Digital is 'cleaner' and more abstract than analogue. I found that analogue was messy and tempramental, and you needed more expensive components and equipment to work with it.
All that aside, yes, it may still be important, but it is not necessary to survive in this day and age.
You do not need to know much about analogue to be able to build some cool toys (robots, yay!).
Kids want to see results... I know I did. The only cool thing you can still do with analogue is radio.
-grin-
Then again, I just wish I could have had digital when I was a kid, but most other kids might disagree.
On a side note, what I did enjoy immensely (and if you can find this and have kids, GET IT!) was something called 'Capsela'. With this and a bit of DIGITAL control systems one can make some REALLY COOL TOYS.
And it's not like shitty LEGO where you can basically only build limited pre-defined things, and making something unique out of the generic items is a chore reserved for fanatic grown-ups. It's actually totally generic and greative and the results are always immediate and interesting. Way better than Mecano (that just tended to break/rust - at least for me):))
I remember building a frequency generator with caps resistors and a 555/556 chip. Ah, the fond memories...
But I think these days programming and electronics have collided in a big way. Gone are the days of analog(ue).
Perhaps make a fixed board with some digial inputs and outputs (with relays and power) and a programmable pic controller... and let them play with that. (some electric motors and speakers and (light) sensors.
Thus, just drop your kid off at the local radioshack and let things just happen.;)
And that is 'literally' why it will never replace MS Office. Those shortcuts can be pretty tricky.
Especially to republicans. *ducks*
Seriously, if it's not a standard-with-distro copy of OpenOffice, then nothing seems to be associated properly, and it's a pain to figure out how to get things (associations) to work with the WindowManager-of-the-day and the mail client of choice.
Icons on the desktop are the least of our problems...
Re:This is actually the MOST important thing to do
on
Fun with Prime Numbers
·
· Score: 1
Actually the code indentation problem is only present on my system in the OS X Safari browser... I tried Camino, and presto, it works right!
Even IE for Mac seems to do the indentation 'right' (But not pronounced enough).
Safari seems to do the layout totally haphazardly! The code is really unreadable... I was sure more people here would have noted that, but seemingly not many people use Safari.
Tip: Use Camino... it's really a lot faster and seems to work for more sites.
Macs are just not good gaming machines. Take Doom 3... it runs quite nicely on my DELL Inspiron laptop, it's going to take Apple until Next year March to bring out a PowerBook G5 that would actually be able to play Doom 3 which will only work on a G5 anf up LONG after eneryone else has already stopped playing Doom 3.
Same thing happened with Neverwinter Nights... when I finally could buy it for my Mac, all my friends had stopped playing it. (And I paid double for the Mac version as opposed to the PC version.)
For this state of affairs I directly blame Id Software and Apple Computer.
Face it... Apple is a rich man's toy. A status sysmbol. The local Apple distributor does not even want to give my company a reseller right in my country where Apple is synonymous with the Dodo.
It works out cheaper in the end to have a PC to play games on... the hardware is cheaper and the games are cheaper AND on time.
Doom3 was (supposedly) delayed because they were having some difficulty getting it to run on a large enough range of Macs. It seems they have finally given up on this...
I hope someone in or close to Apple and Id reads this and gives us some answers!
I've been looking around, and there seems to be a lack of local South African PC map programs available that is not part of a GPS purchase and that does not cost an arm and a leg.
Anyone know of a company with good map coverage selling PC map software (with portable data files that could be used under Linux)?
More info on Organic produce and the impact of antibiotics can be found here
Or if you're an Anime fan, check out Earth Girl Arjuna for a cool series which I was surprised to find having some deep insights into this very subject...
It's slightly more expensive, but we do have a choice to go for Organic produce. I can buy almost anything organic, including steak, eggs, milk, coffee, fruit and vegetables from a local Woolworths.
But then again, I guess it's difficult to change with such a huge fast-food industry.
