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Comment Re:Nope. (Score 1) 245

Here's some hard numbers on "traditional" approaches to solar ground vs space:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/03/space-based-solar-power/

Firstly, I think everyone realises that space-based solar power makes no sense if you have to launch it from Earth on a current generation rocket at $20,000 a pound. The only economically viable plans I've seen for building them were based on building them in space from materials collected in space, and even they fell apart when you put real-world launch costs in there rather than NASA's 1970s 'out of the ass' numbers for the space shuttle.

Secondly, from what I remember, the designs I've seen used heat engines, not solar panels. Most of the spacecraft would be mirrors, not PV cells.

Space-based solar power may not make financial sense for decades to come (if ever), but that article makes about as much sense as those in the 1920s proving that you could never build an airliner that would carry more than a handful of passengers at more than a hundred and fifty miles per hour. They were perfectly true within the assumptions they made, but their assumptions were retarded.

Comment Re:Too little too late (Score 4, Informative) 496

You do know about RIGHT-CLICKING in the lower-left corner (or on the new start button in 8.1), right? Windows-X brings up the same power-users menu.

How the fsck is my grandmother supposed to figure that out?

I had the misfortune to use a Windows 8 machine a few days ago and it's a completely uninuititive piece of crap. I didn't realise just how badly the lack of a start menu hurt the OS until I had to try to run a program from the desktop. If I didn't know I could press the Windows key I'd have been completely stumped, and, even then, I had to give up on scrolling through a crazy number of worthless Metro apps to try to find the desktop app I was looking for.

How did this POS actually get shipped?

Comment Re:Too little too late (Score 4, Informative) 496

The Start Menu is not back. All they've done is added a Start button which takes you back to the crappy Metro screen where you can't find any of the apps you want to run.

Putting the Start Menu back would have been trivial, it's what users wanted, but Microsoft crapped in their face by making the Start button go to the Metro screen that users hate.

Comment Re:Too little too late (Score 1) 496

Name one OS that is just right out of the box and needs no tweaks. Linux always needs fiddling with (that's why you love it) and MacOS's two-finger scroll scrolls the wrong way by default.

How very strange.

I installed Linux on my netbook and it just worked. I installed Linux on my laptop, and it just worked. I installed Linux on my work desktop machine, and it just worked. Where is this Linux which 'always needs fiddling with' that you speak of?

When you only have one GUI option in your operating system and you have to install a third-party addon just to make it usable, it's a complete failure.

Comment Re:Overlooked successes of MS in last 13 years (Score 3, Interesting) 406

How are any of them 'successes'?

Xbox has still lost money over its lifetime.
Office? People would happily be using whatever version of Office Microsoft churned out, there was no demand to switch to a new version.
Windows 7? If Microsoft were still pumping out upgraded versions of Windows XP, they'd be selling more than they are of Windows 8.

Microsoft should have called Windows and Office done years ago, and moved most of the developers off to new products. Then they might still be relevant.

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