"We're WallyWorld, and we control 99.867% of the retail market for your product. If you don't offer a rebate, we won't advertise your product, we'll advertise your competitor's product. In fact, we won't even carry your product."
If you're referring to Wal-Mart on the sly, you're very wrong. Wal-Mart strongly discourages rebates of all forms, demanding that the retailer sell to Wal-Mart so they can sell the product to the consumer for as close to the "after rebate" price as possible.
It is a primary, elemental, core strategy of theirs to have "Always low prices" right there in the store, NOT "always low prices after rebate".
You will very rarely see anything at Wal-Mart with a rebate for this very reason.
Lowe's uses a KDE-based Linux distribution for the help desk/inventory computers. I know Jiffy Jube uses W2K. Most retailers I see use some embedded OS that does not give you any hints as to what it is. Or they use really old terminals running monochrome 7" monitors.
At Lowe's, the cash registers also run linux. Don't recall the distribution, but the register I was at was misbehaving the day of their grand opening, and they rebooted it.
LG Electronics makes a combination washing machine and dryer, not stacked, but all in one washing machine sized box. It's a front loader, so it'll fit under a countertop, too.
That will save some space, including space not used to store dirty clothes.
I guess adobe photoshop isn't nikon's choice for professional image processing then, or the license was too much for adobe to invest in.
FREE was too much for Adobe to invest in???
Nikon is dead wrong on this issue and the fact that Adobe is pushing DNG is a red herring. But Adobe's issue is certainly NOT the cost of the Nikon SDK.
Perhaps I'm a cynic, but I don't think they forget this at all. To me it appears it's more like intentionally setting aside facts that don't agree with their world view. It's immature and selfish, but I don't think it's forgetfulness at all.
But when they're high courts that are going against the obvious spirit of the law, then they are "legislating from the bench" because their decisions have much more far-reaching effects.
It might help you deal with the phenomenon if you think of the Courts (specifically, the judges on those courts) AS the "Spirit of the Law".
Some capricious, some stern and quiet, but all (and this is important) independent. This is intentional.
If the lawmakers (or you) want to reign them in, either petition to impeach them, or petition to tighten the letter of the law.
Judges are paid to judge. What they judge to be the "spirit of the law" IS the spirit of the law. There has to be someone who makes the final decision about how to apply the laws written, and this is who it is.
You'd have a legitimate complaint if judges could actually write laws, but they can't, so your complaint looks like sour grapes to me.
I bet you there are parts in ANY country where you won't always feel safe. You may have said it's not a troll, but that doesn't make it any less true.
I don't think there was anywhere in Lichtenstein I'd feel uncomfortable, nor Monaco. If I'd ever been to Vatican City, I doubt I'd feel unsafe while there. I don't think you'd feel unsafe in any of those places, either.
For that matter, I don't think I ever felt unsafe in Germany, Austria or France, either, but maybe my fear instinct is defective. I've been to the red light districts, I've been to the gambling centers. I've been to the smoky jazz clubs in the city centers, and to hard rock nightclubs in the industrial districts. I've walked the Reeperbahn and its surrounding neighborhoods at night. I've stayed out long past closing times, and I've seen the early morning hours after the festivals when the carnies are tearing down the tents and rides. I've slept in train stations. I've walked through slums.
No, I think the fact is, Europe isn't that scary of a place. Maybe because I always knew that the violent crime rate there is so much lower. Maybe somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought knives are nowhere near as deadly as guns, and that the odds of being confronted by someone with a "Saturday Night Special" in Europe were pretty infinitesmal.
Detroit, on the other hand, is a completely different story. So is Atlanta. And Miami. And LA. New York. (East) Saint Louis. I felt True Fear in those places.
A gun wouldn't make me feel any safer in ANY of those places. I might get a bit of bitter comfort in the thought that I might get to serve my revenge as I fell, but "feeling safer" is NOT AT ALL how I would describe the feeling that carrying a gun gives me. It's more like feeling capable of more potent violence than safety.
