your eyes and try using a little logic before rigorously defending a blatantly off topic and rather ignorant post against someone posting a little truth. Who appointed you slashcop? Take a look in the mirror and maybe try getting over your own inflated ego.
You seem to be somewhat less intelligent than the carboat... Camaros have 4 seats, not 2, and this carboat, which is a custom design and not a converted camaro, also has 4 seats.
If you won't even look at the website before posting your trash talk, try some STFU instead.
Buncha morons posting trashtalk here... Lets see how many idiotic comments don't make any sense.
1. Camaro has 4 seats, not 2, and this boatcar also has 4 seats. 2. The subaru engine has plenty of power to push a car like this to over 125 mph. The basic camaro RS has less power than that subaru engine and can take a camaro RS to around 135 mph. 3. It uses a jetdrive, not a prop 4. It isn't a converted camaro, rather it's a custom design that looks like a camaro and actually uses many suspension parts from a corvette. 5. If you read the material, you see that the smooth underbody for water use is achieved through moving panels. In land mode, the panels are retracted. This likely disrupts airflow under the body and reduces lift. 6. Unless you're an aerodynamic engineer, STFU about what the boat hull shape will do to the aerodynamics of the vehicle. The original pre-1998 camaro was shaped like a wing and would flip over at speeds over around 180. This thing is sculpted in a rather different fashion and speculation on it's aerodynamic behavior without knowing the cross sectional shape or doing wind tunnel testing is just that - uninformed speculation.
Pitiful negative morons bagging on the article without even looking at the website... How about a big cupful of STFU.
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Why is it that microsoft piracy is always someone elses fault? If the OS and other microsoft software was less expensive, you'd get more people buying it. At $100ish for OEM versions or XP Home upgrade editions and upwards of $300 for a full version of XP Pro, it's no wonder people pirate this stuff.
How many kids in school do you know who have put their own computers together out of older parts scavenged from friends and family? Everyone in my family did it. My first computer cost me $30 for a case, the rest I made from parts. Now when it comes time for an operating system, a kid in that situation is faced with $100 or more for an OEM version, up to $300, for a full version, going with Linux, or continuing his scavenging hunt and obtaining a pirated version of windows.
Really, who's going to spend 3-4 times the cost of their entire computer on the operating system when there are cheaper/free versions (both pirated and legitimate) available?
I recently upgraded 4 computers at my house, and due to the cost of the OS I still have win98 running on one of those 4 because I'm not going to spend $100 on a software upgrade for a computer I built out of spare parts. If it was $50 or so, I could buy a new OS every year and not worry about it but as the price gets between $75 and $100, it becomes "real money" even to someone like me who's held a well paying job for the last 14 years. Cost alone has kept me from buying a single version of office, ever. I've been using the office 97 edition that came with my first laptop and not only does it still work just fine, replacing it even with an upgrade edition would cost $250. If that upgrade cost was, say $50, or even $100 for the basic office suite, I would have replaced it over a year ago. Instead, I use office 97 and the openoffice.org suite whenever I run across a document that office 97 can't handle.
You can argue that microsoft has either lost $350 from me since I haven't upgraded my old office product, or that they would have $100 from me had they priced their products at a level I was comfortable paying. Heck, if it was $50 I'd buy a copy for my laptop, my wife's laptop, my desktop, and probably even my multimedia computer while I'm at it. So they'd have gotten $200 from me at the cost of $5ish for each boxed set and CD, a net gain of $180 that they're otherwise never going to get out of me.
So does it REALLY cost so much to run microsoft that the higher volume they'd sell if they charged lower prices wouldn't make up for what they're losing now to piracy? Maybe it would be better to get SOMETHING for their work instead of griping about getting NOTHING from people stealing their software... Heck, maybe MS could offer a downloadable version for $50. You get nothing but a license key and either the installation files or a CDROM/DVD image. It would be easy, cheap, and maybe a few people would actually pay for it instead of just stealing it.
So, let me get this straight...
IT managers and other network maintainers need to be careful about deploying this on multi-user systems because of security problems. Home users however don't need to worry (yet) unless one spouse or family member is trying to hide their pRoN browsing from the rest of the family.
How is this different from the usual state of affiars with ANY new software? A network manager who installs anything on shared computers without doing a security assessment is an idiot, and as usual a home user couldn't care less because they're probably not using multiple user logins so anything on the computer is visible to all users anyhow.
It sure seems like a lot of people are jumping all over Google for launching some software that merely points out the natural order of such things, the necessity for corporate users to do security assessments for any software and the fact that home users couldn't care less about physical security (ie. access to the physical computer itself). It's all a bunch of shouting over nothing, at least nothing new anyhow.
