When I graduated with a mechanical engineering degree, I took the oath of the order of the engineer and even though I have since become a sysadmin, I still wear the ring.
The oath and ring were inspired by the Quebec bridge collapse of 1907, which resulted in the death of 75 of the 86 workers on the bridge at the time. The point of the oath is essentially "I wont screw up my calculations and get people killed."
Due to the scope of the catastrophe and the importance of the symbolism of the oath and ring, I'm surprised it didn't make the list.
Dude, you're so right! The continuation script called for Boxy to be the main character replacing Adama as commander. I could see it now... Commander Boxy walking around the Galactica with that monkey-dog-robot in tow, just like Gene Hackman's dog in Crimson Tide. So awesome!
BTW, for more amusing rants from old-school Galactica fans, check out Dirk Benedict's embarrassingly silly "Lost in Castration". But the best has got to be the utterly asinine open letter that some moderators wrote to Ron Moore a while back. Enjoy:
"Give it a chance."
That was the oft -repeated mantra of the folks on the old Sci-Fi board. Give the new show a chance, don't pre-judge it; watch it, see what you think. So we did. We watched it and in the spirit of fairness, we matched words with deeds, here at Colonial Fleets, and created a completely separate but equal sub-forum, strictly for new show conversation. It seemed to be the right choice, at the time.
Since then, we have been educated to the mindset of the author that the offerings on this show, called Battlestar Galactica (2003), were to be a reflection of society and we were challenged to "think about it"; that there would be parallels to real-life events such as the Sept 11 attacks and told, by the author, to "make your own judgments as to what they say to you"; and that this new show would completely "re-invent" the sci-fi genre.
Well, we have thought about it and have spoken those thoughts on these forum pages, for much of the past 2 years. Ever since the new series came about, this fanbase has been in a tenuous place and Colonial Fleets was often a tension spring within the fanbase for allowing and even promoting, at times, discussion of the new series. Through that time, we made a concerted effort to separate the comments from the commentator and to keep the debates focused on the issue. Primarily, though, each of us has strived to employ our own personal standards of morality and decency when presenting these thoughts.
An example of these standards of decency and morality can be witnessed by the following remarks by our good friend, Malkyte, who very eloquently expressed the thoughts of many members, here and elsewhere:
"Throughout the many years of human existence, there has always been a line. A line that represented on one side, the best of human decency and morality, and on the other, the pure animalistic and monstrous evil that humans can be. This line has moved back and forth throughout those same years, and depending on individual experiences, it has always been in different places."
"Society in general has appeared to become more tolerant of rude and disrespectful behavior, to the point where it is celebrated when someone is deviant or rebellious. It's rather disheartening and disturbing at the same time. But our society more and more rewards liars, killers and celebrity deviants, who in some cases are only in the news because of the crap they do, and not for any talent they may possess."
We share those same concerns about society and can see, for ourselves, the truth in the remarks. In addition, we agree that the "line" has been shifting back and forth with a decided tilt toward the less than desirable aspect of human society. We also realize that the entertainment industry has "pushed the envelope as far as they could", only because we have allowed them to do so.
We have allowed the entertainment industry to tell us that it was "ok" to have a baby's neck snapped (the script originally called for Number Six to drive her finger through the baby's skull); it was "ok" to draw a parallel of sympathy toward the terrorists who carried out the Sept 11 attacks - in other words, we got what we deserved; but, the straw that snapped the proverbial camel's back was the use of rape as a military torture tool in the "Pegasus" episode.
I read through the setup guide and it appears that bootcamp doesn't address the file system incompatibilities (not that I expected it to). It's like this:
HFS+: OS X uses it; XP doesn't recognize it
FAT32: Both OS X and XP can read and write to it, but it has limits in partition size and doesn't allow for files larger than 4GB (no DVD backup for you!)
NTFS: Both OS X and XP can read it, but OS X can't write to it
One solution is MacDrive, which allows Windows to read and write to HFS+. But I'd rather that OS X be able to write to NTFS.
Virtual PC lets you move stuff back and forth, but it has inferior performance and some software doesn't work with it (Thayer's guide to birds of North America doesn't run under VPC, for example). And of course VPC doesn't work on the Intel Macs at all.
Still, being able to run Windows is *excellent* news for Apple and for OS X. It means more people will buy Macs because many need to run Windows for specific applications but would rather use OS X for everything else. If they can address the filesystem incompatibility and get the OSs to run concurrently without any performance hit, Apple's market share will skyrocket.
Yes, MD had many advantages "back-in-the-day" and even today some may find it to be a suitable platform. But this guy is living in another reality.
2GB SD costs $50 (slickdeals.net/techbargains.com) and nowadays flash MP3 players are dirt cheap, tiny, durable, and feature-rich. Minidisc players have slow access times, inferior interfaces, and cumbersome transfer procedures.
Most people do not want to deal with the hassle of juggling dozens if not hundreds of discs to carry a large collection. A 1.5-ounce 4GB flash player can carry a decent amount of tunes. And there are 60GB hdd-based players coming in at under 5 ounces that are slower than flash, but faster then MD (and are reasonably durable).
He makes one good point: Sony should've used a backward-MD-compatible disc in the PSP. Otherwise his post is simply an example of someone blinded by years of frothing-at-the mouth fanboyism.
