Here's a simpler solution. instead of making ethanol and adding it to gasoline, we can simple MAKE gasoline... It's called FTS (Fischer Tropsch Synthesis) and they were doing it in Germany in WWII! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch.
Recently Doty Energy (www.dotyenergy.com) has released details on a MUCH improved process called RFTS, (renewable FTS). Combining this process with other known and scientifically proven techniques including hydrolysis (to make H2 needed for the RFTS), and an improved form of RWGS (Reverse Water Gas Shift) to make CO out of CO2 (CO is also a component of FTS), they can essentially make gasoline out of CO2 and electricity.
By utilizing off-peak wind energy (a current probelm for wind farms and grid stability) Doty can make H2 when excess power is available due to overgeneration or underutilization. This excess power is essentially free and 100% carbon nuetral. The H2 is stored locally short term (a few weeks tops). CO2 sequestered from coal plants, as well as from other sources, will be brought to the plant and uyn through the RWGS/RFTS process making HIGHLY PURE fuels that can be refined into any grade from deisels to jet fuels and even into lubricants. This process has virtually no waste products (except oxygen!).
By re-using waste CO2 as input, we're essentially burning the coal twice, thereby greatly reducing the CO2 output overall. This also cuts our dependency on foreign oil taking the CO2 from that source out of the picture entirely. in the future, CO2 scrubbers can be used to capture CO2 from other sources, incl;uding the air, as we slowly back off Coal and Oil use, and we can make unlimited clean fuel right here at home without taking any more farm land over for ethanol and without the need for expensive drilling.
This is a completely proven process, the conpany is just seeking funding to build a large scale all-in-one proof of concept plant. They predict producing fuel at $60-70/bbl equivalent to oil (ie, at the pump, you'll pay about $2.50/gallon). Currently they don't qualify for grant money because they're neither a bio-fuel, hydrogen plant, alternate fuel, wind generation plant, or grid stability system... Technically, they're almost all of the above, but since they make gasoline, not H2, they don't qualify for H2 money; since they use wind energy, not make it, they're screwed there; since they make gas, but not from organic materials they don;t qualify for bio-money... They need private investors to build a plant and prove to our government (lobyists from big oil) to change the grant system and let the rest of us start building these facilities.
ANYONE can make a plant, so we also cut the monopolies out of the picture. A full scale facility is about $300 million. Based on output volumes, at $2.50 a gallon the plant will completely pay off it's costs in 3-5 years. We need about 4,000 of these to provide current and perceived future demand the the whole country.
Since this is regular fuel, it can be pumped nation wide using our current infrastructure. It runs in your current cars, it contains no additives that would otherwise cause vehicle issues, in fact, since it;s pure fuel, and not refined sludge, it;s sulfer free and burns much cleaner, solving other pollution issues too.
This is NOT something new, they've been working on this plant design for 20 years... Now, they're ready, and fuel prices are competitive to the output. It;s TIME to invest and make this a reality.
OK, considder the context of your study, and then don;lt takwe the numbers themselves for granted, compare the numbers to what's actually considdered safe and dangerous:
That was "simulated" dishwashing (using BOILING water), followed by brushing (physical aggitation of the surface), followed by rinsing in an alcohol solution (which may or may not have assisted in BPA extraction from the plastic).
The "dishwashing" included the use of BOILING water, which is significantly hotter than any dishwasher can achieve (typically 50C). The bottles were then filled with MORE boiling water, and allowed to sit for 24 hours before being tested... Does this sound normal for clear plasic containers?
Though they used BPA containing baby bottles (which I can't even find in a store at all) in this testing system, they admit IN THE ARTICLE that this would NOT be a close comparison to daily use, and the article even states this would be restricted likely to "cold weather outdoor activities such as alpine snow sports, climbing, and mountaineering" where hot beverages would be stored and consumed. Well, tell me what NON-insulated bottle you'd ever put hot liquids in for use outdoors, especially to keep for 2 days?!? Every thermos I've ever owned has been glass or metal inside, NEVER plastic.
Their simulated tests are evaluating the BPA levels in the bottles present after both cold and high temperature washing. It should also be noted they "immediately filled" the bottled with boiling water, meaning the bottles were still hot from washing when filled. In a REAL dishwasher, the extended exposire to heat would in fact cause the BPA to leach faster, yes, but that leaching would happen inside the machine, and the enzymes present in most modern dishwashing detergents (not used in this experiment) would have absorbed much of that BPA (they USED enzymes to COLLECT the BPA as part of their testing methodology), and the rest would have left the machine in the rinse cycle. The exposure to the hot water cleaning cycle for (in most machines) an hour (as opposed to a few minutes of hand washing with boiling water) would actually leach the BPA many times faster, greatly lessening the human impact over time. Further, those clean bottles would have typically been stored for some time before being filled. In my house, I don't know about yours, we rinse everything again before filling it. (do YOU want to drink something containing the dust from inside your cabinets?)
And again, as pointed out earlier, BPA in bottles, under normal use and cleaning, has been shown to increase BPA in urine by only 1/3rd (aka, less than half of the BPA you take in, even using NEW BPA plastic bottles DAILY, as did the study, would still be less BPA that you already take in now through other sources.
It should also be noted, the sample size was 3 BOTTLES!!!! 2 new and only 1 used, and there was NO CONTROL BOTTLE. Oh yea, the bottles didn't just sit there either, but were ROLLED CONSTANTLY BY A MACHINE for the duration of the incubation!!!
Here's some other data for you: "The European Food Safety Authority in 2006 set a tolerable daily intake (TDI) level for BPA of 50 micrograms/kg body weight/day - but stressed that current exposure levels were just 30 per cent of the TDI."
OK, 50ng/kg of body weight is acceptible, most people are averaging 15ng/kg. In this experiment, used bottles added 0.7ng/ml after 7 days of incubation! Baby bottles are filled, used, and cleaned, and rarely stored except under refrigeration for more than 4 hours. Even a NEW bottle only gave up 1.0ng/ml after 7 days. Using boiling water and a 24 hour sample time, BPA only doubled to a hair less than 2ng. The BPA leaking per hour stored is 0.42ng.
Even to get to 30ng/day/kg of body weight, your baby would have to drink DOZENS of MICROWAVED BPA containing bottles, and this is still LESS than the prescribed safety limits set by the european government in 2006, AFTER all this BPA bullshit started.
Water in plastic bottles smells and tastes funny because of the contaminants. We're talking disinfection byproducts, wastewater pollutants (caffeine, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, minerals, arsenic, nitrates, ammonia, solvents, greases, even propellants). Many of these are from the bottle manufacturing process, others are from the failure of large scale water filtration systems to properly clean certain things from the water. Still others simply hover in the air in the bottling facility.
We won't need to ban BPA from bottles. That's happening by itself. (If we enforce it, who knows what they'll replace it with). I'd much rather see our country make bottled water illegal all together...
Bottled water tested from dozens of manufacturers failed to meet state minimum requirements across a panel of tests. It's simply no safer that tap water, even in some of the worst cities in america.
