But when I was a surveyor's assistant we usually tried to close surveys to less than an inch. We were really, really, precise about locations. Maybe that was just a weird firm, but I suspect not, I think that's SOP. Given that we placed markers that precise, it is hard to imagine that the physical structures, items, etc got placed more than a couple inches off.

I can't imagine roadways would be much different.

So ya, as you say, these things are known pretty precisely. Turns out that even pre-GPS you could get really good measurements, if you did it right.

Also having done that, it makes me think all the metric stuff is a little silly. It really isn't that hard to go back and forth. Most contracts were in US units, however some government contracts were in metric. So what did we do? Switched the digital theodolite and computer to metric and worked with that.

Really metric only shines when you talk science or engineering, when you are doing more advanced things like inter-unit conversion. There the standardization is so damn useful, hence why science, including in the US, is done and taught in metric (or at least it was when I went to school).

For every day use though? It doesn't really matter. All that matters is you have a feel for the units, and you can have that for both no problem. I really can't see what the compelling reason to convert to metric for everyday use is. Even in countries that have converted, you find plenty of unit mixture. In Canada you will see things at grocers sold in pounds, gallons, etc. It is amusing that in the same grocer you can see meats side by side, some priced by pound, some by 100 grams.

Then all over you find some units that defy either system. Like ever buy a home AC? They are sized in "tons" however if you've had a look at the unit you realize that it is far lighter than the figure. So what the hell does that mean? It means how many tons of ice per day you'd need to equal the cooling capacity. Seriously. It started way back in the day when it was a new concept, and that was a comparable method of measure.

I really think people make a bigger deal of this than is warranted. I certainly don't think there should be any resistance to using the metric system, it is great, but in terms of forcing a conversion, I fail to see what that gains you.

It can also mean "no preset limit" which is what it usually mean for Internet plans. They don't have a hard and fast limit, you can use it without hitting some magic number when you get cut off or charged. However that doesn't mean you can just go crazy and use the max all the time.

This is also how it needs to be, if you want cheap Internet. If you think companies can cheaply provide Internet service where everyone uses it full bore 24/7, then you haven't done much looking in to network infrastructure. The only way it works is if people play nice and use it when they need it, and let it be used by other people the rest of the time.

I'm learning Finnish.

But when will they upgrade my 4Mbps down / 256Kbps up DSL connection that I pay through the nose per month for? Cuz really, I keep reading about those marvelous link speeds but in the past 10 years, I haven't seen much of that reach the average Joe Blow internet user like me...

Except there's nothing to say that a CF process would necessarily yield ridiculous amounts of energy at affordable prices. In fact the first proof of concept, if it ever comes, is likely to be just a barely measurable hair's breadth above break even. And scaling the technology to generate megawatts might well prove to be prohibitively expensive. What if a MW plant required thousands of tons of nickel? There might not be enough nickel in the world to supply a significant fraction of the world's energy supply.

Then there's the flying car problem. There is no doubt that practical flying cars are physically possible. The reason we've never seen one is that it's a fool's investment in the short- to mid-term. Any flying car we can come up with over that time scale is going to be a lot worse than buying a dedicated plane and renting a car at your destination. If there were some immediate niche application for a near-term flying car where it beat a dedicated plane and car combo, we might *all* be driving flying cars in twenty years. But there's no such niche to pay back investors. Even if CF is physically possible, if it doesn't quickly reach a stage where it beats some conventional power source economically (e.g. replacing solar panels in remote applications), it might never become practical.

"Threat of force?"

I hear the WIPO has storm troopers now who bust down your door, slap you, then go back to the office and email ICANN, "Hey, transfer that domain to this other guy."

When your chosen platform can't do something, just redefine the goal and then hate on anyone who doesn't accept that definition. So any game I can't get on Linux is a "watt-sucking/heat-sink-busting" game? Well then count me in as wanting to play those! Of games I've played lately that don't run on Linux Skyrim has topped the list, 200 hours in it so far. It is an extremely entertaining game, I have gotten my money's worth and more out of it. Also on the list would be Xcom, Torchlight 2, Deus Ex, Fallen Enchantress, Shogun 2 Total War, Terraia and so on. Now if those are all "watt-sucking/heat-sink-busting" games according to you, fine, but I don't care I liked them, a lot, and want to play them. Crysis? Not on the list, I didn't care for it, so I haven't bought any of the sequels.

Frankly the measure of how good the platform is for gaming isn't how many games you can find for it, it is how many games that you want to play run on it. That'll vary person to person. However trying to point to a bunch of little indy or half-finished OSS titles isn't going to make many gamers happy. Sorry, but I want Skyrim, it is all kinds of worth it and not just for the graphics (though when yo uload up some mods those are pretty impressive too). I don't want Vega Strike.

