It's not so much z/OS I like, it's the z/Linux VM engine running in it, and the Suse OS, with single binary images that are easily cloned, and IFL based licensing which makes most apps that costs hundreds if not more than a thousand PVU's to run on P6 hardware cost 120 now instead, dropping our software costs to less than a fifth of what they were before.
We've replaced over 300 Windows and AIX server chassis and blades with under a hundred Suse images running in z/Linux on less than 4 IFLs, eliminated over a thousand PVU's (each) of license and maintenance costs across WebSphere, DB2, MQ, and more, and for about half the price of moving it to VMWare, and using a fraction of the storage and backup media required as well.
We've been using IFLs inside a few z10s, but now we're actually looking at the new mini-z10 with IFL only configurations, which cost a ton less to operate and free up more z10 slots for MIPS as we grow other apps down the road.
I do agree. I'd like to have seen 10.0 and 10.1 in the "bad" column, and 10.4+ in the great. Andoid, though based in Linux, is enough of a variant is deserved inclusion, but not without mention of iPhone OS somehwere as well. Also note OS 9.x came out in VERY late 1999 (months after the 10.0 beta was freely available btw), and was supported until Dec 2002. This means it came out after ME, and shoudl have EASILY made the bad list (9 was TERRIBLE, way slower than 8.5 and with no real major improvements).
Novel 6.5? 6.0 was equally as bad, and in fact has no notable feature improvements from 5.x which was released a few years earlier, and finally was the first novell OS to support TCP/IP and a friggin GUI... (that noone uses).
No mentiuon of BeOS or BSD itself (other than the semi-flawed association with OS X which is actually based on NextStep, not BSD, though it borrows a lot of code)?
On properly configured hardware, 98SE Rev C? (or was it D?) was actually an incredibly stable OS (as long as you kept Symantec away from it).
ME was not a bad OS at all, if you account for the fact is was NOT a consumer or business OS, but a MEDIA CENTER OS! It was the equivalent of Win95 PLUS pack, with enhancements for playing CDs and a couple of early video codecs. it waS NEVER EVER marketed (by Micrsoft) as an OS to be whipped on all PCs, nor was it a replacement for 98. The VENDORS all took it over and pushed it so they could push newer and more powerful, and more expensive hardware on people who didn't need it, and blindly sold it as an upgrade to tons of Compaq and HP customers who had no business running it on 2 year old hardware. 98 was still sold the entire time ME was, in parallel.
I was at a Microsoft convention back in 2003, and one of the chief guys behind NT/2000 actually APPOLIOGIZED, at length, for microsft allowing the vendors to get so out of control with the OS. by the time they realized what was really going on though, had they let it get so far that making statements to the contracry of the vendors would have made the vendors look as much like assholes as they were, and many of them would have turned their backs on MS on a lot of fronts. Keep in mind, Apple Clones were still being sold then, and it would have been entirely possible for microsoft to loose a significant marketshare to Apple if they pushed the vendors too far.
On a machine with dedicated audio and video hardware, and double the specs of a typical 98SE machine, ME was a great OS. It got better with age as well, and likely would have continued if XP had not been released (based on the far superios 2K Pro). Now, running it on a lower end pentium, with as typical in those day far less RAM than should be in a machine, it was dog slow and caused lots of issues.
I will admit, 7 is much better, and overall supoerior to both XP and Vista, and I have adapted to it quickly and don't plan on going back. That said, 7 is still "unfinished" by a large margin.
1) The control panel experience is entirely inconsistant, with bottons in some cases appearing inside toolbar areas, and the design of each panel looks like a free-for-all design contest with no leadership at all. Some were completely unchanged from XP, others take all new approaches, and I can rarely find a button where one would "expect" it to be based on any logical convention. it flies in the face of ease of use, which was the whole point of redesigning the control panel system to feel more like an app and less like a disparate collection of 50 apps and panels. If they really wanted to do it right, it should have been integreated to the MMC.
2) Backup has become even more of an issue. They took away choices Vista offered, and image backups still suffer the same bug that Vista RC had (if in any way shape or form you, or another backup, touch the directory the image backup is in, it can never be restored) but now it's worse and image backups is done EVERY time, not as a seperate process. This MUST be fixed ASAP!
3) New OS, no new screen savers?
4) New start menu was a good idea, but it's a bit inflexible in usage (needs to be easier to put things in the quick view or favorite apps area), and for christs sake it can't be resized!
5) Taskbar is an improvement, but turning back on quick launch should be easier, and i need to be able to change the spacing between the icons on the taskbar!
6) failed to replace task manager with the much better one that got when they acquired ProcXP from that other small firm I can't recall the name of atm.
7) too many windows either can't be resized, or lost functionality they had in XP and Vista, yet others either retained that or got better instead of regressing. It was not a consistant change at all.
SP1 will hopefully clean some up, but I'm really counting on Win8 being where that magic happens and they start to catch up to OS X. Key features: new FS format, consistant OS feel across apps and functions, OpenCL and OpenGL support, central process thread management. Things like this will really sell the next Microsoft OS.
That link discusses the nuclear option only in multi-decade lead time scenarios, using ablating force. It's basically a small push, that's all... The same equivalent fource could EASILY be accomplished through direct impact, or via a landing pod and small rocket motor.
The seminar goes on further to discuss that sub-1000-day lead times would use penatrating explosive force to provide a direct force. This is the idea of the tunneling warhead I discussed, penatrating only deep enough to blow off large chuncks, and change the angular momentum of the asteroid.
The odds of us having notice at this point are sub-100-days, not sub-1000, unless it's a truly Massive roid. (ones that large are experienced on order of every few hundred thousand years). Closer lead times require complete asteroid destruction through direct kinetic energy, also discussed in the seminar. Only the multi-decade model used nuclear warheads. All the likely scenarios do not make use of it. It can not provide substantial impact in space.
This article fully supports my statements, thanks for the post, except the use of nuclear at decade long distances (which is not an option, given the flight lifespan and power requirements which could not be sustained that long given our current technology).
