Think about what you just said, though... cheaper fuel costs, faster transportation, and more direct travel routes. With those three factors, plus the novelty of flying, a flying vehicle would increase the amount of traveling that the average person does.
I live four hours away from the Atlantic Ocean. I'll get over there maybe once or twice a year. Maybe. If I could fly there in an hour or less, and at a cheaper cost, I'd be there at least once a month, from Spring through Fall. Or I'd get the mountains more often. Or I'd visit some of the other big cities near me that currently require a day of driving to reach. If I had a flying vehicle, I would log some serious hours on the thing, let me tell ya.
It's just like when scientists in the 1950's said that the age of computers would result in more leisure time for the average person. And sure, that would have been true if the world had maintained the status quo. But the reality is that computers have revolutionized the workforce, and resulted in people working longer hours because business has gotten a lot more competitive as a result. In the same way, personal flying vehicles will revolutionize society in ways that are both obvious and unforseen. And there would definitely be an increase in travel.
Having said all of that... the reason that I don't think that flying cars will ever take off (HA!) is the regulatory nightmare that would envelop that industry. Right now, I have an hour commute in heavy traffic. I spend a lot of time just sitting, or creeping along at 5 mph. And people are cutting each other off, and just acting crazy because they're late for work. Now imagine all of those vehicles suddenly airborne during rush hour. The number of accidents would go up a thousandfold. Drivers are having to avoid objects in three dimensions instead of just two. And the number of fatalities would similarly skyrocket. Most people walk away from a fender-bender between two cars; two drivers would be lucky to survive a fender-bender in the air.
The ONLY kind of flying transportation system that would work for the general public would be one that is completely automated. Take all of the driving and the traffic avoidance and the navigation out of the hands of the people in the vehicle, and let it be totally computerized. Tell the car where you want to go, and then sit back and relax.
Also, I think that cities would be the last to embrace flying cars. Rural areas would allow it, simply because there's fewer objects to hit, and far less danger. And even when cities did embrace flying cars, it would probably take longer for the commutes because the navigational system would have to be a lot more cautious.
But then again, wouldn't it make more sense to automate ground vehicles first? That would be almost as revolutionary as flying vehicles, and probably easier to implement.
Based on the volume of indiscriminately-sent porn spam that is emailed everyday, the likelyhood that the porn industry would willingly subject themselves to a.XXX TLD that would allow them to be easily filtered is close to zero.
I'm not saying that the industry wouldn't use.xxx -- they would. But they would also keep all of the.COM addresses, particularly the ones that are intended to fool people into accidentally surfing to them (e.g., whitehouse.com).
I mean, fer cryin out loud, there was a porn guy a couple of years ago who was using domains that were mispellings of DISNEY sites. Do you honestly think that people like that will play by the rules and convert all of their.com's to.xxx? Absolutely not.
Besides, has anyone actually survey the porn website industry to see if they are WILLING to convert from.com to.xxx?
I'd love to see.xxx work, but censorship and the internet go together like oil and, uh... something that doesn't mix with oil.
I'm not a graphics developer, but this sounds like Apple is doing something similar to DirectX. I notice in the sidebar, however, that they are still committed to OpenGL.
Half-Life was delivered on paper tape, in several 50 lb boxes. And if the paper tape tore while you were reading it in, then you just didn't get that weapon or that sound effect.
There was a story on Slashdot a few years back about a guy who got a non-conducting liquid (I think he used mineral oil), cooled it and submerged his motherboard in it. It worked great -- for about half an hour. The problem was that, on a stock motherboard, there are lots of pieces that had to be plugged together (plug the video card into the AGP slot, plug the power into the motherboard, etc), and the oil eventually seeped in and coated all of the contact surfaces, disrupting the connections.
Moral of the story was, to do submersive cooling, EVERY connection has to be soldered down.
They do sound interesting. I wouldn't mind seeing any of those, either, nor would I mind exposing my kids to them, so long as the programs don't outright mock what I believe. I would view it as an opportunity to discuss with my kids what I believe and why I believe it. Ultimately, my kids have to decide for themselves what they believe about the world around them.
I don't think that evangelical Christians, by and large, are afraid of the marketplace of ideas. They are used to being the underdog in an ideological war.
If you look at the public struggles between creationists and evolutionists, the creationists who represent the mainstream Evangelical thought are not trying to remove evolution, they would just like the teaching of evolution to acknowledge that it is not a proven fact, and that there are other schools of thought, an in particular, the possibility of intelligent design.
As a creationist, I do *not* want the teaching of religion in the public school classroom. Public school teachers have a wide variety of religious beliefs, so what would be the guarantee that they would represent the Christian belief? I rather not even go there.
connecting to the iTMS with a program other than iTunes is a violation of the agreement, and likely nullifies your purchase/ownership. Using this program to "buy" music is probably no more legal than downloading the music off of Kazaa.
