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See this blog - Splitting CUE/FLAC Files using cuetools and shntool (both in Debian/Ubuntu). Annoyingly the filenames are in the form 'split-tracknn.flac', so you'll still have to rename them. I have a Perl script that pulls out the FLAC metadata (written by the cuetag program) and renames them to 'nn-track name.flac'.

All this time I thought these were the right logos.

Microsoft has nearly missed the boat before. During Chicago's development, Microsoft all but dropped the ball on that whole Internet thing, at the last moment pasting in Windows for Workgroup's networking engine to support TCP/IP. The initial version of IE sucked, but, in the end, they beat the snot out of Netscape. They even retroactively threw in the Shiva PPP dialer and their own Winsock stack for Windows 3.1, thus pretty much killing Trumpet Winsock.

I won't believe Microsoft's going down the tubes until I actually see Microsoft down the tubes. They're the Energizer Bunny of the computer world, even if they have to steal or assassinate their competition to keep going.

Missing the boat didn't hurt them that much. Why? Because third parties(like Trumpet that you mentioned) filled in the gap for the most popular OS. I don't see a reason that will change much now. Why? Because even Google said this during their announcement. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

So Windows and Macs will run all the Win32 and Mac programs like Office and Photoshop and also run the same web apps that Chrome will run. That means Google Chrome won't have a Killer App, except for the UI, security and cost? So Chrome has to be THAT GOOD in order to make people switch from Windows since stuff like Gmail already runs well in browsers.

And there are lots applications that make no sense to be run in a browser with Back, Forward, Refresh buttons. And not to mention the performance overhead. For example, I like my IDE to be native, thanks. It's slow enough as it is. Will people be willing to give up their native apps just to make the interface better or faster(lets assume Google can do that)? Will Chrome OS innovate that much in UI and security that it will make people switch? I doubt it. Chrome browser already has improvements in speed and UI but that hasn't motivated people to switch.

Fake Steve's interesting take on Chrome OS here --> http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2009/07/lets-all-take-deep-breath-and-get-some.html

Microsoft has nearly missed the boat before. During Chicago's development, Microsoft all but dropped the ball on that whole Internet thing, at the last moment pasting in Windows for Workgroup's networking engine to support TCP/IP. The initial version of IE sucked, but, in the end, they beat the snot out of Netscape. They even retroactively threw in the Shiva PPP dialer and their own Winsock stack for Windows 3.1, thus pretty much killing Trumpet Winsock.

I won't believe Microsoft's going down the tubes until I actually see Microsoft down the tubes. They're the Energizer Bunny of the computer world, even if they have to steal or assassinate their competition to keep going.

Missing the boat didn't hurt them that much. Why? Because third parties(like Trumpet that you mentioned) filled in the gap for the most popular OS. I don't see a reason that will change much now. Why? Because even Google said this during their announcement. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

So Windows and Macs will run all the Win32 and Mac programs like Office and Photoshop and also run the same web apps that Chrome will run. That means Google Chrome won't have a Killer App, except for the UI, security and cost? So Chrome has to be THAT GOOD in order to make people switch from Windows since stuff like Gmail already runs well in browsers.

And there are lots applications that make no sense to be run in a browser with Back, Forward, Refresh buttons. And not to mention the performance overhead. For example, I like my IDE to be native, thanks. It's slow enough as it is. Will people be willing to give up their native apps just to make the interface better or faster(lets assume Google can do that)? Will Chrome OS innovate that much in UI and security that it will make people switch? I doubt it. Chrome browser already has improvements in speed and UI but that hasn't motivated people to switch.

Fake Steve's interesting take on Chrome OS here --> http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2009/07/lets-all-take-deep-breath-and-get-some.html

Do you remember when firefox was fast... in the pre-1.0 days?

Version number bloat detailed here:

http://fulldecent.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-firefox-really-needs.html

Info/Disinfo. What pill did you take, this morning?

Google Pulls Sibel Edmonds' Access to Her Blog
August 9th, 2009

I don't know what it's going to take to make people understand that Google (and its associated brands, Blogger, YouTube, Google Video, Gmail) are NOT to be trusted for communicating controversial information. The fact that dissidents don't understand this basic information is just more evidence of how screwed we are.

Via: Justacitizen:

My Blog Site http://123realchange.blogspot.com/ is now blocked by Google's Blogger. They will not let me post during this most sensitive period, when I am about to provide deposition on Foreign US government illegal operations in the United States!

http://www.justacitizen.com/Press_Releases/URGENTGoogle's%20Blogger-Aug6.htm

The next computer revolution will make the first one pale in comparison. As soon as we find solutions to the parallel programming crisis and the software reliability/productivity crisis, innovation will explode. Current programming languages are primitive relics of the 20th century. What is needed is a new software construction methodology that turns everybody and their uncle into a computer programmer. See Why I Hate All Computer Programming Languages.

In the US I perceive the words "free market" to be synonymous with "unregulated". These ladies agree. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H01fscfAxoA/SmtuBwqvFZI/AAAAAAAAAS0/Pfh7VIFtl08/s1600-h/Boca+Raton+Free+Market+Healthcare+Rally+035.JPG

Wikipedia also agrees. "A free market is a term that economists use to describe a market which is free from economic intervention and regulation by government, other than protection of property rights (i.e. no regulation, no subsidization, no single monetary system, and no governmental monopolies)."

