Comment Metered, no cap (Score 1) 243
My internet is nice and fast (220ish down, 50ish up), but I pay a $20/mo base and $0.20 for each gig used.
Some months it's great and cheap, other months not so much...
Comment Re:Seeing as it's not a product... (Score 1) 298
As a small business owner that lives in a small town in the middle of nowhere, that $80 a year makes perfect sense.
Being able to order computer parts with free two day shipping is a huge boon. I can't buy them locally (as in, they don't exist in a 130 mile radius), less downtime makes my customers happy, and free shipping increases my margins.
I place anywhere from two to ten orders a week with Amazon. First name basis with my UPS and FedEx drivers AND their backups. Amazon Prime has been tremendously helpful to getting my business going.
Sure, if you live in a metro area surrounded by Best Buys and WalMarts it makes less sense, but many of us don't.
Comment Re:X-Wing or TIE Fighter game, please (Score 1) 254
Amen to this.
The only downside would be having to buy a joystick again. I haven't needed one in years, but a new X-Wing or TIE Fighter would change that.
Comment Re:dongle (Score 1) 635
What if the software runs in a compute farm? Would you put a dongle on every compute node? How would that work on a remote cloud? Dongles are probably Ok for a workstation, but wouldn't scale in a larger environment. 10k isn't exactly breaking the bank in terms of software licensing. I'd look at other options, ie, licensing and legal agreements, which include the option to audit.
Comment Re:Already Discovered in Tennessee! (Score 1) 59
Such a dumb name. Anyone that's ever seen one knows they're clearly jackadeer.
New Air Conditioner Process Cuts Energy Use 50-90% 445
necro81 writes "The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory has announced that it has developed a new method for air conditioning that reduces energy use by 50-90%. The DEVap system (Desiccant-Enhanced eVaporative air conditioner) cools air using evaporative cooling, which is not new, but combines the process with a liquid dessicant for pulling the water vapor out of the cooled air stream. The liquid dessicant, a very strong aqueous solution of lithium chloride or sodium chloride, is separated from the air stream by a permeable hydrophobic membrane. Heat is later used to evaporate water vapor back out — heat that can come from a variety of sources such as solar or natural gas. The dessicants are, compared to typical refrigerants like HCFCs, relatively benign on the environment."
Comment Not quite the same, but... (Score 1) 125
How many of us did a similar "brief animation project" in BASIC on an Apple II, TI-99/4A, or Coleco for a 7th-12th grade project back in the early to mid 80's?
Granted, it wasn't on paper, but still... I did a four minute graphic story on an Apple II in 8th grade back in
Not my fault the dirty reds were 15 years ahead of me. These guys were all PhDs and shit.
Still got an A... bah.
Comment Re:Makes sense (Score 2, Insightful) 402
That is likely the reason they are considering this because if things
continue to degrade with Israel and Iran
Color me naive, but I imagine that things will go bad with EITHER Israel or Iran... one leads to the other. We'd have to REALLY fuck things up for things to go bad with both.
Then again, I still don't fully understand what Obama's got planned...
Comment Re: Dropping Anchor (Score 1) 329
The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.
Alex Trebek?
Comment Who turns it off at the end of the day? (Score 2, Informative) 794
Even in the Windows shops I worked in, most people just locked their systems at the end of the day and left.
Who reboots every day?
Comment Re:Misleading summary; lean blog post (Score 3, Interesting) 163
Most of the rest were so obvious that it really wasn't worth mentioning, an up to speed person would have known that. Wireless will be big in the future (published 2005ish)? No way!
The best part is that the Gartner reports I've seen ususally cost about $400 and probably average 8-10 pages. Not worth it in my opinion but then again for corporations who believe Gartner reports are prophecy I guesz $400 for a multi-billion dollar company isn't a big deal.
Also, a lot of corporations are not trend setters or trailblazers - they are followers. The execs all get together to see what the other companies are doing, what trends are popular and successful, and usually decisions are based on that. The Gartner group is perfect for this mindset.
There are some large corporations out there that are IT risk takers and trendsetters, but I haven't been fortunate enough to work for many.
De Icaza Regrets Novell/Microsoft Pact 264
Ian Lamont writes "Novell Vice President and GNOME architect Miguel de Icaza sounded off at a MIX 08 panel on a number of topics. First, he claimed that he was 'not happy' with Novell's cross-patent licensing agreement with Microsoft, saying that if he had his way, the company would have stayed with the open-source community. He also said that neither Windows nor Linux are relevant in the long term, thanks to Web 2.0 business models: 'They might be fantastic products ... but Google has shown itself to be a cash cow. There is a feature beyond selling corporate [software] and patents ... it's going to be owning end users.' He also tangled with Mike Schroepfer, a Mozilla engineering executive, about extending patent protection for Moonlight to third parties. However, de Icaza did say that Novell has 'done the best it could to balance open-source interests with patent indemnification.' We discussed the beginnings of the deal between Microsoft and Novell back in 2006."
NASA Running Out of Plutonium 264
PRB_Ohio takes us to Space.com for a story about NASA's plutonium shortage, and how it may affect future missions to the far reaches of the solar system. The U.S. hasn't produced plutonium since 1988, instead preferring to purchase it from Russia. We discussed the U.S. government's plans to resume production in 2005, but those plans ended up being shelved. If NASA is unable to find an additional source, it could limit missions that take spacecraft too far from the Sun. Quoting:
"Alan Stern, NASA associate administrator for science, ... said he believed the United States had sufficient plutonium-238 on hand or on order to fuel next year's Mars Science Lab, an outer planets flagship mission targeted for 2017 and a Discovery-class mission slated to fly a couple years earlier to test a more efficient radioisotope power system NASA and the Energy Department have in development. To help ensure there is enough plutonium-238 for those missions, NASA notified scientists in January that its next New Frontiers solicitation, due out in June, will seek only missions that do not require a nuclear power source."
The Universe Is 13.73 Billion Years Old 755
CaptainCarrot writes "Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer has summarized for his readers the new results released by NASA from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which has been surveying the 3K microwave radiation left over from the Big Bang. Some of the most interesting results: The age of the universe is now known to unprecedented accuracy: 13.73 billion years old, +/- 120 million. Spacetime is flat to within a 2% error margin. And ordinary matter and energy account for only 4.62% of the universe's total. Plait's comment on the age result: 'Some people might say it doesn't look a day over 6000 years. They're wrong.'"
The Myth of the "Transparent Society" 200
palegray.net recommends a piece by Bruce Schneier up at Wired. Schneier addresses the central fallacy of the "transparent society" idea promoted by David Brin, and also takes on the flawed arguments that attempt to justify increased government monitoring of citizens. From the article: "If I disclose information to you, your power with respect to me increases. One way to address this power imbalance is for you to similarly disclose information to me. We both have less privacy, but the balance of power is maintained. But this mechanism fails utterly if you and I have different power levels to begin with."
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