Manufacturers want a smaller standard for smaller devices. Having the same peripheral interface in your desktop, laptop and PDA would be very possible (at least physically:-) with cards the size of ExpressCard.
As far as speed goes, yes, CardBus is plenty fast enough for its current applications, but its limits will be reached in the near future (eg gigabit ethernet will max it out nicely). That's the point when you should ratify a faster standard, not when the lack of speed really starts to bite.
More to the point, many reference implementations and even single chip solutions for common peripherals (WLAN cards, modems, storage devices etc) already exist with USB or USB2 connectivity, whereas PCI-Express devices are somewhat rarer than hens' teeth right now. Implementing a USB2 interface allows the physical standard to be implemented and become widespread quickly. This also goes a little way towards explaining why USB was chosen over FireWire - how many FireWire WLAN adaptors have you seen recently?:-)
The point of PCCARD style interfaces is that they're for the peripherals that nobody's thought of yet. Which is why you can't think of them.
That point aside, my laptop didn't come with a wireless LAN card; the PCCARD slots allow me to add one. I also have a wired LAN card to replace the internal one that died and a compactflash card reader. Now, all of these components have been implemented as USB devices, but in all three cases the PCCARD implementation is smaller and easier to carry around, and I don't end up with devices dangling all over the place when I'm using it as a true laptop - on my lap in the car, on a bus, in departure lounges, etc.
If a device doesn't require external wires, and sometimes even if it does, the best place for it is inside the body of the laptop, in an expansion slot.
AFAIK motherboard manufacturers have a vanishingly small fraction of the case market. Are you suggesting a conspiracy where case manufacturers pay motherboard manufacturers to shift to BTX? If not, what are you suggestig?
Your definition of proportional representation is correct, yes. There are lots of ways of implementing it - and I mean *lots*. The most common way is basically what you suggest, and is called "open party list voting":
The country is divided up into a number of districts, which will each be represented by a number of legislators (maybe 6-8) in Parliament/Congress etc.
Each party puts forward a short list of candidates. Independants can put forward a list consisting of just themself.:-)
The ballot contains the name of every candidate on every list.
Voters select one candidate from the ballot.
The seats are distributed between the parties according to the number of votes they receive. This isn't unfair to independents - they only need to get enough votes to obtain one seat (eg if there are 8 seats, they only need 1/8 of the vote).
The seats allocated to each party are distributed *within* the party according to the number of votes each candidate in that party received.
IMO this is (almost) the best of all voting systems. It maintains the current system in America of voting for the candidate of your choice. It maintains the simplicity of putting a cross next to the name of the candidate of your choice on the ballot paper. As you comment, it introduces the possibility that you may end up represented by people in the party of your choice but with differing views to you, but is that really worse than ending up represented by people in a party *not* of your choice, which is already an option?
The oft-quoted drawbacks of PR are the following:
"You end up being represented by a number of legislators." Personally I don't see this as a problem - you can select the one most likely to listen to you:-)
"PR makes for 'wishy-washy' governments that can't make decisions." - this is very debatable. It's a fact that most governments elected by PR have to rule by consensus, and that alliances have to be formed that prevent one party from carrying out all its goals. Example: in an American PR system you might see the Democrats allying with the Greens to form a mostly Democrat government that agrees to stop oil-prospecting in Alaska. My point of view on the issue is that surely that kind of allience better reflects the will of the people than plural-majority systems which encourage overall majorities?
Of course, presidential elections are a bit different - US presidential elections could be made proportional just by eliminating the electoral college system that caused GWB to be elected despite coming second...
Oh and to qualify the "almost" I said earlier, my personal favourite electoral system would be open party list voting with single transferrable votes. I can't be bothered to explain the latter, so here's a link that also explains open party list voting in more detail:
...politics only works when enough folks can counteract the other side to only allow that which they both can agree to through.
This is why many European countries have proportional representation. I'm not saying that the US should switch to such a system, but it would certainly solve that particular problem.
That's *International* Talk Like A Pirate Day, please. Those of us who don't live in the USA have just as much right to make idiots of ourselves as you.;-)
the KDE guys made it inevitable when they chose to give two fingers to the philosophy that had made the free software movement possibly in the first place
Some would say that the confrontation started when the founders of GNOME decided to work on a competing desktop environment instead of a free replacement for Qt. The former was not "inevitable".
How does a higher throughput at airports reduce noise pollution? Making planes quieter *in general* is a very important area of research by 'plane manufacturers for that reason, but *no* passenger jet is going to go supersonic anywhere near the airports it takes off and lands at, so I really fail to see the thrust of your argument.
"Mission accomplished" depends on what the mission is. The requirements for a supersonic stealth fighter would be somewhat stricter than those for a supersonic passenger aeroplane, for example. And frankly the costs of R&D and of fuel are more of a hinderance to a new generation of the latter than noise problems.
CERN is (mostly) in Switzerland, but it's in no way Swiss. It's an international organisation, appropriately. It'd be fairer to call the web an invention by a Briton, I guess.
The submitter meant that the generally good compatibility of other office suites with Microsoft Office was a good reason to switch away from Microsoft.
The cameras in mobile phones use simple fixed-focus single-element lenses that are sufficiently wide that everything from about 50cm to infinity is in focus. What's the point of adding an unnecessary focussing mechanism - it'll just put the price of the phone up and add another mode of potential failure, without adding any worthwhile functionality.
I can see lots of useful appliations for a tiny linear motor, but I'm not convinced that this is one of them.
