Even better, watching everyone else in the room crap their pants when you pick it up, single-handed, by the edge of the LCD cover and *throw* it across the room to a collegue. Or, when carrying it by the handle (which mine still has), using it as a door knocker.
As a joke, I once used the cover to break open a stubborn walnut that broke a friend's cheap nutcracker
I have an eight year old Toughbook that I still use (it's sitting beside my brand new desktop and laptop right now). I used to bring it to school and I now take it with me when I go to sea (Navy). It had more than lived up to it's reputation. I've dropped it (unintentionally) down a flight of stairs and I can't count the number of times I've spilled coffee on it or it's fallen off a desk as the ship rolls (I've since glued some anti-skid pads to the bottom). It looks like a pile of crap (think metal briefcase, handle included) and it's slower than dirt (P133) but I can get online, read my email and do my word processing. After eight years, it's cash value is practically zero, so it'll never get stolen and in a pinch, I can use it to bludgeon someone before going back to reading/.
For many gamers, age will be the deciding factor. For my brother and I, the definitive multiplayer moment was experienced on our old Atari 2600 (which still works after more than two decades and extensive use of the skills I learned years ago in soldering class). We used to spend hours playing the tank game, "Combat", which, for all it's simplicity, is still one of my favourite games (and still provides a very intense challenge to a pair of skilled players). For those of us that owned a computer when 9600 baud was screaming fast, any number of BBS RPGs were our first 'online' gaming experience. My neice and newphew, on the other hand, grew up on games like Mario Party and Mario Kart. They laugh when I show them the games I grew up on and can't understand how we could play games with only one button on the joystick (which wasnt't even always used:P).
The larger an OS is, the longer your disk access times are. Think about it: if you're looking for a book you own, is it easier to find if your book shelf has 40 books on it or 4000 books?
Hard drive space will always be a limiting factor. I've got well over 100gb and I'm constantly having to manage my disk space lest I find my self with a couple of full drives. After Christmas, I'm going to shell out the hundreds of dollars for a couple of 750GB hard drives
Actually, I just checked on my calculator, and any number divided by zero produces an error, including 0/0, but this particular calculator is designed to work with fractions and if I enter 0/0 as a fraction, it is equal to one!
If I were to guess, I'd say that they'd simply use force feedback to indicate when your lightsaber was being blocked/was blocking. Give the player a bit of 'grace' for over-swing and force them to learn some control of their movements. Now admittedly, I've never been involved in a real sword fight, but in swinging wooden practice swords around with my friends, we quickly learned that the two wooden swords will bounce off each other when someone blocked a very strong swing. There was more than one incident with somebody's wooden sword bouncing back and striking them. Now that could hurt when it was a simple wooden pole; I'd imagine the consequences would be much worse if the same happened with a real sword/light saber. Besides, using Macsaber is far more entertaining.
You can't hammer in a screw, it won't hold. The threading on a screw will make a much larger hole and pull out easily. Screws are better (in some applications) because they make the same size hole as a nail but the threading cuts into the surrounding wood and provides a larger surface area to spread out forces
As an aside (and tip) running a bead of acoustical sealant along the top of a joist before placing and nailing/screwing sheathing or planks down virtually eliminates any possibility of squeaking. I always recommend it to my customers when they want information on DIY projects, especially exterior decks. The acoustical sealant also seals the holes made by the nails/screws preventing water from getting past the seal on pressure treated timbres.
Roof trusses are usually held together with mending plates or nailing plates: A rectangular piece of metal as large as the timber allows, either with holes to drive a nail through or attached prongs which are nailed directly on either side of two pieces of a truss.
And when you want a truss securely fastened to the top of a wall, you use an angled piece of metal, frequently called a 'hurricane tie'. It spreads the load out over a larger section of a wall and makes it less likely to fail under high winds.
