Actually, its for exactly your reasoning that cable companies would be loosing money under this idea. Networks price channel packages to cable companies based on the cable operator's subscriber base and demographics (how many people are likely to watch NBC for instance). If some of those people choose not to get some of the chanels in that package, Time Warner is still bound to pay NBC for the base total.
the up side is TWC does not have to offer the channels to me individually. they're allowed to offer packages. The price of each chanel in the package has to add up to the total price of the package. They don't state what chanels must go into each package, or what price they have to assign to it. They could put the 10 most popular chanels together in a package for $40, and most people would want every one of those chanels at $4 each. The "fluff" chanels would be in smaller packages of a couple of bucks each, with 1-2 good channels in each one being 90% of the package price. If they do the math right, they shuold be able to pick out channel offerings that cost the average american MORE money to get similar channel offerings. The problem will be the poor and lower class who will go with digitally broadcast (free) local TV and only the cheap add-ons. the rest of us wil;l have to compensate the cable companies losses on those people.
Of course, in addition to channel line-up pricing, they do have a few extra tools: Set top box pricing can increase, basic connection service fees can be added (or be justified as a "minimum subscription fee"), VoD (start-over) options don't have to be free anymore, DVR package price can be increased, they'll find ways to screw us. They'll scream about profits being lost, and they'll get congress to approve a raise in prices as a proactive measure, then you just wait and see their record profits roll in...
Just as many people as I know who switched to sattelite to get better deals have switched from sattelite to cable because you can't get VoD and many other services on Sattelite, and with the savings, the cable company rapes you on internet upcharges for having broadband without having cable... Also, Time Warner Cable will match sattelite dollar for dollar on similar packages if you push them. They'll tell you the deal is for only 1 year, but in the 12th month call them back and threated to switch again, and they'll price match again.
Also, Cable may cost more for the base package, but I have cable on 6 TVs, only 2 of which have a box. Sattelite would ass rape me for an additional $20/month for the extra set top boxes and I'd need 3 satellite dishes and an ass of instalaltion fees to support the cabling.
This is because cable and satellite companies fill the pockets of congressmen with continual loads of fresh green cash... These companies have powerful lobyists. They understand that under a la carte they will no longer be able to charge people $49 for basic cable when all people want is 15-20 chanels. they also understand that if they value certain chanels too highly under a la carte, then those chanels will fall dramatically in ratings as people switch to watching programming on less expensive cable networks. Cable companies will loose money under a la carte, I have no doubt about it, and they have no intention of letting it happen. The millions they blow in kickbacks and other funding given to congressmen is nothing compared to what's at stake under a la carte.
Thanks for the link... Yes, this product "may" violate "some" parts of the discussed patent, but even from the basic description, I think a judge would have to be smoking something to rule in favor of Gibson.
Except for the fact it's still 3rd person, and therefor doesn't violate the 3D or "virtual environment" aspects of the patent in question, there is a game in development, which will also act as an instrument training system, which allows users to plug a REAL guitar into the game and play. It's not from the guys behind Guitar Hero, and I coundn't find a link to it quickly, but i read the article wither here, on Ars, or on Toms...
On the other hand, being a member of a virtual band in a game is an idea, and therefore unpatentable. A system allowing a guitar to provide feedback into a game would be a patentable solution, the fact that it interfaces with a virtual band or simply some other interactive system would be irrelevent. This patent does not cover an interface device or process that is in any way similar to Guitar Hero. The new system coming out could be interpreted that way, but MIDI has existed LONG before Gibson's 1999 patent claim, and therefore is prior art and gibson's patent should be thrown out anyway.
It's one thing to fix a bug or improve performance, but when adding features to a device, or by activating components that were previously inactive or non-functional (and not listed as a feature of the product) at time of purchase, then Sarbaynes-Oxley kicks in. Since the same device is sold both before and after the fiscal year deadline, and since those sold before are now getting features that the new ones come with, they have to either mess with taxes and share revenue across multiple years (as they do with the iPhone), or they have to charge a nominal fee.
iPod touch users will probably pay a $19 fee 2-3 times per year to add functionality. iPhone users get the features because Apple is collecting monthly revenue from AT&T, and part of that revenue if for subscription updates to the device. Both iPhone and iPod users will have to pay for 3rd party additions to the device that are not otherwise offered free of charge.
At some point, the limit of new functionality beyond simple software (3rd party) additions for the device will be reached. There's only so much built in. Adding some guestures for multi-touch is a feature enhancement, not a new feature for example, and would be offered as a free upgrade by Apple even to iTouch users. Upgrading the mail client would also be considdered free except that in this case they're also adding Exchange Support and Push support, features which are line itemed by competitors as individual features and not simple enough to sweep under the carpet as an "enhancement." Adding 3rd party app support would not have been an issue if Apple advertised from day 1 that it was an included feature, or if they were able to add that feature before the end of the first fiscal year, but now they're bound BY LAW to charge something for it.
It took a LOT of development time and money to build the SDK. Especially since it was NOT something planned by Apple. Someone has to pay SOMETHING for that. When you ought the iPod Touch, you were told it did not have 3rd part app support. You paid the price knowing that. Adding 3rd part app support is no different than adding an app, which you'd happily pay for from the iTunes store anyway...
Quit bitching. Apple actually listed to you, offered a service they were dead set against adding, and they're bound now by laws to have to charge for it. Anything less than about $10 would actually cost them money (processing fees, bandwidth, development, etc, considdered). $19.99 is not a bad price to pay for major feature enhancements a few times a year. You'll still get bug fixes for free.
What is yet to be determined is: will Apple be required to release bug fixes and upgrades for iTouch devices if you choose NOT to pay for the upgrade. Did the device contract or any materials in the packaging indicate that software patches or updates were to be provided free of charge under the warranty? If so, if this was clearly detailed, then Apple could have to release 2 sets of updates, one for bug fixes only, and a seperate one for new functionality. Either that, or they'll have to install all the updates, but somehow cripple the device to disalow the use of featueres that have not been paid for (opening the door to unlockers to activate those features free, illegally).
If your window is open, what prevents any idiot from driving by and seeing you, or recording it themselves? If you're worried, keep it closed. You are not likely going to actually catch someone watching, and if you are that paranoid that you would actually close the window, it's likely already closed...
Besides, googles fuzzes any recognizable faces, license plates, and other personal info captured in the images. They're also typically outdated as they only pass streets periodically with their cameras (every few months in busy areas, less often elsewhere).
Really, if you're so paranoid of random people seeing you in ranomly taken snapshots, in quite poor qaulity I might add, then you need to move out of the city (and possibly into a padded room). Street view is not available in most residential areas, only in cities, high traffic areas, and dense suburbs. (places most commonly searched for, and the roads that lead to them).
With the human eye's resolution being able to detect pixels at about 0.3 arc-minutes at 20" distances, you're looking at needing something on the order of 70+ megapizel screen to max out detail. That's 10,000X7000 roughly. The likelyhood of getting that resolution into a screen, maybe in 25 years with bio-organic screen compounds and nano materials... In reality, the human eye can see individual pixels at that size, but only in high contrast. In video, anything more than 5-10X current screen resolutions would exceed the visual acuity of the eye and become imperceptible differences, at the typical 20" sitting distance from a 24" screen/monitor.
Why, you can send in your vista license and downgrade to XP without buying it? You just need to pay to have this disk shipped...
Of course, this only applies to Vista Ultimate or Business editions. If you have home premium or basic, I suggest that instead of trying to get a refund on Vista from Dell or another company, then spending $299 on XP Pro, I'd instead upgrade to Vista Ultimate (now just $320), then request a downgrade to XP Pro. This way, when Vista starts looking attractive (SP2?) you can upgrade back to it without buying a new license at that time.