Get a sediment filter added to your home's main line. This will help clean certain contaminants out making all your home's water cleaner (this helps clean your dishes better, prevents staining in your laundry, and allows the use of less soap per load). Add high quality filters to each drinking tap. Ensure these filters add BACK the fluoride to the water post filtering (many from PUR do this as well as others). Use high quality bottles when necessary, but generally, drink from glass when possible. Not only use good detergents, but also a rinse agent, and use heated drying instead of air drying. Change your filters when they indicate, not when water is impeded, as the fluoride reserves are depleted at that point. If the water ever tastes funny coming through the filter (especially if you know your local water quality is poor), change the filters as the activated charcoals and other aspects of your filter may be used up even though it has not yet reached it's expiration.
I have filters on (actually under, not a faucet mount) the kitchen sink and in the fridge, plus a sediment filter for the house. The water I drink is perfect, and tastes better even that the expensive glass bottle name brand waters. I replace the sink filter about every 6 months (3 packs costs $40, that's $30 annually for clean tap water), the fridge about every 5 months ($34 filter, that's about $70 annually for cold clean water and ice). The house filter is a 5 year filter and it's $40. (that reduces our soap use by about a third, saving us at least that in detergent annually alone) We drink not less than 3 gallons daily at home. More on weekends and when family visits. These filters run hundreds of gallons during their life. I can't buy 48 bottles (less than 20 gallons) for that in a store!
Our office replaced their bottled water tanks with PUR tankless water coolers. Tastes better, costs less, and I don't have to change a 5 gallon bottle when some other lazy ass doesn't change it for us. With our staff of 14,000 people, we were going through as many as 300 5 gallon bottles a DAY across the company. Some locations were getting multiple trucks daily to keep up with the supply.
FYI, BPA is only found in HARD plastic bottles, not common soda and water bottles... BPA is in the refillable bottles, not the disposable ones.
Yes, BPA CAN leech into your system from the plastic, in very small amounts, from a factory fresh new bottle. Of course, this only increased BPA by 2/3rds (not quite double), meaning you're still getting the other MORE THAN HALF of your BPA from other sources.
Also, a new bottle only has a fixed amount of BPA to leech. After several uses (especially after being washed in a hot dishwasher several times) the amount of BPA present should be negligible.
I'm not suggesting this additional BPA is safe, and I'm not suggesting we continue to use BPA in our plastics, but I AM suggestion you look at the facts not the FUD, and I AM suggesting you look very fucking hard at what they're using IN PLACE of BPA in order to make those plastics. (more unproven untested chemicals ahoy!)
I'm also suggesting that if you have BPA containing hard plastic bottles around your house, and if they've already been run through several dishwasher cycles, they're essentially safe at this point.
um, they left Schwartzenager out of T4 because he didn't have a part to play!!! Best I can gleam from the details available, the plot of this movie is the machines just starting to mimick humans completely... The Model 101 likly isn't in this film, might be in the sequel.
Supposedly he's been digitally rendered into the movie somewhere, but I'm wondering if he'll show up in cameo as a machine or not, or if it'll be in some dream sequence of something...
Yea, this guy's right. Even if you could run CoH in multiple instances concurrently (which shouldn't be hard, it's not THAT resource intensive for an MMO, though it uses a bit more than WoW to look good), you can't easily make Windows understand how to use 2 sets of keyboards and mice concurrently.
Sure, the keyboard you could likely get past by having 2 and using completely different keys for each instance, but especially in CoH, the 1-8 keys, control key, and space bar are REALLY important... The mouse however is the real issue. Connect multiple mice and you do not get mutliple cursors. Windows was not designed for multiple concurrent user access. (virtually no OS is except via command shell).
Even if it could be done, you're likely talking about adding a much more powerful GPU to your machine, a bunch of RAM, and likey you might also need to considder a ram disk to keep load lag to a minimum (CoH is texture heavy). The cost to upgrade your machine likely exceeds the cost of a cheap gaming rig.
My wife's 3.5 year old gateway notebook (AMD64, 1GB, ATI x600) Ran COH pretty well... she played it for years, and had spare resources to run custom background utilities and a voice chat app. She ran the game on basically medium requirements. A $300 el-cheapo PC combo from BestBuy (there are FEW that have PCIe slots, but MAKE SURE YOU CHECK!) and a $79 graphics car will bet the pants off her laptop config, likely for less than upgrading your rig to pull it off...
plus the fact that when threatened, craigslist offered up other web sites and services that SC residents had access to that also promoted and brokered prostitution, and the DA chose NOT to persue those sites...
Craigslist has no physical presence in SC. Prostitution IS legal in some markets, and arranging the sale of such in those markets across state lines is not illegal. This is not a state based transaction, but an interstate transaction unless the DA had specific evidence of prostitution inside SC boarders, which has not been revealed), and thus the DA likely didn't even have juristdiction. The association of prostitution with the recent murder case is bordering on slander. The personal attack against the owner of craigslist, as opposed to persuing the company as an entity IS slander.
Bingo. This DA has gotten SC in hot water more than once. This nationally publicized attack of something that even SC judges have been mumbling over whether is technically even illegal or not (in many places, including outside Vegas, prostitution IS legal, so who's to say how Craigslist was to validate the geographic location of both the poster and searcher to see if they could both conduct that kind of transaction leggally or not?) is just a play at TV time so he can position himself for a job with a massive salary later...
This negative publicity, INCLUDING siedbar remarks associating the sale of prostitution to the recent craigslist murder HAVE affected their posting rate, which effects their advertising revenue, and thus profit. It was a personal attack levied againts them, when a court of law had not actually ruled it a crime for craigslist to be operating the way they did in the first place.
It's illegal to seel MANY kinds of things in some places that are perfectly legal to sell in others. If the courts rule they have to oblige that and block prostitution, they'd have to track each item by type and location the same way, which is an insurmountable burden for a business, especially one not actually profiting from the sale or being directly related to the sale.
Craigslist not only offered to remove the posts (apparently not fast enough), but the state is now persuing legal action anyway (even though their chance of winning is miniscule, and might not even be a case the state can bring under commerce law since it's an interstate transaction).
Further, and the crux of the lawsuit, was not even so much that they were targeted, but they were EXCLUSIVELY targeted, even after Craigslist brough evidence of other sites doing the same that the DA ignored and is NOT persuing...
That of course 1) assumes someone actually writes a virus targeting the Mac platform, 2) you are somehow redirected to a site that hosts the vulnerability, or launch an attachment that is a java applet itself that contains malicious code, 3) the virus doesn't violate other UNIX security rules that would stop it from running on the Mac platform, and 4) that there's actually data stored on your mac in unencrypted form in a directory the virus can get to to steal information from you, or some way the Java app can infect your machine with other code that can steal your input and passwords.
If all 4 are not true (and they're not yet), then apple users are currently safe. Apple engineers do not rush "emergency" patches out for vulnerabilityies when no ITW code has yet been discovered. They'll also assess what a virus could actually be capable of, and determine the complexity of code required to pull off a hack on their platform, and they'll assign a priority to the code work.
This, I'd gather, is a low priority risk for Mac as I've not actually heard, other than the proof of concept, of an ITW virus for ANY platform exploiting this viln, let alone a targeted mac virus. They'll release a patch, but 6 months in, and with everyone else already having it patched, Apple is likely just waiting to apply it with other patches. Kind of surprised it was not in the 10.5.7 patch recently... must be really low priority. This isn't exactly something they need to invent a fix for...