Now when there's a remote exploit to the google search tool, THEN there is something to worry about. But that's not the *BIG NEWS* being reported and shouted about is it? It's a powerful utility and like any powerful utility, it's not something you want available on public terminals. What's so unusual about that? A systems manager who installs or allows this on corporate computers needs to be fired, but he's the only one who ought to be concerned.
Maybe I'm going against the grain here, but I am pleased to see a patent for an actual physical implementation of a technology being defended, instead of all the bogus so-called "software patents" we've been hearing about for the last few years. Some patents are quite reasonable and legit, but with all the st00pid bogus patents getting all the press lately even legit patents are getting a bad rap.
Kudos for Honeywell, a company you don't hear about throwing it's weight around all the time, defending a patent that describes a process and physical implementation that actually DOES something. If they'd patented a method for vertical alignment of viewing sensors in front of a display apparatus to maximize contrast and enhance look-angle (ie. the up-down adjustment on your office chair), then we'd have reason to throw rotten fruit, but this patent seems to be a legitimate technological concept.
Give them a break... Rightous patents should be defended rigorously or there is no incentive to do core research. Don't let the flood of worthless patents or the incompetence of the patent examiners destroy the legitimate use of the patent system.
Yea. We should wait until some dictator or new-age fascist develops and uses the weapon first. Then we can go to bed feeling good about how although we're now under the rule of some freakjob whacko invader, at least WE weren't the ones who developed the weapons that let him take over the world.
Or maybe it's just one more really big stick we'll have as a deterrant but won't use, just like the really big thermonuclear weapons we have and never use.
Sooner or later someone is going to develop antimatter technology into a weapon, and I'm not ashamed to say I'd rather those weapons be on my side, not someone elses.
It's not a gag order, it's a reminder of the Non-Disclosure Agreement anyone with a security clearance must sign, and a reminder that certain projects will always be covered by the NDA. Not only that, any project you don't specifically know *isn't* covered by the NDA must be assumed to be covered by the NDA.
It's part of the standard security procedures, so a reminder isn't anything special unless someone makes a sensationalist statement using emotionally loaded phrases like "gag order" to describe a standard security process.
Besides, when it's a national security issue of high importance, it's pretty stupid to go blabbing or speculating about stuff you may have heard about or have a pet theory about. When it comes to weapons technology, "free speech" whackos can cry all they want but frankly they don't need to know so they'll never get the whole story.
Google will be starting franchised public WiFi access points called...
wait for it...
GSpots
Google franchised public WiFi access points called...
Wait for it...
GSpots
Aren't there laws against one company trying to intimidate other companies? This is a clear case of a large company threatening legal action and forcing the smaller company to take action to defend itself regardless of whether it's broken the law or not. Seems to me that the mafia used to do this kind of thing and there are many laws against it.
Why the hell isn't the "G-man" stepping in to stop this unlawful intimidation? What's next, paying the MPAA protection money? Oh wait, some universities are already doing that.
Forget the legal recourse, just check the more shady BT repositories for the CD set because you KNOW someone's going to leak it out of spite. I give it a month after release before the "Office 2005 davelopers soarce kit pack" hits the streets on the pacific rim and a week more before it gets to middle eastern markets to be bought for 10 dinars by returning US servicemen/women.
CDs marked "Windows 99" were on the street in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia before I even bought my first win98 upgrade cd, and this probably won't be any different.
Try a used el-cheapo bookpc. Get one with a pci riser card so you can put a second network card in it. They're small and relatively easy to work on, and the one I had (i810 based) ran linux just fine. You should be able to find one really cheap on ebay or new/refurbished at a retailer. They take full sized hard drives and cdrom drives, but are still very small.
Geeks have plenty of uses for a knife. I've spliced together hundreds of electrical connectors and done many many other computer maintenance tasks with nothing other than a small knife, mostly because it was what I had with me. From troubleshooting your car's electrical system in a snowstorm to cutting off a frayed shoelace, not too many items are as useful as a swiss army knife.
Some other posters have hit the nail on the head regarding the portability of this item... They simply can't be taken with you when travelling by air because the airport security terrorists will steal it from you, fine you if you complain, and detain you if you press them for such details as the name or badge number of the goon who stole your stuff.
But for those who don't have to travel by air, this little gadget would be a very cool and useful thing to slip into your pocket. Add come-as-you-are antivirus and other system recovery services to your list of things you can do without any other hardware or tools. Neato.
Why not stuff a GPS in there too? That would be cool. Sell a ruggedized version with optional topo map software, maybe even a location-based voice note taking setup. The hardware is all out there, just begging to be integrated. DeLorme has packages with all the hardware and software alreay put together, so there's even a potential tech partner to help them avoid re-inventing the wheel.
