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I read that article yesterday. It basically says the DVD player has replaced the VCR. They aren't directly comparable products. The VCR's main selling point is it allows you to record TV content to watch at another time. The DVD's main selling point is it allows you to watch pre-recorded content.

The VCR originally beat the laserdisc (and destroyed RCA in the process) because people wanted the ability to record. PVRs or set-top DVD-Rs might be the eventual downfall of the VCR but the current DVD players sure aren't.

The article even has a summary of the VCR that talks about how people loved the ability to record. Apparently, the author's microscopic mind couldn't make the connection that DVD players don't have that ability yet.

The CD player also didn't replace the cassette deck. They lived as complimentry products for many years until mass CD-Rs and mp3 players took over the cassette's market. Jason
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This article takes a very narrow view. What about the Mini Disc players. The new HD-MD format has a 1 gig disc that costs $7. 7 bucks for a 1 gig removable media alone should give this line of players a huge boost over most mp3 players. Add in the battery life (40-50 hours on a single AA), and it becomes a great option. Hardware prices start well below the price iPod mini too.

Jason
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Last month the WiredCD and this month another novel idea.

(do I get bonus points for an on-topic link to a site I host? :) )

Jason
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prosecutors throughout the country now worry about juries that refuse to accept eyewitness accounts or even outright confessions

So prosecutors are worried that juries will not be ignorant and give them easy guilty pleas when the accused might be innocent.

Instead, the juries will be more intelligent and demand a better level of proof. Of course prosecutors are against that, it forces them to actually do their job instead of BS and hide the facts. For the rest of use this sounds like a very good thing.

Witnesses lie, confessions can be forced.

Jason
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Hopefully he will read this.

I love the idea, but 2x3" plates are a bit on the small side, I've always done 4x5s. I sort of lost interest in holography because of lack of time to develop the film, so I might have to pick up this kit.

My question is do/will you have larger plates, and in the kit, is the laser diode and optics suitable to cover the larger area?

Jason
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This kit uses a laser diode, not a NeNe laser. As far as I know the laser diodes just aren't as good. They also use some sort of instant film, which has its perks; I don't have the time to spend in the darkroom anymore, but I'll believe the quality when I see it, though I am quite interested in seeing it. I wonder if anyone who doesn't have fond memories of making holograms would be at all interested in this kit. It seems to me like more of a nostalgia thing like tbose old video games than a cool new thing.

Jason
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It is ordinary film (in a sheet film format, I used to use black and white 4x5" film that's about $1/sheet in 25 packs.

Basically, to make a hologram you start with a single source of monochromatic and in phase light (a laser), split the beam into two so they will still be in phase and at the same frequency. Then use one beam to illuminate the film directly (referrence beam) and the other to illuminate the object and then the film after bouncing off the object (subject beam).

The result is that you create an interference pattern of lightwaves on the film, and depending on the shape of the object, the waves in the subject beam are delayed by various amounts.

The result is that when light passes through this interference pattern on the film, it forms a real (3D) image of the original object that caused the interferrence pattern.

Jason
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Popular Electronics had a great article on making your own holograms in 1992, and it was nothing new then exept that lasers were getting cheap enough to be practical.

There's even lots of websites now on using a laser pointer to do it, but that doesn't seem to work as well.

The most difficuilt part of the process is getting the table to be vibration free enough since a montion of less than a wavelength (~0.6 microns) will spoil the hologram.

Jason
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This looks like serious competition for Paul Allen's Science Fiction Museum.

The Science Fiction Museum has much more realistic content.

Jason
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The top-of-the-range stuff is the biggest rip-off in terms of price per length of time you get to use it. I discovered that a long time ago. I bought a high-end ATI 9600 baud modem for $600 because it had all sorts of great features. I could have bought a cheap one for $300, but I figured I use my modem a lot and I want the best. A year later, I replaced it with a 14.4k modem that cost $150 and didn't have the nice features but it was 50% faster so it was unambiguously better. It just doesn't pay to get the bells and whistles because the core features get stale so fast.

