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You make a fluorescent bulb that isn't ugly and depressing, I'll replace my incandescents.

No one ever talks about the aesthetics of lighting a home. They are important. It is important to light your home beautifully. Most people recognize this instinctively and use the incandescent. Fluorescent lights are ugly, ugly, ugly. If you're saying we should all live in some sort of dystopian nightmare of completely artificial light, please say it clearly.

The Canadian Research Council says this about CFL:

The Colour Rendering Index (CRI) of a lamp reflects how accurately the colour of an object can be determined under a given light source. Compact fluorescent lamps have a CRI of 82 (out of 100), which is considered excellent for fluorescent sources and good for artificial light in general. Incandescent lamps have a CRI of 97. Incandescent lamps provide excellent colour rendering because of the full spectrum of colour wavelengths present in the light they produce.

Naturallighting.com offers fluorescent and CFL lamps with a CRI of 91, which is better, but still not the 97 you get out of a regular incandescent bulb. Vita-lites cost seventeen dollars, compared with 4-7 bucks for a GE CFL, and under a dollar for the regular old incandescent. GE's CFL offerings (the type normally available in stores) are the soul-destroying 82 CRI variety and are thus unacceptable.

The CFL savings calc shows that even using the Vita-lites, you'd save money over the course of a year. I'm going to order one of those Vita-lites to see if it passes the aesthetic test.

John Carmack may be great at software programming, but does that really apply to spacecraft design? Software is known to be buggy, but when you are being hurtled towards space faster then a speeding bullet you really don't have the luxury of being able to use a debugger. However, it is somewhat reassuring to know that he makes good, solid games, and not the type of software that comes out of Redmond. I do believe a lot of the ideas behind his methodology is sound. If rapid test driven development works well for software design, who's to say that it can not be used for space flight.

I just hope that they value a quality assurance process more then the typical software engineer. In a game like this you would not be able to release version 2.0.

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You make a very good point. People need to choose which is best. However the problem I see is growing up with my parents 45 miles from the "big city", there is no public transportation at all. As I grew up it was just a societal thing where you take drivers-ed at school, get a part time job, buy a car, and pay the insurance. Nobody talked as if it was an option, that we had other choices. This was the only way that they talked about, everybody from peers, to parents, to administrators, to teachers, to politicians. We have a cycling club, but they just do it for fun, not for commuting or even any type of advocacy.

This is where changes can be made, in education and infrastructure. For instance when a new road is created if bike lanes would be required they would be very inexpensive.

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If SCO really is correct and this does become an issue of viral GPL, then it could possibly give MS a boost. However I personally think that the companies behind open source will still be pushing it, its only the companies that are currently thinking about open source business models that this may effect. I think its just more junk propaganda though.

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I for one think it's a great idea, however I don't think they should be able to patient something like that. Much like one click ordering, it's just crazy. When are they going to start patenting basic life processes like exhaling, and then expect everyone to pay fees? Much like that one drug, "the purple pill", that they patented t he substance the body makes when you ingest the pill, thereby locking out all competition.

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The implications of the geodesic dome are just being explored, if this new type of memory is anything like the dome I expect we will hear more good things about it in the future.

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There would be witnesses, but then again if it was spun around that problem could be solved...

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Now they are going to start considering books weapons and banning them from planes.

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I all for Linux as much as the next person, but developers have to live too and they are going to develop for the market that has more potential buyers. Its the catch 22, more people need to use Linux before there are more good programs, and developers will not put as much effort into Linux programming until there are more people using it.

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It makes you wonder what will happen when the patent basic life functions like breathing.

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I'm not sure what the laws are with waters that belong to a country, but isn't water so X amount of miles from the shore actually belong to the country, in this case the USA? USA also has a bunch of islands in the Pacific so maybe they never landed in international waters.

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Unless you are doing some serious number crunching such as CAD or video editing is this FSB increase really worth the price? I don't even think playing 3d games at 200fps really makes a difference then 150fps either...

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That looks like a great project to work on, but right now its still very much in development work. Another possible solution for some situations is LTSP.

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It seems once a company goes public they stop worrying about actually make good products and do anything they can to increase the stock price instead of quality.

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This seems like a good idea on the surface, but in reality I'm not sure if it would work. With open source software you can't really go to any specific entity and demand that they provide bios on every developer. Some developers don't even want to be connected with a project, let alone having detailed biography of them. They probably already are receiving thousands (if not millions) of emails/mail/calls asking for support related questions to the point of harassment.

However if the developer would like credit then they could release the software under a modified license that would require the display of their bios. Already a lot of the open source projects have some information on different contributors on the project's website. I would think maybe creating something like this in the Help-->About, or man pages type area may be a good compromise.

