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As a parent, I also know that you probably aren't going to listen to much from Slashdotters, and that you definitely want to have a machine as a holiday gift. In that case, you should get an XO Laptop from the One Laptop per Child project. For $399, you get a nearly indestructible machine for yourself, and you send one to a needy child in a developing country. In a couple of years, you and your child will be able to use this together. In the meantime, you can know that you are supporting a good cause and helping another child.

My kids have had computers at their disposal since they were 2. My computers of choice? OLD ONES!!!

Their first computer was a 800MHz cast-off which my office sold off at a cheap price. Perfect kids computer, plays most kids-oriented games, and best of all, I didn't have to worry when they used crayon on the screen or yanked hard on the CD tray or spilled chocolate milk all over it. It's since been "upgraded" to my wife's previous computer.

If this is the first time you've had a very young kid around a computer, then you can't imagine how tough he will be on technology. He may be gentle when you're around, but as a 2-to-4-year-old, he will test his environment and his surroundings (including the percussive durability of his surroundings), often when you're not around to stop him.

If you really really really want to buy new, then you may want to consider the OLPC, currently on a get-one-give-one deal at Amazon: One Laptop per Child XO Laptop (Give a Laptop, Get a Laptop). This is the legendary "durable-for-kids-in-third-world-countries" laptop, and when you buy one for your tyke, you're also buying one to get shipped overseas to a disadvantaged tyke somewhere else in the world. It may serve your needs, and helps out a good cause.

The no-kill movement has some valid criticisms of PETA's position on the "euthanasia" of homeless animals (a position that it shares with most mainstream animal-protection organizations.) These criticisms are best outlined in Nathan Winograd's book Redemption.

Winograd, who has successfully helped a number of communities go no-kill, has earned the right to criticize the kill rates at PETA shelters. This stands in sharp contrast to right-wingers who don't care one bit about animals dying in shelters unless appearing to do so will help them score points against PETA, whom they hate because PETA makes them feel guilty about their own lifestyles.

PETA was founded by a former shelter manager and is stuck in some old ways of thinking on issues relating to animal shelters. They would do a better job of advocacy if they either shut down their shelters and focused on consumer issues, or joined the no-kill movement to reduce killing at shelters. The NAACP doesn't kill those they are fighting for, nor does B'nai B'rith. It makes no sense for PETA to participate in the killing of animals.

You are explicitly searching for something cute and flashy to show customers, so this is kind of off-topic.

But if someone ever needs to visualize data so that other people can derive a lot of information in short time, i just can recommend reading Stephen Fews "Information Dashboard Design".
He covers the most common mistakes (i.e. using gauges, pie-charts, lots of color, wrong kind of interactivity, etc) and shows some of the worst dashboards from BI-Tools that are actually used in advertising the product. For most of these horrible examples a alternative, better solution is presented.

While I love Stephenson's earlier works, his later works are disappointing to me. If you could somehow plot a trend of his writing style, beginning with something like Snow Crash and continuing until the present, you'd find Anathem right on that trend line. If you've been reading his stuff all along, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Anathem is like the Baroque cycle, but more so.

I agree with you about the trend line but I was not in the least disappointed with Anathem, I enjoyed it greatly.

The Baroque Cycle was the turning point for me. I'd love his earlier works. Re-read the first page of Snow Crash, it's brilliant. However I found the Cycle tedious in the extreme. This was despite the fact that that I had read many history books about the period and I am a Maths and Computer Science graduate from Trinity Cambridge - I must have been the perfect audience I thought and I still disliked these works.

I managed to finish Quicksilver and eventually bought and read Confusion as it was a Neal Stephenson book but couldn't even be bothered buying The System of the World.

Some time later I read The Birth Of Plenty http://www.amazon.com/Birth-Plenty-Prosperity-Modern-Created/dp/0071421920 that discusses way the basis for the economic fundamentals and legislative environment changed during the period covered by the Cycle and how this created the modern era. I suddenly understood what the books were about. I re-read the first two, rushed out and bought and read the third and I've since re-read the whole cycle twice.