Most Dell computers come with these little speakers "standard". Better speakers are usually a reasonably priced upgrade to go to a set that are more suitable, and then they typically have some sort of premium speakers that are another $200 or so.
I think they might only send the cheapest speakers because many (most?) serious gamers are going to be picky about their speakers and wouldn't be satisfied with *any* Dell supplied speaker options.
As an example, I already have a nice set of digital 5.1 speakers so if I was in the market for a new computer, I would get the cheapest speakers they offer because I already have a nice set.
I guess it depends on what they're trying to get from the reviewers. A site that is going to only review what comes in the box should be sent everything Dell wants to highlight, including their absolute best speakers. But if the reviewer has to order the system himself and is careless in what he gets or just gets the standard base configuration, then of course he's going to get the base options including the crappy base speakers. I consider this to be the fault of the review more than Dell, although a Dell PR person would have been well advised to ensure that a review site gets sent the best of what they have to offer in a premium setup like this.
This must be the part of the internet and ICANN's domain holder/owner scheme that is "robust".
Ask this guy: http://www.savagenet.com/expat/viewforum.php?f=1
My employer licenses the full office suite, and plain old MS Outlook puts it all in one interface. There are even templates available around the net that can print your to-do list in a format that fits into any type of binder you might be using, including a regular size 3-ring binder, 6-ring dayplanner, or even custom spiral bound paper packs.
I wouldn't buy office pro for home use since it's damn expensive to buy just one license, but since I have it at work I can put due dates/times on almost any item including email and calendar entries, and set up automatic reminders, print or view them in whatever format I like. Although I don't do it because of strict security restrictions at work, outlook and palm OS PDAs work together pretty well so it would be trivial to sync my entire schedule, task list, etc. with my palm pilot even from home over a vpn connection. Any costs associated with this would be at worst a 2 or 4 year software update cycle.
It's part of the MS empire and sometimes I feel like I should be wearing a white stormtrooper helmet and when I use it, but outlook is more than good enough and I have felt no desire whatsoever to find an alternative email, calendar, note, and task manager.
MS also makes a standalone product designed more for tablets that integrates with outlook and allows for freeform notes and other journal/notebook style entries, but I forget what it's called. OneNote or something like that. Again, it just works and again if you can get your company to buy it for you, it's more than good enough.
There is enough wind on Mars, even with the extremely thin atmosphere, that it's possible the dust will stop building up before the power output of the cells drops below the amount required to run the rovers. Even at reduced cell output, the rovers could be run on a day-on day-off cycle (for example) until the batteries can no longer hold a charge or the cell output drops below what is necessary to charge the batteries.
The point I think that NASA is making is that their predictive models used fairly pessimistic assumptions as to how badly the solar cells would degrade over time, and the actual cell performance and dust coverage is proving to be better than their predictive models anticipated. That plus the fact that they've managed to almost completely overcome the relatively few hardware failures suffered so far, is grounds for being optimistic about the rover's lifespan.
The flip side of the coin - somewhere a budget analyst is kicking himself because he let the engineers talk the rover team into building in excess power margin based on a more pessimistic prediction on solar cell dust coverage. In a "perfect world" according to the budget people, they'd spend only enough to ensure that the rover dropped dead the day AFTER it completed the planned mission. It now looks like they apparently overbuilt the rovers based on what's happened with the 2 rovers at widely separated mission locations, and that's bad news for whoever controls the checkbook. Hopefully the next set of landers won't fail prematurely due to a redundancy or excess margin backlash because of how well these rovers have performed.
*sarcasm*
Does Microsoft REALLY want to alienate the 1-2 million loyal customers who are using those 20 codes?
*/sarcasm*
It doesn't sound much different to me than charging higher insurance rates to people who have multiple traffic violations or at-fault accidents, and it apparently won't affect more than... maybe... 20 legitimate customers who can pick up the phone and call Microsoft if they need to update properly licensed installations.
The only thing I'd worry about is if SP2 breaks backwards compatibility, once again using their de-facto OS monopoly to force EVERYONE to upgrade, just because they want to hurt software pirates or sell their next generation OS. That would be unfortunate and annoying.
Finally, a company comes out with an idea and technology worth patenting. It's a process that makes something physical, they put a lot of work into making it, it's not something everyone has been doing for years, and it solves a problem in a way that doesn't have a ton of nearly identical alternatives.
I bet the USPTO sits on the patent application. They wouldn't know innovation if it velcroed itself to their butt.
