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Beer Water is called "Dry" Beer in the US ... pretty foul stuff, the one time I had it it tasted like liquified, fermented Froot Loops.

and here are some of the reasons I did not like this PDA. Linux OS aside, the price-performance ratios are quite poor (well, for the mentioned price after the drop not too poor), but got tired of needing to recharge the thing after every major effort. Good toy, but nothing productive.

There's all kinds of 2-stroke engines for yard and other uses out there.

Try some links on for size:

http://www.mowdirect.co.uk/acatalog/600i-2_2.htm
http://www.shophutt.co.nz/sites/lawnmower/online_s tore/pages/lawnmower-26.html
http://www.shophutt.co.nz/sites/lawnmower/online_s tore/pages/lawnmower-27.html
http://www.epinions.com/content_70547902084

In the first three, I reference not one or two, but three different 2-stroke lawnmowers that are in current production and sales. The last link is for a rather popular home and garden tool, the Ryobi Trimmer Plus- a modular system that allows for spin-trimmer, blade edger, pole pruner, tiller and other attachments to the power head, a 2-stroke engine.

Just because there's stricter emissions rules doesn't mean they've gone away. Check your facts next time.

Personally, I've had none of the problems you've mentioned with my 900 MHz Spread-Spectrum Sony. Audio quality is better than many corded phones and range is a city block. The only downside is that I'm lucky to get 2 hours talk time out of it as opposed to the 6 hours Sony claims it's capable of (which in my case may be because it needs a new Ni-Cd pack).

(I've gotten modded down for saying stuff like this, but I ask whoever does that, please refrain from doing so. )

In my graduate level Electrical Engineering classes the majority of the students are international.

I don't know about your university, but read what's happening at Stanford .

Research universities thrive on undergraduate tuition and research money. With finite time and personnel, research professors have to balance their energy to avoid one of two outcomes:

Outcome #1. If bad undergraduates are produced, the university doesn't suffer any penalties, since the university's "brand name" and misleading marketing will pull in more unsuspecting high school students.

Outcome #2. If bad research is produced, the university will lose research money. Grants are competive, and if you don't publish, you perish.

Therefore, if you were a research professor, which outcome would you concentrate on?

You would want your graduate students to have gotten good training at foreign institutions (such as the Indian Institute of Technology and Tsing Hua University, for example ) that are really serious about their students and their developing economies. Then you would hire them into your group and do great research. And the undergraduates? Screw 'em.

It's a short term gain for the United States Reserach Professor with negative long term consequences for the US as a whole. Erosion occurs little by little.

.. they tried to add more disk space and killed it. I guess one could say that RAID killed the fly.

Humans are probably fine as long as they aren't in sidethe grain silos. Heck, Sharper Image sells personal Ozone Air Purifiers (not that they work.)

However, the article is light on details in this regard:

Maier said Purdue's ozone insecticide process uses such low concentrations of ozone that it rapidly dissipates. It would not add to ground-level ozone, which is a component of smog, he said.

My guess is that people near the ozone develop some irritation symptoms: runny nose, itchy eyes, etc, but then the symptoms go away (Which is what happens to me near some of those Sharper Image Ozone Air Purifiers). The ozone is a pollutant, but just not in sufficient levels to be called "smog".

Epinions was founded in May 1999 by executives from leading Internet companies including Yahoo!, Netscape, and Excite@Home. http://www.epinions.com/about/show_~corporate

PDA (click bottom link, they check referrers)-like utilities and audio players have existed for years. This isn't exactly killer app territory.

(Yes, that WB pic is a horridly fake-looking mockup, but it's the best I can do without going 2 hours from here, digging through old NPs, and scanning the -official- fake-looking mockup.)

Idiot. Tell me about Itanium prices when you've actually bought one.

HP rx5670 price well within that range. Itanium competes with UltraSparcs, and Power4's... This isn't a Pentium replacement were talking about here. Even the crappy Uniprocessor models cost $6000 stripped down.