It's unlikely that their decision had anything to do with Virtual PC, but it's noteworthy that if Vista supported EFI, that'd probably be it for Virtual PC.
The next question is will Virtual PC come out for Intel-based Macs and how will it perform? So far, Microsoft has not committed to it:
Microsoft has issued a statement on the development status of Virtual PC for Intel-based Macs."The Mac BU recognizes the need for the product and believes it is the best virtualization solution for PowerPC users, so it is committed to providing Virtual PC to new and existing PowerPC customers. However, Microsoft is still discussing with Apple the feasibility of bringing Virtual PC for Mac to Intel-based Macs in the future and has not made any announcements about if/how the product might work on the new machines."
It'd be cool if there was a simple convention/architecture/method/whatever for booting to multiple OSs simultaneously so that each used some memory and CPU time and other resources were shared/swapped on the fly...
"The market forces that exist today make it unrealistic to spend $200 million on a movie," said Lucas, a near-billionaire from his feverishly franchised outer-space epics. "Those movies can't make their money back anymore. Look at what happened with 'King Kong.'"
Huh? It cost $207 million and earned $543M to make. Unless marketing and distribution cost them more than $336M, Kong was profitable.
... why did they use the "all or nothing" approach of requiring the admin password to install some things? Why not introduce a new model where everything in the filesystem is an object of one of the following types:
- operating system - hardware - hardware configuration - program - program configuration - interface configuration - data
Have the option of using different passwords for access to operating system, hardware, and program objects. When you run a program installer, it wouldn't be able to mess with your hardware or OS that way. The admin password would basically never be needed unless you were doing OS updates.
Check out the hinson supercar's FAQ where they talk about the benefits of swapping out the rotary for LS1 V8. It greatly improves all performance characteristics, and it's actually lighter than the rotary it replaces.
GMs new LS7 V8 (in the 06 Z06) has 7.0L of displacement (as opposed to the mear 5.7L of the LS1) for an extra 150HP all in the same small block chevy package.
Some rotary fans consider it blasphemy to swap a piston engine into the RX7; I disagree with them. If you get more power (and better fuel economy) without adding weight and for a reasonable cost, then there are few (if any) objective reasons not to do it.
However, it's worth noting that the reasons there is no weight gain are that (1) the t56 transmission that gets swapped in along with the LS1 is significantly lighter than the RX7 transmission and (2) with these conversions, often other parts are also swapped out to keep weight down. If you compare engine weights, they are:
The rotary engine is also compact, allowing it to be crammed into tiny, lightweight cars. And it's easy to work on because of its simple design.
As far as the parent's parent's post, it's accurate. However, the seal/appex problems he mentioned are not common with the RX8's 13B-MSP, which has four primary assembly bolts (or whatever they're called) instead of two (reducing how much it flexes). There is really no reason to expect that engine to develop seal issues common to older rotaries. It also helps that it's much simpler than the previous twin-turbo setup.
Then again it's a relatively new engine... we'll know for certain in a few years as the 100,000+ RX8s on the road start hitting higher miles.
However, there are a few rotary disadvantages the parent's parent didn't mention:
1) It consumes oil (by design). You need to add a quart every 2000 miles.
2) It's more difficult to reduce a rotary's emissions. The reason the 13B-MSP is a Multi Side Port engine is that the previous engines (with peripheral exhaust ports) would not pass current emissions regulations (and the MSP setup improves fuel economy a bit). A downside to the MSP setup is that you can't make a 3 rotary version of it (or at the very least it's cost prohibitive for Mazda to do it because of how much they'd have to change the engine).
3) It is more prone to flooding than piston engines when shutdown without being warmed up first. There is a simple workaround (rev the engine for 10 seconds before shutoff if the engine is still cold... if it's warmed up, it can be shutdown normally). But this disadvantage alone prevents the rotary from being suitable as a mainstream engine.
And unless its fuel economy is improved, the rotary will never be used in anything but sports and race cars.
I'm surprised that people are surprised at the decline of the PDA market (I write that as a PDA enthusiast who's owned 15 of 'em over the last 12 years). There are several reasons:
1) While they do many things, they do most of them badly:
Take Notes: Pencil and paper or laptop is faster.
Play Movies: Most PDAs suffer from one or more of the following: poor quality, poor battery life, low capacity, poor interface. Also, only a few PDAs can play full-screen DIVX well
Play Audio: Most PDAs suffer from one or more of the following: poor quality, poor battery life, low capacity, poor interface (especially compared to the iPod click-wheel).
Browse Web: Tiny, low resolution screens, slow at rendering, limited compatibility and functionality, weird rendering.
View Photos, PIM, play games:PDAs do this stuff pretty well.
2) PDA OSs have various disadvantages compared to embedded OSs like those on media players:
Pocket PC/Windows Mobile: Temperamental, often sluggish, horrid multitasking, deteriorates over time like desktop flavors of Windows, problematic-syncing, interface not suited for a handheld computer or media player.
Palm OS: No multitasking, no memory protection. Reliable for simple stuff but less stable in some devices (T5, Lifedrive, Treos). Interface not as good for media playback compared to a media player.
