I have to say I'm only familiar with F1, so how this differs from (say) Nascar I don't know. But here's how F1 does it:
The top X positions in each race are awarded points (X was 10 last year, it's more now), with the most going to the winner, a few less to 2nd, and so on down the field. This year there are 24 cars in each race, so a bunch get 0 points - DNFs are usually included in that group (although in some rare cases where you were placing high and drop out right near the end of the race you can end up getting points). The drivers' championship is decided by a simple tally of their points over the season, every race counts. This does mean that the championship is often decided before the final race. There are 12 teams this year (always 2 drivers per team) and the team (aka constructors') championship is decided based on the sum of their drivers' scores. Thus in 2009 Jensen Button won the drivers' title with 95 points total, and his team Brawn also won the constructors' title with a combined total of 172 (his 95 plus Barichello's 77). However that's not always how it pans out - in 2008 Lewis Hamilton (of McLaren) got the drivers' title but his team mate didn't do so great, allowing Ferrari to get the team championship.
As for the DNF issue, getting 0 in a race obviously makes it harder to win a title - but in F1 even finishing a race is hard so finishing every race in a season just isn't expected, never mind placing high enough to actually score points. In 2009 no driver scored in every race, no driver even finished every race, and many drivers retired from 3 or 4 (or more). If you look at Button last year, he got 6 wins, 3 podiums (2nd or 3rd place), 1 DNF and a bunch of mid pack finishes. That was enough to win the title.
Right, but these are designed for use in enclosures. I was simply disputing the assertion that you can't use CFLs in recessed lighting - you can if you use the right bulbs, and further, they're not expensive. The ones I have are similar to these, but I paid about half the price quoted there.
Something else I forgot to mention: You can't put CFLs in enclosed fixtures, or upside fixtures which trap heat, because the CFLs will die within just a few months
Huh, I must be hallucinating every time I walk into my living room and switch on the 2 year old CFL lights then. I put around 30 ceiling mounted CFL bulbs in my house a couple of years ago and not one has failed (one was a DOA though). They weren't expensive - maybe $1 a bulb from costco with a rebate. They have a slight warm up time (around 20-30 secs to full brightness) but other than that no problems at all.
Umm...I've been watching F1 for a lot of years, and I'm pretty sure you never got more points for a DNF than for a second place. DNF = 0 points (except in very unusual circumstances), 2nd = 8 last year or 18 this year.
As for a DNF killing your season, that's crap. Button won the championship last year and got 1 DNF, Hamilton did the same the year before. In 2007 Raikkonen won the championship despite 2 DNFs, likewise Alonso in 2006. For a driver to complete every race in the season is pretty rare, particularly if they're actually competitive (and thus driving hard).
Cosmetics have been a part of human life for a lot longer than Estee Lauder. From the Ancient Egyptians to the Greeks, to the Native Americans - the idea of applying colour to your face or other parts of your body for one reason or another has been prevalent for thousands of years. Typically it's done to influence others' view of you - to find you attractive, or scary, or powerful. You may not consider that utilitarian, but do you dress entirely in hessian sack cloth? No? Then are your clothes strictly utilitarian?
And speaking of "mixed motives": you don't need a walled garden to remove the bullshit from life. At least not a walled garden that's also a prison. So yes, you're intentionally wrong, and an Apple apologist
Someone who disagrees with you is not automatically an apologist. I certainly am not - I just sold the only Mac I owned because I really didn't like it, I've never bought anything from iTunes and have a general dislike of the Cult of Mac. However, I do have an iPhone, and I do like the appstore. On my real computers I appreciate being able to install whatever I want and hack it up in any way I like. For my phone I appreciate it being simple, consistent and reliable. I'm perfectly capable of jailbreaking my iPhone if I wanted to, I just don't have any desire to do so - the free/cheap apps I get from the store do everything I want.
So we differ, which is fine, that doesn't make either of us apologists for anything.
I have an ssh client on my iPhone, I can't remember if it was free but it certainly wasn't $10. All my $1 from ebay cables work just fine, and there's this "network" thing which I find works well for moving files. Fact is this - when you buy something you get what it says on the box. If you want something which can double as a usb drive, don't buy something which doesn't do that. O believe the Zune does, so maybe MS are your friend after all.