Please direct your mother to this document, and to the local enforcement agencies. If there is no place on the balcony she can install a dish in LOS of a sattelite for a company that offers local services, then they must allow it to be mounted to a wall or roofline that is in direct contact with one of the rooms she rents.
I have fought this with 2 previous rental companies successfully. in once case, i was forces to sign a contract with a local provider for 1 year to get TV at all until the ruling came in, and then I switched back to sattelite, billed the rental company the termination fees from both providers and the difference in my bill when i signed back up, and was additionally awarded a fee of $500 for my trouble by the courts. About 15 other tennats also switched within days. The rental agency is bound by FCC law to give you permission to have this installation done.
Also, check her contract. moving to a location wherte service is unavalable due to location, obstruction, or local policy automatically allows her to exit her contract without penatly provided all leased equipment is returned in a fully functional (not physically damaged) state. The can not charge a termination fee because she can't get service, and if they did, the apartment complex would be required by law to compensate her 100%.
Nuclear weapons in space are even more pointless than conventional explosives.
At best, a nuclear weapon fired at a ship would cause EM issues, wut a rock could care less. Nuclear is only devastating on earth due to chain reaction, and radiation damage to life. The actual explosive force is not impressive given the size and weight of the munition.
Conventional explosives could only be useful is 1) they work in a vacuum and 2) it could penetrate far enough to crack the roid before explosion.
No, we're looking at 2 scenarios: most likely, extreme kenetic impact (very fast moving bullet) or powered diversion (land a rocket on it and push).
Since we can't exaclty get 200 ton bullets in orbit, (and we'd need a lot of them to take care of fragments that might still be headed our way), we need lighter munitions that can self accelerate to very high speeds. These would be essentially useless to fire from orbit to the planet, but at ranges of a few light seconds they could be devastatingly effective. Mounting a rocket on an incoming roid is something FAR more difficult, and we're probably 100-150 years from the tech necessary (and we'd have the have a LONG warning, likely months or years).
Um, no. I'm quite familiar with how the government gets software written for their aircraft. It is certainly NOT outsourced. in fact, it;s not allowed to be, and they have VERY tight controls inside of Lockheed, Boewing, Sikorski, and others ensuring allthe code is not only developed in house, but that it also sticks to very strick standards and meets specs.
Lowest bidder still has to meet the tennants of the RFP.
next, it's not ONE piece of code. By military policy, it must be in triplicate, on 2 seperate pieces of hardware inside the unit. Each of those runs it's own code, they compare in real time the results, and drop inconsitant results. If you hack the unit, you have essentiaolly hacked only 1 of 3, and the aircraft will stop responding to that one and report the error codes.
The video codec in use across that channel may very well be a generic codec, and in fact I'd expect the RFP included a specific codec the army wanted used, as likely some OTHER group designed to control rigs for the drones, not the drone maker. (the army typically doesn't like on company making all the key parts).
Yes, and also to add, the drones were put in service 8 years ago, designed for years before that. The CPU capabilities back in 2000 would have needed to be massive, likely use dedicated compression/encryption chips, and would have been at best 128bit at the time?
more weight, more power, more heat, more cost, more complexity, and a less stable video feed (which is crucial to flight navigation and targeting), for something in a couple of years the enemy would have hacked anyway? not worth the risk at the time.
It's not like they're hacking the drone, just the camera feed... and they'd need to be in broadcast range, know where to point a receiver, and if it's coming for them they'd have what, a few minutes time to run? (and we'd see them scruuy and take out the cars istead of the buildings anyway).
Upgrading the drones for data encryption has been in process since 2008. it's a hardware overhaul, and it's been dcided to be part of a larger overhaul of the drones including other upgraded systems as well. Sometimes the technology simply isnt available at the time to do what we want. It's NOT a security breech.
I don;t know... I hardly use Pandora (usually only on wifi anyway), and I might watch 20 minutes total of YouTube videos in 30 days.
I send/receive a ton of e-mail, and web surf quite a bit, including reading PDFs (tech manuals mostly for products I'm deploying or supporting), I'm also a heavy maps user.
I reset my data counter every billing cycle. I'm sitting at 3.1GB right now. Looking through my history, I've had 4 months this year well over 5GB.
I don't tether. I don't do much video over the air (20 min a month?) I rarely do audio over the air (a few hours a month?) I don't twitter I don't play any games with online connections
unfortunately, it does not work that way. New display technogies have varying poewr demans, new processors utilize altering power draw states and sleep modes, chips on board can now be enabled and disabled at will. The laptop batteries do not conform to a simple 12/5/3/1.5 like desktop mainboards do. The DC to DC converters are moving more into the battery and less on the mainboard. Internal power distribution is very complex in a modern laptop.
Also, new technologes are constantly pushing form factor design, and batteries need to fit to the device. Even if the cells between numerous models could be standardized, the casing, power connector, latch, and more can not be standardized (unless they move to non-removalbe batteries like Apple thankfully realized was not a bad idea).
Every new motherboard and chipset combo is in a different physical architecture, and the case design is based on that, and battery placement typically a 3rd decision. People are not going to accept some generic, bulky pack hanging off their laptop, nor could you standardize them to fir 9", 10", 13",15", 17" well. Some batteries need to be flat and wide, some compact and half an inch thick. They need variable output from 20 to 120 wats, quick charging, good heat disipation.
No, asking to standardize a battery would mean standardizing a notebook form factor. IBM/lenovo seems to be the only one willing to do that, and look where they sit in the market: obsolete aesthetic design, overweight, and bulky, and near last place beating only the nich players in distribution and saled figures.
There are essentially 25-30 core laptop designs, and each with varying power requirements (becomeing more divers the larger the machine). Each has a market need. internally, these are too varied to count.
When CPU/GPU becomes ubiquitous in notebooks (give it 5-10 years), and when miniaturization basically becomes a single-chip hardware architecture, and solid state storage becomes automatic, backended by cloud storage for large datasets, then notebook architecture might settle on 5-10 form factors, and battery designs will simplyfy. For now, they're expensive...