Linux: Inferior interface, more complicated than other PDA OSs for doing many things, limited hardware choices (nothing with color below 5 ounces).
3) Now that most people have cell phones, they don't need a PDA to keep contact info (and in many cases, cell phones can do other PIM stuff as well).
4) Media players are generally more durable than PDAs.
A lot of people slam Palm OS for not having multitasking or memory protection (and being somewhat buggy on the T5) but it still has some advantages. Namely, it's very fast, syncs reliably, and is easy to use one-handed.
When I first switched to Pocket PC, I found the interface to be horribly clunky, syncing a pain in the ass, and memory management a joke. And I was always waiting for things to happen and many times I ran into weirdness that required a reboot. I went back to Palm out of disgust.
Last year I re-switched to Pocket PC when wifi-enabled VGA devices that could play 30-fps hi-res DIVX movies came out... the OS still scared me, but the hardware was too cool to resist.
But now I don't use my PDA as a PDA. It's still slow. It still runs out of memory. Switching between landscape and portrait modes takes several seconds and the screen elements don't always render properly.
I find it to be so damn frustrating that I usually leave it at home. I was hoping Windows Mobile 5 would solve some of the problems, but because of how it's changed its use of non-volitile memory, it's much slower at various tasks (read some of the reviews... opening a Word document that took 3 seconds with Windows Mobile 2003 now takes 18 seconds).
Reportedly the T|X has solved the T5 bugs. Sure, multitasking comes in handy now and then, but right about now Palm's instant task-switching is sounding more appealing than Windows Mobile's crappy multitasking.
Re:Great movie with free market touches
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Serenity Opens Today
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· Score: 5, Insightful
"It is, in fact, the leftists who have so little faith in fellow human beings that they believe a strong forceful central government is needed to get everything done."
You're describing authoritarians, not leftists/liberals. Some leftist beliefs are authoritarian (nuclear power limitations/regulations, environmental regulations, restrictions on tobacco advertising and use in public places, etc) and some are libertarian (gays have right to marry, less restrictions on most drugs, etc).
Likewise, some rightist/conservative beliefs are libertarian (market should be free of all regulations, tobacco should not be restricted, etc) while many are authoritarian (sexual practices should be regulated, gay couples should not have the same rights as heterosexual couples, use of drugs other than nicotine/caffeine/alcohol should be illegal, etc).
"The pro-embryonic research crew is 1, telling sick people that George Bush is killing them, when in fact they have a death sentence and stem cell research may cure FUTURE patents, but not likely the current ones."
I've never heard or read any statements from embryonic supporters like that.
"I expect the pro-choice crowd to be EXTREMELY upset at this research, that manages to create research lines WITHOUT destroying life... {snip}... The pro-choice crowd was EXTREMELY excited about the ability to destroy more embryos as part of their "proof" that embryos aren't life."
I know many pro-choice people; none of them got upset or excited as you described, or even considered stem cell research as a way to hurt or help the pro-choice argument.
"Bush was the first President to approve ANY funding, and allowed it for pre-existing lines."
It's misleading to trumpet Bush for being the first president to approve funding when he was actually the first president to support restricting it. Clinton, on the other hand, was lambasted by anti-abortion groups for his support of the research while candidate Bush took a strong stance against the research before he softened his position:
"In 1996 and ever since, Congress has forbidden the use of federal funds for research involving the destruction of human embryos. The potential of embryonic stem cells became apparent in the late 1990s, and in 2000 the National Institutes of Health announced that it would fund stem-cell research as long as the actual extraction of cells from embryos was done by someone else. President Clinton strongly supported this policy. Presidential candidate George W. Bush opposed it. He opposed all federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, no matter who extracted the cells.
{snip}
Bush's "first-ever" federal funding of embryo research was only first-ever because the forces on his side of the argument had managed to prevent it until then."
According to their website: "Support for Netscape 7.2, Firefox 1.0.3, and Mozilla 1.7.7 is planned but will not be available when preregistration goes into effect."
It'd be easier to respond to their question if they posted an estimated date for when other browsers will be supported.
Except for its mostly-quiet hdd and optical, the Mac Mini is basically silent. We run a couple in my office and even when I put my head next to the Mac Minis, the other computers sitting across the room (a Compaq EVO D500 workstation and a Dell PowerEdge 700 server are each louder).
I'm surprised Apple hasn't released a media-edition Mac Mini... I'd pay $300 extra to get one with an integrated TV tuner, AM/FM receiver, some additional A/V inputs/outputs, and TIVO/MythTV-like software.
I've recently switched to using OS X, and it'd be nice if Apple were to add an optional multi-button functionality to its laptops (beyond [ctrl][click], which requires two hands to be done comfortably). This program looks like a work-around, though I haven't tried it yet.
Personally, I never understood the big deal about one vs two buttons on the Mac. Apple has supported two buttons via any cheap 3rd party mouse for some time. While my 3-year-old has no problem using a two button mouse, my father in-law has never grasped the concept. I'm a sysadmin and some of the users I support get that deer-in-the-headlights look when I tell them to right-click (these are the same users that don't understand directory hierarchy... but thanks to things like Spotlight, they wont need me to find their files anymore).
