Switching from Tech to medicine (RN) is a heck of a headspin. The pre-requisite classes at night: basic biology, 2 semesters of Anatomy and Physiology (including dissections and tons and tons of tissue sample slides and biochem of physiology), and Microbiology (stinky things and lots of prepping samples and slide and microscope work) - its bee pretty damned fun, even if I was the oldest person in the class and one of the few males there. Nice thing is all my old college stuff counts too, so no need to retake freshman comp, or any humanities or math courses (thank goodness for engineering calculus, finally Im using it in a productive fashion by avoiding classes). By the time I start my RN classes at the university, they will be the only thing I need to take, no "needed electives" like psychology (taking it this summer) or management (already have graduate work in that). Its going to be interesting, because I have been told that I will likely be A) the oldest person in the class, and B) The only male (or at most 3 in the entire cohort admitted that year to the RN courses)

Surprised I'm still here.

This redesign is seriously pissing me off, trying to click links in collapsed comments just expands that comment. Clicking again just expands the next higher level comment, and so on and so forth. Then once all the bullshit is done expanding clicking the link does nothing! How the hell does /. fail so hard.

Logged in to see this:

15 moderator points expire 2011-02-11.

It only took a decade but I finally got mod points again.

Title cribbed from here. A sample that I transcribed...let's call the protagonists Alice and Bob:

Bob: You said the "right-wing media" was becoming too powerful.
Alice: Yes. We need the Fairness Doctrine to return a balance to talk radio.
Bob: How does it work?
Alice: The government makes things fair.
Bob: How?
Alice: I don't know the details, but it ends with Rush Limbaugh being forced off the air.
Bob: What don't you like about him?
Alice: He uses hate speech.
Bob: Like what?
Alice: He criticizes liberals.
Bob: How is that "hate speech?"
Alice: Because I hate it.

For the first time in I don't know how many years. They expire on the 10th, so if you have some suggestions on where to use them, let me know.

A long time ago I wrote a draft a blog post regarding the overall cost of OnLive vs the overall cost of owning a 360. I based my numbers on some guess work and Amazon EC2. Now the numbers are out I'd like to re-visit that post, updating it with what I now know.

I will make the following assumptions as I made previously:

        * Both consoles will be used for 40 hours a month.
        * Both consoles will be used for both online and single player.

I am not an economist as such the number will be wrong, the maths broken and overly simplified but as this is all for my own fun I think I can get away with it. Please correct my mistakes.

The total cost of ownership of a system can be split into the fixed costs (the price of the system) and the operation costs (the price of running the system - such as electricity).

A consoles fixed costs are quite high, a new 60 gig 360 is $300. The running costs for a 360 are the broadband connection(1) at about $15 a month and the electricity need to feed it. A hunt about put the electricity cost at $1.7 a month(2). Finally for the 360 you have XBox Live Gold at $4.17(3) as multiplayer is required.

The Cloud system will also require some hardware in the form of an IP-enabled MPEG player with a controller. This is an advanced DVD or Blu-ray player so I would guesstimate a cost of $70. It is very likely that the end user would not pay for this directly but for the sake of argument we will leave it as a fixed cost.

As with the 360 we will have a broadband connection at $15 a month and the electricity. I will use the electric cost of a PlayStation 2 as I think the two would be approximately equally powered. Plus the new system will likely also use things like wireless controllers offsetting any gains by modern construction methods. As such it will cost just $0.45 a month to run.

The one off cost could be avoided by using an existing hardware, likely leading to an electricity cost on par the 360 above.

On top of this the rental of a computer is required. This is $14.95 a month [ http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/onlive-to-launch-june-17-in-us ]

In summary with have -
Console: $300 + $20.87 a month ($250.44 a year).
Cloud: $70 + $30.40 a month ($364.80 a year).

We now need to look at the life expectancy of each device and would the local Cloud device survive the regular hardware refreshes that happen in the console market. If we start simple and give both a life expectancy of five years then the total cost of the console is $1552.20 and the total cost of the Cloud is $1894.

If we now assume that the local Cloud device can survive the refresh, but the 360 is replaced then the future five-yearly costs of the console is $1552.20 (the full cost above) and the Cloud is $1824 (just the operating cost).

Games are the last part of the equation. The Cloud requires you to "buy" games on top of the monthly costs, or rent games without subscribing. Alas the costs of games on the service have not been released but I think they will be comparable with traditional outlets. I will revisit this post once the costs to buy are released.

OnLive will also support a rental model which does not require a subscription. The details of this will change the results of this.

1) I'm assuming in both cases the users want to use online aspects such as multiplayer gaming. So I will use a standard 8Mb broadband for both systems. The reality is a lower and cheaper 1Mb connection will be fine for online gaming on local console but the Cloud system will likely tax such a connection and instead want ASDL2+ or cable.
2) Gizmodo: Console Power Usage
3) Based on the yearly cost of $50 divided by 12.

Snow

I'm still alive in 2010. Beats the alternative.

So, saw a comment today regarding some people getting 10 mod points instead of the normal 5. Must be nice, I haven't seen any mod points in literally 6+ years. I can pretty much narrow down when they disappeared too, after posting in political articles from a conservative standpoint. Supposedly there's no 'blacklist' but I'm sure it's statistically very very unlikely to go without mod points for so long. Anybody else suffering from an suspiciously odd drought of mod points?

(And yes, I'm not using Wherefore thou art to mean why)

We belong to the poet inside us.
It is our owner, our ruler, our king.
To be a slave to anything else is death
by slow, ragged steps.
Yet to follow where our fancy takes us,
wherever, whenever, forever,
is the greatest freedom man can bear.

Notice the boxes that show up around posts...anybody have any idea what they're supposed to be? Is it just a worse case of /. b0rkenness than usual, or are they supposed to do something useful? I think it's been like this for at least a week or two.

(That I'm using a beta version of Firefox isn't the explanation...it looks the same on Firefox 3.0.x on my other machines, and in Safari on my iPhone.)

Just a random entry to put something here.

http://www.random.org/

Yeah. I do.

twittin as Blackneto now.
stalk me.