As for the BSD license change, I think that's like comparing apples to oranges, because it seems like they did that more for the university and not for any actual developers.

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This seems like a good idea on the surface, but in reality I'm not sure if it would work. With open source software you can't really go to any specific entity and demand that they provide bios on every developer. Some developers don't even want to be connected with a project, let alone having detailed biography of them. They probably already are receiving thousands (if not millions) of emails/mail/calls asking for support related questions to the point of harassment.

However if the developer would like credit then they could release the software under a modified license that would require the display of their bios. Already a lot of the open source projects have some information on different contributors on the project's website. I would think maybe creating something like this in the Help-->About, or man pages type area may be a good compromise.

As for the BSD license change, I think that's like comparing apples to oranges, because it seems like they did that more for the university and not for any actual developers.

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There will still be childhood memories, they will just be different then the previous generation of children. I don't think this is necessary bad as everything changes.

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Well at least we know what happened when he stop publishing his daily newsletter.

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Hopefully this will happen with bloatware programs soon.

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People should not blindly allow all of these measures to become reality in the faith that it will prevent terrorism. A big part of this too is the majority of people don't know what's happening because there has been very little media attention on this topic. We as Americans are suppose to uphold liberty and justice, but our so-called liberties are being whittled away slowly but surly.

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Now this is a rather disturbing article. I've always thought it was something that people can check out brain function and all of that, however I never thought off it as being a privacy concern. This article though brings up some interesting points. Such as having brain scans be a condition to being hired, much like a drug test of today. This at first seems shocking, but it is commonly accepted to take a drug test without any objections. With the heightened security concerns around the globe I believe people, as a whole are willing to work towards a "more secure" future.

The problem I see though is people are not thinking broad enough. Technologies such as this can be used on a large scale against humanity. I believe the consequences of such abilities need to be addressed in a uniform manner, without always talking about the terrorists that will kill us all anyway. How far will society let the security over take our lives? I for one do not want to end up living in a military state where every body that does not have blonde hair, blue eyes, and a perfect attitude is destroyed. Do you?

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Of course, the dangerous thing about text ads is that you have to make sure you know how to spell things correctly...

;-)

I for one would like to say congratulations. However I'm afraid more of these suits are going to be occurring as time goes on.

Its good to hear some good news on the news at least sometimes.

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It seems today is "Ad Day" at Slashdot. I believe though that text ads are going to be much better then this Unicast method. Web surfers are going to respond immediately and in force by not visiting sites that use such an intrusive ad format. The article says that you can click to close it, but they will probably make that little feature very hard to find.

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I do not see text ads as being "doomed". Like anything they have their place in the world. On WebCalc I sell text-based ads and the advertisers seem to like them. I like them because they look much better then banners and are faster to load. However when you look at them they do not grab your attention as much as the traditional graphic ads do. This sounds bad, but I think it is really a benefit because it provides you with a smaller quantity of visitors, but those visitors are of a higher level of quality.

Many times with newer rich media ads people are trying to close them when in reality they click through. This upsets the user who would probably close the site right away. Using such distracting ads such as rich media that goes over the whole site (think Yahoo and Weather.com) and pop-ups alienate your website visitors.

As for targeting, search engines are not the only application for targeting. All websites can implement targeting. If I have a site that's geared for collage students then the best ad would be for somebody targeting that demographic, it doesn't matter what form of advertising it is. This statement is very much like comparing apples and oranges.

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I do not see text ads as being "doomed". Like anything they have their place in the world. On WebCalc I sell text-based ads and the advertisers seem to like them. I like them because they look much better then banners and are faster to load. However when you look at them they do not grab your attention as much as the traditional graphic ads do. This sounds bad, but I think it is really a benefit because it provides you with a smaller quantity of visitors, but those visitors are of a higher level of quality.

Many times with newer rich media ads people are trying to close them when in reality they click through. This upsets the user who would probably close the site right away. Using such distracting ads such as rich media that goes over the whole site (think Yahoo and Weather.com) and pop-ups alienate your website visitors.

As for targeting, search engines are not the only application for targeting. All websites can implement targeting. If I have a site that's geared for collage students then the best ad would be for somebody targeting that demographic, it doesn't matter what form of advertising it is. This statement is very much like comparing apples and oranges.

Go calculate something

I do not see text ads as being "doomed". Like anything they have their place in the world. On WebCalc I sell text-based ads and the advertisers seem to like them. I like them because they look much better then banners and are faster to load. However when you look at them they do not grab your attention as much as the traditional graphic ads do. This sounds bad, but I think it is really a benefit because it provides you with a smaller quantity of visitors, but those visitors are of a higher level of quality.