So IMHO the one-button mouse is not as stupid and out-dated an idea as some seem to think. I wont be buying a Mighty Mouse, but Apple has provided an elegant solution that allows both power users and novices to work of the same computer.
"The only thing that surprises me about this statement is that companies are willing to spend 2x as much on the hardware and the additional money on the OS."
Macs being 2x as expensive is a misconception.
Sure, individuals can go to sites like slickdeals.net and find deals on Dell machines running XPHome that make them cheaper than a Mac (though in most cases we're talking 2/3 or 3/4 as expensive, not half). But most companies are going to purchase through the corporate stores at Dell.com/HP.com/etc and those prices are usually comparable to Apple's.
We've rolled out a few Mac Minis were I work. They're much cheaper than our Compaq EVOs, the Minis are just as capable for almost any task, and people like how quiet they are.
I have an X50v with WM2003SE. I love the hardware, but I couldn't be more disappointed with the OS:
1) It's temperamental. Like Windows on the desktop, it occasionally slows down for no reason, apps stop responding or close, etc. I have to stop and restart drivers (which sometimes means soft-resetting the device). It's much more stable than it was back in the pre-PPC days, but it's still flakey compared to, say, Linux and OS X.
2) The process for loading applications can be restrictive and convoluted. Ironically, Microsoft's attempt to make this simple (like Palm) is what makes it so painful... the Activesync installer doesn't let you specify what directory to install to (only whether to install to RAM, file-store, or a card). It installs to the root directory of cards, and many application then show those directories in dialog windows when opening files... what makes this worse is you can't specify the directory name and the defualt is non-descriptive and usually so long it crops on the screen.
Using CABINSTL fixes this *if* you can extract the CAB file and copy it to your device... but that isn't always possible: sometimes it's easily available, sometimes you have to dig through the program files activesync directory (often having to figure out which CAB is the correct one since some installers come with multiple CABs), and sometimes an installer wont let you find the CAB. Also, sometimes the installer is a Windows executable that requires you have a Windows laptop/desktop available. Lastly, heaven forbid you need to reinstall all your apps on a PPC... it's like reinstalling a desktop OS: it takes hours (while Palm takes only minutes)
3) The OS can be somewhat sluggish. Not nearly as bad as the WinCE devices from 5-8 years ago, but is still not as instantaneous as Palm (well, not counting the awful Lifedrive, which loads apps from hdd... what was Palm thinking?)
4) Memory management is horrible. I get out of memory errors pretty often (sometimes just from running a few web browsers). I keep my system pretty clean too (close stuff with Wisbar and I don't install apps to RAM).
5) Web browsing sucks. PIE and all the 3rd party PIE-base browsers have limited java support (I can't even manage my Netgear router with them). Equally annoying is that images are either scaled or quadruple-pixelated, making page formatting on PPC a joke. Netfront is a little better, but last time I check it didn't support VGA properly (dialog windows would show up with fonts so huge that you can't read it all or click on buttons because it renders them off screen).
6) Office apps suck. Very few features.
7) Task switching sucks. You need a 3rd party program to move easily between running apps.
8) Syncing with the computer sucks as Activesync is slow and buggy.
9) No Mac support for syncing (there are 3rd party solutions, but then you can't install some apps... see #2 above).
10) Windows media player sucks. It's slow and has limited features (but BETAplayer rocks).
11) Switching between landscape and portrait is slow (was instant on my old Palm T3).
12) Windows registry and shared DLLs can mean OS degradation and application conflicts.
Having written all that, Terminal Services comes in handy now and then. And PPC hardware rocks. I can watch VGA DIVX movies with BETAplayer thanks to the hardware decoder. I can play several impressive games thanks to the GPU. If I run true VGA mode, web browsing is actually decent (but the true-VGA programs have other problems so I don't usually bother).
And some of the things I complained about can be solved with $100-200 worth of 3rd party software... but the underlying problem with WinCE/PPC/Windows Mobile will still be there: it's based on Win32. This has advantages (for example, it's easy to write applications for) but many of the above disadvantages can't be fixed because of it.
Microsoft went with Win32 when they first create WinCE back in 1996 in an attempt to
Why no gapless playback except for Rio Karma?
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Review of iRiver iFP-899
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· Score: 3, Informative
The Rio Karma's gapless playback was awesome... but that device was a little hefty and its boxy shape made it unfriendly to the pocket, which is why I got rid of it. Unfortunately, that's the only MP3 player I know of that supports gapless. Still, there are a slew of nifty 1 GB flash players that can be had for $80 - $150. In addition to the iRiver:
iPod Shuffle (I picked up a used 1GB model for $80): + smallest and lightest of the bunch, iTunes integration, high build-quality, excellent sound, well-place controls, doubles as USB flash drive, recharges when plugged in
- no screen, non-replaceable battery, can't transfer music through mounted drive
Creative Muvo N200: + FM, AAA battery offers flexibility, voice recorder, line-in
- a little larger than iPod Shuffle, must juggle batteries
Creative Muvo V200 (I got a 1GB model on Ebay for $87 shipped): Same as N200 but slightly larger and heavier, has integrated USB connector, no line-in
iPod Shuffle Knock-offs:
Not as easy to find, but like the shuffle but with more features (but sans iTunes integration). Mixed reviews as far as build quality goes.
