Slashdot Mirror

Makes me wonder if Seiki can afford to give 65" 4k TV for $1059, (Deal at Amazon right now: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obi...) why can't the other big name brands (Sony/LG/Samsung) have 65" 4k TV sets at even double that price (say $2100).

Number one consumer of electric power: Air conditioning unit. THOUSANDS OF WATTS
Number two consumer of electric power: Refrigerator. HUNDREDS OF WATTS

Cable boxes don't come in number two and they don't consume 35 watts.

So if you're keeping track not only is not "number 2" (a dubious distinction) but its use of electric power is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE below what's chewing up power. In fact, here in Arizona our A/C runs about 20 hours a day. That uses more power per day than the cable box uses in a year. I could ditch cable altogether (I have Comcast so it's a constant thought) and my power bill won't change by 1%.

How do I know? I use a http://www.amazon.com/P3-Inter... kill-a-watt. The cable box draws less than 1 amp (12W) and that's while it's on and it's the big Motorola unit just like the picture in the original article.

Do you like facts and statistics and data upon which to base conclusions? You should get one of these kill-a-watts. They're awesome and they're quickto end stupid discussions that say you should unplug your cable box.

Off to unplug my wifi router. I hear it draws 0.5A.

E

If Amazon wanted to sell me things, they would not have chosen to engage in sub-ethical business practices.
They are simply going to have to get by without my custom.

Python is a good language, but it can be a little tedious to do simple one-off text-parsing tasks. Regexes aren't first-class elements of the language. You have to know what libraries to import. And Python as a language has an ongoing, controversial split between Python 2 and Python 3 that makes myself and others a little uncomfortable. Having said that, there's a lot of good stuff going on in Python. It's a worthy language.

JavaScript, to me, is less worthy as a language. Yes, you "can do" pretty much anything in JavaScript (as you can with any Turing-complete language, meaning all of them), and yes, it has some desirable language features. But, it's typically hard to do simple things, at least if you want compatibility with older platforms. JavaScript has a substantial number of warts and language design problems. If JavaScript were a newly-introduced language, I think it would pretty much go nowhere. It's compelling because all the browsers use it, and because we now have some nice frameworks, like Node, that use it, and because of the browsers, some great debuggers and related tooling. Still, for quick programming of one-off tasks, I would not pick JavaScript.

I would give Ruby strong consideration. Although you can write complex, large programs in Ruby, including web apps using frameworks like Rails, the language is very well-suited to small text-processing tasks as well. Check out Practical System Administration Using Ruby.

None of these languages have a lot of the cool new language features that are coming out (it seems like) on a weekly basis lately. By this standard, they all seem a little backward. But these newer languages are almost always immature in important ways -- either the language is evolving too much, the docs are weak, there's not much community yet, they have no module system (gem/egg/CPAN) or a weak one, they're only good at a small subset of tasks, etc. In a few years, these languages might displace Python or Ruby, just as Python and Ruby largely displaced Perl. But the newcomers are not yet strong enough for that. In the meantime, Ruby or Python would make better here-and-now answers.

There are only two options for reliable data archiving: 1. Spinning disks with redundancy and regular checks 2. Archival grade tape. There used to be MOD as well, but as nobody cared enough to buy it, development stalled and then died.

Any experience with M-discs as archival media? Newer cd and dvd burners are compatible with them, but do they deliver?

There are plenty of QI charging solution that can be added to devices that didn't come with it. http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UT...

They have ethernet and USB - amazon.com
Also, ask these questions on eevblog forums. Slashdot is not great at hardware.
small review/discussion

ie., over half of the nitwits posting so far are recommending logic analyzers. Please stop. There are also cheap JTAG programming solutions, power supplies, etc. Don't start recommending wrenches when someone asks you for a screwdriver.

This is one pocket scope for less than $100

This is another.