Tell him that if the brakes ever fail, aim to crash into the cheapest car rather than the shiny new Benz.
Might I suggest you teach him to crash into the car that is moving slowest relative to his own speed rather than choose based on expense? If he's going 70 mph and loses his brakes, you'll want him to choose to hit a Mercedes that's traveling at 35 mph in the same direction as he is rather than a Ford that's parked or a Hyundai coming at him at 70 mph!
Don't EVER put the thought of the cost of the accident in his mind when he should be thinking first of survival!
The question is... do we really need an anonymous vote in the present day? SO what if your friend give you a hard time, you probably already tell them who you voted for anyways and already suffer the ridicule or whatever. We have anti-descrimination laws already on the books that could be extended to cover this as far as your job or any other official relationship is concerned.
At a previous job, I had a boss who told me "You know, people who work here vote Republican". It was as if he thought I couldn't tell his preference by the signed photos of Republican politicians all over the office, and the every day blaring of Rush Limbaugh on the radio.
(Funny, the interview room was filled with the usual silly motivation posters, and had typical office "music" in the background.)
In the REAL world, people are still trying to influence each other, sometimes illegally. Part of the problem is that the line between legal and illegal is almost always different between enforceable and unenforceable, or between convictable and "case dismissed".
The voters' right to anonymity is still a major component that insures fairness in US elections. Don't tell Bush & Ashcroft, but that's one of the rights I'd join a civil war to protect.
Please don't treat a fundamental right so lightly.
I love BMWs but if that BMW ad is par for the course this is one irritate advertising product! Like mentioned above: this will spur me to learn how to tweak blocking in Moz!
Sure, you can block, or you could think "Hmmm......maybe a VW Passat will do..." and the jackass advertisers that subscribe to this method will eventually understand that you don't get customers by force feeding them.
Do you really love BMWs, or do you love the image they've sold you?
I've taken the both routes; I've learned to retain control of my own computer by learning the tools provided by the efforts of VERY generous programmers AND I remove the offending companies from the group I would do business with.
Maybe it's just me, but I can't think of even ONE product that doesn't have a substitute that I'd buy in its place.
Mountain Dew is the only well known fruit flavoured normally caffineated soda. (Well, I've never seen any others, and I'm a label reader to a freakish extent).
Most people are surprised to learn that Sunkist orange soda is also caffeinated. (Although I guess it isn't Canada.)
the problem arises when sam... in the middle of mordor, puts the damn ring on and leaves it on for a good amount of time (all the while that he is following the orcs who grab frodo)....
i've always wondered how sauron can be so blind that he doesn't notice his ring being used so close for such a long period of time...
I'd always assumed Sam got a bit of a free pass because he was a "fresh, innocent" hobbit, not yet corrupted by the ring enough to be seen. By that time, Frodo was clearly in its power almost as much as a human would have been, but Sam hadn't been directly under its influence.
Sauron couldn't see a hobbit wearing the ring until the ring had time to turn the hobbit at least a little bit power hungry and greedy like wizards, humans and elves.
Umm... you do know that debt is mostly owed to citizens, business, and the federal reserve (which is by the way a private institution, nothing federal about it). Something they neglect to mention, foreign powers actually owe the US money, not the other way around.
Except that a VERY large portion fo the citizens and businesses to which the debt is owed are foreigners......the latest statistics I find say that 42% of our federal debt is held by foreigners.
Would you care to point to the clause of the Constitution that gives the government the authority to be managing the economy at all?
If you'd even GLANCED at the Constitution before posting, you'd know that it is contained in Article 1, Section 8, Clauses 1-10 and 18, dipshit. The authority is very clear. Look twice as Clauses 2, 3, 5, and 18 if you don't understand. Then go over 3 and 5 again.
Your deliberate ignorance of the US Constitution, and the tradition of over 4500 years of human government efforts is amusing, and nothing more.
What happens when there is a technological revolution? Let's say a specific segment of your industry consolidates itself and for example; you can't be an high-paid Word Processor Consultant anymore (yes, there used to be such a position). Should the government continue to protect your job for five years? And if so, who will protect your country from competiting countries?