Most notebooks are moving completely away from LiIon. The cost of LiPo is now in line, and the saftey issues alone are woth the minor cost, let alone the smaller pack size/improved density. I've not seen a new non-LiPo smart phone in a while either.
Yea, the bargain basement Dell crap is still using LiIon, but more likely just to clear out stock or fulfil contract obligations. Still, even the 4 year old MacBook a family memebr has, which is pre-LiPo, has significant amount of chip intelligence built into the pack. I have a 5 year old HP and a 4 year old Gateway notebook, both of which also have on-battery monitoring chips. Even the simpler LiIon notebook batteries typically at least have thermal sensors and a charge sensor. My 4 year old camcorder battery "communicates" with the camera and displays all kinds of data, which is clearly in the battery not the camera as moving it to the other identical camcorder we got the parents for christmas that year displays the same data.
These batteries are not as simple as they were 5 years ago. However, your comment is mostly correct.
I appologize for my company who provides me a PC and browser without integrated spell checking... I have little enough time to post on breaks, I don't have time for manual editing.
Yea, look at the battery design of the newer LiPo battery packs, like those used in the Macbook. Each cell has a chip attahced that monitors output, heat, and charge state, and the charging cuircuit in the battery intelligently detects which cells charge/discharge faster than others in order to gain max charge performance as well as a better balanced output load and use closer to 100% of the energy on a flatter discharge curve. This prevents components on the motherboard (which get hot) from having to do this using active resistance, and extends battery life as well. There are entire little computers in battery packs now, and they're getting smarter. many also have buttons that show active charge states even when the battery is not connected. Since power is not based on a curve, but a flat line, traditional battery measuring techniques (like the old meters on AA and C energizer batteries that detect output and heat a wire), don't work. to know the battery state, one must know the number of minutes it;s been running for at a given output, based on the last known charge cycle. it has the be calculated, and the battery itself has to internally understand when to thell the PC to stop charging, or when it's running low.
The laptop batteries would have mnore robust packaging. The thin light batteries often require metal reinforcement (likely with magnesium due to the good regidity:weight ratio). Lawnmower batteries have little care for form/function, and can be encased in cheap plastic like a set of 6v batteries fit into a lantern, just snapped into plastic, wrapped, and connected.
Power density of the material is dependent on the chemistry, but power output, charge, and rain, is also dependent on the types of anodes/cathodes used, their placement inside the pack, the distance from the anode to the exterior wall of the battery, surface area of the anode/cathode, and more. It's a complex design. Lawnwoer users are not exactly concerned about how long their battery lasts from 10% to 1% either, or that the power curve is as close to flat as possible. Your lawnmower could slowly loose power output and up to a point you'd not care, as that curve does not damage sensitive electronics as it would in a notebook. It's hard to brown out a lawnmower, or a drill... Lack of this concern greatly simplifies battery design and cost.
Lapop batteries are almost all unique, each one with a different form factor, cell count, charging system, digital charge monitoring, power output, and more. There are thousands of unique bettery designs, likely using dozens or hundreds of different size and type cells, not to mention most now are not even LiIon, but LiPo.
Lawnmower cells are likely generic cells, used in hindreds of products, simply slapped together inside a unifirm plastic casing. It requires little in the way of charge monitoring or advanced circuits and sensors, and can output quite a bit of heat if it wants to. These 12 and 18v cells are common in tools, mowers, blowers, and even cars. A tiny battery pack needs custom sized flat cells and often includes technology for max power disbursement using special anodes and metals. Lawnmowers? So long as they run from 90% full to 10% full predictible with at least an hour run time, noone really cares. A laptop needs predictable power over a longer period, and also needs to hold a charge better over time (lawnmower can leak juice as it likely takes 30 minutes to full charge on 100 volt where it;s not limited by a motherboard's meager power support and tiny transformer. If it ran 30% down not being used for a few weeks, fine, you allways have edge work and blowing to do and can finish the lawn after a short recharge... Laptops not so much.
Standard cheap cells less critical power maintenance requirements Less heat disipation concerns Less concern about getting exactly 100% of the power back out of the battery No custom manufacturing costs No logistics and backstock storage concerns across multiple manufacturers and brands cheaper....
No. Laptop batteries are priced higher due to size constraints and weight constraints. Just becaus eit says LiIon does NOT mean that the battery in your laptop and lawnmower are even remotely the same.
Larger batteries are cheaper to produce. Batteries not limited by shape design are cheaper to produce Batteries not limited by expensive structural components (lawnmower batteries can be placed in cheap, thick, sturdy casings and noone cares, slim laptop batteries require magnesuim or titanium reinforcement to hold together).
Arguing why laptop batteries cost more per watt hour is like arguing why Half-A batteries cost more than D-Cells for the same reason. Or why cell phone and camera batters have even larger differences in priceing per watt hour vs laptop batteries.
Also, every laptop practically has a unique battery, which requires manufacturing, storage, logistics, etc. Lawnmowers are likely using generic cells, like the ones being mass rpoduced for cars and other industrial purposes. A battery is a battery to a lawnmower. They simply cost less. I'd bet half the price or less.
The fewer of a thing you make, or the more unique it is from other things, the more it costs.
This is not capitolism, it's logistics, manufacturing, and HARD COSTS.
STFU, and do some market research before you get on a high horse and spread FUD about things you know nothing about.
So, you'd rather everyone who can't afford or does not currently need a new TV be subject to loud commercials, and make the rest of us pay, even if its $1 (about $50 million a year, not including absorbedc costs of redesign, and no a compression filter is not the same price as a vChip so it certainly will NOT be that cheap), for this blocking technology, vs. a simple, and damned near free system call "pass a law once".