And if you're going to be an idiot, you might want to check YOUR facts first. Existing student Prime members still pay $40 a year. The $49 is just for new members after their recent pirce increase.

If you have an existing paid annual Amazon Student Prime membership, you'll be automatically renewed at a membership rate of $49.

Learn to troll better.

This kind of technology is obviously going to evolve, and have better battery life, not to mention, increased miniaturization.

It's going to get interesting once people (other than CIA operatives) start wearing camera+audio recorder technology that masquerades as stylish jewelry, or a baseball cap http://www.amazon.com/Baseball....

I suspect that we're going to have to give up on being able to reliably ban such stuff.

That doesn't mean that certain uses of it won't still legitimately be considered douchebaggery.

If it says PS3, or XBox 360, etc on it, it will work on that console, no matter how old or young.

You make a good point; this applies to the vast majority of console games. But there are exceptions. For example, the "Family Edition" revision of the Wii console, sold starting in the fourth quarter of 2011, cannot run the Wii game Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party because the "Family Edition" console dropped the port for its wired controller.

Actually:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Best...

is what you're looking for:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Grea...

These are an excellent resource for those of us who may never be able to afford older comics... The Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books It comes in three volumes... http://www.amazon.com/Photo-Jo...

With the risk of un-hijacking this thread I notice you didn't specify comic book reading suggestions, just reading suggestions connected with comic books and a certain period of history. There's a couple great histories of the pre-comics code comic book industry: The Ten Cent Plague-- The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America

You can also check out Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book I didn't read the first, but it's supposed to be pretty good. The second focuses on some of the cool and quirky characters that really were the founders of a new industry. I found it entertaining and inspiring.

With the risk of un-hijacking this thread I notice you didn't specify comic book reading suggestions, just reading suggestions connected with comic books and a certain period of history. There's a couple great histories of the pre-comics code comic book industry: The Ten Cent Plague-- The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America

You can also check out Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book I didn't read the first, but it's supposed to be pretty good. The second focuses on some of the cool and quirky characters that really were the founders of a new industry. I found it entertaining and inspiring.

Coming out about early humans via mitochondrial DNA sequencing. This is a hugely difficult undertaking and long thought to be impossible in any useful sense. If you are interested in how this particularly technology took off, Svante Paabo, one of the pioneers of this field, has an interesting, albeit someone self aggrandizing book Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes that is remarkably readable and reasonably technical at the same time.

"Todayâ(TM)s strict evolutionists are unhappy about Darwinâ(TM)s views, for even today he would be unable to provide a satisfactory explanation"

Pretty much everything he says about evolution is wrong, and this is utterly wrong, particularly with regard to the "transition fossils" question it seems to be referring to. There are plenty of transition fossils. It's simply not an issue any more.

Darwinian theory predicted that there would be transition fossils. In Darwin's day transition fossils had not been found. Today they have, in abundance. To claim otherwise is to divorce yourself from simple, ordinary truth.

Furthermore, the invoke God as the "simplest explanation" for the diversity of life is to claim that somehow God, who is by definition incomprehensible according to Scripture, is somehow "simpler" than a process that necessarily follows from the chemistry of carbon compounds and the laws of probability as we currently understand them: http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-...

Is this just because "radically alter facial morphology" isn't one of those things you evolve even remotely quickly, or without changing a hell of a lot of genes, some of which have other functions, or do we suspect that there are competing constraints working against, or at least limiting, the degree that masculinized facial features are allowed to make you look like some sort of bio-tank?

Because of the degree of randomness in evolution by variation and natural selection, there are very few limits imposed by the incremental nature of the process. Random steps can take a locally deleterious feature a long way "up hill" in terms of fitness before it gets lost entirely from the population, and that process may well carry it over into a new local minimum that was deeper than the one it drifted out of.

That said, there are quite likely strong constraints on facial morphology that put limits on armouring. The human face is extremely important as a communications device, and remember: selection is driven by the differential probability of getting laid and creating successful offspring (where "successful" means... "getting laid and...")