Of course, the downside is it would actually count as another Vista sale and help improve Microsofts Vista adoption rate figures.
Remember, XP kinda sucked until SP2 as well... Would you go back to ME or 98 now? no. Vista will eventually get adopted by everyone who doesn't move instead to Mac or Linux...
It gets even wierder when you note that in Europe (and almost every country but the USA) fuel is not actually sold by the gallon/litre/whatever. It's sold by weight. Europe recognizes that fuel expands and contracts with both tempurature and baraometric pressure, so although the pump may say "gallons" in england, the gallon you get on different days is not the same. In other words, a gallon by mass allways has the exact same amount of energy in Europe. In the USA, it does not.
Yup. If I can't DL it and reat it at my convenience, then it's worthless to me. What am I supposed to do, keep a log of the websites that free books are on, and keep track of what page I've read to?...and if i can't resize it as I see fit, it;s even more useless.
i read when I can't surf. If I can't surf, I can't read this. Dumb.
1: Actually, Intel, Dell and others were the ones who insisted on the Vista Capable campaign, Microsoft just went along because it actually was a good idea, at heart, it was just poorly implemented. They refused to support rollout of the OS unless something was done in this regards. 2: nobody lied (except maybe a few underqualified, undertrained retail associates). The specs were freely available, including the limits of the OS and the hardware. All you had to do was read about it or ask questions for a "qualified" representative or expert.
3: If we skipped the sticker, that would have left too much up to interpretation. Manufacturers wanted a way to make sure their new hardware was being recognized as futureproof. There's not enough room on a notebook or desktop to put much bigger of a sticker without removing the other product information stickers, like features of the hardware itself... (have you looked at a display model recently? There's about 2 square inches available for labels from microsoft, intel, ATI, and others. If there wasn't a program many more people would have been clueless, and underhanded vendors could have pushed product into the hands of ignorants much easier, and without the program, there would have been no legal vehicle for consumers at all. This program was to put the blame in the distributors hands, not microsofts, as they openly admitted in the press that vista's options may be confusing, and their marketing encouraged you to ask a professional which version was right for you, and what to run it on.
4: MINIMUM system requirements have NOTHING to do with RECCOMENDED system requirements. These WERE all posted online, including system benchmarking and ratings using their performance index process. Vista index numbers were available online from the manufacturers of every system listed as "vista capable" This was a required part of the process for getting the sticker on a machine. Your failure to look it up is not their problem. Vista DOES run on every machine they indicated it would They did not say it would run faster or smoother than XP, just that it would run. Premium and Ultimate even will run on low end ssytems, just some features won't, including aero, which they made VERY CLEAR required hardware based video. Nothing in their marketing made you expect otherwise. It was so vague you almost HAD to ask questions. Minimum and reccomedned specs have been available on every software package for more than 10 years. if you don't understand this buy now, you shouldn't be buying your own computer equipment without a professional to assist you.
If BestBuy, Dell and other vendors provided incorrect information or used misleading tactics, it is NOT micrisoft's fault, as much as you want it to be. Agencies exists for consumer protection. they reviewed after complaints Microsofts practices and issued NO FINES and NO TAKEDOWN orders.
there was no FALSE advertising. There was no MISLEADING advertising. Confusing advertising is not only not illegal, it's completely supported under Supreme Court upheld rulings in dozens of "buyer beware" cases.
I'm not talking about dishonest companies. I'm talking about good firms that most americans trust. However, by allowing Microsoft to loose this case opens the door for every idiot consumer who fails to research stuff before they buy it to sue people.
If this goes through, we'll be filling out fucking contracts to buy a DVD player, or a video game.
Microsoft may have a monoply, and they may have gooten there using underhanded tactics, pressure, and refusal to cooperate with others, but most every other firm out there didn't. A win for the class action case here is a loose for all other consumers.
I also think that people who bought "vista capable" systems are idiots who should be seperated fro their money anyway. Why? Rule 1: never buy a new OS until Service plack plu 3 months. Rule 2: never buy bottom of the line crap, and never buy systems that can't be upgraded to at least twice their current capabiltiy. Rule 3: Research before you by. Rule 4: you didn't then, and still don't, need and function of Vista except HD playback and DX10, both of which require a dedicated video card anyway. 100% of all other vista functionality exists or can be added to XP. If you violated any of these rules, you're an idiot, and deserve to be punished through loss of money.
My 17" laptop screen has full HD resolution. Sitting on my lap, it has the effective screen size of a quite large TV at a normal sitting distance. HD goggles have screens as small as 2.5", but have effective viewing sizes in excess of 100".
I did a battery test. Not quite the same as watching realtime video, but I assume that pegging both my cores to 100% with the screen at 75% brightness while WRITING a DVD (at 1X just to make sure it took at least 2 hours) uses quite similar power to watching a BD or DVDVD movie, if not far more.
My battery died at 1 hour 50 minutes. Feature length for "most" movies nowadays. Playing a 1080P rip of a movie from the HDD I've gotten over 2.5 hours before, but I typically use lower brightness and don't use DVD at the same time. My wife's poor machine however, playing just simple DVDs, she gets about 1 hour 20 minutes. playing games online she gets less than an hour if she forgets to plug in.
Then again, the only places I watch a DVD is 1) in my car, where i have a power agapter, at home at my desk, or at work on breaks. I'm never out in a park wathcing DVD. At a coffee shop, there's an outlet handy if I need it.
This Vista POS I have from work supposedly has a centrino duo, which uses less watts than any of my other systems by a large margin, but since Vista thrashes the HDD so much, it only gets about 90 minutes on a charge. When XP was on it, I got nearly 3 hours per charge. Since BD and HD can only play under Vista anyway (unless you convert and rip to HDD) I'd say Vista itself was a bigger battery hog than the DVD player...
You'd think, but people are stupid, careless, selfish, lazy, and cheap. Think of the worst person you know. Would you trust them working with explosive gas? Chances are, someone worse than that person already has a job in the auto industry that would put them in a place to do just that.
Also, I may be able to prvent a tank from exploding in a crash, but can you prevent the same damage to the regulator or valve on the tank, and the seals between them? It MAY be possible, but not without significant engineering, cost, and additional weight.
Fact is, why even bother? Is the effort, cost, and risk worth the reward? No. There are cheper, simpler, and safer alternatives ALREADY AVAILABLE. By the time we solve issues with H2, and build an industry around it, we'll already have more than 100,000 plug-in electric cars on the road. (Chevy is planning to have that many alone before then end of 2010).
No matter how you plan for H2, we still need an upgraded electric grid. This type of H2 car, the generate on demand model, still requires energy, which means batteries and plug-in options for every car enayway. Why waste effort, space, cost, weight, and complexity when you can just make the battery bigger (which is smaller and lighter than the H2 systems and water needed) and do away with the extra efficiency loss by just running on electric to begin with?
Every technology has weaknesses, H2 has too many to try to overcome. It;s 5th or 6th in line for what we can accomplish with a given investment in time and money. Lets' work on #s 1, 2, and 3....
btw: I hate defending microsoft as much if not more based on how much i already despise their products. Fact is, if this legal precedent was set, we'd all suffer. A thousand companies would fall like dominoes in the storm that followed. We simply can't allow that to happen.
pre-sales support is not the requirement of the vendor, but of the distributor. end users don't get pre-sales support direct from microsoft (except through the website), only partners and distributors get that level of support. End users go to the Microsoft partner (Dell) for pre-sales. BestBuy, Dell, and others knew full well what the limitations were of the OS, and what hardware would/would not run different vista versions. If you walkked into a store and asked someone, they had been internally trained to provide you with specific answers. those answeres were created by upper management and technical exports within the vendor chain, not with in microsoft. If you were misled, it's the salesman's fault for not knowing his product.