No states require you to carry ID (wiki). Some do have laws which require you to identify yourself when a police officer asks you to, but that doesn't mean you have to present any specific document or card.
You know what? When some people find that their job doesn't pay enough for their lifestyle they look for a new, better paid job. Sometimes they go back to school to learn new skills, sometimes other people in the household start working so that they whole family isn't supported by one person (which is increasingly impossible).
Of course some people just sit back on their asses and complain that it's the mexicans' fault for taking all the work. But that doesn't make sense - why is this guy entitled to more money just because of where he was born? Why should I (as the customer wanting my bathroom tiled) pay more just because he wants me to? And why should the government penalise people willing to work for less? Do we complain when Newegg sells us memory cheaper than elsewhere?
It's really simple - if you're selling something in a market, be it a product or a service, no one owes you customers. No one owes you a business model (see copyright & RIAA, it's a popular topic around here). If you're charging too much, lower your prices. If you can't make enough profit at those prices, offer something else to distinguish yourself (maybe he does better quality work? maybe he could partner with a designer?). If that still doesn't work - figure out a different way to make money.
You have the right to buy the box, I don't use any cable company boxes. You do have to rent cable cards though, but they're more like $1 a month than $20.
On the other hand, I think it's the best looking Smartphone UI out there, bar none. I hate Android (and hate even more the fragmentation and inconsistency brought by mods like Blur), Blackberry is yawn inducing and the iPhone is starting to look a little long in the tooth. The Pre is nice but I'll be honest - I've never used it in person so can't really comment. From sheer visual appeal though - WinMo7 wins for me.
I've played with a Zune HD (which WinMo7 is based on) and it's great - really nice to use and it looks fantastic. This, to me, is as "wow" as iPhone was the first time I saw it.
I always think it's hysterical when American engineers get so up in arms about "mere" programmers daring to call themselves engineers. In the UK, the status of Chartered Engineer is given to trained, professional engineers in many disciplines. Each discipline has it's own professional body who are permitted to issue the certification, and guess what? The BCS (British Computer Society) are one of those bodies, and can award CEng status to suitably qualified people. There's no mention of having to understand Newtonian Mechanics as a prerequisite...
Agreed, the ban on minarets is not exactly the vote we can be most proud of. I would just like to point to the fact that Switzerland is no different from other European countries in that regard as was demonstrated by numerous polls in Europe following this particularly infamous vote
Actually it is different, in that no other European country actually introduced a ban on Minarets. The way things work in Switzerland shows both the best and worst sides of a pure democracy. Specifically the ability for propaganda, the media and FUD spreaders to get bad laws passed. It happens everywhere (just look at how politicians run to whatever is the cause du jour, as decided by the newpapers) but there is at least a layer of indirection in most countries.
Why aren't we seeing any games manufacturer try for a push in games that aren't quite as destructive?
You're right! Those damn game makers should try making games which aren't violent. Maybe someone could make a game where you're in a band, or maybe you're a DJ. How about sports? Someone should make a football game, or a snowboarding game, or skateboarding, or bowling!. If only someone had thought to make a game to tie into the Winter Olympics! There's such a lack of imagination in games these days.
The fact that the average amount of output per artist has gone down says nothing about the total output of all artists, as you make no statements as to the number of artists publishing music in that time. Thus the statements in your last paragraph have no evidence (as far as I can see) to back them up.
I agree that would be nice, but even if I had a house fire and lost my CDs, the labels wouldn't replace them even if I offered to pay their costs ($0.50 or so per disc). In general, if you want to protect against the loss of something you bought you get insurance.
Having said that, I do think it would be good service if download sites would allow redownload (for example many of the games sites like Steam do so).
We run everything (literally), and everything gets the same treatment. I personally can't think of a single reason not to reboot, unless you're not confident in your failover - in which case you have bigger problems.
Why aren't you rebooting your servers? Once a week is a good schedule, it's what we do at work. Doesn't matter what OS, when reliability is essential having _planned_ downtime is MUCH better than _unplanned_. Plus, it proves your failovers really work on a weekly basis.
Only if you choose free shipping. I use prime and if I preorder a game it arrives on release day (if they offer that service for that title) or at worst the day after.
Slashdot Mirror
Ninite is awesome - always my first stop after an OS install. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.