Does it matter if your CD-RW drive can burn at 8x or 40x when the DVD+-RW drives are under $100?

Jason
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If your computer still does everything you want it to, don't upgrade.

Jason
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I would explain it, but then I might be violating the patent...sorry.

Jason
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What makes you think "Moore's Law" is not a correct term?

From Wikipedia under "physical law": A physical law or a law of nature is a scientific generalization based on empirical observations.

Moore's LAW is the empirical observation that every 18 months the transistor density of high-end chips doubles.

Jason
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It's a doubling of the density of transistors every 18 months. It doesn't say anything about magnetic storage density or the clock speed of chips. Intel cancelling the 4GHz P4 was just admitting (and it's about time) that cranking up the clock speed is not the best way to improve CPU performance. There is no indication that will prevent Moore's Law from continuing

Jason
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It will always "still" be in beta for 2 reasons. One is so they don't have any liability when things like this happen; after all they never said it was stable or secure, it's a work in progress. Two is that they're getting a lot of data to build up a social network with their invite system. With the rate at which invites are made available it is practically open now, you just need a link for their social network to join.

Jason
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The DRM will not prevent good old-fashoned "insert and hit play", but it will prevent uncontrolled ripping and copying

I'll believe that when I see it. Copy-protection has been a trade-off between protection and ability to use the data since the idea was first conceived.

The marketing drones always say it won't interfere with normal use. Even the CD DRM that prevents it from being played at all on computers, DVD players and older CD players.

Jason
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The RCC says that it has the support of 90% of game retailers in the voluntary program.

So the kids who want to buy these games will go to the othe 10% of game retailers, and probably to buy all their games, not just the NC17 ones.

All this plan does is hurt the "honest" retailers.

Jason
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Actually, it's the modern Canadian flag. I just had a look at a Canadian $5 bill with a microscope. It's a bit hard to tell because of lack of detail in the bill, but it's definately the modern maple leaf flag.

The rumour that it's a US flag started because the shape of the flag blowing in the wind looks like the head of a US bald eagle. You don't need any special optics to be able to see that.

Jason
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It's still seems better than any PDA on the market. The most important feature to me is that it take standard batteries (it takes AAA's). I have 2 sets of NiMH ones and a set of alkalines as spares. One set of rechargables is always charging, the other is in the PDA. When the set in the PDA dies, I use the alkalines as a backup until I get home and swap the ones from the charge into the PDA. I'm still getting 3-4 weeks on a charge.

I had a Treo 90 for the colour screen but the internal Li-Ion battery wouldn't last through a 4-hour flight as an ebook. If I forget to charge it one night, it's useless the next day.

Jason
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but it has no effect on the total energy output, so it lets you build devices that drain batteries even faster. Just what we need.

An NiMH cell can already handle a load of 2C quite easily. Do we really need more? If that's not enough power, it's time to move to a larger cell. What good is a PDA/Cellphone/Camera that only lasts for 15 minutes on a charge even if it is 10% smaller than the old model?

Jason
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You do know someone write the articles, don't you?

Jason
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When starting out in a new language, I like a book like the Teach Yourself series which starts out by taking you through installing and setting up environment at a very simple level, and then goes on to examples I can skim through and quickly graduate to a referrence book or the online docs.

Most referrence books and advanced books assume you already have a working environment and sometimes (think Java) installing and getting everything working is the hardest part.

Once I'm passed the initial bumps though, I want a book that's aimed at advanced users, mainly because the more "beginner friendly" a book is, the lower the signal-noise ratio in the writing.

Jason
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The cargo ships don't return to earth in one piece. They're allowed to burn up on re-entry. On the manned modules return and they don't have the space for the garbage.

The shuttles had more room for garbage but they aren't flying now.