You can't tell me that BestBuy's geeks didn't know that machine was not going to be able to run Aero. They had the product specs in nice pretty color brocures detaining every version of Vista, and every machine that they had in stock, and they're trainined to "ask questions about how a product will be used, then from their knowledge of product specifications, find the right product for the customer". The question is, Mr. Customer, did you actually 1) ask for help and 2) take their advice? If the answer to either is no, then it's the buyer's fault, and you get to sue noone. If you said yes to both, then you got bad advice from the sales rep, and you should sue BestBuy, not Microsoft.
Even still: the sticker may have been misleading, but how much info can you put on a 1/2" by 1" sticker, half of which is a logo? Microsoft made freely available a WEALTH of information about their offerings and specs. The hardware vendors did the same. It was up to you to connect the dots. if you cound't do that, you should have requested a professional to assist you. People just simply paid it no attention. They bought product without researching it. They claim it sais "Vista Capable" that must mean they can do everything, paying no attention to the fact that there are MAJOR differences between the $400 and $1400 computers on the shelf even under XP, and not considdering that might effect Vista?
If you bought a Honda 4-banger with a tow hitch on the back and expected it to tow a horse trailer, and you didn't read the owners guide (freeley availabe online and at the dealerships before you bought it), can you really sue them because it can only tow up to 1500lbs? NO! Same goes here. Buyer Beware.
Heck, My home theatre stereo has an "XM ready" sticker on it. Can I get XM on it? NO! I have to buy a $200 adapter that, oh by the way, can be used with ANY stereo. Another model that sais "XM ready" may just need an anteanna. My car has the same issue... I can use XM, but the radio doesn't directly support it (have to have a seperate screen and controller, so really, XM is just an analog input no different that an iPod, but the sticker is there just the same. did Chrystler get sued for that?)
The problem is most firm DID do that, 10-15 years ago when the decided on Windows or DOS over IBM's offerings. Then they spent millions of dollars writing code that isn't portable because it wasn't possible to make it so. Now they've got legacy apps and millions of database records, or millions in assembly line equipment, let alone the investment systems, users, training, security.
You don't plan on microsoft not being there tomorrow. Your too entrentched with them to even considder the possibility. It will take 5-10 years for the majority of firms to get out from under them. With open source databases and programs that are finally now taking over and porting data Microsoft has kept sacred for so long, the migration can finally begin, but it can't happen overnight.
Most firms can at best replace 1/4 of their systems each year, and this is assuming a direct and simple upgrade path. You can't just drop microsoft exchange and swith to something else. It requires changes for users, web sites, legacy applications, CRM and IP telephone systems. It's a death spiral.
On even the rumor that a judge might shut down RIM, the US government stepped in and basically said "hell no" and proposed their costs for the change. It would have cost taxpayers more than a billion to get rid of RIM. Can you imaging the military cost to drop microsoft? With the Vista fiasco, the military is well on its way to transitioning to open source solutions, but it's going to take a decade or more to complete. In the meantime, we simple NEED microsoft...
As much as I'd like to see M$oft go down in flams (I'll be having a HUGE party when it does finally happen), the fact is, we can't let it happen now. M$ needs to die off slowly. Were they to be slammed out of existance by a massive legal hit, or a product recall (which due to core technologies would also crippte server 2008) then millions of firms would be stuck with out of date and insecure software, and patches would cease to be released.
Firms simple don't have the money, resources, or time to outright replace microsoft. billions of lines of code for proprietary business systems run today, and without trillions of dollars in investment, can't simple be recompiled to run on linux or Mac OS X.
If M$ goes belly up, we're all going to have to pay a whole lot more than what it costs to slowly migrate away from them. They are a sinking ship, and I expect that in 5 years, they won't be the most popolar server OS anymore, they might even get booted off desktops in this timeframe too, but it's not as realistic of a number.
unfortunately, the liekelyhood of you seeing a penny is slim. Even at a few billion dollars, a class action settlement would mostly go to the government and the lawyers. At the market value for RAM by the time the settlement ends, you'll probably get about $12 for your 512MB upgrade, if you see anything at all. anything much more than that and it would bankrupt microsoft. They can't possibly refund all the copies, even at OEM pricing, combined with the expenses and upgrade troubles, and the nice chunk for the lawers and uncle Sam.
Also, the courts do have a basic understanding of the fact that if the machine you bought didn't have a graphics adapter, you shouldn't have expected the enhanced graphics interface (machines that run XP pro, but don't have GPUs don't play graphic games or screen savers either). As far as performance, they'll point of that the MINIMUM requirement meas MINIMUM FUNCTIONALITY, not RECCOMEDNED functionality. This is clearly understood by most in the industry, and considdfered common knowledge in computing. Whaterver the specs say the minimum is, you reasonably need 2-4 times that for performance to be fluid.
Look at Pinacle Studeo for example. The miniumum specs, 256MB RAM and 5GB disk space, cover only whats necessary to install and run the program, and edit a "short" video clip (5 minutes of standard TV resolution 15fps, with no audio was the banchmark) A 30 minute HD video with stereo audio, accoring to Pinacle phone support for version 9 when I had it , should only be edited on a machine with striped performance HDDs and at least 2GB of RAM, and a multi-core (pentium D at the time) processor. lawyers will easily argue that, especially early adopters should have recognised this. "Let the buyer beware"
The minimum requirements for Oblivion are 512MB System RAM, 2 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor , and 128MB Direct3D compatible video card. With those specs, at minimum resolution, the game gets aboutn 6FPS. With a $3,500 quad way SLI system, they still can't play it at higher than 30FPS at the game's maximum configurable resolutions. noone has yet built a system that can truly play the game. They reccomend 1GB of Ram and an x800 or better video card. Experts reccomedn 2GB and SLI systems to play at "comfortable quality at higher resolutions" Can I sue those guys becuase it' "unplayable" on my wife's computer even though it meets the minimum specs?
minimum means MINIMUM. Windows 95 could run on 512K of RAM and a 20MB HDD. You can't really use it that way, let alone open a 3rd party application, but it does in fact RUN on it. Why did you expect Vista to be any different? Why did you expect it to require the same specs as XP if it's 7 years newer!?!
Comsiddering the costs of simple wooden rods at wallmart, I'm guessing by "cheap" you mean $50-100 on the low end for the set. By "regularly" if we're assuming this will be on a similar frequency to replacing aliminum fins in similar systems, we're talking every few hundred miles, 500 tops. By "replacing" i'm assuming these nano-sturctures are not fragile, and can be handled by ordinary people without speciual equipment, and are easy and quick (5 minutes or less) to replace.
wow, that's a lot of assumptions... and even these don't sound good.
The carbon tanks you refer to, yea, they're tough, but they leak H2 pretty bad. They're good for regular air, sometimes helium. H2 liquid needs to be stored in metal to reliably stay put, thick metal. The carbon shell is added to preotect from direct impact, but it doesn't mean the valve won't break or or leak all the H2 out. Might be hard to make it explode (without a shaped charge), but it's not hard to find scenarios where it's still dangerous.
Air poewred cars are not much better, but the tanks you speak of can prvent sudden rupture, and since leaking air is not a volitile gas, it's pretty safe.
I'm not concerned with slow leaks from the H2 that passes through the tanks naturally, that dispurses quick. I'm talking about a REAL leak, due to a bad seal or tank rupture. Even the tiniest imperfection could leak out massive volumes of H2 that are not going to be cleared by anything less than powered emergency ventalation. A repair man that forgets to follow every safty step could release a few litres of -230 degree H2 liquid into a shop (where there's likely welding or other sparks present) and this liquid explosively expands, fills all space in the shop, and contacts the spark. Boom. Goodbye shop, all inhabitants, and possible a bunch of people nearby. this WILL happen. People are careless and stupid. Propane tanks blow up all the time. H2 will just be mode deadly when it does.