Your link provides data associated with 2 sattelite conversion. Typicaly GPS will key off of not less than 4 sattelites, and as many as 7, concurrently. Not less than 8 sattelites are in range, and as many as 11, depending on the time of day and location on earth.
Recent action by Obama lifted governemnt regulations as well on the civilian accuracy of GPS. GPS owned by civilians are no longer required to use SA (selective availability) signals, which artificially and randomly throw off GPS data by 10-100 meters. GPS can now accurately guage to within 10m consistantly when interference is a non issue.
As an additional enhancement, L2C sattelites were deployed in 2008, providing a seperate signal in addition to seperate sattelites. The variance in frequency between 2 frequencies transmitted from the same sattelite allows for a greater error correction potentially improving accuracy by 10x. use of an L2C compatible GPS receiver, with SA now disabled, should be able to provide accuracy to within a specific lane on a road, not just to a specific road.
inexpensive consumer GPS, and older models were never really designed for anything more accurate than simple positional reference. They were for navigation, not real-time data. It only had to be accurate enough to guess your location on a road to within a couple hundred yards of an intersection, and guage direction over time. Determining accurate speed was never a requirement.
New GPS units employing advanced algorithms, multi-frequency systems (there are now 2, by 2013 there will be 4), and much more powerful microprocessors are capable of not just real time positional data (accurately), but can process much more advanced mapping technology as well, and many also collect real time information from other combined sources like a-GPS (cellular networks), providing for further improved accuracy.
New GPS units typically record date in 10Hz. Over a 1.5 second window, you're averaging 15 locational samples. At speeds over 30MPH, a less than 10m variance, averaged 10 times a second, over 15 samples will provide a matematically accurate average speed to within a fraction of a MPH.
Your current GPS likely was either responding to SA signaling at the time (it was only recently disabled), had poor sattlite connectivty, or MUCH more likely, had difficulty guaging your location and direction based on 1 second intervals (or 5 second intervals) with variance up to 40m per sample (also considder the x axis). The GPS likely flipped your direction for 1-2 seconds, then reverted you to your current course, all withing its sample averaging period, and that made it look to the simple MPH calculator (designed for reference not accuracy) that you did a very fast circle.
Devices with highly accurate sensing, and properly coded MPH metering, are vavailable. They cost a premium currently as the accuracy improving features and real-time feedback with high sample rates are usually reserved for top-shelf models. That is NOT to say embedding one in a car specifically for speed monitoring would still cost top shelf pricing for the government...
Vehicle allignment, specifically an out of alignment wheel that is the metered wheel for the spedometer, can have an increased spin rate compared to other tires due to it riding on edge which has a slightly smaller circumference. Also considder tire wear on poorly aligned tires, typically thinner than a properly aligned tire on the other side of the car. It's minor, but so are each of the other effects, yet combined, a 2-3 MPH difference is easy to achieve. My Wife's car and my car have dramatic variances (hers ready about 3.5MPH fast due mostly to new tires that are slightly smaller than her old ones) and mine shows about 1MPH slow, so when I'm doing just under 60, she thinks I'm doing nearly 65.
OK, thanks. Starting from Dell.com and moving to business systems, then workstations, or by trying to select a system using the build wizard on the left pane this package was not an option.
That said: T7500 Dual Quad 64bit edition, same exact specs as the mac but with a weaker Vid card (and a 750GB instead of 640GB HDD), is $7054... Apple: $5148.
I tried to configure the Dell with the default 2.26 processors the base mac comes with (as configured $3748), but doing that to the dell makes 6GB a non-compatible memory size, and 8GB is not an option (don't know why, same chip same board...) so I go to 12GB and the price of the Dell is STILL $5684, even with 4GB configured, it would STILL be $3984... severl hundred more than a better equipped MacPro.
Yes, I matched ALL the options, and when in doubt made the Mac MORE powerful. I included NO software options on the Dell system to match Apple's offering and DID add 3 year support to Apple's system. There is no component or software the Dell had the Mac did not, and the Dell did not have options for Wireless NIC or Bluetooth which I DID include in the mac at this pricing. In most configurations, I could have thrown OSX Server in and a fivber chanel crontroller and still come out cheaper.
Across the board, with ANY configuration I could manage, the 4 core and 8 core Dell T7500 was more exensive than the Mac pro, 32 or 64 bit versions. Though the Dell does offer a tier of processor faster than the MacPro, it's cost is so rediculous you might as well buy 2 Mac Pros...
They are BOTH computed in real time AND averaged over distance.
Recent court cases have proven GPS based speed monitoring is far more accurate even than most spedometers which monitor real time wheel speeds, and easily trump radar and laser accuracy.
As long as the speed is logged a dozen times a second or so, but averaged over periods of not less than 1.5 seconds, and updated in real time based on the fractional second, the speed on the screen should not be more than a fraction of a mile per hour less or greater than your actual speed, which is actually MORE accurate than a traditional spedometer, which unlike GPS can be effected by vehicle alignment, tire pressure, wether, and age of the mechanics behind it. Car speedometers today are only accurate on average to within 3MPH.
There are roads in my area that have different speed limits in different directions on the same road! Speed limits that jump and drop 30 miles per hour more than once in a single mile! Speed limits that vary by time of day (school zones, etc), and more.
There are new roads being paved daily, others widening or diverted by construction. Temporary speed limits are posted by construction workers constantly. If the device can't react to these as well, it's useless, and probably more dangerous since "if it's not beeping, i'm not speeding" could potentially become a LEGAL defense!
Also, what happens when you are trying to pass a car that's going slower than you, and while trying to pass your engine power drops!?!?
What happens if you have a software glitch, or your device looses calibration. It could hold you to 10 or 20 miles less than the posted speed limit. It could simply fail, and cut engine power output. It could fail to engage and allow you to speed dangerously. It could simply prevent you from driving at all...
The ONLY safe application I can see for this system would be to apply while driving under cruise control, and be an alert-only system.
This is also something too easy to abuse by officers. If it's mandated to be installed, and everyone is being tracked, then entrapment starts to be an issue.
Though there's no Statuate of Limitations on patent infringement, but most states limit the scope of infringement to 6 years, regardless of the length of infringement, and in certain circumstances, damages awarded have been adjusted by the judge when the first party was clearly fully aware of the infringement.
Basically, We ALL know Memorex maxes blank DVDs... Toshiba should have easily kown this. No that memorex made a few billion selling disks, Toshiba want's it;s cut, and likely use a huge settlement to allow them to begotiate good terms on another patent they can't currently get memorex to license to them. However, if the judge knows this is the case, and knows that 5.5 years ago Toshiba could have brought this up, and memorex could simply have been forced to license the patent at a small cost then or abandon their sales, in which case Toshiba would not have their current claim. Thair fialure to file earlier could only reasonably be offset by proving it was not in their business interest to do so due to cost vs reward, but if by now cost vs reward is suddently justified, Laches might apply in addition to limitations on compensation.
It could indeed be very bad for toshiba, especially since MULTIPLE conpoeitors were in clear violation of the patent. it could even go back to the PTO to show that DVD was just a natural evolution of CD and their patent could be thrown out (though, that could also invalidate Blue-ray's patent too, since although it requires a red laser and more complex reading system, the disk media itself is not truly a great leap and could be considered in the right circles "evolutionary, not revolutionary" and that could strip Blu-Ray of a lot of market power (in the form of royalties).