What's the most annoying part of setting a thermostat/timer/clock radio alarm? Hitting the darn button that increases the days/minutes/hours until you get to the time you want...unless you skip it, and then you have to go all the way around again. Very annoying.

Remember the classic Honeywell thermostats? Maybe make yours shaped like that. But make the round case useful--turn it into a big jog dial. You could use it to set your days and times and temperatures. Turn it one way, the value increases. Turn it the other way and your value decreases.

It should be rather responsive--It should be click.............increment. As soon as a click it over one stop I should immediately see the value change. And it should have a nice detented feel too it--not too lose, not too tight. Kinda like a newer microsoft mouse wheel.

OK, so that's how to set the day, time, and temperature. But we still have to tell it which of these that we are setting. Contrary to advice given above, I think you need modes to do this. If you can think of another way, great. Anway,

Hit the program button. The Weekday/weekend values show up. Spinning the jog dial rotates you through [Weekday,Weekend,Sun,M,T,W,Th,F,Sat]. You bop the program button to set it. The unit does something satisfying like beep or light up or whatever.

Now the time value shows up. You spin the dial until you get to your on time. Ideally, the whole 24 hour clock would fit on one or more rotations of the jog dial (IE, you wouldn't need a seperate Hours mode and Minutes mode). Bop the program button again to set the time. Once again, the unit makes a reassuring noise.

Finally, set your temp with the dial. Hit the program button again.

This isn't a complete design, you need some way to do multiple programs. But the important points are that it is easy to increment/decrement the value, and that it is obvious when you've programmed a given value.

This may exist already, and what I think it my idea is just my brain vomiting up something it remembers. Do you own study. (But if this is an original idea, I'd better not see a patent on it later!).

• DVD Regions Explained
• DVD Region Codes
• DVD Region Hacks

So, I've started wondering lately. Is the TiVo going to cut down on the TV I do watch?

I got my wife a TiVo for our anniversary last year. She LOVES it.

We spent the first while or three configuring the thing, then selecting all the shows we liked. We told it to record EVERYTHING, first runs and reruns. We spent hours a day watching it. We recently realized how much time we spent watching it. For 2 months, we spent 2-4 hours a weekday watching TV, and more on the weekend. It was entertaining, but there was more to life. Part of it was just getting through it so we would have the hard drive space (on an 80 hour unit) to not miss anything.

So, we pared it down to the TV shows we really enjoy, and first runs of those.

I'll be honest. We fast forward through the commercials. Not all of them, we actually stop, rewind and play ads that catch our eye with a visual joke or breathtaking nature view (or the like). Mostly those are for products, like a cola or a car or other tangible thing. I don't think we've ever stopped to watch a TV ad for a TV program. Which brings me to this observation: If we're not exposed to new shows, how will we decide what new shows to record? Will we just reach the point where the TiVo records a show a week that's requested? What happens when that's cancelled?

We don't watch TiVo's recommendations. They're just WAY off. TiVo may as well get paid to record episodes that the networks want us to see that we haven't specifically "thumbs downed" as far as I'm concerned, they're that relevant most days.

So, now we limit ourselves to an hour of TV a day. We see only the show or two that we really want to see, and nothing else. When the new season stops, will we bother to turn the TV on? I don't know. With Firefly and Birds of Prey going away, we may not bother.

So, here's my real question. If TiVo is going to help us find only shows we want to watch, are we going to get to the point where TiVo hasn't found any first runs that we want to watch? Will we then not turn the TV on every day? If we get to that point, will we eventually just forget that we have a TV?

I did a little write up on epinions to describe the machine shortly after we got it because I didn't see many reviews on the TiVo 2. (If you're not into blatant plugs, don't click the link -- it's my write-up.)

And we Xbox owners have been able to play Halo and other games online for several months now with no subscription required.

