Oops, looks like I misread the article. I mistakenly took "aspect ratio of 16 to 10" to mean that the actual dimensions are 16" x 10". Since the diagonal is 22" rather than 18.87", this is obviously incorrect.
Assuming that the diagonal is exactly 22", the actual dimensions of the display are 18.66" x 11.66". This works out to 205.8dpi, which is more or less consistent with the article. --
...object 2000 SG344 has a 500-to-1 chance of hitting earth in the year 2030...
I really hope you didn't really mean that, since that would mean that the probability of collision is ~99.8%!
Presumably, what you meant is "500-to-1 chance against hitting earth". That's a little more sane -- whew! -- but still very slightly inaccurate. The original article stated that the object had a "1-in-500 chance" of collision, which is equivalent to a 499-to-1 (not 500-to-1) chance against. --
For all we know, they could have just taken pictures and claimed they edit out the porn.
Actually, no. The retouching is very amateurishly done, obviously by someone who has just discovered the Photoshop "clone" tool, and does not really know how to use it yet. --
Subject: An Important Message on Privacy from Tivo
From: Matthew Zinn, TiVo's Chief Privacy Officer
Thu 10/5
Dear Tivo Subscriber:
Since our founding, we've been dedicated to protecting your privacy. We created the industry's first privacy policy, which was predicated on the simple concept that you, the TV viewer, should be in control over your personal television viewing information.
As we've grown, we've come to the point where we need to update our privacy policy to make sure that the spirit of our founding privacy pledge extends globally to cover our business practices in international markets, as well as our growing roster of business partners.
The purpose of this communication is to notify you that we've updated our Privacy Policy. The most critical components of our policy remain in effect -- no one outside of your home will ever have access to your personal TV viewing information without your prior consent.
The changes focus on how we work with our partners. In cases where TiVo and one or more of our partner companies together service your account, we want to ensure that your privacy is protected. For example, if you are a customer of one of our hardware manufacturing partners (such as Philips or Sony), or one of our service partners (such as DIRECTV or AOL), we may share your account information with that partner and want to ensure that the same strict guidelines we set for ourselves are maintained. We believe the new TiVo Privacy Policy accomplishes this.
You can read the updated TiVo Privacy Policy by visiting www.tivo.com/care/ or if you don't have Internet access, you can call us toll-free at (877) 367-8486 and we will mail you a copy.
TiVo recognizes that your trust in our Service is paramount to our success. As such, we're very proud of our stance on this critical issue and we're dedicated to delivering on it.
I don't know where you're getting your information, but I have never ever called Linux "revolutionary". I haven't even touched a Linux box for... oh, six years or so. --
This is not a new idea, but rather yet another case of Microsoft "innovating" by taking other people's ideas and hawking them as their own.
I've been using TraySaver for two years now, and it works like a charm. Another, slightly different implementation, is PC Magazine's Tray Manager. Both programs come with full source code, so you can customize them to your heart's desire. --
The move in computer graphics adapters to 16,777,216 colors seems kind of dumb to me at this point in time. The typical screen (1024x768) has only 786,432 pixels on it. (Even a "high-resolution" screen -- 2048x1536 -- has only 3,145,728 pixels on it.)
So even if you used one unique color for each pixel on screen you would still have 15,990,784 colors left unused. Since most normal artwork doesn't use one discrete color for each pixel, the color space for this device will be massively underutilized until such a time as the resolution of the screen increases. --
There are so many of them. Perhaps you're just too young (or not enough of a film buff) to remember such films as -- to name a few -- Doctor Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Guinness' own personal favorite, Tunes of Glory. --
Guinness didn't want to be remembered for Obi Wan
on
Sir Alec Guinness Dies
·
· Score: 5
Sir Alec Guinness revealed in an interview last year that he hated the Star Wars movies (the dialogue, in particular), and actually wanted the character killed off.
Guinness did so much more than just Obi Wan. Please, let's remember him the way he deserves -- and would have wanted -- to be remembered. --
You've got it backwards. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss was made by Blue Sky, which was later renamed to Looking Glass after they discovered that there was already another software company called Blue Sky (which, ironically, is now called eHelp).
Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds was the first game actually released under the Looking Glass name. --
A few months ago, Deja made an announcement about the site move. According to the accouncement, which has not been updated since its original release, the old messages would temporarily be taken down, but we should "have no fear: [Deja is] committed to bringing these messages back online as soon as possible.
In the meantime, Deja has been transformed into a mere free Web-based Usenet server that happens to have unusually long retention, but no binaries access.