Actually, the issue is NOT the individual cells, it's a problem called cascade failure and is usually do to the failure of a terminal seperator inside the battery causeing a short. The individual cells are actually quite stable, but like a 9volt touching a coin in your pocket, the can get very hot very quickly. At about 600 degrees, they combust internally and expel steam, which can chain react heating nearby cells to combustible temps as well.
The space inside the battery pack that hits 600 degrees can be extremely small, not mutch larger than the head of a pin, which might make the battery case feel only "uncomfortably warm" just before explosion starts (which is an extended process of a slow burn explosion, but a "boom".)
Li-Ions are often seen "shooting fire" while combusting.
More often than not, this actually isn't manufacturing defect per-se, but batteries being exposed to flexing, alternating hot/cold environments, being dropped repeatedly, and other things that may not actually damage the outside of the pack, but cause internal compression damage eventually leading to a short or failure.
"3rd world battery manufacturer failes to deliver on contractual quality guidelines and costs HP a shitload of dough recalling 70,000 batteries, while themselves shrinking our of existance with full pockets."
or
"HP continues trend of failing to learn the lesson that using the lowest bidder does not cost less afterall; recalls 70,000 substandard 3rd party batteries made in some country you will never go to buy guys with names you can't spell who in total make less than your anual salary."
oops, yea, forgot DK was #2... IronMan still, no slouch #2 for the year, #21 ever...
If anything, the character got a lot of chicks to go see it... That was my Wife's motivation (one I'll not understand, but then again, she doesn't get Jessica Biel either...)
Chargebacks are part of the Visa/Mastercard agreement they hold. They are both required by Visa and by federal law to follow specific chargeback policies, and any alternate terms they present to customers are in violation of their card procfessing agreement.
However, if you tie payPal to a checking account, your bank may or may not offer similar protections. The ones that do often charge you for initiating a chargeback unless you can prove the payment is being processed illegally.
If you chargeback your Visa against PayPal for in invalid charge, they can't persue you directly, but first have to agree to a moderated dispute with Visa. until the dispute is resolved, and depsnding on the proof you and they present, you may not have the hold lifted from your account immediately.
For lights out operation, home servers, backup systems, and an OS to power small devices, Linux is far superior to Windows. For daily use, Windows is a superior "experience." Yes it;s buggy, but for 99% of people, it works, and doesn't require complex command lines and significant amounts of knowledge to use.
Combine that with the support you can get for Windows vs Linux (Linux support from Dell is at best "reinstall the image" or "talk the the distributor of that app/device, we can't help you."). I'll happily pay $80 more (estimated OEM price of Windows Home Premium), clean out the bloatware and be happy.
Of course, i don't buy PCs off shelves, and my Action Pack proivides me all the licenses I need, and beyond that my daily PC is a Mac, but for the other 99% out there, choosing Linux over Windows is not yet an easy choice, even if it was a price difference of $200. (currently, you're lucky to save $50 on the same machine from Dell running Linux instead of Windows).
Well, Vista was such a debacle that microsoft actually discounted the OEM price to the big guys... Vista is cheaper than XP. That's part of the reason for the XP upgrade (downgrade) charge (a part of it).
I'd expect Win 7 to actually be cheaper than XP, but more expensive than Vista. I'd expect this is MAYBE a $5-10 increse. What I also suspect is a much LARGER contributor is that few of their bloatware providers have stuff that will run within Win7's security model, or they just haven't released compatible versions yet, and they're loosing $20-40 per machine in opportunity to sell-thru.
I'd also expect Dell will use this excuse, combined with "increased support and training costs and image preparation, etc" to raise the base price of their PCs by not less than $50, reap the small profit in the short term, and then once MS (behind closed doors) negotiates a lower price with Dell and then all the bloatware folks finally come back in line, Dell will profit that extra $50-60 per machine and we'll continue to get the "Win7 is more expensive" line for years...
Worse, they'll probably factor the price of Win7 not as simply Home Premium Vista -> Home Premium 7, but as HP Vista -> starter + upgrade to HP for 7, making the difference look even bigger.
I still have and love my Gen 1 Edge iPhone. I'm paying the $20/month unlimited data INCLUDING the 200 free texts. There's NO WAY they'll get me to pay MORE to have the same plan on a new phone... I'm about 20 months in since purchase and have not reset my usage stats. I'm 1.8GB in, and that's over Edge! (plus another 200MB uploaded)...and I only really started using Pandora heavily about 4 months ago, so although my average pings in at about 100MB/month, I'm likely averaging closer to 200MB currently. I also expect that to increase with 3.0, and my usage to increase over time with new games, multiplayer interactions, and more and more web enabled content.
If they plan on getting me into a new phone (or keeping me much longer beyond the end of my contract), they'll need to match Sprint and Verison's $99 unlimited everything plans...
I only subscribe to the 400 minute plan currently, so I'm under $70 a month. Moving to 3G would have added $15 a month to my plan, and with the big benefit being 3G with half the battery life, and considering 95% of my surfing is on wireless anyway, i never saw the point in the upgrade...
A snazzy new faster model with better battery life and a good camera will tempt me, but if the plan prices for unlimited data go up any more, Honestly, I'd rather take my phone to another provider and buy a good pocket didigtal camera with the savings... My wife's already on Verizon, so i can switch my line to her plan without signing a contract.
As much as i hate defending them, Dell, nor any other OEM (legally) installs spyware on their machines. Adware, crapware, and bloatware yes, but out of the box they are not permitted by federal law to pre-install user behavioral monitoring software.
I have an optiplex sitting in front of me and i can tell you it DID come with bloatware out of the box. It was less than on the el-cheapo PCs, but enough that IT simply blows away the image and uses their own instead.
You said Dimension twice in your post as well, and ther XPS is their top line home machine... very inconsistant of you.
One of the key differences between the home lines and the business lines is that most of the busuiness machines come with an option for No pre-installed AV software and don't come with a trial install of MS Office. However, I believe the Vostro and SMB lines still do.
The "workstation" line (laughing my ass off looking at the specs here), who knows. btw: Dell Precision 7500 w 1X quad Xeon 266, 3GB 1066ECC, 750GB drive, Vista Ultimate, and a FirePro 3750 (a whopping $145 workstation GPU, lol), is $3314. PowerMac with same specs and a 640GB HDD and a Radeon 4870 (actually better than the Dell "workstation" card): Only $2948... Mac's CPU upgrade: cheaper. Dell max RAM offered: 4GB preconfigured (riser cards required for more!!!). No dual CPU option. RAID card nearly twice Apple's price. No 64bit OS option. This is Dell's Flagship business workstation??? ROFL! (an alternate model using dual 2.33GHz quads is available in the 5400 model line for about $2700, less than Apple's dual quad model by about a $500, but it uses 877HGz memory, a weaker GPU, comes in a more cramped case, and has far fewer options available, plus it;s only dual channel RAM and ECC is not an option that I could find. That's not a workstation, it;s just a powerful PC...)
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LOL, you need to be modded up. I'd spend my points to do so if I hadn't already posted a comment in this space...
Here's a simpler solution. instead of making ethanol and adding it to gasoline, we can simple MAKE gasoline... It's called FTS (Fischer Tropsch Synthesis) and they were doing it in Germany in WWII! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch.