I haven't seen too many concrete slabs or foundations blow away. Sill bolts are usually 1/2" or 5/8" tempered steel and a properly designed... or rather, a properly *built* house will have sufficient numbers of bolts to distribute the weight evenly and prevent pull out. And as the article states: Home owners will love the innovation and the marginal increase in cost but builders will hate it; not only because removing a nail will be ridiculously difficult, but also because homes that don't fall down don't have to be re-built. If you make your money building homes and you build homes that last forever, then you will eventually become obsolete.
The trend since the 1950's has been to build homes using progressively cheaper materials with progressively shorter lifespans. It's called 'progress' because the cost of building homes decreases (subject to market pressures) and more and more people can 'afford' to live in the suburbs. In reality, this trend simply fosters a cycle of increasing consumer debt, both because you now need a car to drive the extra distance to work every day, and because your home is in a constant state of degradation and needs to be maintained. Add to that the idea of 'keeping up with the Joneses': that you have to have a car and home that are as nice or nicer than your neighbours' instead of living both within your means and within practicality and you have a culture that is ripe for widespread debt and economic stagnation. Or worse, you get stagflation where the economy stagnates but prices continue to increase, now your loaf of bread costs a dollar fifty instead of a dollar but you still have the same income so you've got to trim 50 cents from your budget somewhere else. It happened in the UK in the 60s and 70s and here in the US and Canada in the 70s and 80s and it'll happen again, sooner rather than later.
of selling old phones. Even if you buy a new one every year (which I'm sure few of us do), it's worth practically nothing. Everytime I upgrade phones, I do the same thing: transfer all the desired information to the new one and 'stress test' the old one. (hint: most don't pass the 20lb maul test).
Didn't Wikipedia turn off editing of several rather contentious political recently? As is humourously demonstrated by the boys at Penny Arcade http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/16, completely open editing is as ripe for abuse as it is bustling with potential. If a political wiki were to have any hope of success, editing would have to be moderated some how. Either some kind of over-arching admin who approved all editing changes, or allow people to see the old and the new and vote on the changes before they are implemented. The first choice really defeats the idea of open editing and I think the second is too ponderous to keep pace with the speed of political commentary and opinion on the web.
Don't get me wrong, I play San Andreas just as mush as the next guy. SA looks great, the game play is fun and the controls are easy. And yes, I can pull a lot of social commentary and some story out of it.
I also turn SA off and fire up my old consoles and play Chrono Trigger or FF7. Even though these games look like crap by modern standards, I still enjoy them because, either because of the quality of the gameplay or the story. Heck, I even bust out the old Infocom text adventures on occasion.
Even better, you've got a large network if wireless devices: generate a large volume of radio noise and interfere with the mines' communication so they don't know when & where to move or turn all your own tech off and drop an EMP. Either the mines are now completely inert or their computers are fried and they revert to stationary step-boom mines. Though, if they're designed to revert to dumb explosives when their electronic components fail, they'd probably do so when the batteries run out as well.
Well my point is that an episode of Family Guy is going to be very obviously tagged as copyrighted material not belonging to the poster. Here is my concern: If I were making flash cartoons/ video and making it availble for download on my personal website, someone could easily take such material, which has a very limited distribution, and upload it to one of these services claiming to be the creator. Imagine if that had happened in the early days of some of the more popular flash cartoons like Foamy the Squirrel http://www.illwillpress.com/? If these were uploaded by someone other than the copy holder and became wildly popular, that someone could gain remuneration from the copyrighted work of others.
no, not the people who cut 1 minute from Family Guy's episodes...
That parenthetical remark raises a valid point though: What kind of controls are there going to be to ensure that someone isn't making money from another person's copyrighted material?
This is less of a concern for popular media which everyone can identify (e.g. a clip from Family Guy) but would be a serious problem for independant content makers who choose to distribute their work over the internet.