I think it's a pretty fascinating story how people and media companies are using the internet to promote themselves in very sneaky ways.
* Movie sites like aintitcoolnews.com routinely get "reviews" from movie companies trying to promote their own works (case in point, the number of positive pre-screening reviews for Be Cool, a really awful film)
* Paris Hilton's sex video leaks to the internet. Ooops! It gives her career such a boost that a second one "accidentally" leaks.
* Music companies, the sworn enemies of P2P file sharing, recover a lot of marketing data by routinely monitoring P2P traffic as a gauge of market tastes and artist popularity.
* The Blair Witch Project was famously promoted by creating bogus info sites, detailing the "legend" of the Blair Witch.
* How many people promote their own websites or products by submitting a story to Slashdot that casually mentions their site in the writeup? Too many to count!
I think that that was the point. Google was trying to capitalize on the word-of-mouth thing to build up their user base. By the end, they put a little form field box on my GMail page and told me that I could invite 50 of my closest friends.
Ummm... yeah.
That's like when you see those cubic zirconium rings advertised on TV, and they say, "There's a strict limit of five per caller!" (It always makes me want to call and order six, just to see if they'd do it. They probably would.)
From the looks of the pictures on the website, I'm guessing that the stromtroopers they used were fans who happened to bring their own stormtrooper armor. Which would be fine, except that one seems a little too tall, and another is very short.
On Bespin: "Hey check out those stormtroopers! They look a little odd..." On Tatooine: "Uhhh... aren't those the same... naah!" On Coruscant: "It's those same three stormtroopers again! Wow, those guys get around!"
Of the 10-15 songs on a CD, unless it's a "Greatest Hits" album, most of those songs are going to be filler, anyway. It's rare that an artist produces an album that, if you had to buy all of the songs individually, you would pay 99 cents for each one of them. iTMS gives you the option of buying the best songs and leaving the dross.
EV was a great game, I spent many hours playing it.
As far as influences go, though, EV always seemed to me to be a direct descendent of that old BBS game, TradeWars 2002. Without the online aspect, of course. But there were a lot of similarlities in the commerce part of the game.
is that the maketing position for the Mac Mini is to convert Windows iPod users who are sold on the Apple brand but think even the iMacs are too expensive.
Who, exactly, is the target market for the x86 Mini? PC's are already dirt cheap, and we know that shrinking down the form factor like that will only raise the price over existing desktop PC's. They aren't going to convert Mac users, because Mac users a) don't buy on price alone, and b) already have a Mac option in that category, so they will buy the Mac Mini.
Logically, for Intel to compete against the Mac Mini, they need to develop an iPod killer, not another desktop system.
IMO, Lucas is terrified that this movie is going to be a flop, and that he'll be remembered for the worst sci-fi triliogy ever, not the best. I can't believe how much info they've released on the movie already. They've leaked the entire plotline, they've leaked a bazillion photos, they've even released the opening crawl. Now they're going to open Cannes.
Fox and Lucas are definitely kicking the hype machine into high-gear on this one. I sure hope it lives up the the hype.
There's an opportunity cost associated with it, though. Opportunity cost is the cost of the next best alternative that you are giving up. In this case, it would be the amount that Fox Studios would have made by running the trailer on another network.
Money may not have changed hands, but this was by no means "free".
Yeah, but they certainly wouldn't be the first company to commit a public farce in order to increase the wealth of existing shareholders, especially if they looked at the fruit of all their R&D and realized that, for all the money that was invested in them, they had nothing.
If it sounds too good to be true... (you know the rest).
This isn't about being FREE, this is about being able to modify and compile the code for your own use, and about being able to fix bugs and security holes and submit those changes to Microsoft for inclusion in the codebase. Being FREE helps the product to increase its visibility so that more developers will work with it (at least, from the developer's point of view), but the size of the installed base isn't a problem for SQL Server.
Being able to look at select chunks of code but not being able to modify anything or recompile is of nominal value. I'm really not sure why anyone would want to do that. It sounds more like a PR initiative, so that MS can technically say that they've embraced "open source".
Slashdot Mirror
Think about what you just said, though... cheaper fuel costs, faster transportation, and more direct travel routes. With those three factors, plus the novelty of flying, a flying vehicle would increase the amount of traveling that the average person does.
I live four hours away from the Atlantic Ocean. I'll get over there maybe once or twice a year. Maybe. If I could fly there in an hour or less, and at a cheaper cost, I'd be there at least once a month, from Spring through Fall. Or I'd get the mountains more often. Or I'd visit some of the other big cities near me that currently require a day of driving to reach. If I had a flying vehicle, I would log some serious hours on the thing, let me tell ya.