And now I'm playing Mech Assault, Unreal Championship, and others for about $5 a month. Sure, it might go up after this initial offer, but I'm still getting my $50 worth over the next 12 months regardless. It's a great deal.

btw...how much was that PS2 network adaptor you're using to play all those Free games? Oh and you need a memory card as well don't you?

yes, Lem doesn't have the incredibly well developed characters of someone like Dick, the silly alien interactions of Asimov, the wars and battles of Pournelle, or the geekness vindication of Stephensen or Gibson.

he doesn't try to make fantasy out of sci-fi, he doesn't try to give us a warm fuzzy about technology or society, or excite us with explosive plots. his books provide a mental challenge, paradoxes, psychology, and stark reality that most popular science fiction completely ignores. there are tons of people who used to say j.r.r. tolkien is boring. they don't anymore because JRRT is in the mainstream now, but c'mon, reading LOTR and the Silmarillion was a lot like reading history books with an occasional plot! (btw, i'm not knocking JRRT, i've always loved his work)

now, i'm a native Polish speaker (and reader) so of course i've read Lem in Polish and maybe a lot is lost in translation (actually, i think Solaris' translation isn't all that bad, i've read it in both Polish and English). give his other works a chance: Return from the Stars, Eden, Fiasco, the short stories of Ion Tichy (Star Diaries), the essays of One Human Minute...

read my epinions review of Lem for more, if you're interested.

frankly, i'm really disappointed that slashdotters would be so ignorant of Lem's amazing insights in the rest of his works...

As a rule of thumb, I visit third-party sites for product reviews. These sites do have links to the given products and earn a little on comissions, but in general strive to provide an objective and balanced service.

I don't know...I find it difficult to place much faith in a site that gives the Microsoft XBox Controller five stars.

When I started out in stereo equipment in the 1970's, you could go to any dealer and get handouts with product specifications on just about any product sold. You could compare transient intermodulation distortion, total harmonic distortion, FM sensitivity, wow & flutter, etc. Now you go into some place like Best Buy or Circuit City and there is nothing but a tag on the shelf. You're lucky if it shows even the most basic specs (e.g., watts per channel, number of discs the changer holds, etc.) and God help you if you ask the salesman for anything more. He'll look at you like you have three heads.

Nowadays we shouldn't have to depend on salespeople to know every detail about every product. They have hundreds/thousands of products in their stores-- even a Slashdot geek would have problems keeping current on the detailed specs on all those items.

Consumers have a huge advantage over salespeople. We can actually research the items we want in depth since we have the advantage of focussing on at most a handful of items. Thanks to how easy it is these days to exchange information it's trivial to get in-depth specifications on whatever we want.

Remember the Bad Old Days before most major vendors had their product info online? People were lucky to find any information anywhere. Brand, faith, and luck were pretty much all we had.

Now, however we can pop right on over to the various manufacturers' websites and get all the information we could want about the product. No info available? Hmmm, maybe that product drops off the list right there.

As if that wasn't enought, we can go to Consumer Reports' website and see what they think of a product. We can go to Epinions and see if a bunch of people we don't know are griping about it. We can check Reseller Ratings to see if an online store is screwing people over, or really trying to do business.

This kind of information flow has the potential to really improve quality and reward quality as word of crappy products/merchants gets out. In addition, we get a better statistical sampling since we have more people commenting than just the one or two we might know who bought the same thing.

Unfortunately, the bitter portion of me has to concede that most people just don't have the motivation to do any research. To them, I say you deserve what you get. ;-)

Check out
epinions. They review a sony video recorder and come up with this list:

Brands are listed starting from the most reliable (best) to least reliable (worst):

1. Panasonic - produced by Matsushita Electric
2. Quasar - also produced by Matsushita Electric
3. Samsung
4. Sanyo
5. Toshiba
6. Sharp
7. ProScan
8. GE
9. Hitachi
10. Philips
11. RCA
12. JVC
13. Symphonic
14. Emerson
15. SONY - isn't it too low for a "leader"?
16. Optimus (Radio Shack)
17. Mitsubishi
18. Zenith
19. Series LXI (Sears)
20. Fisher

Isn't this the plot of Robots of Dawn (part of the Robot series)? Perhaps the strategy is to license cheaper, more encompassing material (a collection of short stories that represent the important 3 laws and their implications) and then do whatever you want with it...