So for example, blood flow in the face is a very important communications tool. There is reason to believe that the whole point of human's red/green colour acuity is so that we are maximally sensitive to variations in blood flow in each others' skins, particularly in the face. So variations that substantially reduced that already-subtle signalling channel would plausibly reduce the chance of those individuals getting laid.

Likewise, facial flexibility and mobility are important aspects of communication between humans (and likely proto-humans), and so on. Because we are by nature social primates, the effective communication goes beyond simple mate competition, too: the ability to form viable troops, work together cooperatively, etc, all will affect the individual's reproductive fitness, particularly when kin-selection is factored in (my genes will go on if my siblings and cousins are successful at mating, even if I am not, so my contributions to their success matters in the evolutionary process.) [Of course, there are also completely kooky speculative ideas about group selection, which are fun to play with: http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-...

Why not just find a big enough cave or a system of caves which all you would need to do is seal the entrance with a steel door so the cave can be pressurized and oxygen to be flooded in.

In his trilogy beginning with Red Mars , Kim Stanley Robinson had the colonists struggling with the infiltration of ultrafine particles of dust even in sealed plastic habitats. The Martian regolith may be harmful to human lungs. The same fear is held about lunar regolith. Initial habitats will have to be well-sealed from the local environment before further studies can be done.

From what I've read, Watterson simply values his privacy and his family's privacy, and he has virtually no interest in publicity for its own sake. Apparently, any former celebrity who doesn't so desperately long for attention that they appear on Dancing With the Stars or jump at every chance for an interview or public appearance is so incomprehensible to most people that the only way to make sense of it is to label them a "recluse".

I agree with you 100%, with two small exceptions.

First, it does appear that Watterson is a bit more removed from society than even your average author.

Second, I think there's a kernel of reason in the idea that someone of renown -- someone who has made a lot of money and become a familiar name in the process -- is expected to give a little bit back to their "fans" in return for benefiting them so much financially. In no way to do mean that Watterson should be on Celebrity Jeopardy (he'd probably never beat Sean Connery anyway), but it might be nice if he did small things like book signings at local bookstores. I have that nice set of hardcover Calvin and Hobbes books, and I would absolutely love to have an opportunity to get it signed by Watterson. Sadly, autographs is one of the things that Watterson appears to refuse to do.

As someone who would probably be called a "recluse" by more than a couple of people, I can truly understand to desire to be removed from the limelight, but still, it's sad for those who adore his work that they don't have the opportunity to try and express that just a tiny bit.

If you believe that then you believe nonsense. The lack of personal belief in the divinity of Jesus and his offer of salvation doesn't undo his enormous influence as Messiah, the subsequent spread of Christianity beyond its Jewish origin, and the enormous influence Christianity has had in turn on religion, literature, music, law, and many other aspects of life and culture across the globe.

A non-Christian may not hold to the belief and sentiment that inspired Handal's Messiah, but the music is still played and sung. They don't cease to exist because of non-belief. The same holds true for the rest of the influence Jesus has had though the spread of Christianity.

Christianity spread in the Roman empire despite persecution. But if you think a Roman emperor 1700 years ago was the "real power" behind Christianity, how do you explain this today? The Romans are long gone.

China on course to become 'world's most Christian nation' within 15 years
Study: Christianity grows exponentially in Africa

You seem to be underestimating the influence of Jesus.

The Good, the Bad and the Forgiven

There's got to be some way to integrate technology with existing human body parts so that the enhancements don't require hacking off a limb one was born with. Whatever happened to Neal Stephenson's vision in The Diamond Age of crawling robotic bugs exerting muscle fibers directly, so that you would gain enormous strength without even having to exercise? Keeping one's own arm but enhanced is definitely preferable to a foreign combination of metal and plastic being grafted on, at least for contemporary humans.

That's what locking skewers (link is an example, not a suggestion) are for.