It's just like when scientists in the 1950's said that the age of computers would result in more leisure time for the average person. And sure, that would have been true if the world had maintained the status quo. But the reality is that computers have revolutionized the workforce, and resulted in people working longer hours because business has gotten a lot more competitive as a result. In the same way, personal flying vehicles will revolutionize society in ways that are both obvious and unforseen. And there would definitely be an increase in travel.
Having said all of that... the reason that I don't think that flying cars will ever take off (HA!) is the regulatory nightmare that would envelop that industry. Right now, I have an hour commute in heavy traffic. I spend a lot of time just sitting, or creeping along at 5 mph. And people are cutting each other off, and just acting crazy because they're late for work. Now imagine all of those vehicles suddenly airborne during rush hour. The number of accidents would go up a thousandfold. Drivers are having to avoid objects in three dimensions instead of just two. And the number of fatalities would similarly skyrocket. Most people walk away from a fender-bender between two cars; two drivers would be lucky to survive a fender-bender in the air.
The ONLY kind of flying transportation system that would work for the general public would be one that is completely automated. Take all of the driving and the traffic avoidance and the navigation out of the hands of the people in the vehicle, and let it be totally computerized. Tell the car where you want to go, and then sit back and relax.
Also, I think that cities would be the last to embrace flying cars. Rural areas would allow it, simply because there's fewer objects to hit, and far less danger. And even when cities did embrace flying cars, it would probably take longer for the commutes because the navigational system would have to be a lot more cautious.
But then again, wouldn't it make more sense to automate ground vehicles first? That would be almost as revolutionary as flying vehicles, and probably easier to implement.
I can see it now, replacing Majel Barrett with Doug MacKenzie.
Picard: Tea, earl grey, hot.
Computer: Hey, we're out of tea, but how 'bout some back bacon and beer, eh?
Ryker: Computer, locate Lt. Cmd. Data.
Computer: Go find him yourself, hoser. Take off, eh!
Based on the volume of indiscriminately-sent porn spam that is emailed everyday, the likelyhood that the porn industry would willingly subject themselves to a .XXX TLD that would allow them to be easily filtered is close to zero.
.xxx -- they would. But they would also keep all of the .COM addresses, particularly the ones that are intended to fool people into accidentally surfing to them (e.g., whitehouse.com).
.com's to .xxx? Absolutely not.
.com to .xxx?
.xxx work, but censorship and the internet go together like oil and, uh... something that doesn't mix with oil.
I'm not saying that the industry wouldn't use
I mean, fer cryin out loud, there was a porn guy a couple of years ago who was using domains that were mispellings of DISNEY sites. Do you honestly think that people like that will play by the rules and convert all of their
Besides, has anyone actually survey the porn website industry to see if they are WILLING to convert from
I'd love to see
I'm not a graphics developer, but this sounds like Apple is doing something similar to DirectX. I notice in the sidebar, however, that they are still committed to OpenGL.
Half-Life was delivered on paper tape, in several 50 lb boxes. And if the paper tape tore while you were reading it in, then you just didn't get that weapon or that sound effect.
Kids these days, they got it too easy...
There was a story on Slashdot a few years back about a guy who got a non-conducting liquid (I think he used mineral oil), cooled it and submerged his motherboard in it. It worked great -- for about half an hour. The problem was that, on a stock motherboard, there are lots of pieces that had to be plugged together (plug the video card into the AGP slot, plug the power into the motherboard, etc), and the oil eventually seeped in and coated all of the contact surfaces, disrupting the connections.
Moral of the story was, to do submersive cooling, EVERY connection has to be soldered down.
They do sound interesting. I wouldn't mind seeing any of those, either, nor would I mind exposing my kids to them, so long as the programs don't outright mock what I believe. I would view it as an opportunity to discuss with my kids what I believe and why I believe it. Ultimately, my kids have to decide for themselves what they believe about the world around them.
I don't think that evangelical Christians, by and large, are afraid of the marketplace of ideas. They are used to being the underdog in an ideological war.
If you look at the public struggles between creationists and evolutionists, the creationists who represent the mainstream Evangelical thought are not trying to remove evolution, they would just like the teaching of evolution to acknowledge that it is not a proven fact, and that there are other schools of thought, an in particular, the possibility of intelligent design.
As a creationist, I do *not* want the teaching of religion in the public school classroom. Public school teachers have a wide variety of religious beliefs, so what would be the guarantee that they would represent the Christian belief? I rather not even go there.
connecting to the iTMS with a program other than iTunes is a violation of the agreement, and likely nullifies your purchase/ownership. Using this program to "buy" music is probably no more legal than downloading the music off of Kazaa.