It has been a couple of months since then. Last month, Deja announced that the move was "complete"; however, most of the old posts are still nowhere to be found. There was an interesting Usenet discussion on the state of things, which included at least one thoughtful post as well as possibly a little light at the end of the tunnel.
Perhaps not all is lost. When (if) the Deja archive ever comes back in its entirety, it will still be the best Usenet archive around, hands down.
I disagree with the Slashdot article's claim that Deja has a merely "okay search interface". As long as one uses the Deja Classic Power Search, Deja has one of the cleanest interfaces around, with extremely flexible and powerful query options.
One would be hard-pressed to come up with something better at this point. Even if one were able to cook up a better interface with even better query features, where would the content come from? Who has been archiving Usenet all these years other than Deja, Remarq, and perhaps a few other little-known entities?
I daresay that none of the current archive holders would be willing to grant archive access without considerable compensation. Unfortunately, one would have no choice; it's a little too late to start archiving the old stuff now!
All in all, I would probably be in favor of just trying to get Deja back up in its full glory; this would be so much easier than starting from scratch. Perhaps all Deja needs is to hear (from thousands of concerned Slashdot readers) that their "old" archive is their most valuable resource, and should thus be given the attention that it deserves. I personally consider the "old" archive so valuable that I would be willing to pay a subscription fee to access it; I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
So shall we all write Deja now, and let them know what we think? --
Quote marks (">") are a long-established marker for quoting Usenet articles; quote someone without using ">" (or one of the other commonly-used quote symbols), and you're all but certain to incur someone's wrath.
Deja's orange triangle, on the other hand, has no precedent. Because no one else uses it, no one knows what it means. Deja should at least make an effort to explain what the orange triangle is the first time it shows one to a user.
Some ideas:
When a user clicks a Deja triangle link, bring the user to an intermediate explanatory page before bringing him to the actual linked page. On the explanatory page, add an option to "do not show this message again", and use a cookie to remember.
Add a "no Deja triangle links" option to the Power Search page.
Add a "command-line option" to the standard Deja search URL that removes all Deja triangle links from all query results, similar to the way "/=dnc" currently switches the user into "Deja Classic" mode.
It's true. I watched the entire keynote address (twice!), and right at the end, Jobs announced the special surprise for each of the members of the audience.
I'd really like to get my hands on one of these mice so I can see for myself how well they really work (I am extremely picky about my input devices). Too bad I don't use a Mac, would never use a single-button mouse, and would be loath to pay $59 for one anyway.
Guess I'll have to wait a month or so for it to hit the local computer storess. Slimy display units -- gotta love 'em! --
Speaking of images, it would be nice to be able to unload an image after it's been loaded, say if it's an advertisement or something.
I have my Internet Explorer rigged to do just that.
Whenever I see an image I don't like (such as an ad), I just right-click the image, then choose "Hide" from the context menu (or press H). Voilá! The image is gone. Very handy when I want to print something sans junk.
BTW, the JavaScript required to implement this is extremely simple: five lines, including full error-checking.
HTML is not a programming language; it is a markup language. Huge difference.
Web browser implementors are free to choose which tags to support, and to degrade gracefully when unsupported tags are encountered. This is a too-often-forgotten but fundamental feature of HTML and the Web.
With HTML, the content is supposed to be nominally readable even when all tags have been stripped. This is not analogous to C code, wherein if all of the "code" were stripped, we would be left with nothing but comments, in what would be a thoroughly useless -- and utterly uncompilable -- program. --
Your calculations are essentially correct, but unnecessarily complicated.
We already know from IBM that the diagonal of the viewable display area is 16.3". All we need to do is calculate the number of pixels on this diagonal (sqrt(2560^2 + 2048^2) = ~3278.4), and divide that by 16.3", to get 201.1 ppi. --
Wrong. Even audio/video CDs that use all 2352 bytes per "raw" sector are not using all of the space; quite a bit is still being used for error correction, leaving only 2352 bytes per sector for the actual "raw" data. Of this 2352 bytes, CD-ROM (Mode 1) devotes another 304 bytes to a second layer of error correction data, leaving only 2048 bytes for user data. That the 2352-byte sector is truly "raw" is a very popular misconception, but a misconception nonetheless. --
Slashdot Mirror
Oops, looks like I misread the article. I mistakenly took "aspect ratio of 16 to 10" to mean that the actual dimensions are 16" x 10". Since the diagonal is 22" rather than 18.87", this is obviously incorrect.
Assuming that the diagonal is exactly 22", the actual dimensions of the display are 18.66" x 11.66". This works out to 205.8dpi, which is more or less consistent with the article.