That isn't an industry or a "field" of expertise. "Word Processor Consultant" is most definitely an individual, highly specific job. (Yes, I remember Word Processor Consultants.)
Government economic policy stabilizes industries, not individual jobs, so the Word Processor Consultants have moved on to other consulting, other word processing, similar work, or changed careers.
Protecting individual jobs is almost always stupid. Long term protection of industries is no better.
Sound economic policy provides stability necessary to sustain economic growth.
I should be able to keep a stable job for 5 years without having to worry about the third world catching up and robbing me of my job every 5 years.
Why? Divine right?
This is what globalisation is all about; well, that and ensuring that the people at the very top of the heap don't lose out in the process.
It is NOT divine right that would provide such a thing. Sound government policy can provide this stability to the economy of any nation.
It is one of a government's duties to manage the economy to meet the goal of stability. Any worker competent in their field should be able to find and keep a stable job for at least 5 years on average. When people can't rely on anything more than a day-to-day future, the economy suffers badly because people don't feel secure. This is part of the problem we are facing in the US today.
Unfortunately, the current US administration's economic policy is very well focused on stimulating the economy......of south China.
A few months ago, one of my clients suffered a house fire. His Dell notebook suffered similar damage, but booted with an external keyboard and monitor. We were able to transfer the data from it, and stored it on our server until the replacement arrived.
So this is a big deal? Wish I'd know. I could have had a story on Slashdot!
The difference is that people don't bake "Dell pies" in their ovens.
Granted, I was making a bit of an assumption here as that I am not terribly familiar with the rules of the Indy series. However, I find it hard to believe that the Indy cars are only running 5lbs. of boost when the Buick Turbo 3.8L V6 ('86-'87 and '89) in production form ran 15lbs. of boost. Especially when you consider that this engine was originally developed for Indy....
First, I'll say that I don't think you're a big block bigot, as I initially thought. Sorry about that.
"CART believes tight competition should take care of the rest, albeit with a few changes. Turbo boost has been reduced from 37 to 34 inches, but drivers will be allowed to use traction control." USA Today, Mar 7, 2002 (40 inches of boost is 5.4 psi.)
"2002 Indy Racing League Engine Program Engines used in the Indy Racing League are 3.5-liter, V8 engines with dual overhead cams. The engines are normally aspirated, which means they do not use turbochargers." Indy Racing League website rules page.
Indy cars are required to only use a specific GM or Nissan engine (they're supposed to be near identical) and no others are permitted. They're even rev-limited at 10,700RPM. CART cars allow turbochargers on relatively small V6 engines, or normally aspirated 5.7 liter V8 engines, but, for the most part, allow manufacturers to develop their own engines.
If any form of racing had permitted unrestricted engine development (within the framework of size, weight, and fuel usage requirements), I think we'd have small 20,000 RPM turbocharged 4 cylinder engines dominating competition, based on BMW's domination in the 80s.
Just a few racing facts to think about...
Last, don't think of me as a Rice Boy fan. Anyone who'd put the kind of money into a Honda it takes to get the speed of a stock Mustang is a few parts short, if you ask me.
You are not gonna get them to admit that ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, there is no replacement for displacement.
The premise wasn't ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL in the first place. If it was, there wouldn't have been a discussion. No wonder you posted as Anonymous Coward.
There were immense technical errors in the post I responded to. I posted some corrections.
I personally don't care if you favor big block V8s or turbocharged I3 engines; if you post incorrect stereotypes as fact, then get modded up to 4 or 5, someone should post a correction.
Yes, all else being equal, bigger is more powerful. You're obviously too dim to see anything more than the crudest, most obvious facts, so I won't explain any more of the real world to you.
Case in point, if a 4 cylinder turbo is so much better than a V6, V8, V10, etc, then why don't you see Indy cars, Top Fuel dragsters, or exotic super cars running them?