Many times with newer rich media ads people are trying to close them when in reality they click through. This upsets the user who would probably close the site right away. Using such distracting ads such as rich media that goes over the whole site (think Yahoo and Weather.com) and pop-ups alienate your website visitors.

As for targeting, search engines are not the only application for targeting. All websites can implement targeting. If I have a site that's geared for collage students then the best ad would be for somebody targeting that demographic, it doesn't matter what form of advertising it is. This statement is very much like comparing apples and oranges.

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Very good point, however it seems people here in the states at least are so worried about terrorists and everything that they seem to like the idea of TIA. I believe that the general public does not understand it and its consequences. Right now we as citizens have security through obscurity. When, not if, all of the government agencies all the way down to the local library have a single "master database" to cross reference everything then we are in trouble.

This does show potential for security, but the risks far outweigh the benefits. With one system a hacker must only break one system. If there is a virus, again only one system. A government employee that works on the database can be selling information to other companies/individuals/rouge nations. Even the government could give detailed information to certain large benefactors.

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I think linking should always be done and if the server goes down then the visitor can come back later in the day. However with all of the legal junk larger sites are probably worried about the legality of linking to a site.

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Probably not, however the scientists that found that thing probably do.

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I would agree with you. It seems the majority of business people call for a cab already, but those tourists...

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This could really take off in the network appliance market. When I calculate the costs of buying such a device you must look at costs over the total lifetime such as support, software upgrades and such. When I first started with technology I was shocked to learn that you had to pay for upgrades. This is a big reason why I do not care for Cisco products. However on the flip side you do have support and with that comes somebody to blame. When the whole network is going up in flames its advantageous to have a person to point fingers at if nothing else...

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This could really take off in the network appliance market. When I calculate the costs of buying such a device you must look at costs over the total lifetime such as support, software upgrades and such. When I first started with technology I was shocked to learn that you had to pay for upgrades. This is a big reason why I do not care for Cisco products. However on the flip side you do have support and with that comes somebody to blame. When the whole network is going up in flames its advantageous to have a person to point fingers at if nothing else...

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So what price are you?

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Now I can create a small computer for the car that will allow me to play music, plus keep safe from would-be hackers. Now the question I must ask is why would I have anything a hacker would want in my CAR?!?!

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You can have the best equipment in the world, like computer security though, it comes down to the people using it. Some repair tech finds a torn shielded cable, so instead of replacing it they use electrical tape. Same thing with the grounding system, its not cleaned properly and dirt builds up to prevent the grounding. It always comes down to the users.

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Good to see something that can use Irix.

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This looks interest, but could watching this on your computer screen cause long-term vision damage? Perhaps I'll wait until the DVD with PC speaker sound comes out...

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That's all we need, now everybody and his brother can easily create software applications to log everything. Security cameras record a lot of movements, but imagine hooking that up to lip readers and then being able to grep through all of that text output? Total Information Awareness here we come......

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Not just diversify, but think in layers. Try to achieve a layered security approach, with the most sensitive data in the center of the security "sphere".

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I'm glad to hear (again) that the freeBSD team is concentrating on the server segment and not on desktops, which IMHO is better suited for Linux.

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Its always good to see people stand up for their rights.

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I believe this is an outgrowth of the informational society we live in. Programs keep popping up doing things that were not even thought of earlier. 10 years the only CRM was "keep the customer happy", now there are complex mathematical models for such interactions. Everything is now tracked in huge databases and it all goes back to the central idea that information is power.

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Whenever somebody posts the content then the article is available. However when there is no "mirror", then the site is not available, is this bad luck or just a natural consequence of having the mirror?

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Do we really need more speed right now, or storage? I think the hardware needs to slowdown a bit so bigger programs can be created to use this. Remember that hard drives can be put in RAID arrays to increase speed too.

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Thats all we need, interplanetary patent protection...

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Wonder when the local collage will be offering "Open-Source Psychology 101"...

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Better watch out for the genetically altered, gnomes with a higher gnomedex...

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I hate to say it, but you have a point with communism, there is no incentive. However I believe that the core group of open source developers have incentive, and that beating Microsoft. It's like a small idealistic group standing up against a huge goliath of a company.

What I think, is the open source community needs to work more on marketing, documentation, and support. I believe that's the area that is lacking the most. Probably one of the best ways to education people on linux and open source is to get it in the schools. Kids usually tech their parents how to use computers.

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The PC/104 seems to have many uses, is this board the embedded peoples' Visual Basic type rapid prototyping board?

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