Look, technically the "volume" is not increased. Your TV Volume has a "max" point. Spoken voice and most music occupy the 50-80% gain in multiple frequencies, spead wide across the spectrum. In Commercials, instead of the voice being recorded at 50%, it's recorded at 90% and thus that spoken voice in the commercial is in fact creating nearly double the DECIBLES (ok, actually that's a curve of squares, but it's double the energy), which IS measurable very directly and easily, and can easily be compared vs a program's audio. Also, noone said we'd be measuring any particular range/ranges here, simply that the commercial must not exceed the average peak of the program. If the average peak of the program is a gun slinger high action movie with lots of bangs, a loud commercial might not be all that noticible to a listening device, but if it;s a late night talk show, then spoken voice in a commercial having double the gain would ping instantly.
Make it simple. Use the fines to fund the process. Use viewer complaints to find and target advertisers, and recorded playback at the station (which they already keep per FCC rules for a limited time) to prove the abuse. Make the fines VERY heavy and they'll simply stop doing it. Since this law requires nothing more than a hotline or website to be set up (which could simply be a "call your local boradcaster or cable company and they'll fill out a form for you), and that would only be used for a short time for a small number of complaints (and placing some of the cost on the broadcaster might simply make them refuse to PLAY that comercial, or require an authorization for them to noise balance it at cost to the advertiser submitting the feed), then this will be a soon forgotten problem, with no ongoing cost to americans.
You propose redesigns of over 5,000 unique TV models, changes to manufacturing, stocking and sales issues with older non-compliant TVs, and a disposal issue for used sets, and a consumer cost, for something most of us won't see for 5-10 years? All to replace a simple law that costs little to nothing, uses the existing powers of an existing agency for enforcement, the power of consumers for enforcement, and would overnight see an end to these poor practices? Fuck you sir.
Shit, their US TV advertising budget is more than 3.3M a year.... This is chump change. And the unquantifiable savings in reduction in recruitment office costs, and weeding out of undesireables who have non-realistic views of army life easily saves more than that...
This was a good program. I suggest increasing the funding to $6M anually and see what they can do with it...
10% of his time? If he spent 10% of his time handling all the warranty issues combined that would be a lot. I provided warranty services to a large portion of my state's school districts. The local admins simply make a call. It;s very time-limited. They do very little diagnostics, it;s mostly user issues. If they even suspect a hardware issue, they simply call the rep in. (usually moving suspisios machines to the side and replacing them with known good ones, then letting 5 or 6 build up before placing a single call for mass repair.
Also, if he spent 10% of his time doing warranty, how much could possibly be attributed to SETI? CPU's don't fail on their own, even when under reasonable stresses (these were not overclocked machines, thety're celerons mostly...). Power Supplies also fail more often from being powered on/off then from remaining on full time (even under load), so you might argue he would have had fewer PS related issues using Seti. The HDD load is negligible, maybe a 1% increase in use over a 24 hour period. This really is not a waranty issue, it;s a 1) wasted admin time on the clock issue, and potentially 2) power draw and electric bills (but again, only if the district had in place power-off-at-night policies, since on is on and off is off on most of these machines (in 2004, very few machines had intelligent power reduction features).
Forget plants. Even at 10 times the lab yields, running 365 days a year, there simply isn't enough land. (lat along what to do with the biological wastes).
http://www.dotyenergy./ Read everything they have. This is REAL technology that has been in use making Diesel and jetfuels since WWII. Modern improvements (over 60 approved aptents recently), combined with wind poewr, and design improvements for mass scale fuel manufacture make this work at about $60-80 per barrel depending on local markets (roughly $3 a gallon by the time it's blended and gets transported to your local gas station for sale, not bad at all).
A few acres, 20-30 wind turbines (mostly off-peak energy, and only needed a few hours of the day), and waste coal and CO2 sequestered from coal fire plants, as we can make 400 tonnes of liquid fuels per day. We'de need 3000 - 4000 of these plants to fuel the entire hemeshphre without drilling for another drop of oil. We have enough wind land area to power it. We have enough carbon to use. most of the water is recycled (and we could fuel it using non-drinkable sources, and output some of the recycled clean water and sell that too if it's needed without dramatic cost increases).
FYI: I an not an accosiate of doty energy, it;s investors, nor do I have a stake in the company, and am compensated in NO WAY for my comments.
Plants are cheap. Land is not, processing plant material is not, dealing with plant waste and contaminants (some harmful) that can't be part of the fuel is a problem, fertilizer has it;s own environmental issues, water cost more than gas, and would you really truse a fuel shortage due to a bad frost???
Also, this is the exact reason ethanol is bad, gallons per acre per year is about 1% of the total earth's needs if we choose to continue to eat.
Lets try something else: How about a technology we've used since WWII that can make gas from wind and waste CO2 emissions for about $60 per barrel cost (about $3/gallon at the pumps)? www.dotyenergy.com. This is REAL, not vaporware. It's accepted simple chemisty, proven over 50 years of use, finally attacked and refined with modern improvements in heat exchangers, electrolizers, and more, plus being combined with wind energy (actually solving one of Wind's biggest issues, off-peak overproduction), and the enture process is carbon nuetral...
they could be buiolding plants now, bit since this is neither a biofuel, now solar or wind itself, it qualifies for no grants offered to get started. If you want to also learn about all the reasons all the alternative fuels won;t work, they have a great section of their site covering the science and costs of pretty much every presented option, and tons and tons of data about their own process.
fyi: I am not in any way affiliated with this firm, its investors, and am not compensated for my statements.
Hopefully we could standardize on one of the upcoming SIP extention standards. SIP itself is good in many ways (and the most poular standard) bit it;s not the best or most resilient (it's very bandwidth friendly though,m thus it's popularity). Since 64k or 128k chanels would be the norm on telco VoIP systems, SIP is not required and other protocols are available that might be a good alternatve. Much of the underlying telco infrastructure is as ytou say already VoIP, it;s just about making it all work together to a particular standard of quality and SLA without requiring too massive of an overhaul.
