There are improvements to make, but not much. Most of the fundamental parts of OS design were done decades ago. From there, it's mostly a matter of quibbling over details and implementing new hardware drivers.

Linux 2.6 is a mature kernel. "Mature" meaning "no reason to make fundamental design changes". Not unless there are fundamental changes to how computers operate.

Much of this applies just as equally to the Windows kernel, too.

Not at all. It's relativity. No frame of reference is special, but it's easier to talk about things within our own frame of reference for practicality's sake. It's only anthropocentric in the sense that we can't observe things in a reference frame other than our own.

There are astrophysics professors who insist on the idea that if the light cone hasn't hit us yet, then it hasn't happened. No matter if you agree or not, it definitely makes sentence construction easier.

The penalty system was on, it's just that it isn't quite perfect. If you tap the wall carefully with the back of the car, it won't penalize you.

Here's a video that shows the track/direction I'm talking about (though not the cheat):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgsrioeEEw8

You can probably find all the top replays for the course to use the cheat.

A while back, Sony hosted a hot lap contest in GT5: Prologue. The first one was High Speed Ring, where the final turn is a long turn with guard rails on the side. If you want to do it the cheap way, you can enter into the turn much too fast, then grind along the guard rails with the gas to the floor. You'll enter the straight much faster than you should. So you do it once, enter the straight really fast, then do it again to get the best time.

Sony refused to cull out entries that did this. Funny thing was that when I downloaded the top replay in the contest, my split times were catching up through the middle of the track. I'm hardly the best driver, but I'm sure that I was better than the "top" player.

Needless to say, a proper damage model would stop this misbehavior.

Thing is, if Kinect drivers were open source, you could see a lot of applications that aren't games. Use your imagination.

Doesn't matter. Your house wiring couldn't take it. At US standard 120V, 900kW would need wiring that could take 7500A. Even with a doubled circuit of 240V, you need 3750A. The highest rated circuit breakers in my house cut off at 30A.

Are they claiming there's a contract involved? Or are they claiming there's a license? There's an important difference.

Yesh, before I drop $1000 on that, I'm going to have to know if its something more than a prop from a bad sci-fi show.

Just bought a Das Keyboard, myself. Love it.

Ook! Ook?

The EPA numbers do tend to be a bit conservative for hiway driving, especially when they were "corrected" a few years ago. Effective drafting distance can be larger than you think, and I suspect that the EPA doesn't take this into account.

Yes, and I don't buy them, either.

The Golf TDI is rated for 41 hiway, but 30 city. These aren't bad numbers, but it's rather uncommon for a petrol car to have such a large spread between the hiway and city numbers.

The Golf TDI is still getting 0-60 times of over 9 seconds. My rule of thumb is that 10sec is the absolute max you can buy a car at, because you'll have trouble making it up to hiway speed in the length of most on-ramps. 9sec is still really pushing it.

About the only petrol cars that do over 10sec are either really old or come from Korea.

I dunno. How many acres does it get?

The Honda Civic today gets about the same mileage as it did 30 years ago, despite the modern one having an engine with a lot more displacement, and having to lug around at least twice as much weight due to combination of safety equipment and creature comforts.

If you want a 100mpg car, you can put one together yourself by removing all the stereo equipment, airbags, soundproofing, and replacing the seats with lawn chairs. It will be noisy, uncomfortable, and a deathtrap, but you'll get 100mpg.