Stephenson doesn't really write novels anymore, he uses novels as a vehicle to explore concepts that intrigue him. In Anathem he is exploring philosophical concepts and ideas around the Long Now http://www.longnow.org/ and no doubt ideas that I missed when reading Anathem.

It'd be fun if he wrote a really tight, enjoyable novel like Snow Crash again sometimes but I guess it's up to him to write what he wants to and up to us whether we give him money for writing it.

Just don't but a new Stephenson book until you see a review that says he's written a novel rather than a lecture if you don't enjoy what he seems to enjoy writing nowadays.

I must say so, even though I edited it and sold it myself. Written by two of the best game writers in the business, who have also written and sold a lot of film and TV as well. https://www.amazon.com/dp/158065066X Skip www.skippress.com

Wow, this is +5:Insightful, really?

Soldiers are supposed to want to fight. If you want the Peace Corps, send in the Peace Corps. If you want the Marine Corps, send in the Marine Corps.

What? Really, what does that mean? The Peace Corps does not kill, let alone kill without emotion, so how are ``ethical killing machines'' that kill without emotion equivalent to the Peace Corps? And, by the way, the Marine Corps is supposed to fight with ethics. So, what's your point here?

The whole things sounds like a bunch of Leftist grad students angling for funding. The concept, given the current state of technology, is a pathetic attempt at political correctness.

Read Who Owns Death?. The quest for ``ethical'' means of killing is merely a way to legitimize institutional killing, be it war or the death penalty. It has nothing to do with Left, Right, or Political Correctness.

I'm sure there are some people that would not be horrified by the sight of an inmate catching on fire because the execution staff failed to properly prep him for electrocution. However, a lot of people, both supporters and opponents of the death penalty, were, and that's why Florida does not use the electric chair anymore. It's not that leathal injection is any more humane, really. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that it is not. But, it seems humane enough and it allows supporters of the death penalty to think they have the moral high ground.

Same goes for war. It's exactly the same mentality that produces stuff like ``smart'' bombs, UAVs, and now ``ethical killing machines''.

The book The Bottomless Well discusses the concept of "the refined energy pyramid" where each level is smaller and more useful than the one below it. Electricity and computer are two levels medium-high on the pyramid. The books shows how auto technology has been rising up the pyramid with increasing fractions of its energy level at more refined levels. The book says about 15% of a modern auto's energy density (excluding hybrids and plug-ins) is now electrical and increasing. Computing is growing too, replacing items like distributors, etc with more efficent computed actuators and increasing mileage. Memisters will probably more compact implement soem electronic functions the other three are used for now.

Even when phrased as friendly to Apple as we can manage,

Sugar-coated design, sugar-coated OS, sugar-coated euphemistic reviewers; and finally the ones who make it all happen, the sugar-coated faggot Apple users who are much like Ferraro Rocher candies(candy-asses to be specific) in that they are overpriced, gilded, and generally overrated on the outside; but bland-as-fuck on the inside.

With memristors (once they are perfected) can have multi-state such as trinary (base 3) or decinary (base 10) eliminating all of the conversion that is neccessary in the present binary system that require cpu cycles. 123 in the decinary system represents 123 where in binary it would be 1111011 and need to be converted in order to be meaningful.

Um, for the most part, the computer only has to convert from binary to decimal when it displays base 10 numbers on the screen (ie using the calculator). It's hardly computer intensive. All the operations (add, subtract, multiply, divide) are going to be in it's native binary, no conversion needed.

Computers convert data all the time - this text you are reading now is really just a series of binary numbers converted to ascii or unicode or whatever with lots of other conversions needed to throw it on the screen.

Native base 10 has been done before (basically ignoring bits representing 10-15) and all that was found was that it wasted space as conversion in those scenarios are beyond trivial. Here's a book for you:
http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Software/dp/0735611319

Actually, spiders do not eat other spiders. While they are known for being very aggressive towards other species, spiders will not attack each other.

The more you know...

You are quite extremely wrong on this one, my friend. Most spiders will eat anything that they can if they are hungry; this makes spider mating rituals (males are typically smaller than females) quite dangerous.