I have to say I'm only familiar with F1, so how this differs from (say) Nascar I don't know. But here's how F1 does it:
The top X positions in each race are awarded points (X was 10 last year, it's more now), with the most going to the winner, a few less to 2nd, and so on down the field. This year there are 24 cars in each race, so a bunch get 0 points - DNFs are usually included in that group (although in some rare cases where you were placing high and drop out right near the end of the race you can end up getting points). The drivers' championship is decided by a simple tally of their points over the season, every race counts. This does mean that the championship is often decided before the final race. There are 12 teams this year (always 2 drivers per team) and the team (aka constructors') championship is decided based on the sum of their drivers' scores. Thus in 2009 Jensen Button won the drivers' title with 95 points total, and his team Brawn also won the constructors' title with a combined total of 172 (his 95 plus Barichello's 77). However that's not always how it pans out - in 2008 Lewis Hamilton (of McLaren) got the drivers' title but his team mate didn't do so great, allowing Ferrari to get the team championship.
As for the DNF issue, getting 0 in a race obviously makes it harder to win a title - but in F1 even finishing a race is hard so finishing every race in a season just isn't expected, never mind placing high enough to actually score points. In 2009 no driver scored in every race, no driver even finished every race, and many drivers retired from 3 or 4 (or more). If you look at Button last year, he got 6 wins, 3 podiums (2nd or 3rd place), 1 DNF and a bunch of mid pack finishes. That was enough to win the title.
Right, but these are designed for use in enclosures. I was simply disputing the assertion that you can't use CFLs in recessed lighting - you can if you use the right bulbs, and further, they're not expensive. The ones I have are similar to these, but I paid about half the price quoted there.
Huh, I must be hallucinating every time I walk into my living room and switch on the 2 year old CFL lights then. I put around 30 ceiling mounted CFL bulbs in my house a couple of years ago and not one has failed (one was a DOA though). They weren't expensive - maybe $1 a bulb from costco with a rebate. They have a slight warm up time (around 20-30 secs to full brightness) but other than that no problems at all.
Umm...I've been watching F1 for a lot of years, and I'm pretty sure you never got more points for a DNF than for a second place. DNF = 0 points (except in very unusual circumstances), 2nd = 8 last year or 18 this year.
As for a DNF killing your season, that's crap. Button won the championship last year and got 1 DNF, Hamilton did the same the year before. In 2007 Raikkonen won the championship despite 2 DNFs, likewise Alonso in 2006. For a driver to complete every race in the season is pretty rare, particularly if they're actually competitive (and thus driving hard).
Cosmetics have been a part of human life for a lot longer than Estee Lauder. From the Ancient Egyptians to the Greeks, to the Native Americans - the idea of applying colour to your face or other parts of your body for one reason or another has been prevalent for thousands of years. Typically it's done to influence others' view of you - to find you attractive, or scary, or powerful. You may not consider that utilitarian, but do you dress entirely in hessian sack cloth? No? Then are your clothes strictly utilitarian?
Someone who disagrees with you is not automatically an apologist. I certainly am not - I just sold the only Mac I owned because I really didn't like it, I've never bought anything from iTunes and have a general dislike of the Cult of Mac. However, I do have an iPhone, and I do like the appstore. On my real computers I appreciate being able to install whatever I want and hack it up in any way I like. For my phone I appreciate it being simple, consistent and reliable. I'm perfectly capable of jailbreaking my iPhone if I wanted to, I just don't have any desire to do so - the free/cheap apps I get from the store do everything I want.
So we differ, which is fine, that doesn't make either of us apologists for anything.
I have an ssh client on my iPhone, I can't remember if it was free but it certainly wasn't $10. All my $1 from ebay cables work just fine, and there's this "network" thing which I find works well for moving files. Fact is this - when you buy something you get what it says on the box. If you want something which can double as a usb drive, don't buy something which doesn't do that. O believe the Zune does, so maybe MS are your friend after all.
No states require you to carry ID (wiki). Some do have laws which require you to identify yourself when a police officer asks you to, but that doesn't mean you have to present any specific document or card.
You know what? When some people find that their job doesn't pay enough for their lifestyle they look for a new, better paid job. Sometimes they go back to school to learn new skills, sometimes other people in the household start working so that they whole family isn't supported by one person (which is increasingly impossible).