JXD No-name Player:
The JXD is just one of many feature-rich no-name players on Ebay. Build and sound quality unknown; YMMV.
And there are several Rio, Samsung, and Sandisk models at Best Buy... and other more exciting ones at dynamism, like the tasty iRiver T10.
Then there's the iPod Mini, which has Apple's awesome clickwheel in a fairly small package. And the Rio Carbon, which is the most pocketable of the hdd players. Too bad neither of those have a built-in USB connector or FM.
You bring up a lot of good points... people are often cruel and the pressure to conform can be overwhelming. But this isn't about being sheep; my board-game/Magic/role-playing buddies and I all thought the Triumph Star Wars video was hilarious. Hell, many of the Star Wars fans were cracking up while they were being mocked. Triumph has the same effect when he makes fun of Bon Jovi and their fans, Hollywood Squares, American Idol, and Hawaii. He could target jocks and prom queens and it'd be just as funny.
We're all absurd in our own ways, so lighten up and enjoy the ride.
Sounds like the thing is going to be an absolute pig, like XP and 95 before it. (Remember when they said you could run 95 in 8MB? We found you realistically needed 24MB)
Actually, only 4 MB was "required" for 95. 8 MB was recommended and 16 MB was preferred... I have no idea what that was supposed to mean, but it ran fine with 16. Running it with 4 resulting in constant trashing of the hdd... it was utterly unusable.
Does it really matter if it takes 15, 30, or 45 seconds to boot? OS X *always* comes out of standby in 1-3 seconds and only needs to be shutdown now and then for a system update.
Not to sound like a Mac zealot, but this is in contrast to my Windows laptops (Dell Inspiron 8000, Sony SRX99, Fujitsu P2040, Panasonic W2, etc), which have all been annoyingly temperamental when it comes to standby. 80-90% of the time they resume in 3-6 seconds, but the rest of time they take 15-45 seconds (and once in a great while, they don't resume at all). It varies from model to model, but none of them have been as reliable and quick at resuming as the Macs I've used at home and at work (iMac, iBook, Powerbook, several Mac Minis).
Supremacy always ends the same; Other games
on
Fun Tabletop Games?
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· Score: 1
A buddy of mine bought Supremacy ~15 years ago... we played it once and it was so awesome that he ran out and bought a dozen or so expansion sets. But while it was fun, it always ended with a nuclear winter (which means everyone loses). After a few more games, he realized that with all the expansions he just wasted $200 learning you can't win a nuclear war.
We came up with the idea of having everyone throw in $5 before each game and then burning the money if there was a nuclear winter... but we never tried it:-) Other games to try:
Diplomacy: 3+ hours
Classic back stabbing Risk-like European warfare game without dice
Web of Power: 90 min
Simple European warfare resources/influence game
San Jaun: 45-60 min
Puerto Rico light (no board or pieces, but uses cards)
Bang: 30-60 min
Awesome wild wild west card game
Great Dalmuti: can play any amount of time with 4-8 players
Like Asshole, but is fun sober
Fortress America: (out of print) 3-5 hours
The best of the Gamemaster Axis and Allies type games; America under attack in 1980s
Axis and Allies Pacific: 3-5 hours
The second best of the Gamemaster Axis and Allies type games; Pacific theater with lots of ships and planes
Dune: (out of print) 2-5 hours
Really interesting game about the books in which you can play one of the major powers
Slashdot Mirror
When I graduated with a mechanical engineering degree, I took the oath of the order of the engineer and even though I have since become a sysadmin, I still wear the ring.
The oath and ring were inspired by the Quebec bridge collapse of 1907, which resulted in the death of 75 of the 86 workers on the bridge at the time. The point of the oath is essentially "I wont screw up my calculations and get people killed."
Due to the scope of the catastrophe and the importance of the symbolism of the oath and ring, I'm surprised it didn't make the list.
BTW, for more amusing rants from old-school Galactica fans, check out Dirk Benedict's embarrassingly silly "Lost in Castration". But the best has got to be the utterly asinine open letter that some moderators wrote to Ron Moore a while back. Enjoy:
HFS+: OS X uses it; XP doesn't recognize it
FAT32: Both OS X and XP can read and write to it, but it has limits in partition size and doesn't allow for files larger than 4GB (no DVD backup for you!)
NTFS: Both OS X and XP can read it, but OS X can't write to it
One solution is MacDrive, which allows Windows to read and write to HFS+. But I'd rather that OS X be able to write to NTFS.
Virtual PC lets you move stuff back and forth, but it has inferior performance and some software doesn't work with it (Thayer's guide to birds of North America doesn't run under VPC, for example). And of course VPC doesn't work on the Intel Macs at all.
Still, being able to run Windows is *excellent* news for Apple and for OS X. It means more people will buy Macs because many need to run Windows for specific applications but would rather use OS X for everything else. If they can address the filesystem incompatibility and get the OSs to run concurrently without any performance hit, Apple's market share will skyrocket.
Yes, MD had many advantages "back-in-the-day" and even today some may find it to be a suitable platform. But this guy is living in another reality.
