That's funny. I do live in a heavy snow area--Minnesota--and the most common vehicles I see I see in the ditch after a nice snow storm are full size pickup trucks and SUVs. Mean while I'm driving by (with great mirth on my face) in my small front-wheel drive family sedan. If I get into 6"+ snow I just throw some chains on and off I go.
There was more of an effect than just people driving less. Check out the 2012 model year cars and those promised through 2014. Detroit steel went from crap MPGs to getting 30+ even on muscle cars. GM finally has an electric in production (even if it isn't practical). The field appears to be getting flooded with them (more practical ones) by 2014. As for the MPG boosted cars they're actually as cheap or cheaper than their predecessors and in stark contrast to whining excuses we were given as to why they weren't producing them before.
That's all right. We're spending more than $1T/year to keep the area well cratered and generally impotent. Speaking of which I see Iran is next on the todo list...
I have a hard time with that. We live in a world where "because f**k you is why" is the attitude of far too many people. Far, far too many. The libertarian ideal of "the government can piss off and get the hell out of my life" leaves open an unimaginably large chasm that ought to be occupied by societal responsibility, harmony and equality. To remove government as the modulator of behavior will see anarchy, chaos and destruction fall in to replace it. Everyone doing what's right in their own eyes cannot sustain a functional society. Some may think rape is OK because "really it's just good fun and that's what women were made for right?", others dumping toxic waste into rivers isn't a problem, I'll drive 90MPH down the highway and ignore red lights if I think the intersection is clear. etc. etc.
Nobody will ever agree with every behavior the government chooses modulate. That's obvious, but without a conductor the symphony is just going to break down into a discordant mess. As members of that society it is our responsibility to be educated, and provide intelligent, well thought out feedback to the government doing the modulating. This regrettably is often the missing component.
The U.S. military might is indeed awesome. However, there's one little snag. That might is comprised of and inextricably dependent upon force multiplying hardware that is equally awesome in terms of cost and complexity. Cost that cannot be maintained absent financial assistance from China. Complexity that ensures a very substantial incident of failure mode operation. The U.S. never learned the lessons of Vietnam such as that of the AK-47 vs. the M16. While more expensive, in many categories the M16 technically outclasses the AK-47. But get the M16 wet it jams, the AK-47 keeps firing, drive over it the M16 shatters, the AK-47 keeps firing, get it dirty, the M16 doesn't work, the AK-47 keeps firing. Or, take the million dollar tank vs. a $30 anti-tank mine.
The U.S. cannot sustain wars against third-world nations much less the first. Sure the U.S. can blow massive craters into the sand and demonstrate that glorious "shock and awe" Bush liked to go on about but not without an equal shock to its economy. I wonder how long China will finance the U.S.' if it steps on the wrong toes. The U.S. is nothing but a paper tiger and various nations that once cowed in fear are starting to realize it.
Oh, also forgot to mention that the CIWS systems are near worthless for multi-inbound due to their limited ammo capacity. Once again, another case of throwing a few thousand dollars out the window to cost the U.S. a few billion.
U.S. anti-missile technology has always been "iffy" at best and I have yet to hear of a successful test that didn't stack the deck in favor of the anti-missile hardware. The spray from the M61A1 Vulcan travels at 3600 feet per second and well below the velocity of a hypersonic cruise missile making interception an "interesting challenge" since the Phalanx was designed for slow flying birds (a good way to keep bird crap off the deck I'm told) typically aircraft.
The Phalanx was demonstrated a failure against what was believed to be an Iranian made C-802 Chinese anti-ship missile in 2006 when Hezbollah successfully attacked the Israeli Hanit. The official line of course is that the anti-missile systems were turned off in spite this running contrary to standard operating procedure even during peace-time war games such as was the case here. Believe what you want I guess.
And depending upon where you are seated this means that you can see exactly the same thing as you would 8-10ft from a 55 - 60" LCD plus a little picture noise from projecting onto a wall. Or, you see less since you are too far away for a proper placement in your FOV. Or you see a partial view because the FOV of your eyeballs doesn't go that wide and you have a sore, stiff neck in the morning from craning it up to look at the screen 20-30 feet in front of you.
60 feet or 60 inches, it really doesn't make much difference if you are sitting the proper distance away such that your field of view is comfortably filled with the movie on display.