TFA is 20 full-screen pictures of their product, and page after page of copy about how awesome the product is. Only barely a mention of some minor hiccups, that get treated as an industry problem, rather than the realities of an incompetent start-up that simply didn't know WTF it was doing.

And frankly, $140 for a set of 'sleek' bicycle lights makes me want to go on a killing spree.

Buy a couple 3-mode SK68 lights for $5/ea. Brighter than you could ever want, with high/low/strobe, and multiple zoom settings:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006E...

Some $2 bike mounts:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AD...

And if you don't want to cut-out some red cellophane to fit, you can get a kit with red lens for the tail light:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000...

Batteries and Charger, < $13:

http://www.amazon.com//dp/B004...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004N...

TFA is 20 full-screen pictures of their product, and page after page of copy about how awesome the product is. Only barely a mention of some minor hiccups, that get treated as an industry problem, rather than the realities of an incompetent start-up that simply didn't know WTF it was doing.

And frankly, $140 for a set of 'sleek' bicycle lights makes me want to go on a killing spree.

Buy a couple 3-mode SK68 lights for $5/ea. Brighter than you could ever want, with high/low/strobe, and multiple zoom settings:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006E...

Some $2 bike mounts:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AD...

And if you don't want to cut-out some red cellophane to fit, you can get a kit with red lens for the tail light:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000...

Batteries and Charger, < $13:

http://www.amazon.com//dp/B004...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004N...

TFA is 20 full-screen pictures of their product, and page after page of copy about how awesome the product is. Only barely a mention of some minor hiccups, that get treated as an industry problem, rather than the realities of an incompetent start-up that simply didn't know WTF it was doing.

And frankly, $140 for a set of 'sleek' bicycle lights makes me want to go on a killing spree.

Buy a couple 3-mode SK68 lights for $5/ea. Brighter than you could ever want, with high/low/strobe, and multiple zoom settings:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006E...

Some $2 bike mounts:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AD...

And if you don't want to cut-out some red cellophane to fit, you can get a kit with red lens for the tail light:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000...

Batteries and Charger, < $13:

http://www.amazon.com//dp/B004...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004N...

TFA is 20 full-screen pictures of their product, and page after page of copy about how awesome the product is. Only barely a mention of some minor hiccups, that get treated as an industry problem, rather than the realities of an incompetent start-up that simply didn't know WTF it was doing.

And frankly, $140 for a set of 'sleek' bicycle lights makes me want to go on a killing spree.

Buy a couple 3-mode SK68 lights for $5/ea. Brighter than you could ever want, with high/low/strobe, and multiple zoom settings:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006E...

Some $2 bike mounts:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AD...

And if you don't want to cut-out some red cellophane to fit, you can get a kit with red lens for the tail light:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000...

Batteries and Charger, < $13:

http://www.amazon.com//dp/B004...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004N...

TFA is 20 full-screen pictures of their product, and page after page of copy about how awesome the product is. Only barely a mention of some minor hiccups, that get treated as an industry problem, rather than the realities of an incompetent start-up that simply didn't know WTF it was doing.

And frankly, $140 for a set of 'sleek' bicycle lights makes me want to go on a killing spree.

Buy a couple 3-mode SK68 lights for $5/ea. Brighter than you could ever want, with high/low/strobe, and multiple zoom settings:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006E...

Some $2 bike mounts:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AD...

And if you don't want to cut-out some red cellophane to fit, you can get a kit with red lens for the tail light:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000...

Batteries and Charger, < $13:

http://www.amazon.com//dp/B004...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004N...

Sadly this is too true.

For example I had a friend who was selling Mary Kay products and she wanted to show off how well a product like this worked and after the demo I made a comment that it worked and smelled just like Gojo. She wanted to know if I would buy it and I asked how much and then said no because I can buy a gallon of Gojo for something like $15 (this was years ago)

Sadly this is too true.