That is a great idea, and many cities around Europe and even a few in North America are trying to implement 'free' wireless networks (tax-payer subsidised). The problem is not that not everyone has a wireless connection. The problem is that everyone is not capable or willing to upgrade to a wireless connection. There's also the cost for a widespread wireless network. This kind of internet service is only even remotely practical in an extremely dense population area like the core of a major city. The small amount of money you save not running wires from the telephone pole to houses/building does not offset the cost of all the wireless 'hotspots' needed for wide area coverage. And as far as maintaince goes, four or five meters of wire are a lot less likely to get damaged in a storm and are also far cheaper to replace.
Locally, the two 'highspeed' ISPs are the two competing cable/telephone companies. One (Company A) owns all the lines regarless of thier use and the other (Company B) piggybacks even their telephone and cable service on the other's infrastructure. The difference in price between the company that has to maintain the infrastructure and the company that has to pay to use it is about five dollars in favour of Company B, but their services is about 25% slower.
This is great for those studying filmography, animation, or acting; depending of course on the quality of the commentary. The director talking about what kind of doughnoughts were on the snack table the day they shot a certain scene is obviously no help, but commentaries where the director or other cast/crew talk about the process of making the film can be very insightful to students.
as much as I dislike paying a tax/fee on the blank media I purchase, I can't see any other way to compensate artists who lose money due to illegal copying. DRM is a joke; no matter the method employed, the recording industry and even the software industry will never be able to stop pirating. As the cops learn how to more effectively combat crime, criminals learn how to better commit it.
I'm willing to pay a tax on blank media, and in fact, I might even go so far as to promote it *IF* the money goes to those artists that actually need it as opposed to the multi-millionaire, so called 'successful' artists or into the pockets of record company or RIAA execs. Give the money to struggling artists (within reason, not just joe blow who decides to form a 'band' to collect) regardless of popularity in order to encourage diversity and growth in music.
And if such a cause and effect development of anti-virus software hadn't occured, the computers on our mothership could be hacked and implanted with a virus by a mac-using, alien Jeff Goldblum after SUV driving Bush supporters use up all the oil and we are forced to steal from other planets.
Slashdot Mirror
Even better, watching everyone else in the room crap their pants when you pick it up, single-handed, by the edge of the LCD cover and *throw* it across the room to a collegue. Or, when carrying it by the handle (which mine still has), using it as a door knocker. As a joke, I once used the cover to break open a stubborn walnut that broke a friend's cheap nutcracker
I have an eight year old Toughbook that I still use (it's sitting beside my brand new desktop and laptop right now). I used to bring it to school and I now take it with me when I go to sea (Navy). It had more than lived up to it's reputation. I've dropped it (unintentionally) down a flight of stairs and I can't count the number of times I've spilled coffee on it or it's fallen off a desk as the ship rolls (I've since glued some anti-skid pads to the bottom). It looks like a pile of crap (think metal briefcase, handle included) and it's slower than dirt (P133) but I can get online, read my email and do my word processing. After eight years, it's cash value is practically zero, so it'll never get stolen and in a pinch, I can use it to bludgeon someone before going back to reading /.
For many gamers, age will be the deciding factor. For my brother and I, the definitive multiplayer moment was experienced on our old Atari 2600 (which still works after more than two decades and extensive use of the skills I learned years ago in soldering class). We used to spend hours playing the tank game, "Combat", which, for all it's simplicity, is still one of my favourite games (and still provides a very intense challenge to a pair of skilled players). For those of us that owned a computer when 9600 baud was screaming fast, any number of BBS RPGs were our first 'online' gaming experience. My neice and newphew, on the other hand, grew up on games like Mario Party and Mario Kart. They laugh when I show them the games I grew up on and can't understand how we could play games with only one button on the joystick (which wasnt't even always used :P).
The larger an OS is, the longer your disk access times are. Think about it: if you're looking for a book you own, is it easier to find if your book shelf has 40 books on it or 4000 books? Hard drive space will always be a limiting factor. I've got well over 100gb and I'm constantly having to manage my disk space lest I find my self with a couple of full drives. After Christmas, I'm going to shell out the hundreds of dollars for a couple of 750GB hard drives
Actually, I just checked on my calculator, and any number divided by zero produces an error, including 0/0, but this particular calculator is designed to work with fractions and if I enter 0/0 as a fraction, it is equal to one!