Don't believe me how powerful this is? Do this for me: Go buy a small container of H2 from a local container store (I don't know how to do this, but my science proffs in college could get H2 anytime they wanted). Now, take a milk jug, a large cork with a hole in it, and a glass tube with a tapered end. Cut the bottom completely off the milk jug. put the tube in the hole in the cork and cap the jar with it (mare sure it's a tight fit). Place tape over the small remaining hole to prevent gas leaking out.
Now, mount the apparatus tube side up (open bottom of jug pointing at floor) from a clamp on a pole (so it will stay that way without you holding it, trust me, you don't want to be holding it!). You should in essence now have a big bowl, suspended upside down, with a small hole in the top. Open the valve on your H2 container and allow the gas to rise up into the bowl (since it's lighter than air, it will fill it and stay there).
Now, take the tape off the tube so that the H2 will start to rise through it. Light the escaping gas with a match (I suggest from as much distance as you can give it to be safe, a match held from a 3-6 foot long handle or longer, just in case this goes off before expected).
Now, what you will have is a small flame coming out of the glass tube. This flame operates like a torch because the vapor pressure from the H2 trying to go up is more than the air tring to go down and gas only flows one way. You should have a very feint blue flame here. This may burn for 15-90 seconds depending on how well the milk jug got filled, and how small your tube is.
After a minute or so, the H2 remaining in the milk jug will start to lessen, and air pressure above and below the tank will eventually equallize, allowing the flame to go down the tube and contact the remaning, ambient room pressure gas in the milk jug. BOOM!
trust me: If you do this indoors, say in a large classroom lab in a school, you'll have security personell and panicked people running from all directions, since this small amount of H2 gas, trapped in a gallon of airspace at static room pressure will generate a fireball that will shake the windows and ring eardrumbs.
Immagine now 3,000 times this much H2 in an underground parking area that has just rapidly escaped a leaking car's tank....
I can also image far darker options: Imagine the gree an arab suicide bomber will get when he's handed the keys from a Hertz employee to a portable H2 bomb for his $35 a day plus $300 credit hold... All he needs is a commonly available industrial shaped charge (from a construction yard) and he can take out a bridge or building. If he's really good, he can make some C4 himself from stuff at the grocery store.
I don't argue your points on Ethanol, at least not Ethanol from crops. Enter Cellulosic ethanol production. We can make ethanol from all sorts of crop waste, wood pulp, and many other forms of plants that can grow where food can not. Switchgrass is an option, but not the best one. Kudzuu in some areas would be a great option, certain weeds in others. A massive plant is under construction in Georgia to be operating later this year using this process for wood waste.
Many will surely argue that we'll be cutting down forrests to plant ethanol. Well, sort-of. We'll be PLANTING forrests to cut down, just the same way the forrestry industry has been doing it for 100 years. every tree we cut needs to be replaced. Trees are not the best option, but we have to start somewhere, and there's lots of wood waste to use (many industries have been created to handle the problem of what to do with all the waste. As we move towards a paperless industry, eliminate plywood in favor of polymer materials, and other options, we'll have pleanty of trees to use without cutting down any rain forests...
Gasoline fumes may be explosive, but only when confined. H2 fumes in similar densitiy (ambient gasses from slow leaks) are also not really an issue as it's so much lighter than air it can easily be vented. The problem is fast leaks (blown seals, improperly handled containers, etc). Tousands of cubic feet of H2 can leak out very quickly. As someone was kind enough to pooint out, H2 is also stored in liquid form only at 230 below zeor or so, and vapor expansion drops that even further, causing other alarming issues (imagine your garrage dropping to an ambient temp of about -200 degrees inside of 60 seconds with a fast leak, and just pray there's not a spark to light the gas in that density).
Cold liquid? sure, it can be efficient, low pressure, but keeping it at 230 below zero? how do you plan to do that, again, without a massive (several inch thick) insulating tank, compressors, and more.
Solar has a way to go, but it is viable. Concentrator solar farms take a lot of land, but we have pleanty of desert available... The efficiency may only be at 20% (best available panels), but thin film nano plates are only a few years from sale, and more than double the efficiecy. Regardless, it's free unlimited energy. Wind has issues with where we can place farms on land, but over water and across mountain ranges, that's easy. europe is putting up some 400+ wind generators on ocean moorings about 1 mile off coast. Superconducting electrical lines (existing today) pipe the energy anywhere we want. All we need to do is build the grid properly (a expensive, yet simple engineering feat) and some way to store overproduced daytime energy for use at night (using the energy to pump water uphill into lakes is one idea, thousands of smaller regional water towers with generators and underground tanks may be a better one, pumping from one to the other as energy is needed/overproduced may work better.)
We also have geothermal options, ocean current power, submerged in-line river generators (think dam generator without the dam), and ocean current generators to play with. We can make the energy anywhere we can, and pipe it where needed with little real difficulty.
We do pump distilled gasoline all around, but we can't turn that system off just yet, nor can our existing water system handle the load, so we need a whole new system built to move the water around. That's going to cost more than the electric grid, I promise...
1) I was referring to the "2 competing H2 technologies" not this on-demand system, i'll debuke that in a minute. 2) gasoline is not a volatile hig compression fuel like H2. Your gas tank leaks, you throw sand on it. Your H2 tank leaks, the repair shop needs to be evacuated or people get killed (think porpane leak). Also, at 4000PSI of pressure, you don't even neeed H2, when a gas at that pressure blows, it takes out everything that's not reinforced concrete within 200 feet. Add flamability to that and you're talking about the explosive force of nearly 10 pounds of TNT.
Pipe water using our existing system? most cities are already at or beyond capacity of theirt systems today, let alone adding this load. Second, it's not clean enough. It's needs to be pure distilled water for this system to operate. this means an entire new water system, including on-site distillation, storage, filtering, and the expense and energy to make it possible. This is simply not feasable. We can build 100 new solar and wind plants and a superconducting electrical grid for less money and less hassle. Third, water is a limited resource! unless desalination comes a loooooong way, this idea doens't float (pun intended).
The price of fuel cells wil come down, but it has a minimum price of about $15K per engine. Right now that's at over 200K once you factor out the governement subsidies. I get in a wreck, even a bad one, an air engine, electric motor, or ethanol cobustion (ICE or turbine) is easy to fix. Crack a fuel cell and you have to take half the car apart to get it out, and the whole damned thing requires replacement. btw: have you SEEN a fuel cell? They take up most of the trunk of large SUV's, turning a 7 seat vehicle into a 4 (or in some cases 2) seater.
not only is parking a leaky tank in a garage a bad idea, so is any underground parking lot, dense parking area with low wind, or other places. Second, H2 is not a liquid at that pressure like propane is. H2 only becomes liquid at rediculous pressure or extreme low temperuature. A propane tank of H2 at safe pressures would only take you about 5 miles. To pressurize directly to liquid and store it without 70 degree below zero refrigeration would be a massive tank, several inches thick, and still only have enough storage for about 200 miles. At that pressure, a rupture could kill a hundred people, rip your house apart, or crack a bridge, just on vapor expansion laws alone. Oh yea, compressing H2 to that pressure has less than 8% efficiency. We can make it at 96%, but loose most of that transporting it.
H2 will never happen, except under extreme goverment subsidies. It;s a tactic to appease less inteligent environment nuts until a etter technology that both big oil and big politics can proffit from. Theyr'e fighting Ethanol because it's too simple (they can't controll who produces it, they can't corner the market).. At least with electric drives, big oil can become big solar, and they're happy to do it, they're just delaying until they can buy up the research firms and construction companies, and to pay off politicians in the meantime to prevent new power plants they won't own from being built. I'm OK with this. Let them own it... If I don't like their prices per kilawatt, I'll put solar panels in my back yard and sell my energy back to the grid at a proffit.