What is wrong with Kmeleon? The "little lizard" as my customers call it is GREAT for older hardware, and if you use the new CCF ME build it comes with ABP built in, and even can be run straight from a thumbstick without modding!

So I don't know what your problem with the lizard is, but I have found both the stock and CCF ME builds to be faster than FF3, especially running on older hardware, easy to run on OSes as old as Win95(there is even a quick tutorial on the Kmeleon site and links to the two files you need to add), it isn't flashy or bling bling, but that to me is a virtue. If you need a super fast browser with ABP support, you can't go wrong with Kmeleon CCF ME.

Yep. The latest semantic tags should also improve search engine accuracy, allow for automatic relayouting of pages on small mobile devices, and help with disability-friendly navigation.
Me: HTML5 is -Coming.

Microsoft's guys really ought to be able to grasp that.

I would think most of the "trickle down", like any other manufacturing company, would come from the fact that with the more expensive line of cars they now have the basic infrastructure to begin planing new models with possibly many parts in common with the old model, thus reducing the price of both design and hard manufacturing.

While it is true that Lithium-ion batteries seem to have stagnated in price for nearly a decade, by the time the Model S comes out, maybe even in order for the Model S to be able to come out, we may see lead carbon batteries paired with an Ultracapacitor become viable. Or maybe Lithium-ion batteries may actually decrease in price as they as promised for about 9 years now, possibly due to lower consumer demand.

[Windows XP doesn't work if] you happen to be one of the few people who use SATA

[...]

Part of developing software is learning to set up your environment. Period. If you can't do that much without someone holding your hand, you have no chance of wrapping your head around the internals of a project. You may as well switch to teaching.

Exactly. Now, why was it you aren't able to resolve something as simple as getting Windows XP to install on a computer with a SATA hard disk?

Or for that matter, before posting yet another flame, why have you have not taken five minutes to read my blog entry, which I linked to above? I investigated the situation. The result of my investigation: It would have taken me approximately a week to resolve the issue (taking a newer ALPS driver and backporting it to the older version of X used by RHEL/CentOS 5), so I decided I was better off just using Windows XP and using a VM for CentOS development.

This solved the problem for me: All of my hardware works and I'm able to develop the software in both Windows XP and CentOS.

The problem with Linux is this: It has an unstable driver model. Why is it that Windows XP, an OS that is seven years old, works just fine in my two-year-old laptop, with full hardware support, but a three-year-old version of Linux has poor driver support and missing drivers?

In the real world, there are a lot of things I have to prioritize: Spending time working (yes, I have a job); spending time with family and friends and my girlfriend; spending time relaxing; and sometimes spending time working on my open source project. At this point in my life, I don't have time to waste backporting a driver because the Linux developers are do not give me a stable driver ABI and API. If people want Linux to be on my desktop, they should spend more time giving it a stable driver API and ABI, and less time flaming me for daring to point out Linux is not perfect.

But what can I expect from someone who doesn't share his real name with us and has nothing better to do with his time than flame people who don't think Linux is God's gift to the earth. People like you are why I am happier using Windows instead of Linux today.

Again: Linux zealots (like you) piss me off.

Argh!

There is an extensions that was recently added to ATA, the TRIM command. The TRIM command allows an OS to specify a blocks data is no longer useful and the drive should dispose of it. No productions support it, but several beta firmwares do. There are also patches for the Linux kernel that adds support to the black layer along with appropriate support to most filesystems. Windows 7 also has support for it.

There is a lot of confusion about this on the OCZ boards, with people thinking GC somehow magically obviates the needs for TRIM. As you pointed out the GC doesn't know what is data and what is not with respect to deleted files in the FS. I wrote a blog post (with pictures and everything) explaining this just a few days ago

Yahoo and PDFCreator, dying together? Rest in peace, Yahoo.

This is essentially what it comes down to. Does OpenCL make parallel programming of heterogeneous processors easy? The answer is no, of course, and the reason is not hard to understand. Multicore CPUs and GPUs are two incompatible approaches to parallel computing. The former is based on concurrent threads and MIMD (multiple instructions, multiple data) while the latter uses an SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) configuration. They are fundamentally different and no single interface will get around that fact. OpenCL (or CUDA) is really two languages in one. Programmers will have to frequently flip their mode of thinking in order to take effective advantage of both technologies and this is the primary reason that heterogeneous processors will be a pain to program. The other is multithreading, which, as we all know, is a royal pain in the arse in its own right.

Obviously what it needed is a new universal parallel software model, one that is supported by a single *homogeneous* processor architecture. Unfortunately for the major players, they have so much money and resources invested in last century's processor technologies that they are stuck in a rut of their own making. They are like the Titanic on a collision course with a monster iceberg. Unless the big players are willing and able to make an about-face in their thinking (can a Titanic turn on a dime?), I am afraid that the solution to the parallel programming crisis will have to come from elsewhere. A true maverick startup will eventually turn up and revolutionize the computer industry. And then there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth among the old guard.

Read How to Solve the Parallel Programming Crisis if you're interested in an alternative approach to parallel computing.