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It's not so much z/OS I like, it's the z/Linux VM engine running in it, and the Suse OS, with single binary images that are easily cloned, and IFL based licensing which makes most apps that costs hundreds if not more than a thousand PVU's to run on P6 hardware cost 120 now instead, dropping our software costs to less than a fifth of what they were before.
We've replaced over 300 Windows and AIX server chassis and blades with under a hundred Suse images running in z/Linux on less than 4 IFLs, eliminated over a thousand PVU's (each) of license and maintenance costs across WebSphere, DB2, MQ, and more, and for about half the price of moving it to VMWare, and using a fraction of the storage and backup media required as well.
We've been using IFLs inside a few z10s, but now we're actually looking at the new mini-z10 with IFL only configurations, which cost a ton less to operate and free up more z10 slots for MIPS as we grow other apps down the road.
z/OS rocks. z/Linux rocks.
I do agree. I'd like to have seen 10.0 and 10.1 in the "bad" column, and 10.4+ in the great. Andoid, though based in Linux, is enough of a variant is deserved inclusion, but not without mention of iPhone OS somehwere as well. Also note OS 9.x came out in VERY late 1999 (months after the 10.0 beta was freely available btw), and was supported until Dec 2002. This means it came out after ME, and shoudl have EASILY made the bad list (9 was TERRIBLE, way slower than 8.5 and with no real major improvements).
Novel 6.5? 6.0 was equally as bad, and in fact has no notable feature improvements from 5.x which was released a few years earlier, and finally was the first novell OS to support TCP/IP and a friggin GUI... (that noone uses).
No mentiuon of BeOS or BSD itself (other than the semi-flawed association with OS X which is actually based on NextStep, not BSD, though it borrows a lot of code)?
Bad article.
On properly configured hardware, 98SE Rev C? (or was it D?) was actually an incredibly stable OS (as long as you kept Symantec away from it).
ME was not a bad OS at all, if you account for the fact is was NOT a consumer or business OS, but a MEDIA CENTER OS! It was the equivalent of Win95 PLUS pack, with enhancements for playing CDs and a couple of early video codecs. it waS NEVER EVER marketed (by Micrsoft) as an OS to be whipped on all PCs, nor was it a replacement for 98. The VENDORS all took it over and pushed it so they could push newer and more powerful, and more expensive hardware on people who didn't need it, and blindly sold it as an upgrade to tons of Compaq and HP customers who had no business running it on 2 year old hardware. 98 was still sold the entire time ME was, in parallel.
I was at a Microsoft convention back in 2003, and one of the chief guys behind NT/2000 actually APPOLIOGIZED, at length, for microsft allowing the vendors to get so out of control with the OS. by the time they realized what was really going on though, had they let it get so far that making statements to the contracry of the vendors would have made the vendors look as much like assholes as they were, and many of them would have turned their backs on MS on a lot of fronts. Keep in mind, Apple Clones were still being sold then, and it would have been entirely possible for microsoft to loose a significant marketshare to Apple if they pushed the vendors too far.
On a machine with dedicated audio and video hardware, and double the specs of a typical 98SE machine, ME was a great OS. It got better with age as well, and likely would have continued if XP had not been released (based on the far superios 2K Pro). Now, running it on a lower end pentium, with as typical in those day far less RAM than should be in a machine, it was dog slow and caused lots of issues.
I will admit, 7 is much better, and overall supoerior to both XP and Vista, and I have adapted to it quickly and don't plan on going back. That said, 7 is still "unfinished" by a large margin.
1) The control panel experience is entirely inconsistant, with bottons in some cases appearing inside toolbar areas, and the design of each panel looks like a free-for-all design contest with no leadership at all. Some were completely unchanged from XP, others take all new approaches, and I can rarely find a button where one would "expect" it to be based on any logical convention. it flies in the face of ease of use, which was the whole point of redesigning the control panel system to feel more like an app and less like a disparate collection of 50 apps and panels. If they really wanted to do it right, it should have been integreated to the MMC.
2) Backup has become even more of an issue. They took away choices Vista offered, and image backups still suffer the same bug that Vista RC had (if in any way shape or form you, or another backup, touch the directory the image backup is in, it can never be restored) but now it's worse and image backups is done EVERY time, not as a seperate process. This MUST be fixed ASAP!
3) New OS, no new screen savers?
4) New start menu was a good idea, but it's a bit inflexible in usage (needs to be easier to put things in the quick view or favorite apps area), and for christs sake it can't be resized!
5) Taskbar is an improvement, but turning back on quick launch should be easier, and i need to be able to change the spacing between the icons on the taskbar!
6) failed to replace task manager with the much better one that got when they acquired ProcXP from that other small firm I can't recall the name of atm.
7) too many windows either can't be resized, or lost functionality they had in XP and Vista, yet others either retained that or got better instead of regressing. It was not a consistant change at all.
SP1 will hopefully clean some up, but I'm really counting on Win8 being where that magic happens and they start to catch up to OS X. Key features: new FS format, consistant OS feel across apps and functions, OpenCL and OpenGL support, central process thread management. Things like this will really sell the next Microsoft OS.
That link discusses the nuclear option only in multi-decade lead time scenarios, using ablating force. It's basically a small push, that's all... The same equivalent fource could EASILY be accomplished through direct impact, or via a landing pod and small rocket motor.
The seminar goes on further to discuss that sub-1000-day lead times would use penatrating explosive force to provide a direct force. This is the idea of the tunneling warhead I discussed, penatrating only deep enough to blow off large chuncks, and change the angular momentum of the asteroid.
The odds of us having notice at this point are sub-100-days, not sub-1000, unless it's a truly Massive roid. (ones that large are experienced on order of every few hundred thousand years). Closer lead times require complete asteroid destruction through direct kinetic energy, also discussed in the seminar. Only the multi-decade model used nuclear warheads. All the likely scenarios do not make use of it. It can not provide substantial impact in space.
This article fully supports my statements, thanks for the post, except the use of nuclear at decade long distances (which is not an option, given the flight lifespan and power requirements which could not be sustained that long given our current technology).