If you want higher resolutions and frame rates, you need more powerful GPUs to handle it. For example moving to 2560x1600 or to 120fps doubles the pixel requirement over 1920x1080@60fps. So whatever amount of power you needed to achieve 1080p60, double that for either of those targets. 4k will require a quadrupling, and 120fps 4k would require 8x the power.

All this is assuming you are getting 60fps in the first place. Now maybe you are fine with trading off lower frame rates, or lower resolutions, that's all up to you. If 720p30 is your target, you can get away with a whole lot less power. However that doesn't mean that nobody wants to target higher resolutions or frame rates.

There are also other visual quality settings to consider, like anti-aliasing and so on that can require more power. Depending on what you are targeting with that, you can need a lot of power.

Personally I really find frame rates much below 60 pretty annoying in most games. I really like the feeling of fluidity you get. 120 fps is even better, but the monitor I normally use doesn't handle that. Well maintaining that 60fps at a 2.5k resolution is not a trivial feat. I don't think a $250 graphics card would do that for most games.

Seriously, for some people, gaming is their hobby and that kind of money is not that much when you talk what people spend on hobbies. My coworker just bought himself like a $2000 turbo for his car, to replace (or augment, I'm not sure) the one that's already there. He has no need for it, but he likes playing with his car.

Now that you, and most others, don't want to spend that kind of money is understandable and not problematic. There's a reason why companies have a lineup of stuff and why the high end stuff is just for those with plenty of money. It also doesn't scale linearly since the higher end something is, the less units get sold, and so the more the fixed costs influence the unit cost.

However don't hate on it. That you don't wish to spend that kind of money doesn't mean that nobody should. Also you should be glad people do: The expensive parts fund the cheap parts. They can recover more R&D costs on these units, letting them sell lower end parts for less, since lower end parts are the same tech, just less of it.

Yhl. Yhbt. Hand.

When you post stuff like that, and fanboys mod it to +5, it looks really silly. The reason isn't because it is not true, but because it is not impressive. Yes, Linux has a few games for it including some older Source games. Yay. Trying to imply that because it has Steam it has games is silly. Roughly 6 of my 163 Steam games will run on Linux and most of those are the older Source engine games.

Having Steam doesn't mean you get games. It means there's a platform to sell games on that many Linux users will hate on (costs money, has DRM, no source code). The games themselves have to be ported and so far, not much of that has been going on.

It does not strengthen your point when you go and make a rather silly argument. The "but it has Steam!" argument that keeps getting trotted out when someone comments on Linux and gaming reminds me of Mac users back in the 90s pointing to the 10 or so old titles you could find in the store as proof that there were plenty of games on the Mac.

Linux gaming is not in a good state currently, and trying to mask that is silly.

It tends to be liberal groups freaking out over harmless GMOs or cell phone radiation.

One could be overly critical and call that "bad spec," because the test case wasn't in the spec. But you can't get a perfect spec any more than you can get perfectly bug-free software.

More appropriately the cause is "real life" and "human beings." Digital software does not map perfectly to analog reality. Expecting perfect spec or perfect software is madness (except in Sparta, natch).

His problem is that his contracts are ending too early. Bugs, testing, and changes to the spec are part of the software development cycle. My contracts (the good ones, anyway) extend past go-live. A contract should include planning, development, dev testing, training, and user testing, and he's leaving out those last two parts.

Do you know why they call it the Xbox One? Because you take one look at it, turn 360 degrees and walk away.

(Insert ASCII trollface here)

The most significant quote of the article: "we expect overseas cash balances will continue to grow unless tax laws encourage U.S. companies to repatriate money".

The corporate tax rate for what Apple is doing is around 35%; that is, Apple would have to pay 35% of their cash pile in taxes if they repatriated it. Which would be generally reasonable if not for the fact that it was already taxed once in the originating country on the original sale. As a result the 35% tax rate is essentially a kind of 35% tariff on exports and foreign sales. You only need to pay it once if you sell within the US, but you pay it along with a second set of local taxes on anything you sell outside of the US, regardless of whether it was even made here. The ultimate effect is that if every dollar were immediately repatriated, foreign sales would either be immensely less profitable than domestic sales, or American companies would be at a significant competitive disadvantage against foreign companies that aren't getting taxed twice (e.g. Samsung).

Congress needs to give up on this pipe dream that they can have 35% of the profits made off of all foreign sales. When no one else is double-taxing like this, it makes the American tax system look foolish and antiquated.