I bought a nice 55" LED backlit TV, fancy Bluray player, a comfy couch for ~$3500 and give Netflix $25/month for discs and streaming delivered right to me. My wife and I can watch what ever we want to watch nearly whenever we want to watch it. We can pause a movie to answer a call (of nature or phone), replay something missed, drink beer, wine, water, etc., enjoy eating popcorn, chips, supper, or even each other if the mood strikes.
In return we give up sore necks from looking straight up at a screen too close and too big to even see properly, noisy, rude and generally obnoxious neighbors, spending $5 for a drink to share, $10 for popcorn, $20 for two tickets, ticket lines, food lines, immediate access to the latest released movies, slightly (debatable) better sound. Even from a money angle it only took about a year and a half to recover what would have been spent at the theater. But what's more, we get to see far more movies, and have a far more enjoyable experience each time. The money being saved allow us to go out on dates and do things that we wouldn't have otherwise.
Even if theaters made things far more reasonably priced we'd still need something else to convince us to partake. We can't stand the greed nor the atmosphere that theaters have evolved into. There are far better things to spend our time and money on. The sh*tty tactics of movie houses delaying releases for Netflix and co. only sour our perspective further. I'm not going to open my wallet just because they want me to.
As the saying goes, "Give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself." From what I can see this guy has been given plenty by the Internet community. The guy just doesn't get it. He is the quintessential a**hole and every response he makes--even his apologies--demonstrates that.
"It hasn't affected my business yet," he said. "Clients have brought it up, but they've mainly laughed about it. I haven't lost any clients."
A humorous gaff and life goes on eh?
"He called me a bully, but he was being a bully... especially when he emailed me out of the blue, saying 'That's f***ing s***ty, you're banned from PAX,' I was like 'Who the f*** are you? That's how you introduce yourself?... I dont want to call him out, but he could have gone about that a totally different way, he could have said, 'Hey, I run the show, that email was a little unprofessional, if you don't do something to apologize I don't want you at my show.' But he just came at me and said, indirectly, 'Hey, f*** you, you're banned from PAX.' Is that what you'd call professional? I wouldn't."
"How unreasonable of Mike to call my actions out? I thought you were part of the "old boys club" of business. F* the customer and laugh all the way to the bank. How can you seriously take the side of the customer? Sure, I insulted your web site and your show but seriously? You're going to ban me from PAX for that? That's not professional, old boys club remember?"
"Not that I don't have respect for anybody, but if someone's badmouthing me or being a little punk or being a jerk, they don't deserve respect," he said. "You can't expect to go up and say 'Hey you piece of s***,' and expect respect. Send an email, introduce yourself.... I trust everybody until they give me a reason not to respect them. I'm not a tough guy, not a bully, but at same time not going to take s*** if it's uncalled for.
Asking for an update on the expected delivery date must have been a good reason...
Not to put anyone down, but I don't know what kind of lives these people have.... Ultimately it doesn't affect the way I think about anybody. I don't have any hate or bad will for them, but it's a little bit sad that they didn't have anything better to do than attack me."
I submit for your consideration "The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" as the future target, and evidence of this direction may be found in V-Readers and similar devices (of which my nieces refuse to put down in spite the need for food and sleep, or attempts of bribery).
You don't run MS technology on server hardware unless you are willing to pay for more of it. In a lot of ways its actually pretty good technology with respect to what it enables you to accomplish with minimal developer effort, but at the same time, it's also very heavy. Linux is not.
I'm not certain about this particular one but Toshiba and NEC have been working on technology to replaces batteries in laptop/mobile device with integrated fuel cells for well over a decade now. This is most definitely not new but I also don't think they care too much or are thinking about that. I think it's just another example of a company with a large budget throwing things at the wall to see what sticks down at the patent office. The defensibility of a patent is of course an important facet but it isn't the only thing that makes it valuable. It costs money to get patents thrown out. Lots of it. Companies are often very guilty of conceding to the demands of the hostage takers and terrorist instead of battling it out to prove what is right and what is wrong in court. Small start-ups don't have the cash to fight an Apple in court. Even if it's pretty obvious they have an air tight case. Larger companies just throw a wad of money at them in exchange for a license to use the tech. Apple's don't have to have good and meritous patents they just need to have patents that are cheaper to license than to fight in court.
Natural lighting is good if strategically placed and diffused to raise the general ambient level. In general though keep those obnoxious old-school fluorescent tube lights to a modest minimum (if at all). They're hell on the eyes, especially if not bounced off a ceiling first. Let them do the job of minimal ambient and save the workspace lighting tasks for point lighting fixtures.