Recently Doty Energy (www.dotyenergy.com) has released details on a MUCH improved process called RFTS, (renewable FTS). Combining this process with other known and scientifically proven techniques including hydrolysis (to make H2 needed for the RFTS), and an improved form of RWGS (Reverse Water Gas Shift) to make CO out of CO2 (CO is also a component of FTS), they can essentially make gasoline out of CO2 and electricity.
By utilizing off-peak wind energy (a current probelm for wind farms and grid stability) Doty can make H2 when excess power is available due to overgeneration or underutilization. This excess power is essentially free and 100% carbon nuetral. The H2 is stored locally short term (a few weeks tops). CO2 sequestered from coal plants, as well as from other sources, will be brought to the plant and uyn through the RWGS/RFTS process making HIGHLY PURE fuels that can be refined into any grade from deisels to jet fuels and even into lubricants. This process has virtually no waste products (except oxygen!).
By re-using waste CO2 as input, we're essentially burning the coal twice, thereby greatly reducing the CO2 output overall. This also cuts our dependency on foreign oil taking the CO2 from that source out of the picture entirely. in the future, CO2 scrubbers can be used to capture CO2 from other sources, incl;uding the air, as we slowly back off Coal and Oil use, and we can make unlimited clean fuel right here at home without taking any more farm land over for ethanol and without the need for expensive drilling.
This is a completely proven process, the conpany is just seeking funding to build a large scale all-in-one proof of concept plant. They predict producing fuel at $60-70/bbl equivalent to oil (ie, at the pump, you'll pay about $2.50/gallon). Currently they don't qualify for grant money because they're neither a bio-fuel, hydrogen plant, alternate fuel, wind generation plant, or grid stability system... Technically, they're almost all of the above, but since they make gasoline, not H2, they don't qualify for H2 money; since they use wind energy, not make it, they're screwed there; since they make gas, but not from organic materials they don;t qualify for bio-money... They need private investors to build a plant and prove to our government (lobyists from big oil) to change the grant system and let the rest of us start building these facilities.
ANYONE can make a plant, so we also cut the monopolies out of the picture. A full scale facility is about $300 million. Based on output volumes, at $2.50 a gallon the plant will completely pay off it's costs in 3-5 years. We need about 4,000 of these to provide current and perceived future demand the the whole country.
Since this is regular fuel, it can be pumped nation wide using our current infrastructure. It runs in your current cars, it contains no additives that would otherwise cause vehicle issues, in fact, since it;s pure fuel, and not refined sludge, it;s sulfer free and burns much cleaner, solving other pollution issues too.
This is NOT something new, they've been working on this plant design for 20 years... Now, they're ready, and fuel prices are competitive to the output. It;s TIME to invest and make this a reality.
OK, considder the context of your study, and then don;lt takwe the numbers themselves for granted, compare the numbers to what's actually considdered safe and dangerous:
That was "simulated" dishwashing (using BOILING water), followed by brushing (physical aggitation of the surface), followed by rinsing in an alcohol solution (which may or may not have assisted in BPA extraction from the plastic).
The "dishwashing" included the use of BOILING water, which is significantly hotter than any dishwasher can achieve (typically 50C). The bottles were then filled with MORE boiling water, and allowed to sit for 24 hours before being tested... Does this sound normal for clear plasic containers?
Though they used BPA containing baby bottles (which I can't even find in a store at all) in this testing system, they admit IN THE ARTICLE that this would NOT be a close comparison to daily use, and the article even states this would be restricted likely to "cold weather outdoor activities such as alpine snow sports, climbing, and mountaineering" where hot beverages would be stored and consumed. Well, tell me what NON-insulated bottle you'd ever put hot liquids in for use outdoors, especially to keep for 2 days?!? Every thermos I've ever owned has been glass or metal inside, NEVER plastic.
Their simulated tests are evaluating the BPA levels in the bottles present after both cold and high temperature washing. It should also be noted they "immediately filled" the bottled with boiling water, meaning the bottles were still hot from washing when filled. In a REAL dishwasher, the extended exposire to heat would in fact cause the BPA to leach faster, yes, but that leaching would happen inside the machine, and the enzymes present in most modern dishwashing detergents (not used in this experiment) would have absorbed much of that BPA (they USED enzymes to COLLECT the BPA as part of their testing methodology), and the rest would have left the machine in the rinse cycle. The exposure to the hot water cleaning cycle for (in most machines) an hour (as opposed to a few minutes of hand washing with boiling water) would actually leach the BPA many times faster, greatly lessening the human impact over time. Further, those clean bottles would have typically been stored for some time before being filled. In my house, I don't know about yours, we rinse everything again before filling it. (do YOU want to drink something containing the dust from inside your cabinets?)
And again, as pointed out earlier, BPA in bottles, under normal use and cleaning, has been shown to increase BPA in urine by only 1/3rd (aka, less than half of the BPA you take in, even using NEW BPA plastic bottles DAILY, as did the study, would still be less BPA that you already take in now through other sources.
It should also be noted, the sample size was 3 BOTTLES!!!! 2 new and only 1 used, and there was NO CONTROL BOTTLE. Oh yea, the bottles didn't just sit there either, but were ROLLED CONSTANTLY BY A MACHINE for the duration of the incubation!!!
Here's some other data for you:
"The European Food Safety Authority in 2006 set a tolerable daily intake (TDI) level for BPA of 50 micrograms/kg body weight/day - but stressed that current exposure levels were just 30 per cent of the TDI."
OK, 50ng/kg of body weight is acceptible, most people are averaging 15ng/kg. In this experiment, used bottles added 0.7ng/ml after 7 days of incubation! Baby bottles are filled, used, and cleaned, and rarely stored except under refrigeration for more than 4 hours. Even a NEW bottle only gave up 1.0ng/ml after 7 days. Using boiling water and a 24 hour sample time, BPA only doubled to a hair less than 2ng. The BPA leaking per hour stored is 0.42ng.
Even to get to 30ng/day/kg of body weight, your baby would have to drink DOZENS of MICROWAVED BPA containing bottles, and this is still LESS than the prescribed safety limits set by the european government in 2006, AFTER all this BPA bullshit started.
This is FUD. Yes it's a slight risk, bu
Water in plastic bottles smells and tastes funny because of the contaminants. We're talking disinfection byproducts, wastewater pollutants (caffeine, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, minerals, arsenic, nitrates, ammonia, solvents, greases, even propellants). Many of these are from the bottle manufacturing process, others are from the failure of large scale water filtration systems to properly clean certain things from the water. Still others simply hover in the air in the bottling facility.
We won't need to ban BPA from bottles. That's happening by itself. (If we enforce it, who knows what they'll replace it with). I'd much rather see our country make bottled water illegal all together...
Bottled water tested from dozens of manufacturers failed to meet state minimum requirements across a panel of tests. It's simply no safer that tap water, even in some of the worst cities in america.