My spouse is an entomologist; we own several books on spider behaviour. I strongly recommend to you John Crompton's "The Spider" which is an interesting, entertaining, and scientifically accurate resource.

Crompton's other books are great too, if you enjoy personal narratives that present natural science accurately. Of course, if you don't, that's like shooting spiders with a howitzer.

Not only do I know how sausage is made, I make my own (along with bacon, etc). If you're interested in the art of Charcuterie, I strongly recommend this book. The amount of knowledge and lore in this book is amazing, as are the recipes. The Chicken, sun-dried tomato, and basil sausage is incredible.

for those that want to know more about how things operate "behind the scenes" at DEKA, check out CODE NAME: GINGER

absolutely fascinating look at DEKA from an insider during the development of the Segway.

This little gizmo saved Earth's economy and prevented us from becoming a 3rd-galaxy world.

Yet another example of sci-fi authors being ahead of actual scientists, which is always amusing.

I'm 24, but I tend to be absentminded and have a horrible memory, especially as it relates to things outside my daily routine. I read a book recently though that was astounding. The Memory Book. The concepts in this book can be used to memorize basic information (I memorized all the US presidents in an hour or so), appointments, people's names, etc. I wish I had read this back before high school. It is something everybody should know. This is starting to sound like an advertisement. Umm...BUY TODAY!!!

The only flaw I can see with cellphones is their tiny keyboard. Perhaps Apple or some other maker should repackage their phones to include laptop-sized keyboards so users can run some limited software (like MS Word). They could call it the Iphone or Ipod lapbook.

Nokia SU-8W bluetooth keyboard. Not included, but paired right up with my phone, has a little tilt stand for the phone, and even has the function keys.

There are plenty of 3rd party BT keyboards (including the Apple one) that work great with S60.

People are bored of spending $60 on a game that has $3 million worth of graphics content and $.35 worth of game. You know what games I sell used? Crappy ones with no replay value. You know what games I still own? Kick ass games that I still play from time to time, even though they may be old.

Absolutely. I will gladly pay +$60 dollars for a quality title and will be proud to have it in my collection till the day I die. I never sell games, just like I never sell books. It's just not worth it to lose an item of such high quality. It's practically blasphemous.

True AAA games rarely get sold, and when they do, it's for a premium. The original God of War still sells for $30 on the second hand market. Titles like these are the reason things like the sony platinium series were created, so that developers could still make money off quality titles long after the initial release. And it works! The original Starcraft is still for sale, 10 years after it was released.

Video games, despite popular opinion, do not become outdated. True classics shine through time and pixelation. Frankly, the danm things age like wine in many instances. But of course, to become a classic, you actually need to be a very good game, which brings us to our original point. Developers want a quick buck through marketing tripe rather than long term revenue from brilliant titles. Naturally, my heart bleeds for them.

It's a matter of taste. Not only do I prefer (by far) Denez Prigent's music when it comes to french-made electronic celtic music, but it also seems that Manau ran into trouble with Alan Stivell, who sued them for plagiarism. Talk about copyrights...

With that being said, though being a French guy myself, I don't care very much for the current generation of French artists.

I mean come on, it should be struck down on the basis that France doesn't even play Baseball so a "3 strikes" rule is just the American Imperialism that they are always railing against.

Now a "7 Course Meal and you are out" sounds a much more French rule to have.

On the copyright side of course its quite odd that France, which has a set of music that only the French want to listen to (Manau excepted) is worried about piracy, hell if more people listen to some of their artists they should be glad.

though i'm still waiting for public wireless internet access to gain more widespread adoption so we can start seeing true wireless internet radios.

You mean like this, although the reviews seem to be poor.

There are internet clock radios, and this one even has Slacker.

As for the rest of your comment: yeah. The DMCA is a bad law.