1. Why Windows Vista and Office 2007 are so Expensive  The Firefox ...
2. Is Windows getting more expensive? - CNET News
3. Windows 7 to be âoemore expensiveâ than Vista, XP
4. Writing on the Wall: Why Windows is so expensive
5. Why are vinyl windows so expensive? who provides them cheapest ...
6. Omfg Vista Is So Expensive - Windows Vista and Windows 7

Top 6 results from Bing:

1. Why are Mac's So Expensive? - Yahoo! Answers

2. why so expensive?. - Games for Windows Live

3. Why are vinyl windows so expensive? who provides them cheapest ...

4. Why are windows hosting providers so expensive? - Community Server

5. Why are Macbooks so expensive? - Yahoo! Answers

6. WikiAnswers - Why are Apple Macs so expensive

5 out of the top 6 at Google are directly related to what I actually wanted to know... articles about why Microsoft Windows is too expensive.

3 out of the 6 at Microsoft's Bing search engine return results for why their direct competitor, Apple, has such expensive computers. 1 more out of the remaining three appears to be somewhat related to my search by at least being about windows games, but no... look at the clip telling me why Bing thought this was relevant:

Official Games for Windows Forums ... why are macbooks so expensive i mean i saw a better windows pc laptop for half the price and double the specs and looks so why

Of the remaining 2 top 6 results, one is about vinyl windows just like Google's one stray result, and the other is about internet hosting companies charging more for windows based hosting... this is the only result that even remotely comes close to answering my question. So... 4 out of the top 6 listed look bad for a direct competitor and don't answer my question, 1 is irrelevant noise, and one is marginally relevant, but still noise. Bing sucks, and is certainly biased against anything negative being said about Microsoft.

Your link? Yeah, it's on the first page of the Google results, but it is the second to the last result, and is the only Apple related link, and even that link directly mentions Windows in the comments, and Windows 7 is linked all over the friggin place on this article's page!

The problem with one site charging an access fee and another not charging is that no one will pay when they can get something similar for free. Unless more sites or at least a critical mass work together, any charging plans won't work. The fact that everyone knows this purposed charging model won't work by itself indicates to me that there is more than likely some collusion going on with other major news players and we will hear similar announcements from others soon as well. If there was no secret talks, maybe his FY10 implementation date is testing the waters to see if the others will follow without technically working with directly with them to game the system.
Newspaper publishers had talks about doing the same thing earlier this year. See here and here for details.

January 31st, 2005, was the last day that Michael Sims, Nazi editor of Slashdot [blogspot.com], ever posted a story or indeed was ever heard from again. But what happened that day to Michael Sims? Did his embroilment in the Censorware.org conspiracy finally catch up with him? Or was he involved in a violent, and ultimately fatal, lovers' spat with his partner Jamie McCarthy? The truth, as we'll see, is much more perverse than fiction.

On New Year's Eve of 2004, the entire Slashdot staff was throwing a party to celebrate another year of Linux propaganda, homosexual recruitment, and the profits that their Microsoft ad banners had raked in for them. Eric Raymond, Emad, Roblimo, Hemos, Taco, Jamie, and Alan Cox all planned to rape Richard Stallman later in the night. Michael had shown up late, however, and was let in on the plans after they were made.

As it turned out, Jamie was to be leading the charge against the Free Software Foundation's founder and would be the first to penetrate Stallman's hairy unwashed ass. Michael, however, was jealous of this and made secret plans to thwart their nefarious venture of homosexual rape. The event was planned for zero hours, right as the ball dropped. But Michael had other ideas.

Michael suggested they all toast their plan with JÃgermeister, Eric Raymond's drink of choice that was in heavy supply that night, and the rest of the partygoers followed. While everyone downed their first shot, Michael slipped into the VA Software office's break-room, grabbing the syringe Raymond used to inject Rob Malda's semen with on the way. Michael leered at the case of JÃgermeister, needle in hand.

Minutes later, Michael reappeared in the conference room with more JÃger, ready for more shots. Over the next couple of hours they indulged in several drinking and party games, spurred on by Michael, as they drank bottle after bottle of the dark brown herbal liquor. If one were to pay special attention to Michael, however, they would note that Michael drank much less than anyone else and only from his own bottle.

Emad and Roblimo were involved in a powerful sixty-nine cheered on by Hemos and Alan whose bent geek penises throbbed near Emad's head and Roblimo's bloated ass, waiting for an opportunity. Moaning, Emad diverted his wet mouth from Roblimo's butthole and took down Hemos and Alan's cocks in quick succession. Hearing the wet, sloppy commotion behind him, Roblimo lost control and glunked all over Emad's chest.

Across the room near the podium, Eric Raymond was man-handling Rob, jamming a handgun down the back of his pants and asking him if he remembered their special night in Holland [blogspot.com]. Rob was giggling like a school girl and squirmed with all his might against the cold steel. Eric rained a shower of JÃger over Rob's head which Rob greedily tongued up even as Eric's skinny red penis entered his ass cheeks, probing for the brown prize.

The conference room was awash in gay cum and chaos, Michael noted happily as he surveyed the carnage around him. Emad had now teamed up with Alan and Hemos to rape Roblimo's ass as Rob was being pistol-whipped to orgasm by Eric, all oblivious to the massive amounts of Rohypnol they were ingesting as they drank the JÃgermeister Michael had given them. It wouldn't be much longer before the drug took effect.

Another half-hour into the night, Eric paused from raping Taco's mouth and sodomizing his anus with his Glock, short of breath. His head swam and he looked at his bottle of JÃgermeister. I can usually down six of these babies, thought Eric, wondering why he was now farting uncontrollably. Rob's nose wrinkled as Eric's rectum expelled another gallon of aerosolized feces into the air. Stooping, Eric held on to the podium for support.