Racing? Governing body rules. BMW dominated the Formula 1 circuit in the 80s like no one has ever dominated before, smoking Ferraris, et. al. with a turbocharged 4 cylinder. Then the rules were changed. Formula 1 politics make it extremely unlikely that a four cylinder will be competitive again in the near future.
Smaller displacement engines were starting to make inroads into American open wheel racing (CART and Indy) before those rules were changed to reduce boost as well.
Dragsters? We both know that when it's all about acceleration and nothing else, it has to be a supercharger.
Exotics? Lotus and Porsche spring to mind... it's all less about engineering choice and more about marketing perceptions anyway. What kind of wealthy man would accept a FOUR cylinder small penis compensation device when a TWELVE cylinder small penis compensation device was available? Obviously a V12 is more manly than a sissy turbo four.
1. More cylinders allow for smoother running by reducing the number of degrees of crankshaft rotation between ignition events. (With a little geometry it can easily be shown why it's hard to beat an eight cylinder in this regard.)
More cylinders reduce torsional vibration, but fundamental internal harmonics of the typical eight cylinder engine aren't that great. The best engines, based on internal harmonic vibrations, are Inline (Straight) 6s and 90 degree V16s. That's why almost all large commercial duty diesels are I6 turbocharged, not V8s of any kind. (It's also why the latest GMC truck engine is an I6.)
2. For much the same reason, you increase torque potential by reducing the amount of "dead time" between ignition events.
This is simply a false statement. More ignition pulses don't directly increase torque.
3. You reduce the necessary bore size for a given displacement, thereby reducing piston ring mass and allowing for higher piston velocities and accelerations (higher revving for a given stroke length). Hence the reason many of the exotic engines have high cylinder counts for relatively small displacement (think Ferrari); they are intended to rev like mad.
This is also wrong. Any given displacement is Bore x Stroke, not just bore. Large bore, short stroke engines are responsible for most of the high revvers, NOT small bore, long stroke. Dragsters, for example, use large bore, short stroke engines to get their high revs and acceleration. That's also what is behind Ferrari and Lamborghini's performance engines.
4. You also reduce the clamping force required per cylinder head bolt (because there are generally more bolts) for a given cylinder pressure (thereby increasing boost potential). (Think blown dragster or Indy car, where 30 lbs. of boost isn't that big a deal.)
30 lbs of boost in an Indy car, you say??? BULL! 30 INCHES, not pounds! 30 inches of boost is less than 5 psi! Dragsters, on the other hand, need nothing but acceleration, so tremendous boost and huge displacement are BOTH normal. However, keep in mind that clamping forces required for the winning BMW Formula 1 engines were easily met with 1980s technology.
Finally, don't count me on the "smaller engine" side of this argument based on this one post. I've driven Ferrari, Porsche, BMW, Lotus, Corvette, Lamborghini, Acura, Nissan, and many others. Small displacement and large displacement engines both have their merits and tradeoffs. I just hate to see incorrect stereotypes and urban myths that are propagated by big block enthusiasts who don't have their facts straight.
There is no substitute for displacement.
Actually, there is. It's called forced induction, and where it hasn't been legislated out of racing, it frequently does quite well to substitute for a whole lot of additional displacement.
Have they even evaluated just doing worldwide releases and saving the cash? I mean really, the days before macromedia didn't kill off the movie industry, and the easily available radio shack macromedia disabler didn't kill em off either.
The anticopying technology company you ar thinking of is Macrovision, not Macromedia.
If these sites post the same infomation once the ads ads published, they're in the clear. But again, these ads are at this moment trade secrets.
The ads have been made public. The ads are no longer trade secrets once they've been made public. That's why they make people sign non-disclosure agreements; because they're only secret until someone discloses them!
Threats under non-disclosure agreements were the only way to keep the secrets. The DMCA shouldn't be a valid, legal method to protect trade secrets, but I suspect in action it will be until it is overturned.
I also like how the phone company charges you a monthly fee not be listed in the directory.