As for environment, light colored wood (think bamboo), some greenery, and pictures--actual props even if possible--themed from the history of computing. Avoid long rows of computer stations. Think small groups or short lines. For instance lecture space up front, short lines of three workstations facing angled to the outside on either side of an aisle such that you can walk up and down and easily see the screens but the students don't have to unnaturally twist all the way around to follow you up at the front.
You can play those kinds of games with power from the grid as well so it's probably a mute point. Either way, few would argue whether it's a net savings or an added expense of about $100/month that a luxury sedan shoppable against a BMW 535i is a very difficult choice to ignore a sufficient reason to make a number of companies nervous.
Out of curiosity how would your petrol cost per fill up stack up against a ~$5 battery charge? You might find locating the extra 10K easier than you think.
Well there's an interesting wrinkle to EVs that make them more affordable than their sticker price would initially suggest. That being the cost to drive them. Maintenance is of course cheaper since there's fewer moving parts, no oil to changes, etc.. But most importantly there's no $3.50+/gal gasoline to buy. Compare a $40-60/tank fill up for typical family sedan to a less than $5 from the grid battery charge. Over the life of that vehicle the total cost to own and operate an EV gets a whole lot more attractive and affordable.
I never suggested they were. But they are also not exclusive to "rich" people unless the definition of "rich" is being scoped at around $75K+/year. There is also a significant number of "median income" people grabbing them on the secondary market and plenty of lower income folks snapping up the 15+ year old models.
I did use the "Western world" as a qualifier for a reason. In any case for comparison purposes this car would be shoppable against a BMW 535i or Lexus GS. Fit yourself as you like against that.
There are supply issues (no infrastructure both on the source and dispense), there are range issues--similar to a Tesla style EV and more like a battery only Volt or Leaf on a retrofit), there are horse-power issues, cold weather starting issues, and there are no consumer safe fill the tank solutions. Further, any kind of compressed/liquified gas solution would require strict and frequent inspection to remain safe. CNG/LP was probably the best alternative back in the 1970's when we were hit with the so-called gas crisis but it isn't the only nor best (out of the box) alternative today.
80% quick charges for EVs generally are down in the 10-15 minute range. No, that's not 2 minutes (what the hell do you drive anyway and 40+ gallon tank SUV?) but you might wish to look at it from a slightly different angle. 10-15 minutes and less than $5 for off the grid power, or 2 minutes and $3.50+ per gallon for gas/diesel. It's a habit changes certainly, but not many people value the 10 or so minutes saved at $100.
Yes and no. Obviously "rich guy" is a relative term but there are plenty of people who plunk down $40K on full-size pickup trucks and SUVs that are firmly seated in the middle of the middle-class. Is it a wise choice given alternatives? Debatable. But the $50K base model is definitely not a "rich guy toy" just a white-collar guy toy.
I'm a software engineer and not what most people in the Western world would call rich, just "comfortable" in my income. I'm actually giving the car serious consideration for purchase in a few years after the lease expires on the next car I'm getting in a month or two. By then hopefully the bugs will be more or less ironed out and production ramped up so there isn't a year long waiting list like their Roadster--a car for which few people would argue against is a rich-guy toy.
Visual C++ is not 100% the same as ANSI C++, syntax highlighting, as well as code validation and navigation will be for the former. This has the potential to be a point of irritation.
You will lose integrated debugging and be forced to use a GDB derivative or compatible. If you're from the camp that sees value in it, this also means among other things no more "edit and continue".
You will be forced to manage your own make files. Third party utilities can simplify this but it will involve more effort.
Builds will now have to be launched via command line or by third party tool.
I'm sure if I took more time to think about it I'd be able to come up with a healthy dose of others but suffice it to say, The majority of what sets Visual Studio apart from a glorified text editor with C++ syntax highlighting (think TextPad or Emacs) is lost. If you really want to do Windows development with the GNU toolset then you would be well advised to ditch Visual Studio and use Eclipse with the C++ plugin which is actually capable of leveraging the toolset. It's free and open-source, with quality and capabilities easily competing with the top commercial tools for the platform. If you're itching to spend money and the GNU toolset isn't important then go with C++ Builder.
I'm assuming you're craving minimal hassle cross-platform (Windows, Linux, etc.) build capabilities and that's why you want to use GCC and such but still do your dev work in Windows. Usually people go the other way around and use their *NIX environment for their cross-platform dev work. To each their own I guess... Either way you'd do well with Eclipse over VS.