Across the way, Emad pulled his tiny Iranian dick out from betwee

January 31st, 2005, was the last day that Michael Sims, Nazi editor of Slashdot [blogspot.com], ever posted a story or indeed was ever heard from again. But what happened that day to Michael Sims? Did his embroilment in the Censorware.org conspiracy finally catch up with him? Or was he involved in a violent, and ultimately fatal, lovers' spat with his partner Jamie McCarthy? The truth, as we'll see, is much more perverse than fiction.

On New Year's Eve of 2004, the entire Slashdot staff was throwing a party to celebrate another year of Linux propaganda, homosexual recruitment, and the profits that their Microsoft ad banners had raked in for them. Eric Raymond, Emad, Roblimo, Hemos, Taco, Jamie, and Alan Cox all planned to rape Richard Stallman later in the night. Michael had shown up late, however, and was let in on the plans after they were made.

As it turned out, Jamie was to be leading the charge against the Free Software Foundation's founder and would be the first to penetrate Stallman's hairy unwashed ass. Michael, however, was jealous of this and made secret plans to thwart their nefarious venture of homosexual rape. The event was planned for zero hours, right as the ball dropped. But Michael had other ideas.

Michael suggested they all toast their plan with JÃgermeister, Eric Raymond's drink of choice that was in heavy supply that night, and the rest of the partygoers followed. While everyone downed their first shot, Michael slipped into the VA Software office's break-room, grabbing the syringe Raymond used to inject Rob Malda's semen with on the way. Michael leered at the case of JÃgermeister, needle in hand.

Minutes later, Michael reappeared in the conference room with more JÃger, ready for more shots. Over the next couple of hours they indulged in several drinking and party games, spurred on by Michael, as they drank bottle after bottle of the dark brown herbal liquor. If one were to pay special attention to Michael, however, they would note that Michael drank much less than anyone else and only from his own bottle.

Emad and Roblimo were involved in a powerful sixty-nine cheered on by Hemos and Alan whose bent geek penises throbbed near Emad's head and Roblimo's bloated ass, waiting for an opportunity. Moaning, Emad diverted his wet mouth from Roblimo's butthole and took down Hemos and Alan's cocks in quick succession. Hearing the wet, sloppy commotion behind him, Roblimo lost control and glunked all over Emad's chest.

Across the room near the podium, Eric Raymond was man-handling Rob, jamming a handgun down the back of his pants and asking him if he remembered their special night in Holland [blogspot.com]. Rob was giggling like a school girl and squirmed with all his might against the cold steel. Eric rained a shower of JÃger over Rob's head which Rob greedily tongued up even as Eric's skinny red penis entered his ass cheeks, probing for the brown prize.

The conference room was awash in gay cum and chaos, Michael noted happily as he surveyed the carnage around him. Emad had now teamed up with Alan and Hemos to rape Roblimo's ass as Rob was being pistol-whipped to orgasm by Eric, all oblivious to the massive amounts of Rohypnol they were ingesting as they drank the JÃgermeister Michael had given them. It wouldn't be much longer before the drug took effect.

Another half-hour into the night, Eric paused from raping Taco's mouth and sodomizing his anus with his Glock, short of breath. His head swam and he looked at his bottle of JÃgermeister. I can usually down six of these babies, thought Eric, wondering why he was now farting uncontrollably. Rob's nose wrinkled as Eric's rectum expelled another gallon of aerosolized feces into the air. Stooping, Eric held on to the podium for support.

Across the way, Emad pulled his tiny Iranian dick out from betwee

As a developer, I can say that Google's product suite is unsettlingly dynamic. There's a new API every week or so,

Yes, new APIs are a serious problem... Sorry, what?!

and no asssurance of futures.

This is different from... what? If Google goes away or (more likely) drops a project, the APIs aren't going to be worth much, but if [company X] goes away or drops a project the same is true. Was there a point in that?

For example, I was all excited about using Google's JS extensions (with the ability to load/save data locally)

That's a standard HTML5 feature now. Bad choice.

but I've yet to see this working anywhere but Windows.

Firefox 3.5.x on all platforms. I believe IE has committed to this or possibly even shipped, but for now you can use gears under IE. Latest Safari also supports HTML5, which is why the Latitude app on the iPhone can get your location.

Chrome is nice but Windows only, there's now (finally!) a Linux version, but it's so buggy that it often crashes X windows.

OK, seriously are you just trolling?! I've run Chrome under X and never seen this happen. Are you using an experimental X server?

And now they have their own O/S!? Two?! But which one should I use?

Ah, you are trolling. OK, sorry, nevermind.

PS: For the readers who are confused: Google has one released OS and it's currently supported on phone handsets only (Android). Google Chrome OS has not been released and there's no indication of exactly what niche it will fill once it is, so there's no sense in getting worked up over "choices" that don't exist.

Yes, it's a better deal than I said. However, there are others who are skeptical. Someone posted a link to an opinion by Fake Steve Jobs: R.I.P., Yahoo.

Nothing against OSS, but right now for these very musical apps, you *really need ALSA*. The author of JACK has even gone and debunked some of what was being claimed about OSSv4.

http://insanecoding.blogspot.com/2009/06/state-of-sound-in-linux-not-so-sorry.html

Check in *comments* for that story for 'dawhead' - that's the creator of JACK and Ardour. That's not to take away from the work the OSS folks are doing, but it's still ALSA in our future for the time being.