Don't pay. Tell them to list your number in the phone book as a fictional name. Don't tell them it's a fictional name, and keep responsibility for the bill in your own name. It's perfectly legal. I did this for years and the phone company never even questioned why the listing name was different than the billing name.
Then, when you get calls for whatever unpronouncable foreign name you've chosen, you'll know its a telemarketer and you can either mess with them at your leisure or hang up without worry of pissing off the in-laws. If you pick a name that's unpronouncable enough, I'm sure that some telemarketers will even pretend your name wasn't even on their call list.
The phone's in my wife's name right now, but the next time we move, I'll go back to being listed in the phone book as "Sunil Punjalabadjiniet" or something similar.
Slashdot Mirror
"We're WallyWorld, and we control 99.867% of the retail market for your product. If you don't offer a rebate, we won't advertise your product, we'll advertise your competitor's product. In fact, we won't even carry your product."
If you're referring to Wal-Mart on the sly, you're very wrong. Wal-Mart strongly discourages rebates of all forms, demanding that the retailer sell to Wal-Mart so they can sell the product to the consumer for as close to the "after rebate" price as possible.
It is a primary, elemental, core strategy of theirs to have "Always low prices" right there in the store, NOT "always low prices after rebate".
You will very rarely see anything at Wal-Mart with a rebate for this very reason.
Lowe's uses a KDE-based Linux distribution for the help desk/inventory computers. I know Jiffy Jube uses W2K. Most retailers I see use some embedded OS that does not give you any hints as to what it is. Or they use really old terminals running monochrome 7" monitors.
At Lowe's, the cash registers also run linux. Don't recall the distribution, but the register I was at was misbehaving the day of their grand opening, and they rebooted it.
Try an AirGen(TM) Fuel Cell Generator instead.
You wanted quiet, right?
Silence costs $6,495.00.
1200 watts of sweet, sweet silence.
LG Electronics makes a combination washing machine and dryer, not stacked, but all in one washing machine sized box. It's a front loader, so it'll fit under a countertop, too.
That will save some space, including space not used to store dirty clothes.
FREE was too much for Adobe to invest in???
Nikon is dead wrong on this issue and the fact that Adobe is pushing DNG is a red herring. But Adobe's issue is certainly NOT the cost of the Nikon SDK.
Judges are paid to judge.
Isn't it amazing how many people forget this?
Perhaps I'm a cynic, but I don't think they forget this at all. To me it appears it's more like intentionally setting aside facts that don't agree with their world view. It's immature and selfish, but I don't think it's forgetfulness at all.
But when they're high courts that are going against the obvious spirit of the law, then they are "legislating from the bench" because their decisions have much more far-reaching effects.
It might help you deal with the phenomenon if you think of the Courts (specifically, the judges on those courts) AS the "Spirit of the Law".
Some capricious, some stern and quiet, but all (and this is important) independent. This is intentional.
If the lawmakers (or you) want to reign them in, either petition to impeach them, or petition to tighten the letter of the law.
Judges are paid to judge. What they judge to be the "spirit of the law" IS the spirit of the law. There has to be someone who makes the final decision about how to apply the laws written, and this is who it is.
You'd have a legitimate complaint if judges could actually write laws, but they can't, so your complaint looks like sour grapes to me.
I bet you there are parts in ANY country where you won't always feel safe. You may have said it's not a troll, but that doesn't make it any less true.
I don't think there was anywhere in Lichtenstein I'd feel uncomfortable, nor Monaco. If I'd ever been to Vatican City, I doubt I'd feel unsafe while there. I don't think you'd feel unsafe in any of those places, either.
For that matter, I don't think I ever felt unsafe in Germany, Austria or France, either, but maybe my fear instinct is defective. I've been to the red light districts, I've been to the gambling centers. I've been to the smoky jazz clubs in the city centers, and to hard rock nightclubs in the industrial districts. I've walked the Reeperbahn and its surrounding neighborhoods at night. I've stayed out long past closing times, and I've seen the early morning hours after the festivals when the carnies are tearing down the tents and rides. I've slept in train stations. I've walked through slums.