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Actually, its for exactly your reasoning that cable companies would be loosing money under this idea. Networks price channel packages to cable companies based on the cable operator's subscriber base and demographics (how many people are likely to watch NBC for instance). If some of those people choose not to get some of the chanels in that package, Time Warner is still bound to pay NBC for the base total.
the up side is TWC does not have to offer the channels to me individually. they're allowed to offer packages. The price of each chanel in the package has to add up to the total price of the package. They don't state what chanels must go into each package, or what price they have to assign to it. They could put the 10 most popular chanels together in a package for $40, and most people would want every one of those chanels at $4 each. The "fluff" chanels would be in smaller packages of a couple of bucks each, with 1-2 good channels in each one being 90% of the package price. If they do the math right, they shuold be able to pick out channel offerings that cost the average american MORE money to get similar channel offerings. The problem will be the poor and lower class who will go with digitally broadcast (free) local TV and only the cheap add-ons. the rest of us wil;l have to compensate the cable companies losses on those people.
Of course, in addition to channel line-up pricing, they do have a few extra tools: Set top box pricing can increase, basic connection service fees can be added (or be justified as a "minimum subscription fee"), VoD (start-over) options don't have to be free anymore, DVR package price can be increased, they'll find ways to screw us. They'll scream about profits being lost, and they'll get congress to approve a raise in prices as a proactive measure, then you just wait and see their record profits roll in...
Just as many people as I know who switched to sattelite to get better deals have switched from sattelite to cable because you can't get VoD and many other services on Sattelite, and with the savings, the cable company rapes you on internet upcharges for having broadband without having cable... Also, Time Warner Cable will match sattelite dollar for dollar on similar packages if you push them. They'll tell you the deal is for only 1 year, but in the 12th month call them back and threated to switch again, and they'll price match again.
Also, Cable may cost more for the base package, but I have cable on 6 TVs, only 2 of which have a box. Sattelite would ass rape me for an additional $20/month for the extra set top boxes and I'd need 3 satellite dishes and an ass of instalaltion fees to support the cabling.
This is because cable and satellite companies fill the pockets of congressmen with continual loads of fresh green cash... These companies have powerful lobyists. They understand that under a la carte they will no longer be able to charge people $49 for basic cable when all people want is 15-20 chanels. they also understand that if they value certain chanels too highly under a la carte, then those chanels will fall dramatically in ratings as people switch to watching programming on less expensive cable networks. Cable companies will loose money under a la carte, I have no doubt about it, and they have no intention of letting it happen. The millions they blow in kickbacks and other funding given to congressmen is nothing compared to what's at stake under a la carte.
Thanks for the link... Yes, this product "may" violate "some" parts of the discussed patent, but even from the basic description, I think a judge would have to be smoking something to rule in favor of Gibson.
Except for the fact it's still 3rd person, and therefor doesn't violate the 3D or "virtual environment" aspects of the patent in question, there is a game in development, which will also act as an instrument training system, which allows users to plug a REAL guitar into the game and play. It's not from the guys behind Guitar Hero, and I coundn't find a link to it quickly, but i read the article wither here, on Ars, or on Toms...
On the other hand, being a member of a virtual band in a game is an idea, and therefore unpatentable. A system allowing a guitar to provide feedback into a game would be a patentable solution, the fact that it interfaces with a virtual band or simply some other interactive system would be irrelevent. This patent does not cover an interface device or process that is in any way similar to Guitar Hero. The new system coming out could be interpreted that way, but MIDI has existed LONG before Gibson's 1999 patent claim, and therefore is prior art and gibson's patent should be thrown out anyway.
It's one thing to fix a bug or improve performance, but when adding features to a device, or by activating components that were previously inactive or non-functional (and not listed as a feature of the product) at time of purchase, then Sarbaynes-Oxley kicks in. Since the same device is sold both before and after the fiscal year deadline, and since those sold before are now getting features that the new ones come with, they have to either mess with taxes and share revenue across multiple years (as they do with the iPhone), or they have to charge a nominal fee.
iPod touch users will probably pay a $19 fee 2-3 times per year to add functionality. iPhone users get the features because Apple is collecting monthly revenue from AT&T, and part of that revenue if for subscription updates to the device. Both iPhone and iPod users will have to pay for 3rd party additions to the device that are not otherwise offered free of charge.
At some point, the limit of new functionality beyond simple software (3rd party) additions for the device will be reached. There's only so much built in. Adding some guestures for multi-touch is a feature enhancement, not a new feature for example, and would be offered as a free upgrade by Apple even to iTouch users. Upgrading the mail client would also be considdered free except that in this case they're also adding Exchange Support and Push support, features which are line itemed by competitors as individual features and not simple enough to sweep under the carpet as an "enhancement." Adding 3rd party app support would not have been an issue if Apple advertised from day 1 that it was an included feature, or if they were able to add that feature before the end of the first fiscal year, but now they're bound BY LAW to charge something for it.
It took a LOT of development time and money to build the SDK. Especially since it was NOT something planned by Apple. Someone has to pay SOMETHING for that. When you ought the iPod Touch, you were told it did not have 3rd part app support. You paid the price knowing that. Adding 3rd part app support is no different than adding an app, which you'd happily pay for from the iTunes store anyway...
Quit bitching. Apple actually listed to you, offered a service they were dead set against adding, and they're bound now by laws to have to charge for it. Anything less than about $10 would actually cost them money (processing fees, bandwidth, development, etc, considdered). $19.99 is not a bad price to pay for major feature enhancements a few times a year. You'll still get bug fixes for free.
What is yet to be determined is: will Apple be required to release bug fixes and upgrades for iTouch devices if you choose NOT to pay for the upgrade. Did the device contract or any materials in the packaging indicate that software patches or updates were to be provided free of charge under the warranty? If so, if this was clearly detailed, then Apple could have to release 2 sets of updates, one for bug fixes only, and a seperate one for new functionality. Either that, or they'll have to install all the updates, but somehow cripple the device to disalow the use of featueres that have not been paid for (opening the door to unlockers to activate those features free, illegally).
If your window is open, what prevents any idiot from driving by and seeing you, or recording it themselves? If you're worried, keep it closed. You are not likely going to actually catch someone watching, and if you are that paranoid that you would actually close the window, it's likely already closed...
Besides, googles fuzzes any recognizable faces, license plates, and other personal info captured in the images. They're also typically outdated as they only pass streets periodically with their cameras (every few months in busy areas, less often elsewhere).
Really, if you're so paranoid of random people seeing you in ranomly taken snapshots, in quite poor qaulity I might add, then you need to move out of the city (and possibly into a padded room). Street view is not available in most residential areas, only in cities, high traffic areas, and dense suburbs. (places most commonly searched for, and the roads that lead to them).
With the human eye's resolution being able to detect pixels at about 0.3 arc-minutes at 20" distances, you're looking at needing something on the order of 70+ megapizel screen to max out detail. That's 10,000X7000 roughly. The likelyhood of getting that resolution into a screen, maybe in 25 years with bio-organic screen compounds and nano materials... In reality, the human eye can see individual pixels at that size, but only in high contrast. In video, anything more than 5-10X current screen resolutions would exceed the visual acuity of the eye and become imperceptible differences, at the typical 20" sitting distance from a 24" screen/monitor.
Why, you can send in your vista license and downgrade to XP without buying it? You just need to pay to have this disk shipped...
Of course, this only applies to Vista Ultimate or Business editions. If you have home premium or basic, I suggest that instead of trying to get a refund on Vista from Dell or another company, then spending $299 on XP Pro, I'd instead upgrade to Vista Ultimate (now just $320), then request a downgrade to XP Pro. This way, when Vista starts looking attractive (SP2?) you can upgrade back to it without buying a new license at that time.