Actually we do get to choose... at supermarkets you should only buy certified Organic produce.
Organic milk, eggs, fruit and many more items are available. This certifies the food/medicine given to chickens and cattle to be free of environmentally harmful substances such as antibiotics and repocessed animal products.
Yup, I was happily playing with spring and damping equations in Applied Maths when I inadvertantly stumbled onto this identity. I had previously heard of it's existance and regarded it with awe, and was thus aware when my calculations went into that direction, and I promptly veered from my original solution to rather prove Euler's formula.
For one thing it contains 'e'... and as you can see from my e-mail address I have a whole site dedicated to it:
Perhaps the compiler and Memory Manager is such as to automatically discourage the software to do destructive buffer overflows?
I've noticed in the past that with writing flaky software in windows you can just ignore many memory related errors and continue with execution... or at least this is more common practice. In most cases this is justified IMHO.
Keep in mind that the more people pirate and use Apple products, the more will actually get to know Apple and love it and then have to buy it eventually when they grow up.
Ever wonder why MS products are so easy to pirate?
I really don't care if people pirate it initially, because I'm sure that those who can afford it (and IMHO it's pretty cheap for what you get) will eventually buy it.
But perhaps I'm wrong about that, and running Apple software on non-Apple harware will just cause instability and crashes and a bad user experience, and that's why Apple put it in the licence agreement that you can't do that either... perhaps Apple's only trying to protect the valid user's rights to good and chep technical support.
For reasons of work I was forced to purchase a x86 laptop. I've been using a x86 PC and an iBook G3 before now. For portability I can only carry one, and it had to be the x86 laptop for work.
But I do so detest it because my contacts are a mess, and my mail is being disemboweled by Thunderbird and my scheduler is pitiful (Sunbird).
(I will not use Outlook for portability and security reasons.)
So yesterday I installed OS X on PearPC, but it was hellishly slow and I'm still struggling with the networking (I think it's a problem with my coLinux hogging the TAP virtual network adaptor...)
I've got 2 laptops, one is a 12" iBook G3, and the other is a DELL Inspiron 9100.
If you know these two, then you also know they are total opposites when it comes to size and weight.
I find that usual laptop bags are WAY too large for the iBook, and WAY too small and too flimsy for the DELL behemoth (It is a desktop replacement with upgradable graphics, ok?)
For the iBook you can just basically use anything to store it, but the perfect protection for it is a slim bag which just fits snugly around the iBook, and makes it look like a biggish pencil case. For the DELL I had a leather bag tailor-made to look like a briefcase/suitcase. (Cost only slightly more than the over-priced generic laptop bags.
The bad thing about laptop bags are that they are a prime target for thieves, thus by using something else you can save yourself lots of pain.
Like Starcraft Warcraft and possible follow-ups? They are all similar... then there is also Quake 1/3 and the future of 4. A new counterstrike?
Sure, crossing boundaries may be difficult, but not quite as difficult as switching from soccer to bowling. I know many national players personally who do very well playing CS after they were pretty good at playing Quake3. (But then being good at Quake3 makes it easier to master other games, but not the other way around...)
Can't wait for Quake4... even though I'll probably retire as a gameer before then.;)
Slashdot Mirror
An off topic note:
2 3/ 1816257&tid=107
;)
Well done on your insightfully posted comment to:
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/
-grin-
Made CmdrTaco look like a right fool...
(Didn't know how else to get this message to you...)
-grin-
.
:))
Call it what you will...
Digital is 'cleaner' and more abstract than analogue. I found that analogue was messy and tempramental, and you needed more expensive components and equipment to work with it.
All that aside, yes, it may still be important, but it is not necessary to survive in this day and age.
You do not need to know much about analogue to be able to build some cool toys (robots, yay!).
Kids want to see results... I know I did. The only cool thing you can still do with analogue is radio
-grin-
Then again, I just wish I could have had digital when I was a kid, but most other kids might disagree.