• http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WfRY4w_fD9Q/Sk9_vPuds8I/AAAAAAAAAm0/olElERYPM-8/s1600-h/manta+7-3.jpg
• http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WfRY4w_fD9Q/SlKHq1IpozI/AAAAAAAAAnM/twkfe-4sdC4/s1600-h/manta14+sample_small.jpg/

These are were taken from the blog of the Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita detailing their travels this year. They have eye witness accounts of the plastic garbage. It turns out the plastic is not even close to a island, or anything island like. The plastic that is out looks like the byproduct of a will-it-blend episode.

To get any detectable and easily studied plastic they set out a small net and trawl for the plastic:

"[T]rawls today were the highest plastic concentration we have seen yet" ... "The pictures are from 2 ea. 2 hour trawls covering 1 meter wide by 6 miles long."

Regarding the difficulty seeing it:

"Then when I went up to sit on the boom to get a higher vantage point for spotting bigger pieces, the first thing I noticed was, I could no longer see the small fragments, so if you are on the deck of 300 ft ship, you will not even see the real problem. I tried to film the small bits, but I don't know how well it came out."

"[T]he plastic we have accumulated from the trawls-these are the tiny fragments which we will not be able to quantify and classify until we get them back to the lab.

Source: http://orvalguita.blogspot.com/2009/07/t.html

Hmm... I should probably post this to wikipedia...

• http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WfRY4w_fD9Q/Sk9_vPuds8I/AAAAAAAAAm0/olElERYPM-8/s1600-h/manta+7-3.jpg
• http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WfRY4w_fD9Q/SlKHq1IpozI/AAAAAAAAAnM/twkfe-4sdC4/s1600-h/manta14+sample_small.jpg/

These are were taken from the blog of the Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita detailing their travels this year. They have eye witness accounts of the plastic garbage. It turns out the plastic is not even close to a island, or anything island like. The plastic that is out looks like the byproduct of a will-it-blend episode.

To get any detectable and easily studied plastic they set out a small net and trawl for the plastic:

"[T]rawls today were the highest plastic concentration we have seen yet" ... "The pictures are from 2 ea. 2 hour trawls covering 1 meter wide by 6 miles long."

Regarding the difficulty seeing it:

"Then when I went up to sit on the boom to get a higher vantage point for spotting bigger pieces, the first thing I noticed was, I could no longer see the small fragments, so if you are on the deck of 300 ft ship, you will not even see the real problem. I tried to film the small bits, but I don't know how well it came out."

"[T]he plastic we have accumulated from the trawls-these are the tiny fragments which we will not be able to quantify and classify until we get them back to the lab.

Source: http://orvalguita.blogspot.com/2009/07/t.html

Hmm... I should probably post this to wikipedia...

• http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WfRY4w_fD9Q/Sk9_vPuds8I/AAAAAAAAAm0/olElERYPM-8/s1600-h/manta+7-3.jpg
• http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WfRY4w_fD9Q/SlKHq1IpozI/AAAAAAAAAnM/twkfe-4sdC4/s1600-h/manta14+sample_small.jpg/

These are were taken from the blog of the Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita detailing their travels this year. They have eye witness accounts of the plastic garbage. It turns out the plastic is not even close to a island, or anything island like. The plastic that is out looks like the byproduct of a will-it-blend episode.

To get any detectable and easily studied plastic they set out a small net and trawl for the plastic:

"[T]rawls today were the highest plastic concentration we have seen yet" ... "The pictures are from 2 ea. 2 hour trawls covering 1 meter wide by 6 miles long."

Regarding the difficulty seeing it:

"Then when I went up to sit on the boom to get a higher vantage point for spotting bigger pieces, the first thing I noticed was, I could no longer see the small fragments, so if you are on the deck of 300 ft ship, you will not even see the real problem. I tried to film the small bits, but I don't know how well it came out."

"[T]he plastic we have accumulated from the trawls-these are the tiny fragments which we will not be able to quantify and classify until we get them back to the lab.

Source: http://orvalguita.blogspot.com/2009/07/t.html

Hmm... I should probably post this to wikipedia...

but if they mess up with my email, I'll cut the pay subscription right now.

Hrm... From Fake Steve Job's "R.I.P., Yahoo":

Rest in peace, Yahoo. O portal O news feed O provider of free email accounts that everyone used before Gmail existed

Lost productivity.

1) Lost productivity when the local ISP or some some intermediate router is down? Multiply by each user. (In a lot of places that's pretty significant. Lots of places suffer multiple hours of network down time / flaky internet every month.)

We can route our network through a mobile 3G dongle if our company network goes down. It's extremely unlikely that both of these would go down at the same time.

There's also the possibility of using Google Docs offline.

2) Lost productivity as your employees are clicking on google ads and browsing online when they should be working on that spreadsheet or word document, or simply lost productivity as the ads become insufferably intrusive and distracting.

As opposed to the lost productivity when your employees are playing solitaire and minesweeper? Your productivity problem here is with your employee, not with your technology.

And the ads aren't at all intrusive. Avoiding Google Docs because they might become intrusive is like avoiding siting your business in a building because it might burn down.

I can totally vouch for Doug's stance on taking his meds, as a witness to his certification back in the day. He's way beyond needing meds at this point. Just don't mess with his quaternions, man.

Sure, he might need a little help with math here and there, but at least he doesn't have a problem with rambling run-on sentences.