Of course, the downside is it would actually count as another Vista sale and help improve Microsofts Vista adoption rate figures.
Remember, XP kinda sucked until SP2 as well... Would you go back to ME or 98 now? no. Vista will eventually get adopted by everyone who doesn't move instead to Mac or Linux...
It gets even wierder when you note that in Europe (and almost every country but the USA) fuel is not actually sold by the gallon/litre/whatever. It's sold by weight. Europe recognizes that fuel expands and contracts with both tempurature and baraometric pressure, so although the pump may say "gallons" in england, the gallon you get on different days is not the same. In other words, a gallon by mass allways has the exact same amount of energy in Europe. In the USA, it does not.
Yup. If I can't DL it and reat it at my convenience, then it's worthless to me. What am I supposed to do, keep a log of the websites that free books are on, and keep track of what page I've read to? ...and if i can't resize it as I see fit, it;s even more useless.
i read when I can't surf. If I can't surf, I can't read this. Dumb.
1: Actually, Intel, Dell and others were the ones who insisted on the Vista Capable campaign, Microsoft just went along because it actually was a good idea, at heart, it was just poorly implemented. They refused to support rollout of the OS unless something was done in this regards.
2: nobody lied (except maybe a few underqualified, undertrained retail associates). The specs were freely available, including the limits of the OS and the hardware. All you had to do was read about it or ask questions for a "qualified" representative or expert.
3: If we skipped the sticker, that would have left too much up to interpretation. Manufacturers wanted a way to make sure their new hardware was being recognized as futureproof. There's not enough room on a notebook or desktop to put much bigger of a sticker without removing the other product information stickers, like features of the hardware itself... (have you looked at a display model recently? There's about 2 square inches available for labels from microsoft, intel, ATI, and others. If there wasn't a program many more people would have been clueless, and underhanded vendors could have pushed product into the hands of ignorants much easier, and without the program, there would have been no legal vehicle for consumers at all. This program was to put the blame in the distributors hands, not microsofts, as they openly admitted in the press that vista's options may be confusing, and their marketing encouraged you to ask a professional which version was right for you, and what to run it on.
4: MINIMUM system requirements have NOTHING to do with RECCOMENDED system requirements. These WERE all posted online, including system benchmarking and ratings using their performance index process. Vista index numbers were available online from the manufacturers of every system listed as "vista capable" This was a required part of the process for getting the sticker on a machine. Your failure to look it up is not their problem. Vista DOES run on every machine they indicated it would They did not say it would run faster or smoother than XP, just that it would run. Premium and Ultimate even will run on low end ssytems, just some features won't, including aero, which they made VERY CLEAR required hardware based video. Nothing in their marketing made you expect otherwise. It was so vague you almost HAD to ask questions. Minimum and reccomedned specs have been available on every software package for more than 10 years. if you don't understand this buy now, you shouldn't be buying your own computer equipment without a professional to assist you.
If BestBuy, Dell and other vendors provided incorrect information or used misleading tactics, it is NOT micrisoft's fault, as much as you want it to be. Agencies exists for consumer protection. they reviewed after complaints Microsofts practices and issued NO FINES and NO TAKEDOWN orders.
there was no FALSE advertising. There was no MISLEADING advertising. Confusing advertising is not only not illegal, it's completely supported under Supreme Court upheld rulings in dozens of "buyer beware" cases.
I'm not talking about dishonest companies. I'm talking about good firms that most americans trust. However, by allowing Microsoft to loose this case opens the door for every idiot consumer who fails to research stuff before they buy it to sue people.
If this goes through, we'll be filling out fucking contracts to buy a DVD player, or a video game.
Microsoft may have a monoply, and they may have gooten there using underhanded tactics, pressure, and refusal to cooperate with others, but most every other firm out there didn't. A win for the class action case here is a loose for all other consumers.
I also think that people who bought "vista capable" systems are idiots who should be seperated fro their money anyway. Why? Rule 1: never buy a new OS until Service plack plu 3 months. Rule 2: never buy bottom of the line crap, and never buy systems that can't be upgraded to at least twice their current capabiltiy. Rule 3: Research before you by. Rule 4: you didn't then, and still don't, need and function of Vista except HD playback and DX10, both of which require a dedicated video card anyway. 100% of all other vista functionality exists or can be added to XP. If you violated any of these rules, you're an idiot, and deserve to be punished through loss of money.
My 17" laptop screen has full HD resolution. Sitting on my lap, it has the effective screen size of a quite large TV at a normal sitting distance. HD goggles have screens as small as 2.5", but have effective viewing sizes in excess of 100".
I did a battery test. Not quite the same as watching realtime video, but I assume that pegging both my cores to 100% with the screen at 75% brightness while WRITING a DVD (at 1X just to make sure it took at least 2 hours) uses quite similar power to watching a BD or DVDVD movie, if not far more.
My battery died at 1 hour 50 minutes. Feature length for "most" movies nowadays. Playing a 1080P rip of a movie from the HDD I've gotten over 2.5 hours before, but I typically use lower brightness and don't use DVD at the same time. My wife's poor machine however, playing just simple DVDs, she gets about 1 hour 20 minutes. playing games online she gets less than an hour if she forgets to plug in.
Then again, the only places I watch a DVD is 1) in my car, where i have a power agapter, at home at my desk, or at work on breaks. I'm never out in a park wathcing DVD. At a coffee shop, there's an outlet handy if I need it.
This Vista POS I have from work supposedly has a centrino duo, which uses less watts than any of my other systems by a large margin, but since Vista thrashes the HDD so much, it only gets about 90 minutes on a charge. When XP was on it, I got nearly 3 hours per charge. Since BD and HD can only play under Vista anyway (unless you convert and rip to HDD) I'd say Vista itself was a bigger battery hog than the DVD player...
You'd think, but people are stupid, careless, selfish, lazy, and cheap. Think of the worst person you know. Would you trust them working with explosive gas? Chances are, someone worse than that person already has a job in the auto industry that would put them in a place to do just that.
Also, I may be able to prvent a tank from exploding in a crash, but can you prevent the same damage to the regulator or valve on the tank, and the seals between them? It MAY be possible, but not without significant engineering, cost, and additional weight.
Fact is, why even bother? Is the effort, cost, and risk worth the reward? No. There are cheper, simpler, and safer alternatives ALREADY AVAILABLE. By the time we solve issues with H2, and build an industry around it, we'll already have more than 100,000 plug-in electric cars on the road. (Chevy is planning to have that many alone before then end of 2010).
No matter how you plan for H2, we still need an upgraded electric grid. This type of H2 car, the generate on demand model, still requires energy, which means batteries and plug-in options for every car enayway. Why waste effort, space, cost, weight, and complexity when you can just make the battery bigger (which is smaller and lighter than the H2 systems and water needed) and do away with the extra efficiency loss by just running on electric to begin with?
Every technology has weaknesses, H2 has too many to try to overcome. It;s 5th or 6th in line for what we can accomplish with a given investment in time and money. Lets' work on #s 1, 2, and 3....
btw: I hate defending microsoft as much if not more based on how much i already despise their products. Fact is, if this legal precedent was set, we'd all suffer. A thousand companies would fall like dominoes in the storm that followed. We simply can't allow that to happen.
pre-sales support is not the requirement of the vendor, but of the distributor. end users don't get pre-sales support direct from microsoft (except through the website), only partners and distributors get that level of support. End users go to the Microsoft partner (Dell) for pre-sales. BestBuy, Dell, and others knew full well what the limitations were of the OS, and what hardware would/would not run different vista versions. If you walkked into a store and asked someone, they had been internally trained to provide you with specific answers. those answeres were created by upper management and technical exports within the vendor chain, not with in microsoft. If you were misled, it's the salesman's fault for not knowing his product.