Get a sediment filter added to your home's main line. This will help clean certain contaminants out making all your home's water cleaner (this helps clean your dishes better, prevents staining in your laundry, and allows the use of less soap per load). Add high quality filters to each drinking tap. Ensure these filters add BACK the fluoride to the water post filtering (many from PUR do this as well as others). Use high quality bottles when necessary, but generally, drink from glass when possible. Not only use good detergents, but also a rinse agent, and use heated drying instead of air drying. Change your filters when they indicate, not when water is impeded, as the fluoride reserves are depleted at that point. If the water ever tastes funny coming through the filter (especially if you know your local water quality is poor), change the filters as the activated charcoals and other aspects of your filter may be used up even though it has not yet reached it's expiration.
I have filters on (actually under, not a faucet mount) the kitchen sink and in the fridge, plus a sediment filter for the house. The water I drink is perfect, and tastes better even that the expensive glass bottle name brand waters. I replace the sink filter about every 6 months (3 packs costs $40, that's $30 annually for clean tap water), the fridge about every 5 months ($34 filter, that's about $70 annually for cold clean water and ice). The house filter is a 5 year filter and it's $40. (that reduces our soap use by about a third, saving us at least that in detergent annually alone) We drink not less than 3 gallons daily at home. More on weekends and when family visits. These filters run hundreds of gallons during their life. I can't buy 48 bottles (less than 20 gallons) for that in a store!
Our office replaced their bottled water tanks with PUR tankless water coolers. Tastes better, costs less, and I don't have to change a 5 gallon bottle when some other lazy ass doesn't change it for us. With our staff of 14,000 people, we were going through as many as 300 5 gallon bottles a DAY across the company. Some locations were getting multiple trucks daily to keep up with the supply.
for a source on bottled water contaminants, see: http://www.ewg.org/reports/bottledwater
FYI, BPA is only found in HARD plastic bottles, not common soda and water bottles... BPA is in the refillable bottles, not the disposable ones.
Yes, BPA CAN leech into your system from the plastic, in very small amounts, from a factory fresh new bottle. Of course, this only increased BPA by 2/3rds (not quite double), meaning you're still getting the other MORE THAN HALF of your BPA from other sources.
Also, a new bottle only has a fixed amount of BPA to leech. After several uses (especially after being washed in a hot dishwasher several times) the amount of BPA present should be negligible.
I'm not suggesting this additional BPA is safe, and I'm not suggesting we continue to use BPA in our plastics, but I AM suggestion you look at the facts not the FUD, and I AM suggesting you look very fucking hard at what they're using IN PLACE of BPA in order to make those plastics. (more unproven untested chemicals ahoy!)
I'm also suggesting that if you have BPA containing hard plastic bottles around your house, and if they've already been run through several dishwasher cycles, they're essentially safe at this point.
um, they left Schwartzenager out of T4 because he didn't have a part to play!!! Best I can gleam from the details available, the plot of this movie is the machines just starting to mimick humans completely... The Model 101 likly isn't in this film, might be in the sequel.
Supposedly he's been digitally rendered into the movie somewhere, but I'm wondering if he'll show up in cameo as a machine or not, or if it'll be in some dream sequence of something...
Yea, this guy's right. Even if you could run CoH in multiple instances concurrently (which shouldn't be hard, it's not THAT resource intensive for an MMO, though it uses a bit more than WoW to look good), you can't easily make Windows understand how to use 2 sets of keyboards and mice concurrently.
Sure, the keyboard you could likely get past by having 2 and using completely different keys for each instance, but especially in CoH, the 1-8 keys, control key, and space bar are REALLY important... The mouse however is the real issue. Connect multiple mice and you do not get mutliple cursors. Windows was not designed for multiple concurrent user access. (virtually no OS is except via command shell).
Even if it could be done, you're likely talking about adding a much more powerful GPU to your machine, a bunch of RAM, and likey you might also need to considder a ram disk to keep load lag to a minimum (CoH is texture heavy). The cost to upgrade your machine likely exceeds the cost of a cheap gaming rig.
My wife's 3.5 year old gateway notebook (AMD64, 1GB, ATI x600) Ran COH pretty well... she played it for years, and had spare resources to run custom background utilities and a voice chat app. She ran the game on basically medium requirements. A $300 el-cheapo PC combo from BestBuy (there are FEW that have PCIe slots, but MAKE SURE YOU CHECK!) and a $79 graphics car will bet the pants off her laptop config, likely for less than upgrading your rig to pull it off...
plus the fact that when threatened, craigslist offered up other web sites and services that SC residents had access to that also promoted and brokered prostitution, and the DA chose NOT to persue those sites...
Craigslist has no physical presence in SC.
Prostitution IS legal in some markets, and arranging the sale of such in those markets across state lines is not illegal.
This is not a state based transaction, but an interstate transaction unless the DA had specific evidence of prostitution inside SC boarders, which has not been revealed), and thus the DA likely didn't even have juristdiction.
The association of prostitution with the recent murder case is bordering on slander.
The personal attack against the owner of craigslist, as opposed to persuing the company as an entity IS slander.
Bingo. This DA has gotten SC in hot water more than once. This nationally publicized attack of something that even SC judges have been mumbling over whether is technically even illegal or not (in many places, including outside Vegas, prostitution IS legal, so who's to say how Craigslist was to validate the geographic location of both the poster and searcher to see if they could both conduct that kind of transaction leggally or not?) is just a play at TV time so he can position himself for a job with a massive salary later...
This negative publicity, INCLUDING siedbar remarks associating the sale of prostitution to the recent craigslist murder HAVE affected their posting rate, which effects their advertising revenue, and thus profit. It was a personal attack levied againts them, when a court of law had not actually ruled it a crime for craigslist to be operating the way they did in the first place.
It's illegal to seel MANY kinds of things in some places that are perfectly legal to sell in others. If the courts rule they have to oblige that and block prostitution, they'd have to track each item by type and location the same way, which is an insurmountable burden for a business, especially one not actually profiting from the sale or being directly related to the sale.
Craigslist not only offered to remove the posts (apparently not fast enough), but the state is now persuing legal action anyway (even though their chance of winning is miniscule, and might not even be a case the state can bring under commerce law since it's an interstate transaction).
Further, and the crux of the lawsuit, was not even so much that they were targeted, but they were EXCLUSIVELY targeted, even after Craigslist brough evidence of other sites doing the same that the DA ignored and is NOT persuing...
That of course 1) assumes someone actually writes a virus targeting the Mac platform, 2) you are somehow redirected to a site that hosts the vulnerability, or launch an attachment that is a java applet itself that contains malicious code, 3) the virus doesn't violate other UNIX security rules that would stop it from running on the Mac platform, and 4) that there's actually data stored on your mac in unencrypted form in a directory the virus can get to to steal information from you, or some way the Java app can infect your machine with other code that can steal your input and passwords.
If all 4 are not true (and they're not yet), then apple users are currently safe. Apple engineers do not rush "emergency" patches out for vulnerabilityies when no ITW code has yet been discovered. They'll also assess what a virus could actually be capable of, and determine the complexity of code required to pull off a hack on their platform, and they'll assign a priority to the code work.
This, I'd gather, is a low priority risk for Mac as I've not actually heard, other than the proof of concept, of an ITW virus for ANY platform exploiting this viln, let alone a targeted mac virus. They'll release a patch, but 6 months in, and with everyone else already having it patched, Apple is likely just waiting to apply it with other patches. Kind of surprised it was not in the 10.5.7 patch recently... must be really low priority. This isn't exactly something they need to invent a fix for...
and this can't be relegated to the intranet zone, and restrict java on other conenctions?