Can SOMEONE PLEASE patent the idea of patents, so we can put the USPTO out of business? Call it "A specific process to uniquely identify the orignator of materials and processes in order to facilitate distribution of rights associated with production, sale, and use of such materials and processes."
I bet it would be approved if dressed up right with some technical mumbo jumbo.
What about games? Lots of games used see-through menus.
How about when campers/hikers enter the park, they're offered a lightweight RFID tag to voluntarily carry with them? It should be durable, weatherproof, have some sort of nondestructive clip mechanism, and have simple messages printed on them such as:
Voluntarily carrying this tag may help rescue personnel locate you if you need assistance.
Please return tag to the drop-box when you leave the park.
Have a safe park visit! Carry your safety tag when you hike.
Please pack out your trash, keep our parks beautiful.
Make it bright orange with some sort of cute animals on it (to entice kids to wear it), and suggest that the tag be clipped to the outside of packs, clothing, or to a hiker's belt to enhance visibility.
The important key is that parks should foster a sense of responsible freedom, so the tags really need to be voluntary. If necessary, incentives could be given to encourage their use. For example, offer 25% off vehicle entry fees during your next park visit if a visitor carries the safety tag and returns it to the ranger station when they leave. The savings in search and rescue expenses would likely more than offset the revenue loss from the incentive discount.
The RFID tag companies might even be happy to offer bargain prices on scanners and tags if they can advertise that the park service is using them to enhance safety, because this would be one of the few truly "white hat" uses of such technology.
A possible further incentive - Allow hikers to get a printout or simple computer generated map showing which scanner stations they passed during their hikes. Sell nicer maps showing their progress as memorabilia so hikers can proudly display or remember the route they took as they hiked around the park. If the scanners are linked via wireless, it would be a reasonably straigtforward challenge to have the data uploaded in near real-time so it's available when the visitor leaves the park. As they exit the park, the park service employee or ranger hands them a scan summary in exchange for the safety tag. Neat eh?
The company is going away, so the only thing remaining is to ensure that the people responsible for unleashing the lawsuits and threats don't come away from this mess with any extra cash in their pockets. They started the whole lawsuit thing to get rich off of other people's work, and it would be a shame if the top management who dreamed up the scheme got away with more than cab fare in their pockets.
Of course the lawyers are getting away with most of the profit, but everyone knows that shooting lawyers is the only way to keep them from getting rich off of everyone else's problems so there's no polite solution there.
He didn't even read the website, didn't even LOOK at the carboat in question, and posted up some lame incorrect points about why he thinks carboats are stupid in general, nevermind the actual facts or any features of the carboat under discussion.
Semantic content of his post - zero. It's as far off topic as the "what really killed ***" posts because it had nothing to do whatsoever with the original subject other than an unsubstantiated "blah blah sucks blah blah".
carboats suck because his seadoo carries 3 people? What the heck does that have to do with a carboat that looks like a camaro? A blanket statement to the effect of "all carboats handle poorly" without bothering to see that this carboat in particular has a weight and dimensions rather well suited for the corvette suspension it utilizes? Again, what the heck does that have to do with the carboat in the article? NOTHING.
Open your eyes and try using a little logic before rigorously defending a blatantly off topic and rather ignorant post against someone posting a little truth. Who appointed you slashcop? Take a look in the mirror and maybe try getting over your own inflated ego.
You seem to be somewhat less intelligent than the carboat... Camaros have 4 seats, not 2, and this carboat, which is a custom design and not a converted camaro, also has 4 seats.
If you won't even look at the website before posting your trash talk, try some STFU instead.
Buncha morons posting trashtalk here... Lets see how many idiotic comments don't make any sense.
1. Camaro has 4 seats, not 2, and this boatcar also has 4 seats.
2. The subaru engine has plenty of power to push a car like this to over 125 mph. The basic camaro RS has less power than that subaru engine and can take a camaro RS to around 135 mph.
3. It uses a jetdrive, not a prop
4. It isn't a converted camaro, rather it's a custom design that looks like a camaro and actually uses many suspension parts from a corvette.
5. If you read the material, you see that the smooth underbody for water use is achieved through moving panels. In land mode, the panels are retracted. This likely disrupts airflow under the body and reduces lift.
6. Unless you're an aerodynamic engineer, STFU about what the boat hull shape will do to the aerodynamics of the vehicle. The original pre-1998 camaro was shaped like a wing and would flip over at speeds over around 180. This thing is sculpted in a rather different fashion and speculation on it's aerodynamic behavior without knowing the cross sectional shape or doing wind tunnel testing is just that - uninformed speculation.
Pitiful negative morons bagging on the article without even looking at the website... How about a big cupful of STFU.