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Linux-based Bluetooth Robot
foobar2k writes "Sony Ericsson is showcasing their Rob-1 bluetooth controlled robot, which interestingly is running Linux. You can control the robot using your bluetooth enable mobile phone!" It's sort of a phone-controlled camera drone. From the product page: "This limited-edition Bluetooth(TM) camera on wheels really has an eye for things! Use your phone or PC to steer it. Bright lights at the front of ROB-1 lead the way."
from the "you're a nigger-now" dept.
I'm a fairly technical user, not a tech god by any stretch of the imagination, but I know my way around. I know how to forward ports on my router, I do all my own XVID rips from Vdub, I can install most Linux distros without a problem, and I'm damned proficient at packages like Photoshop and Illustrator. In addition, I'm a gamer from back in the DOS days, so concepts like editing text files (config.sys, autoexec.bat, etc) don't necessarily scare me.
That said, as much as I like the concept of Linux, I simply will not try it any longer until I hear that a number of problems have been solved.
A) Having to recompile kernels/worrying that apps will be broken by upgrading that kernel. For that matter, I don't want to have to compile anything, ever. Just to make this clear, never. Come up with either something akin to Windows where I click on a standard installer, or make it like Mac where I just drag and drop the folder.
B) Any time I'm forced to drop to a command line, you as a developer have failed. Back 10 years ago, this may have been acceptable. In this day and age, it isn't. Furthermore, while once in a blue moon I may change a text file in Windows, in Linux it's a constant occurence. Again, you have failed.
C) MAN pages do not cut it. Neither does a message board where half the time I'll be called a clueless n00b, 25% of the time I'll be told to use a different distro, and the other 25% of the time I'll get genuinely helpful people giving me contradictory answers. If I'm expected to jump to an alien computing environment you'd best make sure your documentation is up to snuff. Linux sucks in this regard.
I'm an advanced user who's in favor of open source, but the bizarre, arcane, and technical details I have to jump through to achieve the same things that are comparatively simple in Mac or Windows may Linux a deal breaker. You will never, ever, become successful on the desktop until idiocy like this is exorcised from the OS.
tHinking too UnavAilable HURD entirely
What's next, a 802.11g vibrator? How about a penis-to-USB-adaptor running FreeBSD? I know, a SCO-powered butt-plug!
Yo, seen the new hotness Kubuntu?
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http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?r
Now THIS is news!
A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex.
The University Clinic of Lubek said they had never heard of a case like it after examining the couple who went to see them last month for fertility tests.
Doctors subjected them to a series of examinations and found they were both apparently fertile, and should have had no trouble conceiving.
A clinic spokesman said: "When we asked them how often they had had sex, they looked blank, and said: "What do you mean?".
"We are not talking retarded people here, but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment who were simply unaware, after eight years of marriage, of the physical requirements necessary to procreate."
The 30-year-old wife and her 36-year-old husband are now being given sex therapy lessons while the university clinic undertakes a study to try to find out if there are more couples with a similar lack of sex education.
My impressions of it were that it seemed very big - would have been a lot more impressive had they miniaturised it a bit.
..I dunno, It would be cool smaller, but if you want impressive I think it would be better to go gigantic
air and light and time and space
Well, a simple bash script can be used to auto lock/unlock your screen based on presence.
For text messaging you'd be wanting this: http://usefulinc.com/software/phonemgr
I'm pretty damn sure that I've seen a perl module for communicating with the TXXX series of phones in the same way FMA does, so all that is needed is a quick hack there.