“The second-order implications are even more interesting, because I think there’s no way that Michael Dell didn’t see this coming,” Raymond wrote. “His company has been quietly selling Linux machines to business customers for several years — which means he’s got more than enough real-world market data to see where the trends are going. Mr. Dell had to have a pretty strong suspicion that Linux preinstalls were going to show up as a top user demand before the fact — and yet, he let IdeaStorm happen anyway. This tells me he isn’t nearly as nervous about angering Microsoft as he used to be. Something in the balance of power between the world’s largest PC vendor and the crew in Redmond has shifted, and not in Redmond’s favor. You can bet money on that.”
Running Linux on Dell laptops could have another lure, Raymond wrote. “I think one significant problem Dell and Microsoft are facing is just that Vista is too resource-hungry and bloated to run well on sub-$500 machines, which are the highest-volume market segment now. Dell may be arranging itself some maneuvering room to preinstall an [operating system] that won’t make its low-end hardware look like crap.”
Minneapolis had a weatherball (perhaps still does? Not clear). I remember the one in Flint, growing up, but I didn’t realize that it had been syndicated (perhaps from somewhere else?). It was built the year after I was born, so it’s almost as old as me (sigh…).
There are or were other weather balls, constructed by banks such as the ones built by Michigan National Bank in Grand Rapids MI, Texas National Bank in Houston TX and Northwestern Bank in Minneapolis MN. Grand Rapids TV station WZZM channel 13 bought the dismantled Michigan National Bank weather ball, restored it and moved it to its studio location at the I-96 and US-131 interchange. KCAU-TV in Sioux City IA also has a weather ball.
Computers are already better than humans at chess (and I can recall a time, back in the eighties, when there were predictions that this would never happen, or at least not for many decades), but they still don’t do that well at Go.
Two Hungarian scientists have now come up with an algorithm that helps computers pick the right move in Go, played by millions around the world, in which players must capture spaces by placing black and white marbles on a board in turn.
“On a nine by nine board we are not far from reaching the level of a professional Go player,” said Levente Kocsis at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ computing lab SZTAKI.
The 19 by 19 board which top players use is still hard for a machine, but the new method is promising because it makes better use of the growing power of computers than earlier Go software.
I mentioned how impressed I was with the speed of the Eurostar train from London to Brussells. I was guessing that we were going a hundred fifty mph or so. Apparently, that wasn’t too far off, but it’s going to go even faster later this year:
Beforehand, it took nearly three hours to make the crossing, and now it will take two hours, 35 minutes. Further upgrades scheduled to be completed in 2007 will knock another 15 minutes off. The trains will finally travel at their top speed of 186 miles per hour, according to Eurostar.
Sure wouldn’t want to hit a cow at those speeds. At the least, it would be instant hamburger. A system like that would be a huge hit for LA-Vegas, if they could resolve the political and financial issues.
I mentioned how impressed I was with the speed of the Eurostar train from London to Brussells. I was guessing that we were going a hundred fifty mph or so. Apparently, that wasn’t too far off, but it’s going to go even faster later this year:
Beforehand, it took nearly three hours to make the crossing, and now it will take two hours, 35 minutes. Further upgrades scheduled to be completed in 2007 will knock another 15 minutes off. The trains will finally travel at their top speed of 186 miles per hour, according to Eurostar.
Sure wouldn’t want to hit a cow at those speeds. At the least, it would be instant hamburger. A system like that would be a huge hit for LA-Vegas, if they could resolve the political and financial issues.
I mentioned how impressed I was with the speed of the Eurostar train from London to Brussells. I was guessing that we were going a hundred fifty mph or so. Apparently, that wasn’t too far off, but it’s going to go even faster later this year:
Beforehand, it took nearly three hours to make the crossing, and now it will take two hours, 35 minutes. Further upgrades scheduled to be completed in 2007 will knock another 15 minutes off. The trains will finally travel at their top speed of 186 miles per hour, according to Eurostar.
Sure wouldn’t want to hit a cow at those speeds. At the least, it would be instant hamburger. A system like that would be a huge hit for LA-Vegas, if they could resolve the political and financial issues.