Please direct your mother to this document, and to the local enforcement agencies. If there is no place on the balcony she can install a dish in LOS of a sattelite for a company that offers local services, then they must allow it to be mounted to a wall or roofline that is in direct contact with one of the rooms she rents.
I have fought this with 2 previous rental companies successfully. in once case, i was forces to sign a contract with a local provider for 1 year to get TV at all until the ruling came in, and then I switched back to sattelite, billed the rental company the termination fees from both providers and the difference in my bill when i signed back up, and was additionally awarded a fee of $500 for my trouble by the courts. About 15 other tennats also switched within days. The rental agency is bound by FCC law to give you permission to have this installation done.
Also, check her contract. moving to a location wherte service is unavalable due to location, obstruction, or local policy automatically allows her to exit her contract without penatly provided all leased equipment is returned in a fully functional (not physically damaged) state. The can not charge a termination fee because she can't get service, and if they did, the apartment complex would be required by law to compensate her 100%.
good point. someone Mod this guy up. Oh, wait, he posted as AC...
Nuclear weapons in space are even more pointless than conventional explosives.
At best, a nuclear weapon fired at a ship would cause EM issues, wut a rock could care less. Nuclear is only devastating on earth due to chain reaction, and radiation damage to life. The actual explosive force is not impressive given the size and weight of the munition.
Conventional explosives could only be useful is 1) they work in a vacuum and 2) it could penetrate far enough to crack the roid before explosion.
No, we're looking at 2 scenarios: most likely, extreme kenetic impact (very fast moving bullet) or powered diversion (land a rocket on it and push).
Since we can't exaclty get 200 ton bullets in orbit, (and we'd need a lot of them to take care of fragments that might still be headed our way), we need lighter munitions that can self accelerate to very high speeds. These would be essentially useless to fire from orbit to the planet, but at ranges of a few light seconds they could be devastatingly effective. Mounting a rocket on an incoming roid is something FAR more difficult, and we're probably 100-150 years from the tech necessary (and we'd have the have a LONG warning, likely months or years).
Um, no. I'm quite familiar with how the government gets software written for their aircraft. It is certainly NOT outsourced. in fact, it;s not allowed to be, and they have VERY tight controls inside of Lockheed, Boewing, Sikorski, and others ensuring allthe code is not only developed in house, but that it also sticks to very strick standards and meets specs.
Lowest bidder still has to meet the tennants of the RFP.
next, it's not ONE piece of code. By military policy, it must be in triplicate, on 2 seperate pieces of hardware inside the unit. Each of those runs it's own code, they compare in real time the results, and drop inconsitant results. If you hack the unit, you have essentiaolly hacked only 1 of 3, and the aircraft will stop responding to that one and report the error codes.
The video codec in use across that channel may very well be a generic codec, and in fact I'd expect the RFP included a specific codec the army wanted used, as likely some OTHER group designed to control rigs for the drones, not the drone maker. (the army typically doesn't like on company making all the key parts).
Yes, and also to add, the drones were put in service 8 years ago, designed for years before that. The CPU capabilities back in 2000 would have needed to be massive, likely use dedicated compression/encryption chips, and would have been at best 128bit at the time?
more weight, more power, more heat, more cost, more complexity, and a less stable video feed (which is crucial to flight navigation and targeting), for something in a couple of years the enemy would have hacked anyway? not worth the risk at the time.
It's not like they're hacking the drone, just the camera feed... and they'd need to be in broadcast range, know where to point a receiver, and if it's coming for them they'd have what, a few minutes time to run? (and we'd see them scruuy and take out the cars istead of the buildings anyway).
Upgrading the drones for data encryption has been in process since 2008. it's a hardware overhaul, and it's been dcided to be part of a larger overhaul of the drones including other upgraded systems as well. Sometimes the technology simply isnt available at the time to do what we want. It's NOT a security breech.
I don;t know... I hardly use Pandora (usually only on wifi anyway), and I might watch 20 minutes total of YouTube videos in 30 days.
I send/receive a ton of e-mail, and web surf quite a bit, including reading PDFs (tech manuals mostly for products I'm deploying or supporting), I'm also a heavy maps user.
I reset my data counter every billing cycle. I'm sitting at 3.1GB right now. Looking through my history, I've had 4 months this year well over 5GB.
I don't tether.
I don't do much video over the air (20 min a month?)
I rarely do audio over the air (a few hours a month?)
I don't twitter
I don't play any games with online connections
I exceed their cap regularly....
unfortunately, it does not work that way. New display technogies have varying poewr demans, new processors utilize altering power draw states and sleep modes, chips on board can now be enabled and disabled at will. The laptop batteries do not conform to a simple 12/5/3/1.5 like desktop mainboards do. The DC to DC converters are moving more into the battery and less on the mainboard. Internal power distribution is very complex in a modern laptop.
Also, new technologes are constantly pushing form factor design, and batteries need to fit to the device. Even if the cells between numerous models could be standardized, the casing, power connector, latch, and more can not be standardized (unless they move to non-removalbe batteries like Apple thankfully realized was not a bad idea).
Every new motherboard and chipset combo is in a different physical architecture, and the case design is based on that, and battery placement typically a 3rd decision. People are not going to accept some generic, bulky pack hanging off their laptop, nor could you standardize them to fir 9", 10", 13" ,15", 17" well. Some batteries need to be flat and wide, some compact and half an inch thick. They need variable output from 20 to 120 wats, quick charging, good heat disipation.
No, asking to standardize a battery would mean standardizing a notebook form factor. IBM/lenovo seems to be the only one willing to do that, and look where they sit in the market: obsolete aesthetic design, overweight, and bulky, and near last place beating only the nich players in distribution and saled figures.
There are essentially 25-30 core laptop designs, and each with varying power requirements (becomeing more divers the larger the machine). Each has a market need. internally, these are too varied to count.