If I were to guess, I'd say that they'd simply use force feedback to indicate when your lightsaber was being blocked/was blocking. Give the player a bit of 'grace' for over-swing and force them to learn some control of their movements. Now admittedly, I've never been involved in a real sword fight, but in swinging wooden practice swords around with my friends, we quickly learned that the two wooden swords will bounce off each other when someone blocked a very strong swing. There was more than one incident with somebody's wooden sword bouncing back and striking them. Now that could hurt when it was a simple wooden pole; I'd imagine the consequences would be much worse if the same happened with a real sword/light saber. Besides, using Macsaber is far more entertaining.
You can't hammer in a screw, it won't hold. The threading on a screw will make a much larger hole and pull out easily. Screws are better (in some applications) because they make the same size hole as a nail but the threading cuts into the surrounding wood and provides a larger surface area to spread out forces
As an aside (and tip) running a bead of acoustical sealant along the top of a joist before placing and nailing/screwing sheathing or planks down virtually eliminates any possibility of squeaking. I always recommend it to my customers when they want information on DIY projects, especially exterior decks. The acoustical sealant also seals the holes made by the nails/screws preventing water from getting past the seal on pressure treated timbres.
Roof trusses are usually held together with mending plates or nailing plates: A rectangular piece of metal as large as the timber allows, either with holes to drive a nail through or attached prongs which are nailed directly on either side of two pieces of a truss. And when you want a truss securely fastened to the top of a wall, you use an angled piece of metal, frequently called a 'hurricane tie'. It spreads the load out over a larger section of a wall and makes it less likely to fail under high winds.
I haven't seen too many concrete slabs or foundations blow away. Sill bolts are usually 1/2" or 5/8" tempered steel and a properly designed... or rather, a properly *built* house will have sufficient numbers of bolts to distribute the weight evenly and prevent pull out. And as the article states: Home owners will love the innovation and the marginal increase in cost but builders will hate it; not only because removing a nail will be ridiculously difficult, but also because homes that don't fall down don't have to be re-built. If you make your money building homes and you build homes that last forever, then you will eventually become obsolete. The trend since the 1950's has been to build homes using progressively cheaper materials with progressively shorter lifespans. It's called 'progress' because the cost of building homes decreases (subject to market pressures) and more and more people can 'afford' to live in the suburbs. In reality, this trend simply fosters a cycle of increasing consumer debt, both because you now need a car to drive the extra distance to work every day, and because your home is in a constant state of degradation and needs to be maintained. Add to that the idea of 'keeping up with the Joneses': that you have to have a car and home that are as nice or nicer than your neighbours' instead of living both within your means and within practicality and you have a culture that is ripe for widespread debt and economic stagnation. Or worse, you get stagflation where the economy stagnates but prices continue to increase, now your loaf of bread costs a dollar fifty instead of a dollar but you still have the same income so you've got to trim 50 cents from your budget somewhere else. It happened in the UK in the 60s and 70s and here in the US and Canada in the 70s and 80s and it'll happen again, sooner rather than later.
of selling old phones. Even if you buy a new one every year (which I'm sure few of us do), it's worth practically nothing. Everytime I upgrade phones, I do the same thing: transfer all the desired information to the new one and 'stress test' the old one. (hint: most don't pass the 20lb maul test).
Can someone remind me how to pronounce a "3" again?
Give me doughnoughts or give me death... I mean coffee!
Didn't Wikipedia turn off editing of several rather contentious political recently? As is humourously demonstrated by the boys at Penny Arcade http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/16, completely open editing is as ripe for abuse as it is bustling with potential. If a political wiki were to have any hope of success, editing would have to be moderated some how. Either some kind of over-arching admin who approved all editing changes, or allow people to see the old and the new and vote on the changes before they are implemented. The first choice really defeats the idea of open editing and I think the second is too ponderous to keep pace with the speed of political commentary and opinion on the web.