No, I think the fact is, Europe isn't that scary of a place. Maybe because I always knew that the violent crime rate there is so much lower. Maybe somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought knives are nowhere near as deadly as guns, and that the odds of being confronted by someone with a "Saturday Night Special" in Europe were pretty infinitesmal.
Detroit, on the other hand, is a completely different story. So is Atlanta. And Miami. And LA. New York. (East) Saint Louis. I felt True Fear in those places.
A gun wouldn't make me feel any safer in ANY of those places. I might get a bit of bitter comfort in the thought that I might get to serve my revenge as I fell, but "feeling safer" is NOT AT ALL how I would describe the feeling that carrying a gun gives me. It's more like feeling capable of more potent violence than safety.
Might I suggest you teach him to crash into the car that is moving slowest relative to his own speed rather than choose based on expense? If he's going 70 mph and loses his brakes, you'll want him to choose to hit a Mercedes that's traveling at 35 mph in the same direction as he is rather than a Ford that's parked or a Hyundai coming at him at 70 mph!
Don't EVER put the thought of the cost of the accident in his mind when he should be thinking first of survival!
At a previous job, I had a boss who told me "You know, people who work here vote Republican". It was as if he thought I couldn't tell his preference by the signed photos of Republican politicians all over the office, and the every day blaring of Rush Limbaugh on the radio.
(Funny, the interview room was filled with the usual silly motivation posters, and had typical office "music" in the background.)
In the REAL world, people are still trying to influence each other, sometimes illegally. Part of the problem is that the line between legal and illegal is almost always different between enforceable and unenforceable, or between convictable and "case dismissed".
The voters' right to anonymity is still a major component that insures fairness in US elections. Don't tell Bush & Ashcroft, but that's one of the rights I'd join a civil war to protect.
Please don't treat a fundamental right so lightly.
Sure, you can block, or you could think "Hmmm...
Do you really love BMWs, or do you love the image they've sold you?
I've taken the both routes; I've learned to retain control of my own computer by learning the tools provided by the efforts of VERY generous programmers AND I remove the offending companies from the group I would do business with.
Maybe it's just me, but I can't think of even ONE product that doesn't have a substitute that I'd buy in its place.
Most people are surprised to learn that Sunkist orange soda is also caffeinated. (Although I guess it isn't Canada.)
i've always wondered how sauron can be so blind that he doesn't notice his ring being used so close for such a long period of time...
I'd always assumed Sam got a bit of a free pass because he was a "fresh, innocent" hobbit, not yet corrupted by the ring enough to be seen. By that time, Frodo was clearly in its power almost as much as a human would have been, but Sam hadn't been directly under its influence.
Sauron couldn't see a hobbit wearing the ring until the ring had time to turn the hobbit at least a little bit power hungry and greedy like wizards, humans and elves.
Umm... you do know that debt is mostly owed to citizens, business, and the federal reserve (which is by the way a private institution, nothing federal about it). Something they neglect to mention, foreign powers actually owe the US money, not the other way around.
...the latest statistics I find say that 42% of our federal debt is held by foreigners.
Except that a VERY large portion fo the citizens and businesses to which the debt is owed are foreigners...
Would you care to point to the clause of the Constitution that gives the government the authority to be managing the economy at all?
If you'd even GLANCED at the Constitution before posting, you'd know that it is contained in Article 1, Section 8, Clauses 1-10 and 18, dipshit. The authority is very clear. Look twice as Clauses 2, 3, 5, and 18 if you don't understand. Then go over 3 and 5 again.
Your deliberate ignorance of the US Constitution, and the tradition of over 4500 years of human government efforts is amusing, and nothing more.
What happens when there is a technological revolution? Let's say a specific segment of your industry consolidates itself and for example; you can't be an high-paid Word Processor Consultant anymore (yes, there used to be such a position). Should the government continue to protect your job for five years? And if so, who will protect your country from competiting countries?