When CPU/GPU becomes ubiquitous in notebooks (give it 5-10 years), and when miniaturization basically becomes a single-chip hardware architecture, and solid state storage becomes automatic, backended by cloud storage for large datasets, then notebook architecture might settle on 5-10 form factors, and battery designs will simplyfy. For now, they're expensive...
Most notebooks are moving completely away from LiIon. The cost of LiPo is now in line, and the saftey issues alone are woth the minor cost, let alone the smaller pack size/improved density. I've not seen a new non-LiPo smart phone in a while either.
Yea, the bargain basement Dell crap is still using LiIon, but more likely just to clear out stock or fulfil contract obligations. Still, even the 4 year old MacBook a family memebr has, which is pre-LiPo, has significant amount of chip intelligence built into the pack. I have a 5 year old HP and a 4 year old Gateway notebook, both of which also have on-battery monitoring chips. Even the simpler LiIon notebook batteries typically at least have thermal sensors and a charge sensor. My 4 year old camcorder battery "communicates" with the camera and displays all kinds of data, which is clearly in the battery not the camera as moving it to the other identical camcorder we got the parents for christmas that year displays the same data.
These batteries are not as simple as they were 5 years ago. However, your comment is mostly correct.
lol. I can accept that.
I appologize for my company who provides me a PC and browser without integrated spell checking... I have little enough time to post on breaks, I don't have time for manual editing.
Yea, look at the battery design of the newer LiPo battery packs, like those used in the Macbook. Each cell has a chip attahced that monitors output, heat, and charge state, and the charging cuircuit in the battery intelligently detects which cells charge/discharge faster than others in order to gain max charge performance as well as a better balanced output load and use closer to 100% of the energy on a flatter discharge curve. This prevents components on the motherboard (which get hot) from having to do this using active resistance, and extends battery life as well. There are entire little computers in battery packs now, and they're getting smarter. many also have buttons that show active charge states even when the battery is not connected. Since power is not based on a curve, but a flat line, traditional battery measuring techniques (like the old meters on AA and C energizer batteries that detect output and heat a wire), don't work. to know the battery state, one must know the number of minutes it;s been running for at a given output, based on the last known charge cycle. it has the be calculated, and the battery itself has to internally understand when to thell the PC to stop charging, or when it's running low.
The laptop batteries would have mnore robust packaging. The thin light batteries often require metal reinforcement (likely with magnesium due to the good regidity:weight ratio). Lawnmower batteries have little care for form/function, and can be encased in cheap plastic like a set of 6v batteries fit into a lantern, just snapped into plastic, wrapped, and connected.
Power density of the material is dependent on the chemistry, but power output, charge, and rain, is also dependent on the types of anodes/cathodes used, their placement inside the pack, the distance from the anode to the exterior wall of the battery, surface area of the anode/cathode, and more. It's a complex design. Lawnwoer users are not exactly concerned about how long their battery lasts from 10% to 1% either, or that the power curve is as close to flat as possible. Your lawnmower could slowly loose power output and up to a point you'd not care, as that curve does not damage sensitive electronics as it would in a notebook. It's hard to brown out a lawnmower, or a drill... Lack of this concern greatly simplifies battery design and cost.
a few more points to support you as well:
Lapop batteries are almost all unique, each one with a different form factor, cell count, charging system, digital charge monitoring, power output, and more. There are thousands of unique bettery designs, likely using dozens or hundreds of different size and type cells, not to mention most now are not even LiIon, but LiPo.
Lawnmower cells are likely generic cells, used in hindreds of products, simply slapped together inside a unifirm plastic casing. It requires little in the way of charge monitoring or advanced circuits and sensors, and can output quite a bit of heat if it wants to. These 12 and 18v cells are common in tools, mowers, blowers, and even cars. A tiny battery pack needs custom sized flat cells and often includes technology for max power disbursement using special anodes and metals. Lawnmowers? So long as they run from 90% full to 10% full predictible with at least an hour run time, noone really cares. A laptop needs predictable power over a longer period, and also needs to hold a charge better over time (lawnmower can leak juice as it likely takes 30 minutes to full charge on 100 volt where it;s not limited by a motherboard's meager power support and tiny transformer. If it ran 30% down not being used for a few weeks, fine, you allways have edge work and blowing to do and can finish the lawn after a short recharge... Laptops not so much.
Standard cheap cells
less critical power maintenance requirements
Less heat disipation concerns
Less concern about getting exactly 100% of the power back out of the battery
No custom manufacturing costs
No logistics and backstock storage concerns across multiple manufacturers and brands
cheaper....
No. Laptop batteries are priced higher due to size constraints and weight constraints. Just becaus eit says LiIon does NOT mean that the battery in your laptop and lawnmower are even remotely the same.
Larger batteries are cheaper to produce.
Batteries not limited by shape design are cheaper to produce
Batteries not limited by expensive structural components (lawnmower batteries can be placed in cheap, thick, sturdy casings and noone cares, slim laptop batteries require magnesuim or titanium reinforcement to hold together).
Arguing why laptop batteries cost more per watt hour is like arguing why Half-A batteries cost more than D-Cells for the same reason. Or why cell phone and camera batters have even larger differences in priceing per watt hour vs laptop batteries.
Also, every laptop practically has a unique battery, which requires manufacturing, storage, logistics, etc. Lawnmowers are likely using generic cells, like the ones being mass rpoduced for cars and other industrial purposes. A battery is a battery to a lawnmower. They simply cost less. I'd bet half the price or less.
The fewer of a thing you make, or the more unique it is from other things, the more it costs.
This is not capitolism, it's logistics, manufacturing, and HARD COSTS.
STFU, and do some market research before you get on a high horse and spread FUD about things you know nothing about.
So, you'd rather everyone who can't afford or does not currently need a new TV be subject to loud commercials, and make the rest of us pay, even if its $1 (about $50 million a year, not including absorbedc costs of redesign, and no a compression filter is not the same price as a vChip so it certainly will NOT be that cheap), for this blocking technology, vs. a simple, and damned near free system call "pass a law once".