They're not a government agency, they're an independent non-profit-making organisation, with certain special rights granted them by the government (such as the mandatory license fee for all television-owning households). The difference is that unlike many broadcasters that actually are government-owned, the BBC has a duty to be politically neutral (and actually is..).
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you could mod your fibre transcievers with some l33t "dark light" UV lasers. Woot.
It's a colloquialism.
Manufacturers want a smaller standard for smaller devices. Having the same peripheral interface in your desktop, laptop and PDA would be very possible (at least physically :-) with cards the size of ExpressCard.
As far as speed goes, yes, CardBus is plenty fast enough for its current applications, but its limits will be reached in the near future (eg gigabit ethernet will max it out nicely). That's the point when you should ratify a faster standard, not when the lack of speed really starts to bite.
More to the point, many reference implementations and even single chip solutions for common peripherals (WLAN cards, modems, storage devices etc) already exist with USB or USB2 connectivity, whereas PCI-Express devices are somewhat rarer than hens' teeth right now. Implementing a USB2 interface allows the physical standard to be implemented and become widespread quickly. This also goes a little way towards explaining why USB was chosen over FireWire - how many FireWire WLAN adaptors have you seen recently? :-)
The point of PCCARD style interfaces is that they're for the peripherals that nobody's thought of yet. Which is why you can't think of them.
That point aside, my laptop didn't come with a wireless LAN card; the PCCARD slots allow me to add one. I also have a wired LAN card to replace the internal one that died and a compactflash card reader. Now, all of these components have been implemented as USB devices, but in all three cases the PCCARD implementation is smaller and easier to carry around, and I don't end up with devices dangling all over the place when I'm using it as a true laptop - on my lap in the car, on a bus, in departure lounges, etc.
If a device doesn't require external wires, and sometimes even if it does, the best place for it is inside the body of the laptop, in an expansion slot.
We have them in the UK already - the sight of ATMs showing an NT4 logon screen is not uncommon...
Something we call a "laser".
AFAIK motherboard manufacturers have a vanishingly small fraction of the case market. Are you suggesting a conspiracy where case manufacturers pay motherboard manufacturers to shift to BTX? If not, what are you suggestig?
More to the point, that quote was talking about system noise, not motherboard noise (as I read it).
IMO this is (almost) the best of all voting systems. It maintains the current system in America of voting for the candidate of your choice. It maintains the simplicity of putting a cross next to the name of the candidate of your choice on the ballot paper. As you comment, it introduces the possibility that you may end up represented by people in the party of your choice but with differing views to you, but is that really worse than ending up represented by people in a party *not* of your choice, which is already an option?
The oft-quoted drawbacks of PR are the following:
Of course, presidential elections are a bit different - US presidential elections could be made proportional just by eliminating the electoral college system that caused GWB to be elected despite coming second...
Oh and to qualify the "almost" I said earlier, my personal favourite electoral system would be open party list voting with single transferrable votes. I can't be bothered to explain the latter, so here's a link that also explains open party list voting in more detail:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/Beginnni
HTH
Our nuclear physics lecturer told us the critical mass of U235...
...politics only works when enough folks can counteract the other side to only allow that which they both can agree to through.
This is why many European countries have proportional representation. I'm not saying that the US should switch to such a system, but it would certainly solve that particular problem.
That's *International* Talk Like A Pirate Day, please. Those of us who don't live in the USA have just as much right to make idiots of ourselves as you. ;-)
the KDE guys made it inevitable when they chose to give two fingers to the philosophy that had made the free software movement possibly in the first place
Some would say that the confrontation started when the founders of GNOME decided to work on a competing desktop environment instead of a free replacement for Qt. The former was not "inevitable".
How does a higher throughput at airports reduce noise pollution? Making planes quieter *in general* is a very important area of research by 'plane manufacturers for that reason, but *no* passenger jet is going to go supersonic anywhere near the airports it takes off and lands at, so I really fail to see the thrust of your argument.
"Mission accomplished" depends on what the mission is. The requirements for a supersonic stealth fighter would be somewhat stricter than those for a supersonic passenger aeroplane, for example. And frankly the costs of R&D and of fuel are more of a hinderance to a new generation of the latter than noise problems.
Yes, and the Ministry of Peace, and the Department of Homeland Security... ;-)
If you can afford a 150,000 GBP amphibious car, you probably don't need to lose sleep over the congestion charge.
On racetracks it can.
CERN is (mostly) in Switzerland, but it's in no way Swiss. It's an international organisation, appropriately. It'd be fairer to call the web an invention by a Briton, I guess.
It's ok, Funny doesn't give you karma any more, so neither you nor he will benefit from this thread ;-)
The submitter meant that the generally good compatibility of other office suites with Microsoft Office was a good reason to switch away from Microsoft.
The cameras in mobile phones use simple fixed-focus single-element lenses that are sufficiently wide that everything from about 50cm to infinity is in focus. What's the point of adding an unnecessary focussing mechanism - it'll just put the price of the phone up and add another mode of potential failure, without adding any worthwhile functionality.
I can see lots of useful appliations for a tiny linear motor, but I'm not convinced that this is one of them.
That's not new - the Dell Inspiron 4000 I'm typing this post on has a 14" 1400x1050 display and it's two years old now... no dead pixels either :-)
They're not a government agency, they're an independent non-profit-making organisation, with certain special rights granted them by the government (such as the mandatory license fee for all television-owning households). The difference is that unlike many broadcasters that actually are government-owned, the BBC has a duty to be politically neutral (and actually is..).