For example I had a friend who was selling Mary Kay products and she wanted to show off how well a product like this worked and after the demo I made a comment that it worked and smelled just like Gojo. She wanted to know if I would buy it and I asked how much and then said no because I can buy a gallon of Gojo for something like $15 (this was years ago)

Dunno what AT&T's policy is on fraudulent charges, but most banks give you zero liability. The law requires $50 maximum liability, so dropping it to zero isn't that big of a deal, so most do that as an incentive to always carry their card around.

I actually have this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ...

I love it, to be honest. Technically yeah, if somebody robs my phone they also rob my wallet, but they're probably going to also do that anyways if I'm getting mugged. But the upshot of this is that this wallet is terrible for carrying cash, so I habitually never do. If my "wallet" were to get stolen, I'd basically only be out my phone, my insurance card, my driver's license, and this $15 piece of vinyl. My credit card costs nothing to get replaced, whereas my driver's license costs $5. I've always hated carrying around cash anyways.

Never having money when bums hassle you, yet you can still buy stuff anyways, is nice. Being able to "call" your wallet when you've misplaced it is nice. Having only this and my keys in my pocket is also nice.

As for TFA, switch to tmobile; their international roaming plan is free.

Of course J. Random User still exists. While I do believe that a Bluetooth keyboard can make a tablet usable for writing, not many people even know that they can use a keyboard with their tablet, much less have actually tried it.

That being said, any move to tablets just shows the truth to my statement that J. Random User really isn't tied to MS software anymore. Besides, the difference between a tablet and a laptop is more a matter of built-in peripherals than it is any real distinction. Laptops and tablets are both just computers. Put a tablet in one of these and it is a laptop.

Why go anywhere else at all? As the pace of technology accelerates, it may well be that the future of the human race is staying put right here, moving into a virtual reality instead of expanding outward through the cosmos. Defense against asteroids could be automated, and while the sun would eventually expand into a red giant and engulf the Earth, we still have a few billion years, so there's no rush.

It is curious that this possibility is rarely considered in nerd circles, as it has been proposed by science-fiction writers. In his future history starting with Harvest of Stars , the late Poul Anderson foresaw much of the human race and its AI successors content to remain on Earth and turn their attention to mathematical explorations. Vernor Vinge too speculated in his early musings on the Singularity that it could involve a civilization moving into a computer mind buried deep underneath the planet's surface instead of exploring space.

well, when you send these as a gift to Congress, you gotta expect to be put on some list

Never mind that Google Play takes a 30% cut: https://support.google.com/goo...
Never mind that Steam takes a 30% cut (according to Notch): http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/...
Never mind that Amazon Kindle Publishing takes 30-65% cut: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?to...

Amazon's got you covered

The camera was the main reason why I went up a little bit... plus I hated the round corners and smaller screens of the lower-cost models.

this is what I settled on - sure, there's no magnetic compass thingy in it, nor advanced accelerometers, but really - I have no need for that crap, and it's been working quite well. :)

(Now if I was into having 10 jillion apps I'd get something with more internal storage, but seriously - I only use about half of what I have in this little thing now...)

800 / 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1800 / 1900 / 2100 / 2600 I verified that the international version says "4g" on the Tmobile network in the US. http://www.amazon.com/Sony-C68...

I have been behind the curve on smarthphones too (I think I got it out of my system earlier with Psions/Palms/PocketPCs). But I recently got an $89 LG Android for my wife, and it's so much hardware for so cheap it makes me wonder what could make the $600 worth it? It seems to have pretty much everything, except the 3MP camera is sucky. So, maybe $150 like yours is the sweet spot. But $600? What's in them?

Still no consumer-level octo-core? I'll continue to stick with my Q9450 then. I'm not willing to spend thousands on a Xeon.