On a side note, what I did enjoy immensely (and if you can find this and have kids, GET IT!) was something called 'Capsela'. With this and a bit of DIGITAL control systems one can make some REALLY COOL TOYS.
And it's not like shitty LEGO where you can basically only build limited pre-defined things, and making something unique out of the generic items is a chore reserved for fanatic grown-ups. It's actually totally generic and greative and the results are always immediate and interesting. Way better than Mecano (that just tended to break/rust - at least for me)
I remember building a frequency generator with caps resistors and a 555/556 chip. Ah, the fond memories...
;)
But I think these days programming and electronics have collided in a big way. Gone are the days of analog(ue).
Perhaps make a fixed board with some digial inputs and outputs (with relays and power) and a programmable pic controller... and let them play with that. (some electric motors and speakers and (light) sensors.
Thus, just drop your kid off at the local radioshack and let things just happen.
Unless the batteries are owned by the station(s), and you basically pay rent for them and can exchange them at any time.
With buit-in meters in the batter you can also ensure you don't get a 'stale' one.
And that is 'literally' why it will never replace MS Office. Those shortcuts can be pretty tricky.
Especially to republicans.
*ducks*
Seriously, if it's not a standard-with-distro copy of OpenOffice, then nothing seems to be associated properly, and it's a pain to figure out how to get things (associations) to work with the WindowManager-of-the-day and the mail client of choice.
Icons on the desktop are the least of our problems...
Actually the code indentation problem is only present on my system in the OS X Safari browser... I tried Camino, and presto, it works right!
Even IE for Mac seems to do the indentation 'right' (But not pronounced enough).
Safari seems to do the layout totally haphazardly! The code is really unreadable... I was sure more people here would have noted that, but seemingly not many people use Safari.
Tip: Use Camino... it's really a lot faster and seems to work for more sites.
[ranting follows]
Macs are just not good gaming machines. Take Doom 3... it runs quite nicely on my DELL Inspiron laptop, it's going to take Apple until Next year March to bring out a PowerBook G5 that would actually be able to play Doom 3 which will only work on a G5 anf up LONG after eneryone else has already stopped playing Doom 3.
Same thing happened with Neverwinter Nights... when I finally could buy it for my Mac, all my friends had stopped playing it. (And I paid double for the Mac version as opposed to the PC version.)
For this state of affairs I directly blame Id Software and Apple Computer.
Face it... Apple is a rich man's toy. A status sysmbol. The local Apple distributor does not even want to give my company a reseller right in my country where Apple is synonymous with the Dodo.
It works out cheaper in the end to have a PC to play games on... the hardware is cheaper and the games are cheaper AND on time.
Doom3 was (supposedly) delayed because they were having some difficulty getting it to run on a large enough range of Macs. It seems they have finally given up on this...
I hope someone in or close to Apple and Id reads this and gives us some answers!
Grr.
I've been looking around, and there seems to be a lack of local South African PC map programs available that is not part of a GPS purchase and that does not cost an arm and a leg.
Anyone know of a company with good map coverage selling PC map software (with portable data files that could be used under Linux)?
Does much the same, but is already there and is pretty and cool.
Check out Quicksilver.
More info on Organic produce and the impact of antibiotics can be found here
Or if you're an Anime fan, check out Earth Girl Arjuna for a cool series which I was surprised to find having some deep insights into this very subject...
It's slightly more expensive, but we do have a choice to go for Organic produce. I can buy almost anything organic, including steak, eggs, milk, coffee, fruit and vegetables from a local Woolworths.
But then again, I guess it's difficult to change with such a huge fast-food industry.
Actually we do get to choose... at supermarkets you should only buy certified Organic produce.
Organic milk, eggs, fruit and many more items are available. This certifies the food/medicine given to chickens and cattle to be free of environmentally harmful substances such as antibiotics and repocessed animal products.
True, true... theta could be odd multiples of pi radians... why not just use +i then...