You can't tell me that BestBuy's geeks didn't know that machine was not going to be able to run Aero. They had the product specs in nice pretty color brocures detaining every version of Vista, and every machine that they had in stock, and they're trainined to "ask questions about how a product will be used, then from their knowledge of product specifications, find the right product for the customer". The question is, Mr. Customer, did you actually 1) ask for help and 2) take their advice? If the answer to either is no, then it's the buyer's fault, and you get to sue noone. If you said yes to both, then you got bad advice from the sales rep, and you should sue BestBuy, not Microsoft.
Even still: the sticker may have been misleading, but how much info can you put on a 1/2" by 1" sticker, half of which is a logo? Microsoft made freely available a WEALTH of information about their offerings and specs. The hardware vendors did the same. It was up to you to connect the dots. if you cound't do that, you should have requested a professional to assist you. People just simply paid it no attention. They bought product without researching it. They claim it sais "Vista Capable" that must mean they can do everything, paying no attention to the fact that there are MAJOR differences between the $400 and $1400 computers on the shelf even under XP, and not considdering that might effect Vista?
If you bought a Honda 4-banger with a tow hitch on the back and expected it to tow a horse trailer, and you didn't read the owners guide (freeley availabe online and at the dealerships before you bought it), can you really sue them because it can only tow up to 1500lbs? NO! Same goes here. Buyer Beware.
Heck, My home theatre stereo has an "XM ready" sticker on it. Can I get XM on it? NO! I have to buy a $200 adapter that, oh by the way, can be used with ANY stereo. Another model that sais "XM ready" may just need an anteanna. My car has the same issue... I can use XM, but the radio doesn't directly support it (have to have a seperate screen and controller, so really, XM is just an analog input no different that an iPod, but the sticker is there just the same. did Chrystler get sued for that?)
The problem is most firm DID do that, 10-15 years ago when the decided on Windows or DOS over IBM's offerings. Then they spent millions of dollars writing code that isn't portable because it wasn't possible to make it so. Now they've got legacy apps and millions of database records, or millions in assembly line equipment, let alone the investment systems, users, training, security.
You don't plan on microsoft not being there tomorrow. Your too entrentched with them to even considder the possibility. It will take 5-10 years for the majority of firms to get out from under them. With open source databases and programs that are finally now taking over and porting data Microsoft has kept sacred for so long, the migration can finally begin, but it can't happen overnight.
Most firms can at best replace 1/4 of their systems each year, and this is assuming a direct and simple upgrade path. You can't just drop microsoft exchange and swith to something else. It requires changes for users, web sites, legacy applications, CRM and IP telephone systems. It's a death spiral.
On even the rumor that a judge might shut down RIM, the US government stepped in and basically said "hell no" and proposed their costs for the change. It would have cost taxpayers more than a billion to get rid of RIM. Can you imaging the military cost to drop microsoft? With the Vista fiasco, the military is well on its way to transitioning to open source solutions, but it's going to take a decade or more to complete. In the meantime, we simple NEED microsoft...
As much as I'd like to see M$oft go down in flams (I'll be having a HUGE party when it does finally happen), the fact is, we can't let it happen now. M$ needs to die off slowly. Were they to be slammed out of existance by a massive legal hit, or a product recall (which due to core technologies would also crippte server 2008) then millions of firms would be stuck with out of date and insecure software, and patches would cease to be released.
Firms simple don't have the money, resources, or time to outright replace microsoft. billions of lines of code for proprietary business systems run today, and without trillions of dollars in investment, can't simple be recompiled to run on linux or Mac OS X.
If M$ goes belly up, we're all going to have to pay a whole lot more than what it costs to slowly migrate away from them. They are a sinking ship, and I expect that in 5 years, they won't be the most popolar server OS anymore, they might even get booted off desktops in this timeframe too, but it's not as realistic of a number.
unfortunately, the liekelyhood of you seeing a penny is slim. Even at a few billion dollars, a class action settlement would mostly go to the government and the lawyers. At the market value for RAM by the time the settlement ends, you'll probably get about $12 for your 512MB upgrade, if you see anything at all. anything much more than that and it would bankrupt microsoft. They can't possibly refund all the copies, even at OEM pricing, combined with the expenses and upgrade troubles, and the nice chunk for the lawers and uncle Sam.
Also, the courts do have a basic understanding of the fact that if the machine you bought didn't have a graphics adapter, you shouldn't have expected the enhanced graphics interface (machines that run XP pro, but don't have GPUs don't play graphic games or screen savers either). As far as performance, they'll point of that the MINIMUM requirement meas MINIMUM FUNCTIONALITY, not RECCOMEDNED functionality. This is clearly understood by most in the industry, and considdfered common knowledge in computing. Whaterver the specs say the minimum is, you reasonably need 2-4 times that for performance to be fluid.
Look at Pinacle Studeo for example. The miniumum specs, 256MB RAM and 5GB disk space, cover only whats necessary to install and run the program, and edit a "short" video clip (5 minutes of standard TV resolution 15fps, with no audio was the banchmark) A 30 minute HD video with stereo audio, accoring to Pinacle phone support for version 9 when I had it , should only be edited on a machine with striped performance HDDs and at least 2GB of RAM, and a multi-core (pentium D at the time) processor. lawyers will easily argue that, especially early adopters should have recognised this. "Let the buyer beware"
The minimum requirements for Oblivion are 512MB System RAM, 2 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor , and 128MB Direct3D compatible video card. With those specs, at minimum resolution, the game gets aboutn 6FPS. With a $3,500 quad way SLI system, they still can't play it at higher than 30FPS at the game's maximum configurable resolutions. noone has yet built a system that can truly play the game. They reccomend 1GB of Ram and an x800 or better video card. Experts reccomedn 2GB and SLI systems to play at "comfortable quality at higher resolutions" Can I sue those guys becuase it' "unplayable" on my wife's computer even though it meets the minimum specs?
minimum means MINIMUM. Windows 95 could run on 512K of RAM and a 20MB HDD. You can't really use it that way, let alone open a 3rd party application, but it does in fact RUN on it. Why did you expect Vista to be any different? Why did you expect it to require the same specs as XP if it's 7 years newer!?!
Comsiddering the costs of simple wooden rods at wallmart, I'm guessing by "cheap" you mean $50-100 on the low end for the set. By "regularly" if we're assuming this will be on a similar frequency to replacing aliminum fins in similar systems, we're talking every few hundred miles, 500 tops. By "replacing" i'm assuming these nano-sturctures are not fragile, and can be handled by ordinary people without speciual equipment, and are easy and quick (5 minutes or less) to replace.
wow, that's a lot of assumptions... and even these don't sound good.
The carbon tanks you refer to, yea, they're tough, but they leak H2 pretty bad. They're good for regular air, sometimes helium. H2 liquid needs to be stored in metal to reliably stay put, thick metal. The carbon shell is added to preotect from direct impact, but it doesn't mean the valve won't break or or leak all the H2 out. Might be hard to make it explode (without a shaped charge), but it's not hard to find scenarios where it's still dangerous.
Air poewred cars are not much better, but the tanks you speak of can prvent sudden rupture, and since leaking air is not a volitile gas, it's pretty safe.
I'm not concerned with slow leaks from the H2 that passes through the tanks naturally, that dispurses quick. I'm talking about a REAL leak, due to a bad seal or tank rupture. Even the tiniest imperfection could leak out massive volumes of H2 that are not going to be cleared by anything less than powered emergency ventalation. A repair man that forgets to follow every safty step could release a few litres of -230 degree H2 liquid into a shop (where there's likely welding or other sparks present) and this liquid explosively expands, fills all space in the shop, and contacts the spark. Boom. Goodbye shop, all inhabitants, and possible a bunch of people nearby. this WILL happen. People are careless and stupid. Propane tanks blow up all the time. H2 will just be mode deadly when it does.