That isn't an industry or a "field" of expertise. "Word Processor Consultant" is most definitely an individual, highly specific job. (Yes, I remember Word Processor Consultants.)
Government economic policy stabilizes industries, not individual jobs, so the Word Processor Consultants have moved on to other consulting, other word processing, similar work, or changed careers.
Protecting individual jobs is almost always stupid. Long term protection of industries is no better.
Sound economic policy provides stability necessary to sustain economic growth.
I should be able to keep a stable job for 5 years without having to worry about the third world catching up and robbing me of my job every 5 years.
...of south China.
Why? Divine right?
This is what globalisation is all about; well, that and ensuring that the people at the very top of the heap don't lose out in the process.
It is NOT divine right that would provide such a thing. Sound government policy can provide this stability to the economy of any nation.
It is one of a government's duties to manage the economy to meet the goal of stability. Any worker competent in their field should be able to find and keep a stable job for at least 5 years on average. When people can't rely on anything more than a day-to-day future, the economy suffers badly because people don't feel secure. This is part of the problem we are facing in the US today.
Unfortunately, the current US administration's economic policy is very well focused on stimulating the economy...
A few months ago, one of my clients suffered a house fire. His Dell notebook suffered similar damage, but booted with an external keyboard and monitor. We were able to transfer the data from it, and stored it on our server until the replacement arrived.
So this is a big deal? Wish I'd know. I could have had a story on Slashdot!
The difference is that people don't bake "Dell pies" in their ovens.
Granted, I was making a bit of an assumption here as that I am not terribly familiar with the rules of the Indy series. However, I find it hard to believe that the Indy cars are only running 5lbs. of boost when the Buick Turbo 3.8L V6 ('86-'87 and '89) in production form ran 15lbs. of boost. Especially when you consider that this engine was originally developed for Indy....
First, I'll say that I don't think you're a big block bigot, as I initially thought. Sorry about that.
"CART believes tight competition should take care of the rest, albeit with a few changes. Turbo boost has been reduced from 37 to 34 inches, but drivers will be allowed to use traction control." USA Today, Mar 7, 2002 (40 inches of boost is 5.4 psi.)
"2002 Indy Racing League Engine Program
Engines used in the Indy Racing League are 3.5-liter, V8 engines with dual overhead cams. The engines are normally aspirated, which means they do not use turbochargers." Indy Racing League website rules page.
Indy cars are required to only use a specific GM or Nissan engine (they're supposed to be near identical) and no others are permitted. They're even rev-limited at 10,700RPM. CART cars allow turbochargers on relatively small V6 engines, or normally aspirated 5.7 liter V8 engines, but, for the most part, allow manufacturers to develop their own engines.
If any form of racing had permitted unrestricted engine development (within the framework of size, weight, and fuel usage requirements), I think we'd have small 20,000 RPM turbocharged 4 cylinder engines dominating competition, based on BMW's domination in the 80s.
Just a few racing facts to think about...
Last, don't think of me as a Rice Boy fan. Anyone who'd put the kind of money into a Honda it takes to get the speed of a stock Mustang is a few parts short, if you ask me.
You are not gonna get them to admit that ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, there is no replacement for displacement.
The premise wasn't ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL in the first place. If it was, there wouldn't have been a discussion. No wonder you posted as Anonymous Coward.
There were immense technical errors in the post I responded to. I posted some corrections.
I personally don't care if you favor big block V8s or turbocharged I3 engines; if you post incorrect stereotypes as fact, then get modded up to 4 or 5, someone should post a correction.
Yes, all else being equal, bigger is more powerful. You're obviously too dim to see anything more than the crudest, most obvious facts, so I won't explain any more of the real world to you.
Racing? Governing body rules. BMW dominated the Formula 1 circuit in the 80s like no one has ever dominated before, smoking Ferraris, et. al. with a turbocharged 4 cylinder. Then the rules were changed. Formula 1 politics make it extremely unlikely that a four cylinder will be competitive again in the near future.
Smaller displacement engines were starting to make inroads into American open wheel racing (CART and Indy) before those rules were changed to reduce boost as well.