Don't get me wrong, I play San Andreas just as mush as the next guy. SA looks great, the game play is fun and the controls are easy. And yes, I can pull a lot of social commentary and some story out of it. I also turn SA off and fire up my old consoles and play Chrono Trigger or FF7. Even though these games look like crap by modern standards, I still enjoy them because, either because of the quality of the gameplay or the story. Heck, I even bust out the old Infocom text adventures on occasion.
games today are lacking in story and adventure when compared to games of old. Sure they look great, but they lack that compelling factor.
Even better, you've got a large network if wireless devices: generate a large volume of radio noise and interfere with the mines' communication so they don't know when & where to move or turn all your own tech off and drop an EMP. Either the mines are now completely inert or their computers are fried and they revert to stationary step-boom mines. Though, if they're designed to revert to dumb explosives when their electronic components fail, they'd probably do so when the batteries run out as well.
Well my point is that an episode of Family Guy is going to be very obviously tagged as copyrighted material not belonging to the poster. Here is my concern: If I were making flash cartoons/ video and making it availble for download on my personal website, someone could easily take such material, which has a very limited distribution, and upload it to one of these services claiming to be the creator. Imagine if that had happened in the early days of some of the more popular flash cartoons like Foamy the Squirrel http://www.illwillpress.com/? If these were uploaded by someone other than the copy holder and became wildly popular, that someone could gain remuneration from the copyrighted work of others.
That parenthetical remark raises a valid point though: What kind of controls are there going to be to ensure that someone isn't making money from another person's copyrighted material? This is less of a concern for popular media which everyone can identify (e.g. a clip from Family Guy) but would be a serious problem for independant content makers who choose to distribute their work over the internet.
That is a great idea, and many cities around Europe and even a few in North America are trying to implement 'free' wireless networks (tax-payer subsidised). The problem is not that not everyone has a wireless connection. The problem is that everyone is not capable or willing to upgrade to a wireless connection. There's also the cost for a widespread wireless network. This kind of internet service is only even remotely practical in an extremely dense population area like the core of a major city. The small amount of money you save not running wires from the telephone pole to houses/building does not offset the cost of all the wireless 'hotspots' needed for wide area coverage. And as far as maintaince goes, four or five meters of wire are a lot less likely to get damaged in a storm and are also far cheaper to replace. Locally, the two 'highspeed' ISPs are the two competing cable/telephone companies. One (Company A) owns all the lines regarless of thier use and the other (Company B) piggybacks even their telephone and cable service on the other's infrastructure. The difference in price between the company that has to maintain the infrastructure and the company that has to pay to use it is about five dollars in favour of Company B, but their services is about 25% slower.
If you're sufficiently interested in a movie to want to watch a director's commentary, you probably enjoyed the movie enough to watch it again anyway.
This is great for those studying filmography, animation, or acting; depending of course on the quality of the commentary. The director talking about what kind of doughnoughts were on the snack table the day they shot a certain scene is obviously no help, but commentaries where the director or other cast/crew talk about the process of making the film can be very insightful to students.
But do we really care?
as much as I dislike paying a tax/fee on the blank media I purchase, I can't see any other way to compensate artists who lose money due to illegal copying. DRM is a joke; no matter the method employed, the recording industry and even the software industry will never be able to stop pirating. As the cops learn how to more effectively combat crime, criminals learn how to better commit it. I'm willing to pay a tax on blank media, and in fact, I might even go so far as to promote it *IF* the money goes to those artists that actually need it as opposed to the multi-millionaire, so called 'successful' artists or into the pockets of record company or RIAA execs. Give the money to struggling artists (within reason, not just joe blow who decides to form a 'band' to collect) regardless of popularity in order to encourage diversity and growth in music.
And if such a cause and effect development of anti-virus software hadn't occured, the computers on our mothership could be hacked and implanted with a virus by a mac-using, alien Jeff Goldblum after SUV driving Bush supporters use up all the oil and we are forced to steal from other planets.