After speaking to a friend of mine I've convinced myself of the simle beauty of the equation again.
PS: Yup, sorry 'bout the -1.
Yup, I was happily playing with spring and damping equations in Applied Maths when I inadvertantly stumbled onto this identity. I had previously heard of it's existance and regarded it with awe, and was thus aware when my calculations went into that direction, and I promptly veered from my original solution to rather prove Euler's formula.
... and as you can see from my e-mail address I have a whole site dedicated to it:
For one thing it contains 'e'
http://e.co.za/
It's on this page:
;)
http://e.co.za/e.html
Please note that:
"e(pi x sqrt(-1)) - 1 = 0"
feels technically more elegant and complete than:
"e^(pi x i) - 1 = 0"
Because sqrt(-1) has two roots... -i and i.
Please point out if I'm wrong... would like to discuss this with someone with more knowledge.
Nevermind Shashdot Id: Check out my e-mail/domain.. ;)
... is a little voice going:
"Help, please kill me..."
Believe me, it's heaven compared to passwords!
And then also shorten that to:
I tried VNCThing and VNCViewer as well, but CotVNC is still the most stable and fastest.
(Last time I did the test... could have changed?)
But to be honest VNC is a bit lagging behind on OS X...
Perhaps the compiler and Memory Manager is such as to automatically discourage the software to do destructive buffer overflows?
I've noticed in the past that with writing flaky software in windows you can just ignore many memory related errors and continue with execution... or at least this is more common practice. In most cases this is justified IMHO.
Keep in mind that the more people pirate and use Apple products, the more will actually get to know Apple and love it and then have to buy it eventually when they grow up.
Ever wonder why MS products are so easy to pirate?
I really don't care if people pirate it initially, because I'm sure that those who can afford it (and IMHO it's pretty cheap for what you get) will eventually buy it.
But perhaps I'm wrong about that, and running Apple software on non-Apple harware will just cause instability and crashes and a bad user experience, and that's why Apple put it in the licence agreement that you can't do that either... perhaps Apple's only trying to protect the valid user's rights to good and chep technical support.
Hmm...
For reasons of work I was forced to purchase a x86 laptop. I've been using a x86 PC and an iBook G3 before now. For portability I can only carry one, and it had to be the x86 laptop for work.
:)
But I do so detest it because my contacts are a mess, and my mail is being disemboweled by Thunderbird and my scheduler is pitiful (Sunbird).
(I will not use Outlook for portability and security reasons.)
So yesterday I installed OS X on PearPC, but it was hellishly slow and I'm still struggling with the networking (I think it's a problem with my coLinux hogging the TAP virtual network adaptor...)
Anyhow, $50 is actually quite a good price!
I'm buying it for sure!
I've got 2 laptops, one is a 12" iBook G3, and the other is a DELL Inspiron 9100.
If you know these two, then you also know they are total opposites when it comes to size and weight.
I find that usual laptop bags are WAY too large for the iBook, and WAY too small and too flimsy for the DELL behemoth (It is a desktop replacement with upgradable graphics, ok?)
For the iBook you can just basically use anything to store it, but the perfect protection for it is a slim bag which just fits snugly around the iBook, and makes it look like a biggish pencil case. For the DELL I had a leather bag tailor-made to look like a briefcase/suitcase. (Cost only slightly more than the over-priced generic laptop bags.
The bad thing about laptop bags are that they are a prime target for thieves, thus by using something else you can save yourself lots of pain.
Um.
;)
And what about game series?
Like Starcraft Warcraft and possible follow-ups? They are all similar... then there is also Quake 1/3 and the future of 4. A new counterstrike?
Sure, crossing boundaries may be difficult, but not quite as difficult as switching from soccer to bowling. I know many national players personally who do very well playing CS after they were pretty good at playing Quake3. (But then being good at Quake3 makes it easier to master other games, but not the other way around...)
Can't wait for Quake4... even though I'll probably retire as a gameer before then.