Dragsters? We both know that when it's all about acceleration and nothing else, it has to be a supercharger.
Exotics? Lotus and Porsche spring to mind... it's all less about engineering choice and more about marketing perceptions anyway. What kind of wealthy man would accept a FOUR cylinder small penis compensation device when a TWELVE cylinder small penis compensation device was available? Obviously a V12 is more manly than a sissy turbo four.
1. More cylinders allow for smoother running by reducing the number of degrees of crankshaft rotation between ignition events. (With a little geometry it can easily be shown why it's hard to beat an eight cylinder in this regard.)
More cylinders reduce torsional vibration, but fundamental internal harmonics of the typical eight cylinder engine aren't that great. The best engines, based on internal harmonic vibrations, are Inline (Straight) 6s and 90 degree V16s. That's why almost all large commercial duty diesels are I6 turbocharged, not V8s of any kind. (It's also why the latest GMC truck engine is an I6.)
2. For much the same reason, you increase torque potential by reducing the amount of "dead time" between ignition events.
This is simply a false statement. More ignition pulses don't directly increase torque.
3. You reduce the necessary bore size for a given displacement, thereby reducing piston ring mass and allowing for higher piston velocities and accelerations (higher revving for a given stroke length). Hence the reason many of the exotic engines have high cylinder counts for relatively small displacement (think Ferrari); they are intended to rev like mad.
This is also wrong. Any given displacement is Bore x Stroke, not just bore. Large bore, short stroke engines are responsible for most of the high revvers, NOT small bore, long stroke. Dragsters, for example, use large bore, short stroke engines to get their high revs and acceleration. That's also what is behind Ferrari and Lamborghini's performance engines.
4. You also reduce the clamping force required per cylinder head bolt (because there are generally more bolts) for a given cylinder pressure (thereby increasing boost potential). (Think blown dragster or Indy car, where 30 lbs. of boost isn't that big a deal.)
30 lbs of boost in an Indy car, you say??? BULL! 30 INCHES, not pounds! 30 inches of boost is less than 5 psi! Dragsters, on the other hand, need nothing but acceleration, so tremendous boost and huge displacement are BOTH normal. However, keep in mind that clamping forces required for the winning BMW Formula 1 engines were easily met with 1980s technology.
Finally, don't count me on the "smaller engine" side of this argument based on this one post. I've driven Ferrari, Porsche, BMW, Lotus, Corvette, Lamborghini, Acura, Nissan, and many others. Small displacement and large displacement engines both have their merits and tradeoffs. I just hate to see incorrect stereotypes and urban myths that are propagated by big block enthusiasts who don't have their facts straight.
There is no substitute for displacement.
Actually, there is. It's called forced induction, and where it hasn't been legislated out of racing, it frequently does quite well to substitute for a whole lot of additional displacement.
The anticopying technology company you ar thinking of is Macrovision, not Macromedia.
The ads have been made public. The ads are no longer trade secrets once they've been made public. That's why they make people sign non-disclosure agreements; because they're only secret until someone discloses them!
Threats under non-disclosure agreements were the only way to keep the secrets. The DMCA shouldn't be a valid, legal method to protect trade secrets, but I suspect in action it will be until it is overturned.
"-1 : Flamebait"
Put on your Nomex, kids, it's gonna get hot in here real quick!
Don't pay. Tell them to list your number in the phone book as a fictional name. Don't tell them it's a fictional name, and keep responsibility for the bill in your own name. It's perfectly legal. I did this for years and the phone company never even questioned why the listing name was different than the billing name.
Then, when you get calls for whatever unpronouncable foreign name you've chosen, you'll know its a telemarketer and you can either mess with them at your leisure or hang up without worry of pissing off the in-laws. If you pick a name that's unpronouncable enough, I'm sure that some telemarketers will even pretend your name wasn't even on their call list.
The phone's in my wife's name right now, but the next time we move, I'll go back to being listed in the phone book as "Sunil Punjalabadjiniet" or something similar.