--
One-time LHC blogger

So, when are you going to tell the European Commission they're wrong? When will you tell the US Justice Department and judges they are wrong? Fact is is at least one US and one European court has ruled MS is a monopoly. You may disagree with them but they enjoy the force of law whereas you don't.

Falcon

SAS 70 Type II for Google Apps
Tuesday, November 04, 2008 at 3:46 PM
Posted by Eran Feigenbaum, Director of Security, Google Apps

Ever since the first Gmail users began trusting Google with their private information, keeping people's data safe has been one of our top priorities. Today, more than a million businesses, plus thousands of schools and organizations using Google Apps rely on us to safeguard their critical information.

We've published some of the ways we keep sensitive information where it belongs, but we wanted to go farther and have external independent security specialists audit our systems and procedures. Here's the outcome: an independent public accounting firm has verified the effectiveness of our technical processes and controls for Google Apps, and Google Apps has satisfactorily completed a SAS 70 Type II audit.

Our commitment to keeping customer information safe - whether they're consumer users or our largest enterprise customers - is part of our DNA, and we protect this information as rigorously as we protect our own sensitive corporate information. In fact, we use the very same services that we offer to our users for our own email, documents, project team sites and calendars.

which leads to

Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70: Service Organizations

Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70: Service Organizations, commonly abbreviated as SAS 70 and available full-text by permission of the AICPA, is an auditing statement issued by the Auditing Standards Board of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), officially titled "Reports on the Processing of Transactions by Service Organizations". SAS 70 defines the professional standards used by a service auditor to assess the internal controls of a service organization and issue a service auditor's report. Service organizations are typically entities that provide outsourcing services that impact the control environment of their customers. Examples of service organizations are insurance and medical claims processors, trust companies, hosted data centers, application service providers (ASPs), managed security providers, credit processing organizations and clearinghouses.

There are two types of service auditor reports. A Type I service auditor's report includes the service auditor's opinion on the fairness of the presentation of the service organization's description of controls that had been placed in operation and the suitability of the design of the controls to achieve the specified control objectives. A Type II service auditor's report includes the information contained in a Type I service auditor's report and also includes the service auditor's opinion on whether the specific controls were operating effectively during the period under review

nothing like a good arms race to get juices flowing all around.

You don't know how right you are. Remember those great durable goods numbers that had Wall Street rallying yesterday? Turns out durable goods orders are down, but military weapons orders have picked up the slack. This is typical, the economy sucks, so we need to spend $trillions on defense budgets and start a war with some country to get the economy back on track. I wonder who it will be? Iran? North Korea? Burma?

To answer this we need to look at Open Source Licensing from two perspectives: The Spirit and The Contract. The Spirit Many talk about âoeThe Spiritâ of free software and they are completely free to explore this ideal. The spirit or philosophy is what started the Free Software Foundationâ(TM)s Movement and led to the various flavours of GPL licensing. The Spirit is abstract and The Licence is the concrete implementation of the abstract. Therefore, to look at whether these guys violated the spirit of the Open Source we must look at the concrete or specifically, the rules behind GPLV2 licensing. The Contract To determine if this software release violated GPLV2 we must check it against the main tenants of the licence. 1. All derived versions of GPLV2 Software released to the public must make the source code freely available 2. All derived versions of GPLV2 Software must not contain any licensing terms which restricts, overrides or contradicts the GPLV2 Licence 3. All derived versions of GPLV2 Software must not contain any linked non-open source libraries 4. All derived versions of the GPLV2 Software can be sold at any price So, let me raise up my gavel and judge thee on these four counts. 1. The developers released the source code of the modified version on their web page. The Verdict: NOT GUILTY 2. The developers released the source code under the GPLv2 licence i.e. did not modify it or restrict it. The Verdict: NOT GUILTY 3. The developers did not use any proprietary non-open source libraries that prevented the application from being assembled and run by âsomeone elseâ(TM). The Verdict: NOT GUILTY 4. The developers charged for their software. The Verdict: NOT GUILTY Therefore, on four counts, Feronia Solutions â" a blog about Open Source Software â" finds these two guys NOT Guilty and suggest that the original developer to read up on Open Source Licensing and stop being a big cry baby. From : http://feronia-solutions.blogspot.com/2009/08/open-source-licensing-iphone-apps-and.html

Used to love XKCD.

Me too, I think the noise ratio is going up for at least a year. But then he is not at NASA anymore, so he probably does less math stuff. I think another problem is that honest criticism is not taken into account -- actually I asked Randall on IRC and he said that he fears getting obsessed with quality and prefers not worrying. While I see that this might be enjoyable, I think a little more thought couldn't be that damaging; just compare his approach to the Debian/OpenSSL disaster to my one to see what I mean.

This blog does a good job of looking at why it is fine http://feronia-solutions.blogspot.com/2009/08/open-source-licensing-iphone-apps-and.html

This blog sums this debate up nicely. http://feronia-solutions.blogspot.com/2009/08/open-source-licensing-iphone-apps-and.html

I love you guys.

You're hardly a software developer - you aren't willing to find solutions yourself

You know, I used to have this kind of attitude. Then I grew up.

Hyuck hyuck!

Did you know Dennis Ritchie uses Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Outlook to read email and post to Usenet? Have you every thought about why?

No, but I'm sure you'll tell us.