Jason
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Intel made a 486SX chip which was a 486 with the math co-processor disabled and it was slightly cheaper than the 486DX. They also sold a 487SX which they called the co-processor, but in truth it was just a 486 with a working co-pro, and when you used the 487SX, it completely disabled the 486SX and took over as the only CPU in the system.

The whole thing seemed like a test of how gullible their customers were. It looks like they're doing the same thing again.

Jason
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oh...you mean Dune didn't have the "in space" part.

Jason
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It must have been CS241 then. I didn't take CS251 (I took E&CE 221 towards the EEE option instead). This was also back when it was CS351, not CS251.

Jason
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That's true, but among the demograpghic that would be interested in building an electroic timer for arial photography, there will be a lot more people who do have pic programmers and a lot more who do have an interest in buying/building one. All they need is a good project to get them into PICs.

Jason
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I've never paid more than 20 cents for a 555, and I can think of at least 5 stores within 10 miles of my house that sell them for that price in single unit quantities.

Anyway, this is the 21st century. Why not do it the "right" way with a $1 PIC12F629?

Jason
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I don't know, but comparing the die size of the CPU to the area taken up by the chips on the memory module, it 'looks' like the memory is at least as dense as the CPU.

I'm pretty sure (but not certain) that a memory fab plant costs more to produce than a CPU plant, but the memory plant will produce far more chips over its lifetime.

Jason
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Compare the transisitor count in a 256 meg DIMM to a CPU. That's 2 gigabits and a minimum of 1 transistor per bit, so at least 2 billion transistors. Intel and AMD barely have over 100 million in their newest CPUs, so the memory has 20 times the transistor count.

A lot more engineering goes into a CPU, but the price of memory compared to a CPU isn't really that surprising.

A lot of the microcontrollers I work with are basically a tiny sliver of processor on the edge of a large field of memory.

Jason
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what advantage does it offer over using a regular pen and paper?

What advantages do computer filing systems have over paper systems?

You can your notes for every course you've ever taken with you in your notebook computer...If the prof starts talking about something you remember from 3 semesters ago, you'll can have your original notes from that lecture with you and you can look them up and refer to them during the class you're in.

You can "lend" your notes to a friend without worrying that you won't get them back until after the exam.

If you can't see advantages, it's only because you lack imagination (or considered school a 4-year drink-fest :) )

Jason
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The reviewer didn't say a digital pen and paper is a bad idea. All the negative comments in the article are aimed at this implementation.

The build quality is cheap, it's big and bulky, it requires MS Office, etc.

The reviewer seemed to like what the technology had to offer, this implementation was just junky.

Jason
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Yes, but they could only find 143 people willing to stand up in court and admit that they use windows.

Jason
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The main reason they do it is for bragging rights.

Jason
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It's a phone, it's meant to be thrown around. It's built to take that kind of abuse because the manufacturer understood how people use cell phones. I have no trouble with dropping my powerbook, but then quite often I leave the PB home because I know I'm going somewhere it might get banged around.

I've never dropped my PDA, but it spends a lot of time in my backback which gets thrown around. If it had a hard drive, it also wouldn't survive.

If I have to leave the cellphone home because I'm worried it might get damaged, then it's completely useless.

Jason
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Can it survive being dropped?

I've dropped my Nokia 5100 series about 5 feet from ear level to concrete several times. Except for a few scuffs (mostly on the battery, it must be the heaviest part), it's survived perfectly.

I doubt a phone with a hard drive can survive that kind of abuse.

Jason
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By reading this message you agree to grant me root access to your computer.

Sure..the IP address is 127.0.0.1 and, coincidently, the root password is the same as yours. Have fun.

Jason
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I read about this last Tuesday on Apple Insider

It has more details on the source of the rumor, and this is very old news that's been spreading around the web for a week. It was also on Macrumors and several other sites last week.

Jason
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How do you know Steam will be around next year to authenticate the game based on your login and pw. If you have the CDs and Key, you're covered for as long as you keep the media in decent shape.