Look, technically the "volume" is not increased. Your TV Volume has a "max" point. Spoken voice and most music occupy the 50-80% gain in multiple frequencies, spead wide across the spectrum. In Commercials, instead of the voice being recorded at 50%, it's recorded at 90% and thus that spoken voice in the commercial is in fact creating nearly double the DECIBLES (ok, actually that's a curve of squares, but it's double the energy), which IS measurable very directly and easily, and can easily be compared vs a program's audio. Also, noone said we'd be measuring any particular range/ranges here, simply that the commercial must not exceed the average peak of the program. If the average peak of the program is a gun slinger high action movie with lots of bangs, a loud commercial might not be all that noticible to a listening device, but if it;s a late night talk show, then spoken voice in a commercial having double the gain would ping instantly.
Make it simple. Use the fines to fund the process. Use viewer complaints to find and target advertisers, and recorded playback at the station (which they already keep per FCC rules for a limited time) to prove the abuse. Make the fines VERY heavy and they'll simply stop doing it. Since this law requires nothing more than a hotline or website to be set up (which could simply be a "call your local boradcaster or cable company and they'll fill out a form for you), and that would only be used for a short time for a small number of complaints (and placing some of the cost on the broadcaster might simply make them refuse to PLAY that comercial, or require an authorization for them to noise balance it at cost to the advertiser submitting the feed), then this will be a soon forgotten problem, with no ongoing cost to americans.
You propose redesigns of over 5,000 unique TV models, changes to manufacturing, stocking and sales issues with older non-compliant TVs, and a disposal issue for used sets, and a consumer cost, for something most of us won't see for 5-10 years? All to replace a simple law that costs little to nothing, uses the existing powers of an existing agency for enforcement, the power of consumers for enforcement, and would overnight see an end to these poor practices? Fuck you sir.
Shit, their US TV advertising budget is more than 3.3M a year.... This is chump change. And the unquantifiable savings in reduction in recruitment office costs, and weeding out of undesireables who have non-realistic views of army life easily saves more than that...
This was a good program. I suggest increasing the funding to $6M anually and see what they can do with it...
10% of his time? If he spent 10% of his time handling all the warranty issues combined that would be a lot. I provided warranty services to a large portion of my state's school districts. The local admins simply make a call. It;s very time-limited. They do very little diagnostics, it;s mostly user issues. If they even suspect a hardware issue, they simply call the rep in. (usually moving suspisios machines to the side and replacing them with known good ones, then letting 5 or 6 build up before placing a single call for mass repair.
Also, if he spent 10% of his time doing warranty, how much could possibly be attributed to SETI? CPU's don't fail on their own, even when under reasonable stresses (these were not overclocked machines, thety're celerons mostly...). Power Supplies also fail more often from being powered on/off then from remaining on full time (even under load), so you might argue he would have had fewer PS related issues using Seti. The HDD load is negligible, maybe a 1% increase in use over a 24 hour period. This really is not a waranty issue, it;s a 1) wasted admin time on the clock issue, and potentially 2) power draw and electric bills (but again, only if the district had in place power-off-at-night policies, since on is on and off is off on most of these machines (in 2004, very few machines had intelligent power reduction features).
Forget plants. Even at 10 times the lab yields, running 365 days a year, there simply isn't enough land. (lat along what to do with the biological wastes).
http://www.dotyenergy./ Read everything they have. This is REAL technology that has been in use making Diesel and jetfuels since WWII. Modern improvements (over 60 approved aptents recently), combined with wind poewr, and design improvements for mass scale fuel manufacture make this work at about $60-80 per barrel depending on local markets (roughly $3 a gallon by the time it's blended and gets transported to your local gas station for sale, not bad at all).
A few acres, 20-30 wind turbines (mostly off-peak energy, and only needed a few hours of the day), and waste coal and CO2 sequestered from coal fire plants, as we can make 400 tonnes of liquid fuels per day. We'de need 3000 - 4000 of these plants to fuel the entire hemeshphre without drilling for another drop of oil. We have enough wind land area to power it. We have enough carbon to use. most of the water is recycled (and we could fuel it using non-drinkable sources, and output some of the recycled clean water and sell that too if it's needed without dramatic cost increases).
FYI: I an not an accosiate of doty energy, it;s investors, nor do I have a stake in the company, and am compensated in NO WAY for my comments.
Plants are cheap. Land is not, processing plant material is not, dealing with plant waste and contaminants (some harmful) that can't be part of the fuel is a problem, fertilizer has it;s own environmental issues, water cost more than gas, and would you really truse a fuel shortage due to a bad frost???
Also, this is the exact reason ethanol is bad, gallons per acre per year is about 1% of the total earth's needs if we choose to continue to eat.
Lets try something else:
How about a technology we've used since WWII that can make gas from wind and waste CO2 emissions for about $60 per barrel cost (about $3/gallon at the pumps)? www.dotyenergy.com. This is REAL, not vaporware. It's accepted simple chemisty, proven over 50 years of use, finally attacked and refined with modern improvements in heat exchangers, electrolizers, and more, plus being combined with wind energy (actually solving one of Wind's biggest issues, off-peak overproduction), and the enture process is carbon nuetral...
they could be buiolding plants now, bit since this is neither a biofuel, now solar or wind itself, it qualifies for no grants offered to get started. If you want to also learn about all the reasons all the alternative fuels won;t work, they have a great section of their site covering the science and costs of pretty much every presented option, and tons and tons of data about their own process.
fyi: I am not in any way affiliated with this firm, its investors, and am not compensated for my statements.
Hopefully we could standardize on one of the upcoming SIP extention standards. SIP itself is good in many ways (and the most poular standard) bit it;s not the best or most resilient (it's very bandwidth friendly though,m thus it's popularity). Since 64k or 128k chanels would be the norm on telco VoIP systems, SIP is not required and other protocols are available that might be a good alternatve. Much of the underlying telco infrastructure is as ytou say already VoIP, it;s just about making it all work together to a particular standard of quality and SLA without requiring too massive of an overhaul.