Ideally if DRM was protected by law, the consumers should be protected as well. Free replacement discs since backups aren't allowed. Guaranteed money back if the activation servers go offline, or a DRM free version. A DRM free version of the media in escrow for when(if?) the media goes into public domain. If the media is tied to a piece of hardware, free replacement if that hardware is broken or no longer functional. Free upgrades in media, like DVD to Blu-Ray, since you can't copy stuff.

And so on.

though i'm still waiting for public wireless internet access to gain more widespread adoption so we can start seeing true wireless internet radios.

You mean like this, although the reviews seem to be poor.

There are internet clock radios, and this one even has Slacker.

As for the rest of your comment: yeah. The DMCA is a bad law.

Ideally if DRM was protected by law, the consumers should be protected as well. Free replacement discs since backups aren't allowed. Guaranteed money back if the activation servers go offline, or a DRM free version. A DRM free version of the media in escrow for when(if?) the media goes into public domain. If the media is tied to a piece of hardware, free replacement if that hardware is broken or no longer functional. Free upgrades in media, like DVD to Blu-Ray, since you can't copy stuff.

And so on.

Actually, in On Intelligence, Jeff Hawkins defines intelligence as memory AND prediction. That definition and the model that he develops in the book are pretty compelling and explain a tremendous amount of how our brains work, like how we figure out problems that computers can't, and how our performing a simple act like catching a baseball is fundamentally different from the way a computer works. So, yeah, if you only have memory, you're missing the other half of the model.

The good news is that you are not alone. This is happening to everyone over 25 to one degree or another.

My first suggestion is to not separate mind from body. Aerobic and weight exercise can help your brain as much as puzzles and memory exercises.

Second, supplements - within reason. You may not want to take as many daily pills as Ray Kurzweil but I would recommend reading his book Fantasic Voyage.

Third, so-called smart drugs. Someone already mentioned Piracetam but I would suggest pramiracetam though it is more expensive. Also look into vinpocetine. And for general alertness there is adrafinil and modafinil (not sure if the latter is legal in the US yet).

When you say 'old' it depends what you want to run on them.
As a developer I use a whole range of systems, and I don't throw old machines away, I use them for testing.

• My main desktop is a Quad core AMD Phenom with 8G of memory
• Sitting next to that are two AMD Athlon machines, each with 4G of memory

I also have

• Four Pentium III machines with 512M of memory
• Two AMD K6 machines with 256M of memory
• Four Pentium I (yes one) machines with 64M of memory

A Pentium III machine with 512M of memory is quite capable of running a fairly complex website. I use them to test websites developed using the Drupal content management system. If your website won't load and run in 512M of memory - you are probably doing something wrong.

In the past I have used Xen VMs, but at the time I found it tricky to setup (from what I have seen it has improved a lot since then, so this may be a better option now). For setting up a simple test system, it worked out easier to fire up one of the old machines and run the tests on that.
If I need to setup a test system that other members of our team can access, I use rented VMs from one of the cloud providers, FlexiScale, SliceHost or Amazon EC2.

One thing I would recommend is that you never configure a machine by hand. Everything should be automatic, using shell scripts or equivalent to setup the machines. Everything, including the scripts for installing packages and configuring the system should be in source control.

To setup a new set of tests, I start by writing a shell script that will install and configure all the components needed to run the tests. It will take a while to create the first few scripts, but you will gradually build up a library of functions that you can re-use. Someone else has already mentioned using Puppet and Cobbler to achieve the same thing. Unfortunately they weren't around when I started doing this. I haven't used either of them yet, but I hope to experiment with them fairly soon.

Whichever system you use, automating the install and configuration will save you a huge amount of time in the long run. Using my library of configuration scripts, I can setup and configure a new test system in a matter of minutes. The configuration scripts are designed to be portable, so I can use the same tools on one of my local test machines, or on an external VM hosted by a cloud provider.

As to what I use the Pentium I machines for - stress testing. I write Java web services for a UK eScience project, processing large (Tbyte) data sets. One of the things I need to check is the webservice should never try to load the entire dataset into memory. It should process the data bit at a time, and free up resources as soon as it has finished with them. As a stress test, I deploy a webservice on one of the tiny 64M machines, and then run multiple clients on the bigger more capable machines to hammer it into the ground, repeatedly, day after day for a week. If my webservice can process Gbyte data sets on a Pentium I machine that only has 64M of memory - without grinding to a halt. Then I can be fairly confident that when the same webservice is deployed on a multi core machine with Gbytes of memory it will probably be able to cope with the kind of load our scientists intend to throw at it.