The thing is this: everything works out of the box in Windows XP (well, except for the sound card, but the workaround is posted online and it about 15 minutes of bother to get going).

Unless you happen to be one of the few people who use SATA.

I, at this point in my life, have better things to do with my time than to get things to work in Linux when they already work in Windows. Such as actually develop software.

Part of developing software is learning to set up your environment. Period. If you can't do that much without someone holding your hand, you have no chance of wrapping your head around the internals of a project. You may as well switch to teaching.

This is the problem with the Linux community at Slashdot. It's a very immature and insecure community; when people mention they have problems and are using Windows instead because of those problems, people react with denial and attack the messenger instead of being mature and acknowledging the problems.

Oh, there are problems, to be sure. Some small, some huge. That's why most average users never consider Linux distros. But developers are not average users.

Excuse me, but I tried compiling various ALPS drivers in CentOS. I spent, oh, about 2 hours on it and, to make a long story short, it didn't work. If the Linux community wants to flame me instead of trying to help me (or, at least being civil), that's fine. Your message is clear: You don't want people using Linux. You want people using Windows XP. You do not want to make Linux a viable desktop operating system.

It's viable for me. It's viable for lots of people. Anyone who doesn't mind understanding their platform is usually ok.

And, oh, about Ubuntu: It was very unstable for me, with constant crashes. I blogged all about it.

That seems to be a typical Ubuntu experience for a lot of people.

Thanks for playing.

Linux zealots piss me off.

Well, garsh! Hyuck hyuck!

I get it! Cops are all dumb, lazy, and technically illiterate!

They won't hire you if you're too smart.

No I'm not trolling I'm serious:
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_56314.html
http://northernmuckraker.blogspot.com/2008/08/too-smart-to-be-cop.html
http://irradiatedcat.blogspot.com/2008/06/too-smart-to-be-cop.html
http://www.thepostroad.com/news/2000/20000912.new.london.pd.robert.jordan.html

I get it! Cops are all dumb, lazy, and technically illiterate!

They won't hire you if you're too smart.

No I'm not trolling I'm serious:
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_56314.html
http://northernmuckraker.blogspot.com/2008/08/too-smart-to-be-cop.html
http://irradiatedcat.blogspot.com/2008/06/too-smart-to-be-cop.html
http://www.thepostroad.com/news/2000/20000912.new.london.pd.robert.jordan.html

here's a link to a blog by someone on the mars rover team:- Mars and Me

...fascinating stuff!! :)

I thought I'd put in a link to the statement, but I guess I hadn't. Here it is.

There are other countries more suited to you. We like freedom here in America.

I like my freedom too. I think everyone should get it at age 18. You can drop out of high school earlier if you want a cell phone. I'm also for completely privatizing education. If you want your children to go to a school that alows cell phones please do so. My children won't. If they want to bring a cell phone to school, they can figure out how to pay the tuition for an institution that will allow that. Freedom has a cost. The cost of freedom for dependent children is subsidized by their parents and or guardians.

It is well established that given a dialog that requires them to pick from multiple choices with equal prominence, an uninformed user tends to simply choose the first one.

But then, what if the uninformed user thinks their preferred browser actually is on the presented list? Mozilla probably won't be the winners if this so-called "ballot screen" ships.

The really interesting part of all this that the Central East African countries, North and South Rhodisa and Nyaserland had both the malaria and other insect born diseases effectively conquered by the mid 1950s.

And what effect does DDT and other pesticides have on wildlife? If mosquitoes are wiped out then the food for other species is wiped out as well. Such as bats, birds, dragonflies, and frogs.

In addition, we now have vocal, and well funded NGOs, with a vested interest in keeping the third world poor, but pacified.

You can apply that to big business as well. Such as Big Oil. A sovereign nation is invaded for it's oil. The EU, Japan, and US all give billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies so large agribusinesses can export food to the third world and sell it there cheaper than farmers there can grow it. Check out the suicide of farmers in not just India but the US as well. Large businesses like Archer Daniels Midland,ADM, and Cargill get money from government while third world and small farmers in the US, who can't compeat against those large businesses, struggle financially if not goes bankrupt. The freemarket institute CATO has a Case Study In Corporate Welfare about ADM who has been called the biggest corporate welfare queen in history.

Sorry, insects and politicians that cause death, ignorance and disease need killing, not paying.

As entomologists have said if all those insects are wiped out you'd be dead soon, you'd have no food to eat.

Honduras is the classic example of armchair liberals, in the first world, making problems out vanity, ego and stupidity.

How so? Liberals, not the fake ones but Classical Liberals believe in liberty and small government. And it wasn't either them or the fake ones that massacred the Mayas in not just Honduras but Central America itself. Neither one supported the US Army's School of America, which taught Central and South American militaries how to subjugate and torture people.

IANAL, but the damages amount seems disproportionate to the offense. Does this raise any additional prospect of constitutional appeal for a disproportionate penalty? (Not that the attorney in this case would be capable of mounting such an appeal pro bono...)

Yes, not an appeal at this point, but an attack on the judgment in the district court itself. I expect the judge to rule on that issue shortly. I do not know if she will require further briefing, as the legal issue has already been fully briefed, and the Judge said she would reserve decision upon the matter until such time as a statutory damages award were rendered, which is of course now. Here is the Amicus Curiae brief which I filed, on behalf of the Free Software Foundation, on the subject of the unconstitutionality of the RIAA's statutory damages theory.