--
Actually, even the 204 figure itself is incorrect. 3840x2400 pixels on a 16"x10" display comes out to exactly 240dpi -- not 204dpi.
240dpi! Holy moly! Now I know what I want for Christmas (2001?).
--
I really hope you didn't really mean that, since that would mean that the probability of collision is ~99.8%!
Presumably, what you meant is "500-to-1 chance against hitting earth". That's a little more sane -- whew! -- but still very slightly inaccurate. The original article stated that the object had a "1-in-500 chance" of collision, which is equivalent to a 499-to-1 (not 500-to-1) chance against.
--
Myst III: Exile will be the second Myst sequel, not the first.
--
For all we know, they could have just taken pictures and claimed they edit out the porn.
Actually, no. The retouching is very amateurishly done, obviously by someone who has just discovered the Photoshop "clone" tool, and does not really know how to use it yet.
--
Subject: An Important Message on Privacy from Tivo
From: Matthew Zinn, TiVo's Chief Privacy Officer
Thu 10/5
Dear Tivo Subscriber:
Since our founding, we've been dedicated to protecting your privacy. We created the industry's first privacy policy, which was predicated on the simple concept that you, the TV viewer, should be in control over your personal television viewing information.
As we've grown, we've come to the point where we need to update our privacy policy to make sure that the spirit of our founding privacy pledge extends globally to cover our business practices in international markets, as well as our growing roster of business partners.
The purpose of this communication is to notify you that we've updated our Privacy Policy. The most critical components of our policy remain in effect -- no one outside of your home will ever have access to your personal TV viewing information without your prior consent.
The changes focus on how we work with our partners. In cases where TiVo and one or more of our partner companies together service your account, we want to ensure that your privacy is protected. For example, if you are a customer of one of our hardware manufacturing partners (such as Philips or Sony), or one of our service partners (such as DIRECTV or AOL), we may share your account information with that partner and want to ensure that the same strict guidelines we set for ourselves are maintained. We believe the new TiVo Privacy Policy accomplishes this.
You can read the updated TiVo Privacy Policy by visiting www.tivo.com/care/ or if you don't have Internet access, you can call us toll-free at (877) 367-8486 and we will mail you a copy.
TiVo recognizes that your trust in our Service is paramount to our success. As such, we're very proud of our stance on this critical issue and we're dedicated to delivering on it.
Matthew Zinn
Chief Privacy Officer
--
I don't know where you're getting your information, but I have never ever called Linux "revolutionary". I haven't even touched a Linux box for... oh, six years or so.
--
This is not a new idea, but rather yet another case of Microsoft "innovating" by taking other people's ideas and hawking them as their own.
I've been using TraySaver for two years now, and it works like a charm. Another, slightly different implementation, is PC Magazine's Tray Manager. Both programs come with full source code, so you can customize them to your heart's desire.
--
Insightful?
The move in computer graphics adapters to 16,777,216 colors seems kind of dumb to me at this point in time. The typical screen (1024x768) has only 786,432 pixels on it. (Even a "high-resolution" screen -- 2048x1536 -- has only 3,145,728 pixels on it.)
So even if you used one unique color for each pixel on screen you would still have 15,990,784 colors left unused. Since most normal artwork doesn't use one discrete color for each pixel, the color space for this device will be massively underutilized until such a time as the resolution of the screen increases.
--
How about http://3633716109/?
--
The "fucked" in "fuckedcompany.com" is not an expletive; it's an adjective (a "profane" one, perhaps, but a mere adjective nonetheless).
"Fucking" in "That fucking company!", on the other hand, is an expletive.
Since when does Slashdot censor "profane" or "offensive" language anyway?
--
The default 320x200 2-bit graphic mode on a CGA system has red, green, yellow, and blue -- no white, no black (not even in the overscan area).
It's possible to tweak the CGA registers to get a 320x200 mode with cyan, magenta, white, and black, but that's not a default, so it's not "safe".
--
See, "epidermis" means your hair -- so technically it's true. That's what makes it so funny.
--
In the long-gone days (1980) of the 80286...
An 80286 in 1980? *snort* Right, and I had an Apple ][ in 1970.
--
There are so many of them. Perhaps you're just too young (or not enough of a film buff) to remember such films as -- to name a few -- Doctor Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Guinness' own personal favorite, Tunes of Glory.
--
Sir Alec Guinness revealed in an interview last year that he hated the Star Wars movies (the dialogue, in particular), and actually wanted the character killed off.
Guinness did so much more than just Obi Wan. Please, let's remember him the way he deserves -- and would have wanted -- to be remembered.