Of course some people just sit back on their asses and complain that it's the mexicans' fault for taking all the work. But that doesn't make sense - why is this guy entitled to more money just because of where he was born? Why should I (as the customer wanting my bathroom tiled) pay more just because he wants me to? And why should the government penalise people willing to work for less? Do we complain when Newegg sells us memory cheaper than elsewhere?
It's really simple - if you're selling something in a market, be it a product or a service, no one owes you customers. No one owes you a business model (see copyright & RIAA, it's a popular topic around here). If you're charging too much, lower your prices. If you can't make enough profit at those prices, offer something else to distinguish yourself (maybe he does better quality work? maybe he could partner with a designer?). If that still doesn't work - figure out a different way to make money.
You have the right to buy the box, I don't use any cable company boxes. You do have to rent cable cards though, but they're more like $1 a month than $20.
I see that about as often on my Win 7 boxes as I see a fsck when restarting my linux server, and it's about as annoying.
That last bullet point was a widely misquoted joke, as plenty of people who were on the call in question have confirmed.
On the other hand, I think it's the best looking Smartphone UI out there, bar none. I hate Android (and hate even more the fragmentation and inconsistency brought by mods like Blur), Blackberry is yawn inducing and the iPhone is starting to look a little long in the tooth. The Pre is nice but I'll be honest - I've never used it in person so can't really comment. From sheer visual appeal though - WinMo7 wins for me.
I've played with a Zune HD (which WinMo7 is based on) and it's great - really nice to use and it looks fantastic. This, to me, is as "wow" as iPhone was the first time I saw it.
Personal opinion, taste, YMMV, etc.
What do you mean by "standalone" GPS? There are already a number of 3rd party GPS apps on iPhone (Navigon, TomTom, etc).
As for the UI, I happen to really like it. And for something which I spend a large portion of my day using, yes, "eye candy" is important.
Your operating system is using all of the physical resources of the machine to make it run as fast as possible. That's what it's there for.
I always think it's hysterical when American engineers get so up in arms about "mere" programmers daring to call themselves engineers. In the UK, the status of Chartered Engineer is given to trained, professional engineers in many disciplines. Each discipline has it's own professional body who are permitted to issue the certification, and guess what? The BCS (British Computer Society) are one of those bodies, and can award CEng status to suitably qualified people. There's no mention of having to understand Newtonian Mechanics as a prerequisite...
Actually it is different, in that no other European country actually introduced a ban on Minarets. The way things work in Switzerland shows both the best and worst sides of a pure democracy. Specifically the ability for propaganda, the media and FUD spreaders to get bad laws passed. It happens everywhere (just look at how politicians run to whatever is the cause du jour, as decided by the newpapers) but there is at least a layer of indirection in most countries.
You're right! Those damn game makers should try making games which aren't violent. Maybe someone could make a game where you're in a band, or maybe you're a DJ. How about sports? Someone should make a football game, or a snowboarding game, or skateboarding, or bowling!. If only someone had thought to make a game to tie into the Winter Olympics! There's such a lack of imagination in games these days.
The fact that the average amount of output per artist has gone down says nothing about the total output of all artists, as you make no statements as to the number of artists publishing music in that time. Thus the statements in your last paragraph have no evidence (as far as I can see) to back them up.
I agree that would be nice, but even if I had a house fire and lost my CDs, the labels wouldn't replace them even if I offered to pay their costs ($0.50 or so per disc). In general, if you want to protect against the loss of something you bought you get insurance.
Having said that, I do think it would be good service if download sites would allow redownload (for example many of the games sites like Steam do so).
We run everything (literally), and everything gets the same treatment. I personally can't think of a single reason not to reboot, unless you're not confident in your failover - in which case you have bigger problems.
Why aren't you rebooting your servers? Once a week is a good schedule, it's what we do at work. Doesn't matter what OS, when reliability is essential having _planned_ downtime is MUCH better than _unplanned_. Plus, it proves your failovers really work on a weekly basis.
But I have a feeling the delivery date would keep slipping...
Only if you choose free shipping. I use prime and if I preorder a game it arrives on release day (if they offer that service for that title) or at worst the day after.