You don't need to spend thousands - my last build was a little SOHO Xen server using a Xeon 2620 which is a six-core with hyperthreading. Much to my surprise, HP's benchmarks showed a 30% performance improvement under Xen with hyperthreading in use, so that's 7.8 cores worth, which is pretty good for $400. I used a single-processor mobo, but dual-sockets are available. It's not a linear number cruncher (I have a hot 12-core AMD for that) but if you have a workload that needs parallelism it's a decent value. Sadly, it replaced my AMD Xen server because AMD just isn't stable under recent Xen and there's no PVH support at all.

Still no consumer-level octo-core? I'll continue to stick with my Q9450 then. I'm not willing to spend thousands on a Xeon.

You don't need to spend thousands - my last build was a little SOHO Xen server using a Xeon 2620 which is a six-core with hyperthreading. Much to my surprise, HP's benchmarks showed a 30% performance improvement under Xen with hyperthreading in use, so that's 7.8 cores worth, which is pretty good for $400. I used a single-processor mobo, but dual-sockets are available. It's not a linear number cruncher (I have a hot 12-core AMD for that) but if you have a workload that needs parallelism it's a decent value. Sadly, it replaced my AMD Xen server because AMD just isn't stable under recent Xen and there's no PVH support at all.

The key to the campaign of openness to whistleblowers, as distinct from criminal leakers and publicity seekers, Meyer stresses, is that it "must aid the agency mission.

There's your problem (or rather society's problem) right there: when the agency mission is sucking up as much information as possible, privacy of American citizens be damned, and then covering up for one another to reassure the American public, then that is something no one wants to aid, and the whole point of whistleblowing is to stop it.

That the NSA's mission is a megalomaniac "collect it all" approach has been clear for a long, long time now. Back in the early millennium I read James Bamford's Body of Secrets and followed keenly the European Parliament's ECHELON investigation (which was sadly obscured in the news by 9/11). Sadder than the fact that Snowden risks lifelong imprisonment is the fact that it took so long to get a Snowden in the first place after years of hints that something was wrong.

The 512 is $224, which is $0.43

http://www.amazon.com/s/?_enco...

Curiously Amazon's page for this model seems to describe it as *not* 4K and only costing $466. http://www.amazon.com/PB278Q-2...

...I suspect most of these will be discussed over the next weeks...my favourite topic. Is the one that makes Bill Gates spit coffee over his keyboard and shout "first smartphones, then tablets...now fucking house tech...If he says magical. I will burn their house down"

cue fanboys chanting "we are first"

For those who missed the internet(or using ie6) here is my link to Bill Gates The Road Ahead in paperback... http://www.amazon.com/Ahead-My... Which clearly the fuckers at Latte read.

...ooh look an update to Safari...another topic.

Just imagine a Beowulf cluster.... oh, never mind.

On the subject of Beowulf clusters: now that Tolkien's translation is available, do we need a new stupid /. meme?

I doubt it is just the patents. Add in the price point and the fact that this is a relatively minor product, so there are no fancy retooled factories and a minimum of custom components are going into this, as opposed to in a flagship product. Plus a dozen other little issues that fall under those or add to them. It's basically using cheap components for a cheap price point. The Air uses the absolute latest and best to get to the minimum weight and size, but at a high price point. Sony did that for years as well, and had a similarly high price point relative to the general market of the time.

It is quite a bit underwhelming compared to even higher end Android tablets like the $650 Galaxy Note 12, but the killer feature is probably intended to be what will likely be a $300 and change street price with the ease of Android (for those who already have an Android phone). It's comparable to their Pavillion 14" laptop: http://www.amazon.com//dp/B00B...

No-one uses physical media anymore, why would anyone want an optical drive these days?

Load disk. Play movie. Play extras.

Flawless 1080p projection and full theater sound with Blu-Ray.

Out of pocket expense for a Samsung Blu-Ray player with a mix of streaming media apps, $80.Samsung BD-F5700 Wi-Fi Blu-Ray Player (Black)

$38 to the door from amazon http://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-...