2GB SD costs $50 (slickdeals.net/techbargains.com) and nowadays flash MP3 players are dirt cheap, tiny, durable, and feature-rich. Minidisc players have slow access times, inferior interfaces, and cumbersome transfer procedures.
Most people do not want to deal with the hassle of juggling dozens if not hundreds of discs to carry a large collection. A 1.5-ounce 4GB flash player can carry a decent amount of tunes. And there are 60GB hdd-based players coming in at under 5 ounces that are slower than flash, but faster then MD (and are reasonably durable).
He makes one good point: Sony should've used a backward-MD-compatible disc in the PSP. Otherwise his post is simply an example of someone blinded by years of frothing-at-the mouth fanboyism.
It's unlikely that their decision had anything to do with Virtual PC, but it's noteworthy that if Vista supported EFI, that'd probably be it for Virtual PC.
The next question is will Virtual PC come out for Intel-based Macs and how will it perform? So far, Microsoft has not committed to it:
It'd be cool if there was a simple convention/architecture/method/whatever for booting to multiple OSs simultaneously so that each used some memory and CPU time and other resources were shared/swapped on the fly...
Source: http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=kingkong05.htm
... why did they use the "all or nothing" approach of requiring the admin password to install some things? Why not introduce a new model where everything in the filesystem is an object of one of the following types:
- operating system
- hardware
- hardware configuration
- program
- program configuration
- interface configuration
- data
Have the option of using different passwords for access to operating system, hardware, and program objects. When you run a program installer, it wouldn't be able to mess with your hardware or OS that way. The admin password would basically never be needed unless you were doing OS updates.
Some rotary fans consider it blasphemy to swap a piston engine into the RX7; I disagree with them. If you get more power (and better fuel economy) without adding weight and for a reasonable cost, then there are few (if any) objective reasons not to do it.
However, it's worth noting that the reasons there is no weight gain are that (1) the t56 transmission that gets swapped in along with the LS1 is significantly lighter than the RX7 transmission and (2) with these conversions, often other parts are also swapped out to keep weight down. If you compare engine weights, they are:
- 13B rotary block: 180 pounds
- 13B rotary fully dressed: 260 pounds
- 13B-REW (twin turbo) rotary fully dressed: 327 pounds
- LS1 fully dressed: 460 pounds
The rotary engine is also compact, allowing it to be crammed into tiny, lightweight cars. And it's easy to work on because of its simple design.
As far as the parent's parent's post, it's accurate. However, the seal/appex problems he mentioned are not common with the RX8's 13B-MSP, which has four primary assembly bolts (or whatever they're called) instead of two (reducing how much it flexes). There is really no reason to expect that engine to develop seal issues common to older rotaries. It also helps that it's much simpler than the previous twin-turbo setup.
Then again it's a relatively new engine... we'll know for certain in a few years as the 100,000+ RX8s on the road start hitting higher miles.
However, there are a few rotary disadvantages the parent's parent didn't mention:
1) It consumes oil (by design). You need to add a quart every 2000 miles.
2) It's more difficult to reduce a rotary's emissions. The reason the 13B-MSP is a Multi Side Port engine is that the previous engines (with peripheral exhaust ports) would not pass current emissions regulations (and the MSP setup improves fuel economy a bit). A downside to the MSP setup is that you can't make a 3 rotary version of it (or at the very least it's cost prohibitive for Mazda to do it because of how much they'd have to change the engine).
3) It is more prone to flooding than piston engines when shutdown without being warmed up first. There is a simple workaround (rev the engine for 10 seconds before shutoff if the engine is still cold... if it's warmed up, it can be shutdown normally). But this disadvantage alone prevents the rotary from being suitable as a mainstream engine.
And unless its fuel economy is improved, the rotary will never be used in anything but sports and race cars.
BTW, this article does a nice job explaining how the rotary works:
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/rotary-engine.htm
Sweet! There is a god.
1) While they do many things, they do most of them badly:
2) PDA OSs have various disadvantages compared to embedded OSs like those on media players:
3) Now that most people have cell phones, they don't need a PDA to keep contact info (and in many cases, cell phones can do other PIM stuff as well).
4) Media players are generally more durable than PDAs.
A lot of people slam Palm OS for not having multitasking or memory protection (and being somewhat buggy on the T5) but it still has some advantages. Namely, it's very fast, syncs reliably, and is easy to use one-handed.
When I first switched to Pocket PC, I found the interface to be horribly clunky, syncing a pain in the ass, and memory management a joke. And I was always waiting for things to happen and many times I ran into weirdness that required a reboot. I went back to Palm out of disgust.
Last year I re-switched to Pocket PC when wifi-enabled VGA devices that could play 30-fps hi-res DIVX movies came out... the OS still scared me, but the hardware was too cool to resist.
But now I don't use my PDA as a PDA. It's still slow. It still runs out of memory. Switching between landscape and portrait modes takes several seconds and the screen elements don't always render properly.
I find it to be so damn frustrating that I usually leave it at home. I was hoping Windows Mobile 5 would solve some of the problems, but because of how it's changed its use of non-volitile memory, it's much slower at various tasks (read some of the reviews... opening a Word document that took 3 seconds with Windows Mobile 2003 now takes 18 seconds).