For those of you who are interested in the artwork of many of Asimov's books, the fellow responsible is Michael Whelan.

My opinion on doing a movie on an Asimov book (short story collection) is that it probably has to be better than Starship Troopers and probably not as good as 2001: A Space Odyssey. Who knows; maybe it will be as good as Contact! I'll keep my fingers crossed.

"Bonzi Buddy" is a pile of steaming sh~t trojan horse program that brings up a fuzzzy purple gorilla on the screen. (It used to be a parrot in older versions.) It tells jokes, acts as an e-mail client, tries to sell you add-ons, profiles your browsing habits, etc.

The scariest part is that some people actually like this trojan horse piece of garbage.

I remember the notes that I took on electrodynamics, quantum devices and other math-rich subjects... there is no way to convert them to text, ever.

Nor will you be able to for awhile, of course. Diagrams, formulae, etc. are stored as graphics. But the metadata text labels you place on those graphics can be converted, & allow you to search and catagorize those graphics.

In general, students won't benefit from the tablet PC.

O yeah right, I can't imagine any way for anyone to benefit from any technological advance. We really should go back to stamping ideograms on clay tablets, everything since then has cost much more than it has been worth.

It will be useful (because it is - these areas are already served [teklogix.com] by existing wireless terminals).

O yeah, no campus anywhere has thought of setting up a wireless network, and no one has ever released curricular materials for free... O and don't forget they can't be made to run linux while selling for less than $800.

Nope, you're right, college students will never want something like this, they like carrying around 50lb packs, spending $100-$500 per semester on books, and keeping all their notes on dead trees.

It is very hard to use optical discs for mobile storage, especially in consumer electronics like videocameras. They need to be highly shock-resistive. For optical storage to work, the write head must be very stable. Unfortunately, the head of an optical storage device is order of magnitudes heavier than that of a harddisk, which makes it very hard to keep it stable. Even with this somewhat lighter head they mention in the article.

There have been camcorders that record on mini DVDs for quite a while now.. Here's just one.

The only thing in videocameras to replace tape, will be Flash memory. The next generation will have capacities up to 8 GB.

Unless those 8Gig Flash memories come down below $5-$10 apiece, I don't see it replacing MiniDV or MiniDVD any time soon. I have a shelf full of videos of the kids, each one of those tapes is like 30Gigs (I'm not sure of the exact number, but 60 min at MiniDV bitrates is a lot). Those tapes were $10-15 when I first bought them, nowadays, they're less than $5.

Right now, 1 Gig of Compact Flash is upwards of $250. I'm not holding my breath..

Question tradition. Question everything. Question my advice. The important thing is to really think about how you're living your life and what you really need for happiness and survival.

Here's some of my favorite books that capture this spirit. They're short reads, with a deep impact:

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

The Alchemist by Paulo Coehelo

I also love these people that buy the latest and greatest 2.5GHz computer with a DVD burner and half a gig of RAM only to bring it home and plug a phone line into it. Ugh! What a shame.

Blame Intel for that...they're the goons who got the unwashed masses to think "those Pentenium Four chips make the Intarnet go faster."

I doubt it's any different today - other than resolution being better (being able to more accurately pinpoint a phone's location).

Here are a few links to similar articles:

Wired

ePinions - cites 164 foot pinpointing US govt mandated

Another recorded use of triangulation

Interesting article about triangulation

Unfortunately, this is old news that has been "hidden" right in plain view of the general public.