Summary : Keep the old machines and learn how to setup, configure and use them as test machines. In the process you will encounter many of the problems that your developers and sys admins have to cope with on a daily basis, and you will be much better placed to be able t

Since you don't need boxes all the time and running using Amazon's EC2 seems to be the way to go:

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/

Also gives you the ability to experiment at scale, while paying $0.10 / hour.

My sig comes from Borges, an author I deeply recommend. If you don't know him, and if you're interested, you can start by reading this book. This short story, The Library of Babel, is particulary interesting if you like math, computers, and something like that.

Nice sig. Did you read this book?: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Taboo-Against-Knowing-Who/dp/0679723005 Interesting topic. Scott

I meant cheap Chinese BD-DVD-DivX-MP3-buttered_toast-etc. players.

DVD-DivX-MP3-buttered_toast-etc. players ARE popping up everywhere.
Only now they come with 1080p HDMI output and video upscaling.

Seriously, the first people to go to Mars would almost have to have a deathwish to do so.

In Kim Stanley Robinson's novel of Mars colonization Red Mars , the author suggests that any colonists would have to be somewhat eccentric. That's not because of the dangers they will face, but because they are leaving behind friends, family and the general wider human society for the rest of their lives. Administrators would have a bunch of misfits on their hands and would have to assign expert psychologists to handle the situation.

But as for the dangers of radiation, you just build underground, though of course working on the surface will expose you to a lot.

Stephen Baxter's Behemoth is an omnibus of three books which deal with mammoths. The third book is actually about mammoths being genetically engineered back into existence, and there is actually one individual who is halfway between elephant and mammoth. Very cool books.

This reminds me of Cliff Stoll's infamous book Silicon Snake Oil . Published in 1996, the book doesn't insist that growing up with heavy computing will turn us all into heartless, antisocial robots. But it does strongly assert that computers don't make an efficient contribution to education as you think. It's a book all Slashdotters will get a laugh from because of its way off vision of the future. And Stoll, who claimed e-commerce would never take off, himself now sells klein bottles over the net.

I always found the ARRL Handbooks to be great refreshers for electronic theory. Although the intended audience is obviously the amateur radio community, these books are a great resource for anyone interested in electronics. Save some money and don't buy the latest greatest edition.

ARRL Handbook

Definitely 3 of the books I'd recommend. As per another poster, if you don't have a solid base book like Sedra and Smith, look for it. Millman and Halkias is dated, but still relevant IMHO. The new edition is probably what you want, but I've not yet seen it.

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0070634556/information_center_view0/

Don't overlook noise. I started with Howard Johnson's "Black Magic" book, but there are definitely better books out there. For exampele,

http://www.amazon.com/High-Speed-Circuit-Integrity-Microwave-Library/dp/1580531318/ref=pd_sim_b_4

Sure, it's not one supercomputer, but it still does more calculations for one purpose than any other single supercomputer can.

................ Modern computers can compute around gigaFLOPS (I think), and supercomputer are teraFLOPS -- thats about 10^9 for usual computers and supercomputers are around 10^13 (someone please correct me, I know I've made a mistake somehwere there...)

Yes I'm surprised to say that no one here -- coinsidering we're all nerds who suppoedly read -- had worried at the chance of a Digital Fortress TRANSLTR-type supercomputer..

Could this new metal shield against cosmic rays as well as lead? I'm reminded of the scene in Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars where the inhabitants of a spacecraft have to hold out against an incoming solar flare and find their shielding woefully insufficient. A material that could block rays yet be lightweight and less toxic would no doubt be a boon to the space industry.

Analog Integrated Circuit Applications

Prof. Jacob is wonderfully knowledgeable on the subject, and his teaching style is easy to follow. Additionally, his book covers a lot more than just the ICs in the title.