Reportedly the T|X has solved the T5 bugs. Sure, multitasking comes in handy now and then, but right about now Palm's instant task-switching is sounding more appealing than Windows Mobile's crappy multitasking.
You're describing authoritarians, not leftists/liberals. Some leftist beliefs are authoritarian (nuclear power limitations/regulations, environmental regulations, restrictions on tobacco advertising and use in public places, etc) and some are libertarian (gays have right to marry, less restrictions on most drugs, etc).
Likewise, some rightist/conservative beliefs are libertarian (market should be free of all regulations, tobacco should not be restricted, etc) while many are authoritarian (sexual practices should be regulated, gay couples should not have the same rights as heterosexual couples, use of drugs other than nicotine/caffeine/alcohol should be illegal, etc).
I've never heard or read any statements from embryonic supporters like that. I know many pro-choice people; none of them got upset or excited as you described, or even considered stem cell research as a way to hurt or help the pro-choice argument.
It's misleading to trumpet Bush for being the first president to approve funding when he was actually the first president to support restricting it. Clinton, on the other hand, was lambasted by anti-abortion groups for his support of the research while candidate Bush took a strong stance against the research before he softened his position:
More info here.
It'd be easier to respond to their question if they posted an estimated date for when other browsers will be supported.
Except for its mostly-quiet hdd and optical, the Mac Mini is basically silent. We run a couple in my office and even when I put my head next to the Mac Minis, the other computers sitting across the room (a Compaq EVO D500 workstation and a Dell PowerEdge 700 server are each louder).
I'm surprised Apple hasn't released a media-edition Mac Mini... I'd pay $300 extra to get one with an integrated TV tuner, AM/FM receiver, some additional A/V inputs/outputs, and TIVO/MythTV-like software.
I've recently switched to using OS X, and it'd be nice if Apple were to add an optional multi-button functionality to its laptops (beyond [ctrl][click], which requires two hands to be done comfortably). This program looks like a work-around, though I haven't tried it yet.
Personally, I never understood the big deal about one vs two buttons on the Mac. Apple has supported two buttons via any cheap 3rd party mouse for some time. While my 3-year-old has no problem using a two button mouse, my father in-law has never grasped the concept. I'm a sysadmin and some of the users I support get that deer-in-the-headlights look when I tell them to right-click (these are the same users that don't understand directory hierarchy... but thanks to things like Spotlight, they wont need me to find their files anymore).
So IMHO the one-button mouse is not as stupid and out-dated an idea as some seem to think. I wont be buying a Mighty Mouse, but Apple has provided an elegant solution that allows both power users and novices to work of the same computer.
Macs being 2x as expensive is a misconception.
Sure, individuals can go to sites like slickdeals.net and find deals on Dell machines running XPHome that make them cheaper than a Mac (though in most cases we're talking 2/3 or 3/4 as expensive, not half). But most companies are going to purchase through the corporate stores at Dell.com/HP.com/etc and those prices are usually comparable to Apple's.
We've rolled out a few Mac Minis were I work. They're much cheaper than our Compaq EVOs, the Minis are just as capable for almost any task, and people like how quiet they are.
I have an X50v with WM2003SE. I love the hardware, but I couldn't be more disappointed with the OS:
1) It's temperamental. Like Windows on the desktop, it occasionally slows down for no reason, apps stop responding or close, etc. I have to stop and restart drivers (which sometimes means soft-resetting the device). It's much more stable than it was back in the pre-PPC days, but it's still flakey compared to, say, Linux and OS X.
2) The process for loading applications can be restrictive and convoluted. Ironically, Microsoft's attempt to make this simple (like Palm) is what makes it so painful... the Activesync installer doesn't let you specify what directory to install to (only whether to install to RAM, file-store, or a card). It installs to the root directory of cards, and many application then show those directories in dialog windows when opening files... what makes this worse is you can't specify the directory name and the defualt is non-descriptive and usually so long it crops on the screen.
Using CABINSTL fixes this *if* you can extract the CAB file and copy it to your device... but that isn't always possible: sometimes it's easily available, sometimes you have to dig through the program files activesync directory (often having to figure out which CAB is the correct one since some installers come with multiple CABs), and sometimes an installer wont let you find the CAB. Also, sometimes the installer is a Windows executable that requires you have a Windows laptop/desktop available. Lastly, heaven forbid you need to reinstall all your apps on a PPC... it's like reinstalling a desktop OS: it takes hours (while Palm takes only minutes)
3) The OS can be somewhat sluggish. Not nearly as bad as the WinCE devices from 5-8 years ago, but is still not as instantaneous as Palm (well, not counting the awful Lifedrive, which loads apps from hdd... what was Palm thinking?)
4) Memory management is horrible. I get out of memory errors pretty often (sometimes just from running a few web browsers). I keep my system pretty clean too (close stuff with Wisbar and I don't install apps to RAM).
5) Web browsing sucks. PIE and all the 3rd party PIE-base browsers have limited java support (I can't even manage my Netgear router with them). Equally annoying is that images are either scaled or quadruple-pixelated, making page formatting on PPC a joke. Netfront is a little better, but last time I check it didn't support VGA properly (dialog windows would show up with fonts so huge that you can't read it all or click on buttons because it renders them off screen).