Your link provides data associated with 2 sattelite conversion. Typicaly GPS will key off of not less than 4 sattelites, and as many as 7, concurrently. Not less than 8 sattelites are in range, and as many as 11, depending on the time of day and location on earth.
Recent action by Obama lifted governemnt regulations as well on the civilian accuracy of GPS. GPS owned by civilians are no longer required to use SA (selective availability) signals, which artificially and randomly throw off GPS data by 10-100 meters. GPS can now accurately guage to within 10m consistantly when interference is a non issue.
As an additional enhancement, L2C sattelites were deployed in 2008, providing a seperate signal in addition to seperate sattelites. The variance in frequency between 2 frequencies transmitted from the same sattelite allows for a greater error correction potentially improving accuracy by 10x. use of an L2C compatible GPS receiver, with SA now disabled, should be able to provide accuracy to within a specific lane on a road, not just to a specific road.
inexpensive consumer GPS, and older models were never really designed for anything more accurate than simple positional reference. They were for navigation, not real-time data. It only had to be accurate enough to guess your location on a road to within a couple hundred yards of an intersection, and guage direction over time. Determining accurate speed was never a requirement.
New GPS units employing advanced algorithms, multi-frequency systems (there are now 2, by 2013 there will be 4), and much more powerful microprocessors are capable of not just real time positional data (accurately), but can process much more advanced mapping technology as well, and many also collect real time information from other combined sources like a-GPS (cellular networks), providing for further improved accuracy.
New GPS units typically record date in 10Hz. Over a 1.5 second window, you're averaging 15 locational samples. At speeds over 30MPH, a less than 10m variance, averaged 10 times a second, over 15 samples will provide a matematically accurate average speed to within a fraction of a MPH.
Your current GPS likely was either responding to SA signaling at the time (it was only recently disabled), had poor sattlite connectivty, or MUCH more likely, had difficulty guaging your location and direction based on 1 second intervals (or 5 second intervals) with variance up to 40m per sample (also considder the x axis). The GPS likely flipped your direction for 1-2 seconds, then reverted you to your current course, all withing its sample averaging period, and that made it look to the simple MPH calculator (designed for reference not accuracy) that you did a very fast circle.
Devices with highly accurate sensing, and properly coded MPH metering, are vavailable. They cost a premium currently as the accuracy improving features and real-time feedback with high sample rates are usually reserved for top-shelf models. That is NOT to say embedding one in a car specifically for speed monitoring would still cost top shelf pricing for the government...
Vehicle allignment, specifically an out of alignment wheel that is the metered wheel for the spedometer, can have an increased spin rate compared to other tires due to it riding on edge which has a slightly smaller circumference. Also considder tire wear on poorly aligned tires, typically thinner than a properly aligned tire on the other side of the car. It's minor, but so are each of the other effects, yet combined, a 2-3 MPH difference is easy to achieve. My Wife's car and my car have dramatic variances (hers ready about 3.5MPH fast due mostly to new tires that are slightly smaller than her old ones) and mine shows about 1MPH slow, so when I'm doing just under 60, she thinks I'm doing nearly 65.
OK, thanks. Starting from Dell.com and moving to business systems, then workstations, or by trying to select a system using the build wizard on the left pane this package was not an option.
That said: T7500 Dual Quad 64bit edition, same exact specs as the mac but with a weaker Vid card (and a 750GB instead of 640GB HDD), is $7054... Apple: $5148.
I tried to configure the Dell with the default 2.26 processors the base mac comes with (as configured $3748), but doing that to the dell makes 6GB a non-compatible memory size, and 8GB is not an option (don't know why, same chip same board...) so I go to 12GB and the price of the Dell is STILL $5684, even with 4GB configured, it would STILL be $3984... severl hundred more than a better equipped MacPro.
Yes, I matched ALL the options, and when in doubt made the Mac MORE powerful. I included NO software options on the Dell system to match Apple's offering and DID add 3 year support to Apple's system. There is no component or software the Dell had the Mac did not, and the Dell did not have options for Wireless NIC or Bluetooth which I DID include in the mac at this pricing. In most configurations, I could have thrown OSX Server in and a fivber chanel crontroller and still come out cheaper.
Across the board, with ANY configuration I could manage, the 4 core and 8 core Dell T7500 was more exensive than the Mac pro, 32 or 64 bit versions. Though the Dell does offer a tier of processor faster than the MacPro, it's cost is so rediculous you might as well buy 2 Mac Pros...
They are BOTH computed in real time AND averaged over distance.
Recent court cases have proven GPS based speed monitoring is far more accurate even than most spedometers which monitor real time wheel speeds, and easily trump radar and laser accuracy.
As long as the speed is logged a dozen times a second or so, but averaged over periods of not less than 1.5 seconds, and updated in real time based on the fractional second, the speed on the screen should not be more than a fraction of a mile per hour less or greater than your actual speed, which is actually MORE accurate than a traditional spedometer, which unlike GPS can be effected by vehicle alignment, tire pressure, wether, and age of the mechanics behind it. Car speedometers today are only accurate on average to within 3MPH.
There are roads in my area that have different speed limits in different directions on the same road! Speed limits that jump and drop 30 miles per hour more than once in a single mile! Speed limits that vary by time of day (school zones, etc), and more.
There are new roads being paved daily, others widening or diverted by construction. Temporary speed limits are posted by construction workers constantly. If the device can't react to these as well, it's useless, and probably more dangerous since "if it's not beeping, i'm not speeding" could potentially become a LEGAL defense!
Also, what happens when you are trying to pass a car that's going slower than you, and while trying to pass your engine power drops!?!?
What happens if you have a software glitch, or your device looses calibration. It could hold you to 10 or 20 miles less than the posted speed limit. It could simply fail, and cut engine power output. It could fail to engage and allow you to speed dangerously. It could simply prevent you from driving at all...
The ONLY safe application I can see for this system would be to apply while driving under cruise control, and be an alert-only system.
This is also something too easy to abuse by officers. If it's mandated to be installed, and everyone is being tracked, then entrapment starts to be an issue.
Well, he was sort of right...
Though there's no Statuate of Limitations on patent infringement, but most states limit the scope of infringement to 6 years, regardless of the length of infringement, and in certain circumstances, damages awarded have been adjusted by the judge when the first party was clearly fully aware of the infringement.
Basically, We ALL know Memorex maxes blank DVDs... Toshiba should have easily kown this. No that memorex made a few billion selling disks, Toshiba want's it;s cut, and likely use a huge settlement to allow them to begotiate good terms on another patent they can't currently get memorex to license to them. However, if the judge knows this is the case, and knows that 5.5 years ago Toshiba could have brought this up, and memorex could simply have been forced to license the patent at a small cost then or abandon their sales, in which case Toshiba would not have their current claim. Thair fialure to file earlier could only reasonably be offset by proving it was not in their business interest to do so due to cost vs reward, but if by now cost vs reward is suddently justified, Laches might apply in addition to limitations on compensation.
It could indeed be very bad for toshiba, especially since MULTIPLE conpoeitors were in clear violation of the patent. it could even go back to the PTO to show that DVD was just a natural evolution of CD and their patent could be thrown out (though, that could also invalidate Blue-ray's patent too, since although it requires a red laser and more complex reading system, the disk media itself is not truly a great leap and could be considered in the right circles "evolutionary, not revolutionary" and that could strip Blu-Ray of a lot of market power (in the form of royalties).