Jason
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I agree with you. One of the reasons I bought my notebook in the first place was as portable DVD player. I really don't understand why people those stand-alone units that are half the price of a notebook.

My point is that it's stupid to add another whole OS, especially an embedded OS to avoid waiting for the system to boot. Doesn't windows have a decent sleep mode? Isn't putting the machine to sleep a better solution than adding another whole OS?

You still have to wait for the machine to boot to do anything else, so a quickboot DVD player and mp3 player seems pretty useless (and about 50% of what I do with my notebook is run the DVD player, so my opinion is hardly biased by having no use for the feature).

I think the only reason you're arguing with me is because I made the heretical implication that linux is not the ultimate solution to every possible problem.

Jason
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Um, have you ever heard of OS/2?

OS/2 Warp came out over a year before windows 95, and it did everything MS promised win95 would do plus a lot more. People still waited the extra year, win95 failed on most of its promises; OS/2 was far superior, and yet people still bought win95.

OS/2 warp could also run windows applications, and since OS/2 was far more stable and one app couldn't bring down the whole system, it was a long-standing joke that OS/2 was a far better windows than windows...Oh, OS/2 was also cheaper.

I was using the windows version of borland C++ on both systems quite a bit back them. I caused windows to completely crash a lot. The same errors on OS/2 wouldn't even close the C++ compiler, it would pop up a message that my app did something wrong and would be closed. I would click OK and I was right back to the compiler screen.

This will not be any problem for Microsoft.

Jason
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What a waste of money to have to buy all that extra crap when the notebook is easily able to do it in software. It's an even bigger waste in a notebook where space for internal peripherals is at a huge premium.

All that so you can watch DVDs or listen to MP3s without waiting to boot? My Powerbook has a 74 day uptime now; I just put it in sleep mode and take it with. It takes it about 1 second to wake up and then it's ready to play movies or music.

Even if a windows machine can't do that, You're still a lot better off buying a standalone portable mp3 player than having to pay to include it in your notebook. You can take an mp3 player a lot of places you can't take a notebook.

Jason
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put black electrical tape over the lens when not using the camera. I thought most people did something to cover the lens or plug the camera.

Jason
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The idea is not to rewrite the price in the tag, it's to rewrite the tag to the checkout scanner thinks your getting something else. Rewrite the code for that $800 digital camcorder to a $2 box of pasta that weighs the same. The automated system won't be able to tell them apart, so it will think it's selling you the pasta and charge you accordingly.

Jason
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It's be like starting a shoe company called Kneebock, or a car company called Chevrolait.

Both these names are still available as .com's. Now that they've been mentioned on slashdot, we'll see if they get taken in the next few days.

Jason
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That way, you are simply falling freely, having been launched into the air, and the plane is moving in such a way that its walls remain around you throughout your fall.

In other words, the plane is also in free fall :).

Jason
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Anything in free-fall is effectively at zero gravity. The plane climbs to a high altitude and goes into a dive.

The ISS is at an altitude of about 370km. With Earth having a diameter of 6000km and using Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, the gravity on the space station should be 88% of what it is on earth's suface. (6000/6370)^2.

The reason it is a zero gravity environment is because it is orbiting the Earth. That means it is effectively in freefall, always falling towards the Earth, but it has enough sideways motion that it keeps falling around the planet.

Jason
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Put a piece of raw meat in your microwave. Set it for 15 minutes. Look at it when the 15 minutes are up and you can answer your own question.

Jason
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Instead we're turning into a rabble of peasants and share-croppers slaving for, and kowtowing to, the modern day Lords of Corporatism. And we put on our chains so willingly!

The really sickening part is who owns all those corporations. It's the very same rabble of peasants who's being ground under foot.

The working class has far more total wealth than the upper class just because there's so many more working class people. That money is mostly held as corporate shares, either through CDs at the bank (the bank re-invests that money) or mutual funds.

It is the average person enslaving themselves here.

Jason
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