Don't believe me how powerful this is? Do this for me: Go buy a small container of H2 from a local container store (I don't know how to do this, but my science proffs in college could get H2 anytime they wanted). Now, take a milk jug, a large cork with a hole in it, and a glass tube with a tapered end. Cut the bottom completely off the milk jug. put the tube in the hole in the cork and cap the jar with it (mare sure it's a tight fit). Place tape over the small remaining hole to prevent gas leaking out.
Now, mount the apparatus tube side up (open bottom of jug pointing at floor) from a clamp on a pole (so it will stay that way without you holding it, trust me, you don't want to be holding it!). You should in essence now have a big bowl, suspended upside down, with a small hole in the top. Open the valve on your H2 container and allow the gas to rise up into the bowl (since it's lighter than air, it will fill it and stay there).
Now, take the tape off the tube so that the H2 will start to rise through it. Light the escaping gas with a match (I suggest from as much distance as you can give it to be safe, a match held from a 3-6 foot long handle or longer, just in case this goes off before expected).
Now, what you will have is a small flame coming out of the glass tube. This flame operates like a torch because the vapor pressure from the H2 trying to go up is more than the air tring to go down and gas only flows one way. You should have a very feint blue flame here. This may burn for 15-90 seconds depending on how well the milk jug got filled, and how small your tube is.
After a minute or so, the H2 remaining in the milk jug will start to lessen, and air pressure above and below the tank will eventually equallize, allowing the flame to go down the tube and contact the remaning, ambient room pressure gas in the milk jug. BOOM!
trust me: If you do this indoors, say in a large classroom lab in a school, you'll have security personell and panicked people running from all directions, since this small amount of H2 gas, trapped in a gallon of airspace at static room pressure will generate a fireball that will shake the windows and ring eardrumbs.
Immagine now 3,000 times this much H2 in an underground parking area that has just rapidly escaped a leaking car's tank....
I can also image far darker options: Imagine the gree an arab suicide bomber will get when he's handed the keys from a Hertz employee to a portable H2 bomb for his $35 a day plus $300 credit hold... All he needs is a commonly available industrial shaped charge (from a construction yard) and he can take out a bridge or building. If he's really good, he can make some C4 himself from stuff at the grocery store.
I don't argue your points on Ethanol, at least not Ethanol from crops. Enter Cellulosic ethanol production. We can make ethanol from all sorts of crop waste, wood pulp, and many other forms of plants that can grow where food can not. Switchgrass is an option, but not the best one. Kudzuu in some areas would be a great option, certain weeds in others. A massive plant is under construction in Georgia to be operating later this year using this process for wood waste.
Many will surely argue that we'll be cutting down forrests to plant ethanol. Well, sort-of. We'll be PLANTING forrests to cut down, just the same way the forrestry industry has been doing it for 100 years. every tree we cut needs to be replaced. Trees are not the best option, but we have to start somewhere, and there's lots of wood waste to use (many industries have been created to handle the problem of what to do with all the waste. As we move towards a paperless industry, eliminate plywood in favor of polymer materials, and other options, we'll have pleanty of trees to use without cutting down any rain forests...
Gasoline fumes may be explosive, but only when confined. H2 fumes in similar densitiy (ambient gasses from slow leaks) are also not really an issue as it's so much lighter than air it can easily be vented. The problem is fast leaks (blown seals, improperly handled containers, etc). Tousands of cubic feet of H2 can leak out very quickly. As someone was kind enough to pooint out, H2 is also stored in liquid form only at 230 below zeor or so, and vapor expansion drops that even further, causing other alarming issues (imagine your garrage dropping to an ambient temp of about -200 degrees inside of 60 seconds with a fast leak, and just pray there's not a spark to light the gas in that density).
Cold liquid? sure, it can be efficient, low pressure, but keeping it at 230 below zero? how do you plan to do that, again, without a massive (several inch thick) insulating tank, compressors, and more.
Solar has a way to go, but it is viable. Concentrator solar farms take a lot of land, but we have pleanty of desert available... The efficiency may only be at 20% (best available panels), but thin film nano plates are only a few years from sale, and more than double the efficiecy. Regardless, it's free unlimited energy. Wind has issues with where we can place farms on land, but over water and across mountain ranges, that's easy. europe is putting up some 400+ wind generators on ocean moorings about 1 mile off coast. Superconducting electrical lines (existing today) pipe the energy anywhere we want. All we need to do is build the grid properly (a expensive, yet simple engineering feat) and some way to store overproduced daytime energy for use at night (using the energy to pump water uphill into lakes is one idea, thousands of smaller regional water towers with generators and underground tanks may be a better one, pumping from one to the other as energy is needed/overproduced may work better.)
We also have geothermal options, ocean current power, submerged in-line river generators (think dam generator without the dam), and ocean current generators to play with. We can make the energy anywhere we can, and pipe it where needed with little real difficulty.
We do pump distilled gasoline all around, but we can't turn that system off just yet, nor can our existing water system handle the load, so we need a whole new system built to move the water around. That's going to cost more than the electric grid, I promise...
1) I was referring to the "2 competing H2 technologies" not this on-demand system, i'll debuke that in a minute. 2) gasoline is not a volatile hig compression fuel like H2. Your gas tank leaks, you throw sand on it. Your H2 tank leaks, the repair shop needs to be evacuated or people get killed (think porpane leak). Also, at 4000PSI of pressure, you don't even neeed H2, when a gas at that pressure blows, it takes out everything that's not reinforced concrete within 200 feet. Add flamability to that and you're talking about the explosive force of nearly 10 pounds of TNT.
Pipe water using our existing system? most cities are already at or beyond capacity of theirt systems today, let alone adding this load. Second, it's not clean enough. It's needs to be pure distilled water for this system to operate. this means an entire new water system, including on-site distillation, storage, filtering, and the expense and energy to make it possible. This is simply not feasable. We can build 100 new solar and wind plants and a superconducting electrical grid for less money and less hassle. Third, water is a limited resource! unless desalination comes a loooooong way, this idea doens't float (pun intended).
The price of fuel cells wil come down, but it has a minimum price of about $15K per engine. Right now that's at over 200K once you factor out the governement subsidies. I get in a wreck, even a bad one, an air engine, electric motor, or ethanol cobustion (ICE or turbine) is easy to fix. Crack a fuel cell and you have to take half the car apart to get it out, and the whole damned thing requires replacement. btw: have you SEEN a fuel cell? They take up most of the trunk of large SUV's, turning a 7 seat vehicle into a 4 (or in some cases 2) seater.
not only is parking a leaky tank in a garage a bad idea, so is any underground parking lot, dense parking area with low wind, or other places. Second, H2 is not a liquid at that pressure like propane is. H2 only becomes liquid at rediculous pressure or extreme low temperuature. A propane tank of H2 at safe pressures would only take you about 5 miles. To pressurize directly to liquid and store it without 70 degree below zero refrigeration would be a massive tank, several inches thick, and still only have enough storage for about 200 miles. At that pressure, a rupture could kill a hundred people, rip your house apart, or crack a bridge, just on vapor expansion laws alone. Oh yea, compressing H2 to that pressure has less than 8% efficiency. We can make it at 96%, but loose most of that transporting it.
H2 will never happen, except under extreme goverment subsidies. It;s a tactic to appease less inteligent environment nuts until a etter technology that both big oil and big politics can proffit from. Theyr'e fighting Ethanol because it's too simple (they can't controll who produces it, they can't corner the market).. At least with electric drives, big oil can become big solar, and they're happy to do it, they're just delaying until they can buy up the research firms and construction companies, and to pay off politicians in the meantime to prevent new power plants they won't own from being built. I'm OK with this. Let them own it... If I don't like their prices per kilawatt, I'll put solar panels in my back yard and sell my energy back to the grid at a proffit.