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That's funny. I do live in a heavy snow area--Minnesota--and the most common vehicles I see I see in the ditch after a nice snow storm are full size pickup trucks and SUVs. Mean while I'm driving by (with great mirth on my face) in my small front-wheel drive family sedan. If I get into 6"+ snow I just throw some chains on and off I go.
There was more of an effect than just people driving less. Check out the 2012 model year cars and those promised through 2014. Detroit steel went from crap MPGs to getting 30+ even on muscle cars. GM finally has an electric in production (even if it isn't practical). The field appears to be getting flooded with them (more practical ones) by 2014. As for the MPG boosted cars they're actually as cheap or cheaper than their predecessors and in stark contrast to whining excuses we were given as to why they weren't producing them before.
That's all right. We're spending more than $1T/year to keep the area well cratered and generally impotent. Speaking of which I see Iran is next on the todo list...
I have a hard time with that. We live in a world where "because f**k you is why" is the attitude of far too many people. Far, far too many. The libertarian ideal of "the government can piss off and get the hell out of my life" leaves open an unimaginably large chasm that ought to be occupied by societal responsibility, harmony and equality. To remove government as the modulator of behavior will see anarchy, chaos and destruction fall in to replace it. Everyone doing what's right in their own eyes cannot sustain a functional society. Some may think rape is OK because "really it's just good fun and that's what women were made for right?", others dumping toxic waste into rivers isn't a problem, I'll drive 90MPH down the highway and ignore red lights if I think the intersection is clear. etc. etc.
Nobody will ever agree with every behavior the government chooses modulate. That's obvious, but without a conductor the symphony is just going to break down into a discordant mess. As members of that society it is our responsibility to be educated, and provide intelligent, well thought out feedback to the government doing the modulating. This regrettably is often the missing component.
He was talking about war games. Last I knew we were never at war with Australia nor Sweden.
The U.S. military might is indeed awesome. However, there's one little snag. That might is comprised of and inextricably dependent upon force multiplying hardware that is equally awesome in terms of cost and complexity. Cost that cannot be maintained absent financial assistance from China. Complexity that ensures a very substantial incident of failure mode operation. The U.S. never learned the lessons of Vietnam such as that of the AK-47 vs. the M16. While more expensive, in many categories the M16 technically outclasses the AK-47. But get the M16 wet it jams, the AK-47 keeps firing, drive over it the M16 shatters, the AK-47 keeps firing, get it dirty, the M16 doesn't work, the AK-47 keeps firing. Or, take the million dollar tank vs. a $30 anti-tank mine.
The U.S. cannot sustain wars against third-world nations much less the first. Sure the U.S. can blow massive craters into the sand and demonstrate that glorious "shock and awe" Bush liked to go on about but not without an equal shock to its economy. I wonder how long China will finance the U.S.' if it steps on the wrong toes. The U.S. is nothing but a paper tiger and various nations that once cowed in fear are starting to realize it.
Oh, also forgot to mention that the CIWS systems are near worthless for multi-inbound due to their limited ammo capacity. Once again, another case of throwing a few thousand dollars out the window to cost the U.S. a few billion.
U.S. anti-missile technology has always been "iffy" at best and I have yet to hear of a successful test that didn't stack the deck in favor of the anti-missile hardware. The spray from the M61A1 Vulcan travels at 3600 feet per second and well below the velocity of a hypersonic cruise missile making interception an "interesting challenge" since the Phalanx was designed for slow flying birds (a good way to keep bird crap off the deck I'm told) typically aircraft.
The Phalanx was demonstrated a failure against what was believed to be an Iranian made C-802 Chinese anti-ship missile in 2006 when Hezbollah successfully attacked the Israeli Hanit. The official line of course is that the anti-missile systems were turned off in spite this running contrary to standard operating procedure even during peace-time war games such as was the case here. Believe what you want I guess.
And depending upon where you are seated this means that you can see exactly the same thing as you would 8-10ft from a 55 - 60" LCD plus a little picture noise from projecting onto a wall. Or, you see less since you are too far away for a proper placement in your FOV. Or you see a partial view because the FOV of your eyeballs doesn't go that wide and you have a sore, stiff neck in the morning from craning it up to look at the screen 20-30 feet in front of you.
60 feet or 60 inches, it really doesn't make much difference if you are sitting the proper distance away such that your field of view is comfortably filled with the movie on display.