--
You've got it backwards. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss was made by Blue Sky, which was later renamed to Looking Glass after they discovered that there was already another software company called Blue Sky (which, ironically, is now called eHelp).
Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds was the first game actually released under the Looking Glass name.
--
A few months ago, Deja made an announcement about the site move. According to the accouncement, which has not been updated since its original release, the old messages would temporarily be taken down, but we should "have no fear: [Deja is] committed to bringing these messages back online as soon as possible.
In the meantime, Deja has been transformed into a mere free Web-based Usenet server that happens to have unusually long retention, but no binaries access.
It has been a couple of months since then. Last month, Deja announced that the move was "complete"; however, most of the old posts are still nowhere to be found. There was an interesting Usenet discussion on the state of things, which included at least one thoughtful post as well as possibly a little light at the end of the tunnel.
Perhaps not all is lost. When (if) the Deja archive ever comes back in its entirety, it will still be the best Usenet archive around, hands down.
I disagree with the Slashdot article's claim that Deja has a merely "okay search interface". As long as one uses the Deja Classic Power Search, Deja has one of the cleanest interfaces around, with extremely flexible and powerful query options.
One would be hard-pressed to come up with something better at this point. Even if one were able to cook up a better interface with even better query features, where would the content come from? Who has been archiving Usenet all these years other than Deja, Remarq, and perhaps a few other little-known entities?
I daresay that none of the current archive holders would be willing to grant archive access without considerable compensation. Unfortunately, one would have no choice; it's a little too late to start archiving the old stuff now!
All in all, I would probably be in favor of just trying to get Deja back up in its full glory; this would be so much easier than starting from scratch. Perhaps all Deja needs is to hear (from thousands of concerned Slashdot readers) that their "old" archive is their most valuable resource, and should thus be given the attention that it deserves. I personally consider the "old" archive so valuable that I would be willing to pay a subscription fee to access it; I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
So shall we all write Deja now, and let them know what we think?
--
Quote marks (">") are a long-established marker for quoting Usenet articles; quote someone without using ">" (or one of the other commonly-used quote symbols), and you're all but certain to incur someone's wrath.
Deja's orange triangle, on the other hand, has no precedent. Because no one else uses it, no one knows what it means. Deja should at least make an effort to explain what the orange triangle is the first time it shows one to a user.
Some ideas:
--
It's true. I watched the entire keynote address (twice!), and right at the end, Jobs announced the special surprise for each of the members of the audience.
I'd really like to get my hands on one of these mice so I can see for myself how well they really work (I am extremely picky about my input devices). Too bad I don't use a Mac, would never use a single-button mouse, and would be loath to pay $59 for one anyway.
Guess I'll have to wait a month or so for it to hit the local computer storess. Slimy display units -- gotta love 'em!
--
Speaking of images, it would be nice to be able to unload an image after it's been loaded, say if it's an advertisement or something.
I have my Internet Explorer rigged to do just that.
Whenever I see an image I don't like (such as an ad), I just right-click the image, then choose "Hide" from the context menu (or press H). Voilá! The image is gone. Very handy when I want to print something sans junk.
BTW, the JavaScript required to implement this is extremely simple: five lines, including full error-checking.
Browser extensions -- I've got a ton of 'em.
--
HTML is not a programming language; it is a markup language. Huge difference.
Web browser implementors are free to choose which tags to support, and to degrade gracefully when unsupported tags are encountered. This is a too-often-forgotten but fundamental feature of HTML and the Web.
With HTML, the content is supposed to be nominally readable even when all tags have been stripped. This is not analogous to C code, wherein if all of the "code" were stripped, we would be left with nothing but comments, in what would be a thoroughly useless -- and utterly uncompilable -- program.
--
Your calculations are essentially correct, but unnecessarily complicated.
We already know from IBM that the diagonal of the viewable display area is 16.3". All we need to do is calculate the number of pixels on this diagonal (sqrt(2560^2 + 2048^2) = ~3278.4), and divide that by 16.3", to get 201.1 ppi.
--
the addresses all start with 0x7ff (geek joke - think about it! :-)
Something about being signed?
--
Wrong. Even audio/video CDs that use all 2352 bytes per "raw" sector are not using all of the space; quite a bit is still being used for error correction, leaving only 2352 bytes per sector for the actual "raw" data. Of this 2352 bytes, CD-ROM (Mode 1) devotes another 304 bytes to a second layer of error correction data, leaving only 2048 bytes for user data. That the 2352-byte sector is truly "raw" is a very popular misconception, but a misconception nonetheless.
--