-Rob

If they make a computer that looks like [a stereotypical two-slice toaster], I'll buy it just for a good laugh.

They already did. It's called the Power Macintosh G4 Cube computer.

I'd certainly rather fly in an airplane or attempt to climb Mt. Everest.

They also have their own lineup of, IMHO, a lot more sexier, better and more feature rich units than those from RIO. See the SlimX and their new HD unit, iDP-100 on their product listing page.

I'm getting a iMP-350 soon, and I guess this means that Real Soon Now(tm) I'll get to rip my CD collection to OGG and play it on this beauty! It's got very good reviews everywhere.

Cheers!

Costyn.

Microsoft started making mice in the mid-1980s mainly because it was a Windows 1.0 enabler. Over the years it's been the same basic tenet: sell cool hardware mainly to increase the attractiveness of Windows as a platform.

BTW, the same goes for Intel, think about the non-processor things they've done. Most of them were related to improving speeds and feeds to make sure the CPU stayed the bottleneck and you'd get the next faster processor.

I don't see this as a bad thing--yet. Most of the 802.11b stuff I've tried is a nightmare to set up with WEP, and sets itself up in insecure mode by default. I know Microsoft can do a better job with setup; perhaps they'll set an example that will get others to improve as well.

Over time, any worthwhile product becomes commoditized. If Microsoft's wireless card is the next Microsoft Mouse then others will copy it. If it's the next Microsoft Phone then they won't.

I find epinions.com quite informative, occasionally.

Though I doubt you'll find deals on a mac, Thanksgiving is probably your best bet on
finding hot tech deals. Last year I got a 5400 RPM 60 gig
WD harddrive for $50.00 after rebates. Here
we are a year later and I still haven't been able to match that deal.

For keeping an eye on the day to day bargains,
try keeping an eye on:
http://forums.anandtech.com/categories.cfm?ca tid=4 0
and
http://www.gotapex.com/deals.php

for good product reviews and comparison shopping, try:
Epinions

and the old standby for price comparisons,
Pricewatch

Typically, if you can beat the pricewatch price, it's a good deal, Like these in Tomorrow's Best Buy ad:
256 megs of 2100 DDR ValueRAM (by kingston) $40 after rebates.
48x12x48x Memorex burner $45 after rebates.
40x12x48x Digital Research burner $30 after rebates.
Mintek brand DVD/CD/MP3 player $56.92

* Get a good sound card. As a general rule, onboard audio stinks. The Audigy is popular - I personally don't like the way it sounds, so YMMV. Try the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz.

* Good speakers can be expensive. Good headphones aren't. Next time RadioShack has the Pro 35's on sale, pick up a pair for $19.

* Try a few different MP3 players - quality varies. If you're a Windows user, don't waste your time with players that are basically just DirectShow front-ends, they'll ALL sound the same.

* Get a good sound card. As a general rule, onboard audio stinks. The Audigy is popular - I personally don't like the way it sounds, so YMMV. Try the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz.

* Good speakers can be expensive. Good headphones aren't. Next time RadioShack has the Pro 35's on sale, pick up a pair for $19.

* Try a few different MP3 players - quality varies. If you're a Windows user, don't waste your time with players that are basically just DirectShow front-ends, they'll ALL sound the same.

Of course the Bush administration would rather we pick up the bad package... But hey, we just need to behave like Real Men.

Pardon me, sir, but perhaps you would be able to express yourself more clearly by reading this first.

I got a Rio 600 a couple years ago, for free thanks to PepsiStuff. In the end, I decided it was worth maybe a little more than what I paid for it, but not a lot. Avoid it if you're paying real money.

How about this monster

Personally (not that anyone will care, but just add to the thread):

- History: currently reading Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower - A Portrait of The World Before the War, a somewhat episodic but interesting review of the late 19th century. There are some fascinating correspondances with the current climate (the chapter on the anarchists is particularly interesting - I was a bit vague on them before, but there is a real resonance with the current terrorist threat).