I bought a nice 55" LED backlit TV, fancy Bluray player, a comfy couch for ~$3500 and give Netflix $25/month for discs and streaming delivered right to me. My wife and I can watch what ever we want to watch nearly whenever we want to watch it. We can pause a movie to answer a call (of nature or phone), replay something missed, drink beer, wine, water, etc., enjoy eating popcorn, chips, supper, or even each other if the mood strikes.
In return we give up sore necks from looking straight up at a screen too close and too big to even see properly, noisy, rude and generally obnoxious neighbors, spending $5 for a drink to share, $10 for popcorn, $20 for two tickets, ticket lines, food lines, immediate access to the latest released movies, slightly (debatable) better sound. Even from a money angle it only took about a year and a half to recover what would have been spent at the theater. But what's more, we get to see far more movies, and have a far more enjoyable experience each time. The money being saved allow us to go out on dates and do things that we wouldn't have otherwise.
Even if theaters made things far more reasonably priced we'd still need something else to convince us to partake. We can't stand the greed nor the atmosphere that theaters have evolved into. There are far better things to spend our time and money on. The sh*tty tactics of movie houses delaying releases for Netflix and co. only sour our perspective further. I'm not going to open my wallet just because they want me to.
As the saying goes, "Give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself." From what I can see this guy has been given plenty by the Internet community. The guy just doesn't get it. He is the quintessential a**hole and every response he makes--even his apologies--demonstrates that.
"It hasn't affected my business yet," he said. "Clients have brought it up, but they've mainly laughed about it. I haven't lost any clients."
A humorous gaff and life goes on eh?
"He called me a bully, but he was being a bully ... especially when he emailed me out of the blue, saying 'That's f***ing s***ty, you're banned from PAX,' I was like 'Who the f*** are you? That's how you introduce yourself? ... I dont want to call him out, but he could have gone about that a totally different way, he could have said, 'Hey, I run the show, that email was a little unprofessional, if you don't do something to apologize I don't want you at my show.' But he just came at me and said, indirectly, 'Hey, f*** you, you're banned from PAX.' Is that what you'd call professional? I wouldn't."
"How unreasonable of Mike to call my actions out? I thought you were part of the "old boys club" of business. F* the customer and laugh all the way to the bank. How can you seriously take the side of the customer? Sure, I insulted your web site and your show but seriously? You're going to ban me from PAX for that? That's not professional, old boys club remember?"
"Not that I don't have respect for anybody, but if someone's badmouthing me or being a little punk or being a jerk, they don't deserve respect," he said. "You can't expect to go up and say 'Hey you piece of s***,' and expect respect. Send an email, introduce yourself. ... I trust everybody until they give me a reason not to respect them. I'm not a tough guy, not a bully, but at same time not going to take s*** if it's uncalled for.
Asking for an update on the expected delivery date must have been a good reason...
Not to put anyone down, but I don't know what kind of lives these people have. ... Ultimately it doesn't affect the way I think about anybody. I don't have any hate or bad will for them, but it's a little bit sad that they didn't have anything better to do than attack me."
I submit for your consideration "The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" as the future target, and evidence of this direction may be found in V-Readers and similar devices (of which my nieces refuse to put down in spite the need for food and sleep, or attempts of bribery).
You don't run MS technology on server hardware unless you are willing to pay for more of it. In a lot of ways its actually pretty good technology with respect to what it enables you to accomplish with minimal developer effort, but at the same time, it's also very heavy. Linux is not.
I'm not certain about this particular one but Toshiba and NEC have been working on technology to replaces batteries in laptop/mobile device with integrated fuel cells for well over a decade now. This is most definitely not new but I also don't think they care too much or are thinking about that. I think it's just another example of a company with a large budget throwing things at the wall to see what sticks down at the patent office. The defensibility of a patent is of course an important facet but it isn't the only thing that makes it valuable. It costs money to get patents thrown out. Lots of it. Companies are often very guilty of conceding to the demands of the hostage takers and terrorist instead of battling it out to prove what is right and what is wrong in court. Small start-ups don't have the cash to fight an Apple in court. Even if it's pretty obvious they have an air tight case. Larger companies just throw a wad of money at them in exchange for a license to use the tech. Apple's don't have to have good and meritous patents they just need to have patents that are cheaper to license than to fight in court.
Natural lighting is good if strategically placed and diffused to raise the general ambient level. In general though keep those obnoxious old-school fluorescent tube lights to a modest minimum (if at all). They're hell on the eyes, especially if not bounced off a ceiling first. Let them do the job of minimal ambient and save the workspace lighting tasks for point lighting fixtures.
