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if you are driving in a city, the power requirements are actually higher than on a highway. this can be easily proven by looking at how vehicles are rated for gas mileage. there is a city/highway breakdown and the mileage for the city is always worse.


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i don't think this is quite right. part of napster's plan is to include the ability to convert mp3's to nap's. this would be pointless if all the files were napster's and being hosted on napster severs. the mp3's i already have are perfectly playable already. why would i want to convert them if it were not to share them?

no, it will still use the old method of the files being on the users' computers. except now they have a new format (and of course you will have to pay).

now, on the basis that the files will come from the users' computers, will the only method of creating nap's be to convert mp3's? what will this do to the audio quality since conversion between lossy compression methods is usually a bad idea? a great way around this would be to encode directly to nap's. but will this be permitted?

there will also need to be a decoder. will this decoder/player be an integral part of the napster client where only it can play the files? or will others be allowed to use the codec? will windows media player even be allowed to use the codec?


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does anyone know how proprietary this format will be? if it is too difficult to encode sound files as .nap's, the few people who still use napster will quickly abandon it.

there are two repercussions if the format is extremely proprietary. 1) only a few players will understand the format, probably only for windows. 2) encoders will not be readily available, so there might not be any music to share.


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i don't know where you got the idea that there were only 6 presidential candidates in the last election. npr did a story that said there were 255. anyone can run for president as long as they fill out the paperwork and pay the processing fee.


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finding a good source of images has been tought to do.

there really needs to be some kind of spellcheck implementation added to the posting system because this kind of thing just happens too often.



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i use beos about 60% of my time
debian gnu/linux about 30%
windows 2000 about 10%

that's triple boot on a machine i built myself. granted i don't use macs that much. but the apple 2c+ that i have has an eject button.


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Steve Wozniak also presented a hack in the wee hours of the morning. His hack was in response to a comment made by Bill Atkinson during the Mac creator reunion. Atkinson said that he thought the UI for some of the Mac was odd. Most notably, the fact that you drag a disk to the trash to eject it. He thought that the intuitive thing to do when dragging a disk to the trash would be to erase the disk, not eject it.

A drawback of encryption is that it can slow down the game by stuffing the communications pipe with more data.

ok here's the link for the sm@rt partner story i was talking about:
http://www.zdnet.com/sp/stories/news/0,4538,276844 4,00.html


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the day is coming when microsoft will fall behind.

there was the bluetooth incident. ms decided that it wasn't an important technology. they have since changed their mind, but the time will come when they will change their mind and it will be too late.

there is the 64 bit processor issue. no ms os runs on a 64 bit processor and ms has no plans to develop for this hardware at this time. there was an article in the most recent issue of sm@rt partner where microsoft said that there wouldn't be any consumer demand for the chip. as soon as comsumers realize that unless you only use word and outlook there are probably benefits to having a better processor, ms will be behind again.

there is the justice department. the anti-trust case is far from settled, but it could have quite a few ramifications for microsoft and the technology business in general.


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informed content? do you mean like super-string theory or oort cloud objects?
before you guys get too carried away, try reading this:
Notorious Spacetime Crackpots.


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now sadaam doesn't even have to port linux or anything. a 2000 node cluster of ps2's running linux sounds like a supercomputer to me.


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the mach number is a constant that compressable flow is dependant upon.

you need to complain to god or something. at speeds close to the speed of sound in that medium, the mach number is a very important number. it can be used to very easily characterize the way that the medium will flow around an object.

in aircraft design, an optimum airfoil and engine geometry is characterized by the mach number.

one other technical thing. the mach number is not a unit. that is like saying the number 1 is a unit. the mach number has no units. that is why it is so convenient for engineering. it doesn't matter whether you use metric or imperial.

i can't decide whether you are trolling or just plain stupid, so i'm posting.


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at some point this becomes international terrorism and not censorship.

if the us were to flood dutch sites, i'm sure that it wouldn't count as just censorship.

all that these neonazis have to do is move their server, and the german government is probably unable to do very much without risking international relationships.

this may have been one of the things that kept them from pursuing this route.


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most computer users have no idea how much a non-upgrade purchase of windows or office costs. most of these people are buying their computer with windows and office already installed. if they had to install anything themselves, they would never have gotten a computer.

slashdoters may find this hard to believe, but many people do not even have a basic understanding of how to use computers.

they are not interested in spending the time it takes to become a proficient computer user. much less be interested in installing anything that is not brand-name (corporate) software. chances are good that they won't even be able to install it if they have to press more than "next" and "yes" buttons.

as soon as these information appliances come out, i predict they will be widely recieved by this group. they have purchased a $1000- $2500 machine to use email and browse the web when a $200- $500 machine would have done the job.


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