6) Office apps suck. Very few features.
7) Task switching sucks. You need a 3rd party program to move easily between running apps.
8) Syncing with the computer sucks as Activesync is slow and buggy.
9) No Mac support for syncing (there are 3rd party solutions, but then you can't install some apps... see #2 above).
10) Windows media player sucks. It's slow and has limited features (but BETAplayer rocks).
11) Switching between landscape and portrait is slow (was instant on my old Palm T3).
12) Windows registry and shared DLLs can mean OS degradation and application conflicts.
Having written all that, Terminal Services comes in handy now and then. And PPC hardware rocks. I can watch VGA DIVX movies with BETAplayer thanks to the hardware decoder. I can play several impressive games thanks to the GPU. If I run true VGA mode, web browsing is actually decent (but the true-VGA programs have other problems so I don't usually bother).
And some of the things I complained about can be solved with $100-200 worth of 3rd party software... but the underlying problem with WinCE/PPC/Windows Mobile will still be there: it's based on Win32. This has advantages (for example, it's easy to write applications for) but many of the above disadvantages can't be fixed because of it.
Microsoft went with Win32 when they first create WinCE back in 1996 in an attempt to
The Rio Karma's gapless playback was awesome... but that device was a little hefty and its boxy shape made it unfriendly to the pocket, which is why I got rid of it. Unfortunately, that's the only MP3 player I know of that supports gapless. Still, there are a slew of nifty 1 GB flash players that can be had for $80 - $150. In addition to the iRiver:
iPod Shuffle (I picked up a used 1GB model for $80):
+ smallest and lightest of the bunch, iTunes integration, high build-quality, excellent sound, well-place controls, doubles as USB flash drive, recharges when plugged in
- no screen, non-replaceable battery, can't transfer music through mounted drive
Creative Muvo N200:
+ FM, AAA battery offers flexibility, voice recorder, line-in
- a little larger than iPod Shuffle, must juggle batteries
Creative Muvo V200 (I got a 1GB model on Ebay for $87 shipped):
Same as N200 but slightly larger and heavier, has integrated USB connector, no line-in
iPod Shuffle Knock-offs :
Not as easy to find, but like the shuffle but with more features (but sans iTunes integration). Mixed reviews as far as build quality goes.
JXD No-name Player :
The JXD is just one of many feature-rich no-name players on Ebay. Build and sound quality unknown; YMMV.
And there are several Rio, Samsung, and Sandisk models at Best Buy... and other more exciting ones at dynamism, like the tasty iRiver T10.
Then there's the iPod Mini, which has Apple's awesome clickwheel in a fairly small package. And the Rio Carbon, which is the most pocketable of the hdd players. Too bad neither of those have a built-in USB connector or FM.
RTFA and googled, but I didn't find anything to indicate that they'll offer non-Windows clients :-(
You bring up a lot of good points... people are often cruel and the pressure to conform can be overwhelming. But this isn't about being sheep; my board-game/Magic/role-playing buddies and I all thought the Triumph Star Wars video was hilarious. Hell, many of the Star Wars fans were cracking up while they were being mocked. Triumph has the same effect when he makes fun of Bon Jovi and their fans, Hollywood Squares, American Idol, and Hawaii. He could target jocks and prom queens and it'd be just as funny.
We're all absurd in our own ways, so lighten up and enjoy the ride.
The G5 iMac was initially announced last September (8 months ago).
Actually, only 4 MB was "required" for 95. 8 MB was recommended and 16 MB was preferred... I have no idea what that was supposed to mean, but it ran fine with 16. Running it with 4 resulting in constant trashing of the hdd... it was utterly unusable.
Does it really matter if it takes 15, 30, or 45 seconds to boot? OS X *always* comes out of standby in 1-3 seconds and only needs to be shutdown now and then for a system update.
Not to sound like a Mac zealot, but this is in contrast to my Windows laptops (Dell Inspiron 8000, Sony SRX99, Fujitsu P2040, Panasonic W2, etc), which have all been annoyingly temperamental when it comes to standby. 80-90% of the time they resume in 3-6 seconds, but the rest of time they take 15-45 seconds (and once in a great while, they don't resume at all). It varies from model to model, but none of them have been as reliable and quick at resuming as the Macs I've used at home and at work (iMac, iBook, Powerbook, several Mac Minis).
We came up with the idea of having everyone throw in $5 before each game and then burning the money if there was a nuclear winter... but we never tried it :-) Other games to try:
Diplomacy: 3+ hours
Classic back stabbing Risk-like European warfare game without dice
Web of Power: 90 min
Simple European warfare resources/influence game
San Jaun: 45-60 min
Puerto Rico light (no board or pieces, but uses cards)
Bang: 30-60 min
Awesome wild wild west card game
Great Dalmuti: can play any amount of time with 4-8 players
Like Asshole, but is fun sober
Fortress America: (out of print) 3-5 hours
The best of the Gamemaster Axis and Allies type games; America under attack in 1980s
Axis and Allies Pacific: 3-5 hours
The second best of the Gamemaster Axis and Allies type games; Pacific theater with lots of ships and planes
Dune: (out of print) 2-5 hours
Really interesting game about the books in which you can play one of the major powers