As for environment, light colored wood (think bamboo), some greenery, and pictures--actual props even if possible--themed from the history of computing. Avoid long rows of computer stations. Think small groups or short lines. For instance lecture space up front, short lines of three workstations facing angled to the outside on either side of an aisle such that you can walk up and down and easily see the screens but the students don't have to unnaturally twist all the way around to follow you up at the front.
You're right. I have three 24" 1080p monitors.
You can play those kinds of games with power from the grid as well so it's probably a mute point. Either way, few would argue whether it's a net savings or an added expense of about $100/month that a luxury sedan shoppable against a BMW 535i is a very difficult choice to ignore a sufficient reason to make a number of companies nervous.
Out of curiosity how would your petrol cost per fill up stack up against a ~$5 battery charge? You might find locating the extra 10K easier than you think.
Well there's an interesting wrinkle to EVs that make them more affordable than their sticker price would initially suggest. That being the cost to drive them. Maintenance is of course cheaper since there's fewer moving parts, no oil to changes, etc.. But most importantly there's no $3.50+/gal gasoline to buy. Compare a $40-60/tank fill up for typical family sedan to a less than $5 from the grid battery charge. Over the life of that vehicle the total cost to own and operate an EV gets a whole lot more attractive and affordable.
I never suggested they were. But they are also not exclusive to "rich" people unless the definition of "rich" is being scoped at around $75K+/year. There is also a significant number of "median income" people grabbing them on the secondary market and plenty of lower income folks snapping up the 15+ year old models.
I did use the "Western world" as a qualifier for a reason. In any case for comparison purposes this car would be shoppable against a BMW 535i or Lexus GS. Fit yourself as you like against that.
There are supply issues (no infrastructure both on the source and dispense), there are range issues--similar to a Tesla style EV and more like a battery only Volt or Leaf on a retrofit), there are horse-power issues, cold weather starting issues, and there are no consumer safe fill the tank solutions. Further, any kind of compressed/liquified gas solution would require strict and frequent inspection to remain safe. CNG/LP was probably the best alternative back in the 1970's when we were hit with the so-called gas crisis but it isn't the only nor best (out of the box) alternative today.
80% quick charges for EVs generally are down in the 10-15 minute range. No, that's not 2 minutes (what the hell do you drive anyway and 40+ gallon tank SUV?) but you might wish to look at it from a slightly different angle. 10-15 minutes and less than $5 for off the grid power, or 2 minutes and $3.50+ per gallon for gas/diesel. It's a habit changes certainly, but not many people value the 10 or so minutes saved at $100.
Yes and no. Obviously "rich guy" is a relative term but there are plenty of people who plunk down $40K on full-size pickup trucks and SUVs that are firmly seated in the middle of the middle-class. Is it a wise choice given alternatives? Debatable. But the $50K base model is definitely not a "rich guy toy" just a white-collar guy toy.
I'm a software engineer and not what most people in the Western world would call rich, just "comfortable" in my income. I'm actually giving the car serious consideration for purchase in a few years after the lease expires on the next car I'm getting in a month or two. By then hopefully the bugs will be more or less ironed out and production ramped up so there isn't a year long waiting list like their Roadster--a car for which few people would argue against is a rich-guy toy.
Visual C++ is not 100% the same as ANSI C++, syntax highlighting, as well as code validation and navigation will be for the former. This has the potential to be a point of irritation.
You will lose integrated debugging and be forced to use a GDB derivative or compatible. If you're from the camp that sees value in it, this also means among other things no more "edit and continue".
You will be forced to manage your own make files. Third party utilities can simplify this but it will involve more effort.
Builds will now have to be launched via command line or by third party tool.
I'm sure if I took more time to think about it I'd be able to come up with a healthy dose of others but suffice it to say, The majority of what sets Visual Studio apart from a glorified text editor with C++ syntax highlighting (think TextPad or Emacs) is lost. If you really want to do Windows development with the GNU toolset then you would be well advised to ditch Visual Studio and use Eclipse with the C++ plugin which is actually capable of leveraging the toolset. It's free and open-source, with quality and capabilities easily competing with the top commercial tools for the platform. If you're itching to spend money and the GNU toolset isn't important then go with C++ Builder.
I'm assuming you're craving minimal hassle cross-platform (Windows, Linux, etc.) build capabilities and that's why you want to use GCC and such but still do your dev work in Windows. Usually people go the other way around and use their *NIX environment for their cross-platform dev work. To each their own I guess... Either way you'd do well with Eclipse over VS.