Jim Williams' first book
Jim Williams' second book
Bob Pease's book
Hans Camenzind's book (an especially-cool book by the designer of the original 555)

Jim Williams' first book
Jim Williams' second book
Bob Pease's book
Hans Camenzind's book (an especially-cool book by the designer of the original 555)

Jim Williams' first book
Jim Williams' second book
Bob Pease's book
Hans Camenzind's book (an especially-cool book by the designer of the original 555)

Jim Williams' first book
Jim Williams' second book
Bob Pease's book
Hans Camenzind's book (an especially-cool book by the designer of the original 555)

Design of Analog CMOS Integrated Circuits
by Behzad Razavi
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Analog-CMOS-Integrated-Circuits/dp/0072380322

Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits
by by Paul R. Gray, Paul J. Hurst, Stephen H. Lewis, Robert G. Meyer
http://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Design-Analog-Integrated-Circuits/dp/0471321680

Analog Integrated Circuit Design
by David Johns, Ken Martin
http://www.amazon.com/Analog-Integrated-Circuit-Design-David/dp/0471144487

I have these three books. They're all for integrated circuit design, but they definitely give an in-depth coverage of analog design. They're pretty heavy in terms of material. You might be looking for something a bit broader in scope.

Design of Analog CMOS Integrated Circuits
by Behzad Razavi
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Analog-CMOS-Integrated-Circuits/dp/0072380322

Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits
by by Paul R. Gray, Paul J. Hurst, Stephen H. Lewis, Robert G. Meyer
http://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Design-Analog-Integrated-Circuits/dp/0471321680

Analog Integrated Circuit Design
by David Johns, Ken Martin
http://www.amazon.com/Analog-Integrated-Circuit-Design-David/dp/0471144487

I have these three books. They're all for integrated circuit design, but they definitely give an in-depth coverage of analog design. They're pretty heavy in terms of material. You might be looking for something a bit broader in scope.

Design of Analog CMOS Integrated Circuits
by Behzad Razavi
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Analog-CMOS-Integrated-Circuits/dp/0072380322

Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits
by by Paul R. Gray, Paul J. Hurst, Stephen H. Lewis, Robert G. Meyer
http://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Design-Analog-Integrated-Circuits/dp/0471321680

Analog Integrated Circuit Design
by David Johns, Ken Martin
http://www.amazon.com/Analog-Integrated-Circuit-Design-David/dp/0471144487

I have these three books. They're all for integrated circuit design, but they definitely give an in-depth coverage of analog design. They're pretty heavy in terms of material. You might be looking for something a bit broader in scope.

I found Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits (Gray/Hurst/Lewis/Meyer) to be a good book on deep-down transistor electronics. It is very theoretical, as you are looking for, and will support a strong understanding of analog transistor circuits.

I bought the "developing country" paperback edition for a lot less than $115 or whatever Amazon wants for the hardcover. Not a word is different.

With 5 years of experience you may well be familiar with it, but if not (and for anyone else)

The Art of Electronics

by Horowitz and Hill was always the classic practical analog electronics text.

The universal law of dropped tools while working on one's own vehicle still applies, it's now just a matter of scale...
The grease gun has rolled to the exact center of the underside of the solar system. Nasa needs to get one of those extendable grabber/magnet do-hickeys.

duh.

A big name like HP offers a Linux laptop that you can buy on Amazon.com and in BestBuy, and then suddenly the public will see Linux in a very different light.

As a matter of fact, they already do.

In general, I have seen my friends who are women do what they like to do in regards to their career, as evidenced by your friend. Even if it makes less money they're ok with that because they don't expect to be the primary provider.

My friends who are men in the same situation as your friend have more often than not stuck it out even if they didn't enjoy it as much as they'd like. This is because they knew they were good at it and it would make them more money than jobs they might prefer. The bottom line (in more ways than one) is that allows them to be more marketable to females.

An interesting book that talks a lot about all this stuff is The Myth Of Male Power.

Yes, what horrible parent would buy their child such a thing?