Another big favourite recently was A World Lit Only By Fire - The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance by William Manchester. Many medieval history books can be pretty dry, but this one is a cracking good read.

For fiction I used to be a big fan of John Irving - I think The Hotel New Hampshire remains my favourite book of his, though I'm less enchanted with his recent stuff.

Personally (not that anyone will care, but just add to the thread):

- History: currently reading Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower - A Portrait of The World Before the War, a somewhat episodic but interesting review of the late 19th century. There are some fascinating correspondances with the current climate (the chapter on the anarchists is particularly interesting - I was a bit vague on them before, but there is a real resonance with the current terrorist threat).

Another big favourite recently was A World Lit Only By Fire - The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance by William Manchester. Many medieval history books can be pretty dry, but this one is a cracking good read.

For fiction I used to be a big fan of John Irving - I think The Hotel New Hampshire remains my favourite book of his, though I'm less enchanted with his recent stuff.

Actually...Atari games have been popping up for a while now. The first I remember seeing recently was that horrible waste of time Splashdown for the PS2.

Go to your local library and read it *now* It's by James Clavell, and it's got some pretty insightful stuff in it about how easy it is to influence children (i.e. the pledge of allegience). http://www.epinions.com/book_mu-2230924

By far the best bang for the buck.. I have this, 4 6.5" blaupunkt and a sealed Kappa Perfect subwoofer enclosure. Best 600 dollars I've ever spent on a car stereo. I suggest only downloading 192k bit sampling though as with more powerful systems you can totally hear q loss with 128k.

By far the best bang for the buck.. I have this, 4 6.5" blaupunkt and a sealed Kappa Perfect subwoofer enclosure. Best 600 dollars I've ever spent on a car stereo. I suggest only downloading 192k bit sampling though as with more powerful systems you can totally hear q loss with 128k.

As an Archos 20 owner I find this project immensely encouraging and hope that it will soon be in a position to make this Archos unit of mine desirable. As it stands, I hardly use the thing because it's so frustrating.

To quote from my epinions review:

The unit is not without its frustrations, though. For instance, the only way to shuffle tracks in different directories is to create a playlist using the supplied Windows software. However, a playlist is limited to just 999 tracks. With 20Gb of space, 999 seems like a very short-sighted limit for playlisting. The first thing I wanted to do with the unit was to create an "all tracks" playlist in order to shuffle all the tracks. Can't be done. One positive note: The playlists are simply text files, one filename per line with relative pathing. A soon as I figured that out, I ditched the visually-appealing but typically unstable windows MusicMatch software supplied with the unit.

The front-panel user interface is even worse. You can tell this thing was designed by the programmers. Even though it does what it needs, the designers seemed to choose the least obvious, most cumbersome route to each feature. The insanity of having to press right and left on the navigation disk to scroll up and down through the setup menus is just the beginning.

I saw at my local big screen 8:45pm. My thoughts. 3.5 of 5, here's my non-Lone Gunman Review:

Attack Of the Clones: "Hand Me My Lightsaber. It's Purple and Says, 'Bad Jedi Mother.....'"

Nomel and distributed.karma are definately not mechanics. It is common knowledge that anti-freeze acts to keep engines cool on hot days as well as keep the fluid from freezing on cold days. That is why you keep the stuff in your car (>16?) year-round. If you don't believe me read this article (the first search result on Google when using the search string: antifreeze hot day. I quote: " If you ever thought that antifreeze in your automobile(s) or farm equipment(s) radiator was only important during freezing weather, think again. Ethylene glycol, the chemical compound in most antifreeze, raises the boiling point in your radiator(s) from 212 degrees F to 265 degrees F. "

Epinions Laptops

Epinions Laptops

How dissappointing. When I saw the subject, I assumed you were going to bring up this. (Best link I could find.)