She doesn't work for money, she works for fame.
People are motivated by more than just dollar bills, you know.
I think it's a pretty fascinating story how people and media companies are using the internet to promote themselves in very sneaky ways.
* Movie sites like aintitcoolnews.com routinely get "reviews" from movie companies trying to promote their own works (case in point, the number of positive pre-screening reviews for Be Cool, a really awful film)
* Paris Hilton's sex video leaks to the internet. Ooops! It gives her career such a boost that a second one "accidentally" leaks.
* Music companies, the sworn enemies of P2P file sharing, recover a lot of marketing data by routinely monitoring P2P traffic as a gauge of market tastes and artist popularity.
* The Blair Witch Project was famously promoted by creating bogus info sites, detailing the "legend" of the Blair Witch.
* How many people promote their own websites or products by submitting a story to Slashdot that casually mentions their site in the writeup? Too many to count!
...it's like music for your eyes.
I think that that was the point. Google was trying to capitalize on the word-of-mouth thing to build up their user base. By the end, they put a little form field box on my GMail page and told me that I could invite 50 of my closest friends.
Ummm... yeah.
That's like when you see those cubic zirconium rings advertised on TV, and they say, "There's a strict limit of five per caller!" (It always makes me want to call and order six, just to see if they'd do it. They probably would.)
1) Japanese web page
2) Google translator
3) ??????
4) Profit!
From the looks of the pictures on the website, I'm guessing that the stromtroopers they used were fans who happened to bring their own stormtrooper armor. Which would be fine, except that one seems a little too tall, and another is very short.
On Bespin: "Hey check out those stormtroopers! They look a little odd..."
On Tatooine: "Uhhh... aren't those the same... naah!"
On Coruscant: "It's those same three stormtroopers again! Wow, those guys get around!"
Of the 10-15 songs on a CD, unless it's a "Greatest Hits" album, most of those songs are going to be filler, anyway. It's rare that an artist produces an album that, if you had to buy all of the songs individually, you would pay 99 cents for each one of them. iTMS gives you the option of buying the best songs and leaving the dross.
EV was a great game, I spent many hours playing it.
As far as influences go, though, EV always seemed to me to be a direct descendent of that old BBS game, TradeWars 2002. Without the online aspect, of course. But there were a lot of similarlities in the commerce part of the game.
is that the maketing position for the Mac Mini is to convert Windows iPod users who are sold on the Apple brand but think even the iMacs are too expensive.
Who, exactly, is the target market for the x86 Mini? PC's are already dirt cheap, and we know that shrinking down the form factor like that will only raise the price over existing desktop PC's. They aren't going to convert Mac users, because Mac users a) don't buy on price alone, and b) already have a Mac option in that category, so they will buy the Mac Mini.
Logically, for Intel to compete against the Mac Mini, they need to develop an iPod killer, not another desktop system.
IMO, Lucas is terrified that this movie is going to be a flop, and that he'll be remembered for the worst sci-fi triliogy ever, not the best. I can't believe how much info they've released on the movie already. They've leaked the entire plotline, they've leaked a bazillion photos, they've even released the opening crawl. Now they're going to open Cannes.
Fox and Lucas are definitely kicking the hype machine into high-gear on this one. I sure hope it lives up the the hype.
There's an opportunity cost associated with it, though. Opportunity cost is the cost of the next best alternative that you are giving up. In this case, it would be the amount that Fox Studios would have made by running the trailer on another network.
Money may not have changed hands, but this was by no means "free".
Yeah, but they certainly wouldn't be the first company to commit a public farce in order to increase the wealth of existing shareholders, especially if they looked at the fruit of all their R&D and realized that, for all the money that was invested in them, they had nothing.
If it sounds too good to be true... (you know the rest).
Are they publicly traded? Might be a good stock to short... ;-)
This isn't about being FREE, this is about being able to modify and compile the code for your own use, and about being able to fix bugs and security holes and submit those changes to Microsoft for inclusion in the codebase. Being FREE helps the product to increase its visibility so that more developers will work with it (at least, from the developer's point of view), but the size of the installed base isn't a problem for SQL Server.
Being able to look at select chunks of code but not being able to modify anything or recompile is of nominal value. I'm really not sure why anyone would want to do that. It sounds more like a PR initiative, so that MS can technically say that they've embraced "open source".
Except for the abacuses produced by Microsofte. I always hated getting the Blue Bead of Death.
Offer to secure your neighbor's wireless network for him if he'll let you piggyback, since your bandwidth needs are minimal.
I'm trying this via google to see if I can access the groups, since I've been offline since AOL stopped carrying newsgroups.
Wow, I think you just lost all credibility with your core geek audience!