Actually, the issue is NOT the individual cells, it's a problem called cascade failure and is usually do to the failure of a terminal seperator inside the battery causeing a short. The individual cells are actually quite stable, but like a 9volt touching a coin in your pocket, the can get very hot very quickly. At about 600 degrees, they combust internally and expel steam, which can chain react heating nearby cells to combustible temps as well.
The space inside the battery pack that hits 600 degrees can be extremely small, not mutch larger than the head of a pin, which might make the battery case feel only "uncomfortably warm" just before explosion starts (which is an extended process of a slow burn explosion, but a "boom".)
Li-Ions are often seen "shooting fire" while combusting.
More often than not, this actually isn't manufacturing defect per-se, but batteries being exposed to flexing, alternating hot/cold environments, being dropped repeatedly, and other things that may not actually damage the outside of the pack, but cause internal compression damage eventually leading to a short or failure.
Why not simply state it as it is:
"3rd world battery manufacturer failes to deliver on contractual quality guidelines and costs HP a shitload of dough recalling 70,000 batteries, while themselves shrinking our of existance with full pockets."
or
"HP continues trend of failing to learn the lesson that using the lowest bidder does not cost less afterall; recalls 70,000 substandard 3rd party batteries made in some country you will never go to buy guys with names you can't spell who in total make less than your anual salary."
oops, yea, forgot DK was #2... IronMan still, no slouch #2 for the year, #21 ever...
If anything, the character got a lot of chicks to go see it... That was my Wife's motivation (one I'll not understand, but then again, she doesn't get Jessica Biel either...)
Chargebacks are part of the Visa/Mastercard agreement they hold. They are both required by Visa and by federal law to follow specific chargeback policies, and any alternate terms they present to customers are in violation of their card procfessing agreement.
However, if you tie payPal to a checking account, your bank may or may not offer similar protections. The ones that do often charge you for initiating a chargeback unless you can prove the payment is being processed illegally.
If you chargeback your Visa against PayPal for in invalid charge, they can't persue you directly, but first have to agree to a moderated dispute with Visa. until the dispute is resolved, and depsnding on the proof you and they present, you may not have the hold lifted from your account immediately.
Hurt it's appeal??? For Chirsts sake it's the second most moneymaking movie of all time and broke more than a dozen box office recrords!!!
For lights out operation, home servers, backup systems, and an OS to power small devices, Linux is far superior to Windows. For daily use, Windows is a superior "experience." Yes it;s buggy, but for 99% of people, it works, and doesn't require complex command lines and significant amounts of knowledge to use.
Combine that with the support you can get for Windows vs Linux (Linux support from Dell is at best "reinstall the image" or "talk the the distributor of that app/device, we can't help you."). I'll happily pay $80 more (estimated OEM price of Windows Home Premium), clean out the bloatware and be happy.
Of course, i don't buy PCs off shelves, and my Action Pack proivides me all the licenses I need, and beyond that my daily PC is a Mac, but for the other 99% out there, choosing Linux over Windows is not yet an easy choice, even if it was a price difference of $200. (currently, you're lucky to save $50 on the same machine from Dell running Linux instead of Windows).
Well, Vista was such a debacle that microsoft actually discounted the OEM price to the big guys... Vista is cheaper than XP. That's part of the reason for the XP upgrade (downgrade) charge (a part of it).
I'd expect Win 7 to actually be cheaper than XP, but more expensive than Vista. I'd expect this is MAYBE a $5-10 increse. What I also suspect is a much LARGER contributor is that few of their bloatware providers have stuff that will run within Win7's security model, or they just haven't released compatible versions yet, and they're loosing $20-40 per machine in opportunity to sell-thru.
I'd also expect Dell will use this excuse, combined with "increased support and training costs and image preparation, etc" to raise the base price of their PCs by not less than $50, reap the small profit in the short term, and then once MS (behind closed doors) negotiates a lower price with Dell and then all the bloatware folks finally come back in line, Dell will profit that extra $50-60 per machine and we'll continue to get the "Win7 is more expensive" line for years...
Worse, they'll probably factor the price of Win7 not as simply Home Premium Vista -> Home Premium 7, but as HP Vista -> starter + upgrade to HP for 7, making the difference look even bigger.
I still have and love my Gen 1 Edge iPhone. I'm paying the $20/month unlimited data INCLUDING the 200 free texts. There's NO WAY they'll get me to pay MORE to have the same plan on a new phone... I'm about 20 months in since purchase and have not reset my usage stats. I'm 1.8GB in, and that's over Edge! (plus another 200MB uploaded) ...and I only really started using Pandora heavily about 4 months ago, so although my average pings in at about 100MB/month, I'm likely averaging closer to 200MB currently. I also expect that to increase with 3.0, and my usage to increase over time with new games, multiplayer interactions, and more and more web enabled content.
If they plan on getting me into a new phone (or keeping me much longer beyond the end of my contract), they'll need to match Sprint and Verison's $99 unlimited everything plans...
I only subscribe to the 400 minute plan currently, so I'm under $70 a month. Moving to 3G would have added $15 a month to my plan, and with the big benefit being 3G with half the battery life, and considering 95% of my surfing is on wireless anyway, i never saw the point in the upgrade...
A snazzy new faster model with better battery life and a good camera will tempt me, but if the plan prices for unlimited data go up any more, Honestly, I'd rather take my phone to another provider and buy a good pocket didigtal camera with the savings... My wife's already on Verizon, so i can switch my line to her plan without signing a contract.
As much as i hate defending them, Dell, nor any other OEM (legally) installs spyware on their machines. Adware, crapware, and bloatware yes, but out of the box they are not permitted by federal law to pre-install user behavioral monitoring software.
I have an optiplex sitting in front of me and i can tell you it DID come with bloatware out of the box. It was less than on the el-cheapo PCs, but enough that IT simply blows away the image and uses their own instead.
You said Dimension twice in your post as well, and ther XPS is their top line home machine... very inconsistant of you.
One of the key differences between the home lines and the business lines is that most of the busuiness machines come with an option for No pre-installed AV software and don't come with a trial install of MS Office. However, I believe the Vostro and SMB lines still do.
The "workstation" line (laughing my ass off looking at the specs here), who knows. btw: Dell Precision 7500 w 1X quad Xeon 266, 3GB 1066ECC, 750GB drive, Vista Ultimate, and a FirePro 3750 (a whopping $145 workstation GPU, lol), is $3314. PowerMac with same specs and a 640GB HDD and a Radeon 4870 (actually better than the Dell "workstation" card): Only $2948... Mac's CPU upgrade: cheaper. Dell max RAM offered: 4GB preconfigured (riser cards required for more!!!). No dual CPU option. RAID card nearly twice Apple's price. No 64bit OS option. This is Dell's Flagship business workstation??? ROFL! (an alternate model using dual 2.33GHz quads is available in the 5400 model line for about $2700, less than Apple's dual quad model by about a $500, but it uses 877HGz memory, a weaker GPU, comes in a more cramped case, and has far fewer options available, plus it;s only dual channel RAM and ECC is not an option that I could find. That's not a workstation, it;s just a powerful PC...)