Your argument is non sequitur. The American legal system is not without flaws, but it is not simply about buying justice. The American legal system is the only voice that some destitute people have. The problem with the RIAA cases is that Congress has enacted laws that impose statutory damages for copyright violations. The reason that was done was because it was historically impossible to prove actual damages if your short story was copied without license. It is still sensible for that reason, but in the RIAA cases it is arguably obsolete and capricious. The system of justice is not flawed simply because it is compelled by Congress to obey a statute that is.

I don't really agree with you. It's not just about the statutes, it's also about how litigation in the US is a rich man's game or a game for large corporations, except for certain specific exceptions, copyright not being one of them. The economic imbalance skews the outcomes so that the law is NOT being applied. I wrote an article for the ABA Judges Journal's "equal access to justice" issue, on this very point, entitled "Large Recording Companies vs. The Defenseless : Some Common Sense Solutions to the Challenges of the RIAA Litigations".

It is a major factor that this defendant could not afford to hire legal counsel. He wound up with pro bono counsel virtually appointed by the Court, counsel who -- as it turned out -- had a private agenda which had nothing to do with simply getting the best result for this client.

What other arguments did these lawyers miss that a "good lawyer" wouldn't have missed?

I guess you haven't been reading my blog; it's all in there.

The truth is that this recession has been driven by two things. The primary factor is that people panicked. EVERYONE freaked out, THE SKY IS FALLING. The second factor is simply a side effect of the first one, banks backed off on giving credit, even to people who were low-risk.

No, this is not what's driving the recession. What's driving the recession is that the amount of debt in the economy, especially the American economy, has reached critical mass. You really need to start reading some blogs like The Market Ticker, Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis, and Zerohedge to get a true picture of what's going in the economy.

As for this particular "cash for clunkers" program, all it's doing is pulling forward demand for new vehicles. It will cause a short-term rise in demand now, but once the program expires or runs out of cash again, that demand will vanish and there will be nothing to replace it. Sales will have to return to their previous level or even go lower, as the people who buy new cars under this program certainly won't need to do so again for a few years.

At the macro level, all the debt in the system has produced a similar effect. All the demand, all the growth we've seen for years now, has been fuelled by debt. The debt just can't grow any more; everyone's maxxed out and now trying to pay it down. There's so much debt out there that clearing it out is going to be a long, painful process, and during that process we'll be lucky to stave off an outright market crash, let alone actually return to a growing economy.

Looking at the full picture will unmask many other policies. The full picture is the problem with a great many democrat "stimuli". Solar panels, for example, have a net-energy-loss in (over 2 years) even in southern Texas. The further north you go, the bigger the loss.

Therefore, nearly all solar panels sold today cause an increase in fossil fuel usage, at least the first 4-5 years. But hey, their intention is good, right ?

A study conducted by Siemens Solar in 2000 showed that the energy payback period for their 75 W SP75 monocrystalline panel was about 3.3 years. A 2004 study published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for multicrystalline solar panels with an assumed efficiency of 12% yielded a payback period of a bit over 3.5 years. In both cases, the energy required for refining and processing the silicon accounted for about â..." of the embedded energy in a solar panel. Since these studies were published, typical efficiencies of silicon PV cells has improved from about 12% to 14% - 16%, with some high-performance products delivering as much as 21%. Between this higher efficiency and the use of thinner cells (less material means less embedded energy), itâ(TM)s likely that the payback periods for todayâ(TM)s solar panels is 2.5 years or less. Given the 20 - 30-year service life of a typical solar panel, itâ(TM)s apparent that it will produce much more power than was used to make it.

source (note that they leave out things like transport, sale, display, inactive period, and assume 100% ideal placement (which is not possible at all within the borders of the united states)

Note that this means solar panels are permanent net loss if only 15% of them are decomissioned after 3 years.

Wind turbines have a similar problem. Assuming 0 (ZERO) maintenance, net energy gain can be expected after some 2 years. However, the most energy intensive part to make of a wind turbine is the gearbox, and guess which part tends to fail after only a year of service ... (the suggested solution ? Use much more energy-intensive materials and require more maintenance)

Most wind power is a net loss. If you have to replace the gearbox yearly they will remain a net energy loss for all their life.

The problem is how do you know which is the most energy-efficient product to buy ? The economic answer is simple : clearly products that have the least influence on the global state of the economy (which is a measure of the state of the world in general). In other words : the environmentally best product to buy, taken over a very long average, ... (tadaaa) ... whichever product is cheapest. Want to protect the environment ? Demand zero subsidies, except (perhaps) for theoretical research ...

Of course such (sane) arguments make it very difficult to blame personal failures on "the man holding you down", or "the rich", or some other group that people generally don't like.

Look, commodore64_love, NYCL maintains a fairly high-profile blog which includes a lot of "practice tips" for lawyers defending cases like this. I think it's silly that you're accusing him of being "silent", just because Joel's lawyer didn't feel like using the resources that NYCL is providing.

I have noticed that NYCL isn't posting/making the front page of Slashdot as much recently, but that I believe was because of backlash complaints about the volume of articles he had previously, when he would post about various legal happenings which sprang up in the running of these trials. The last one I remember was when he informed us that RIAA's lawyers were threatened with being sanctioned, which for him, as a lawyer, is a big, big deal --- but the reaction of most of the Slashdot geeks was, "yawn --- what's so important? stop bothering us about every little thing".

Oh the horror!