How is this better than a used HP48G that you could get for probably the same price?
It might be faster (no idea if it is, just guessing, CPU speeds have climbed quite a bit in the last ten years), but yep, in all other respects it's obviously nowhere near 48's... Not that it's meant to, but 49's are and they are supposedly crap too.
Jesus Christ, it's 2004. We should have HP48G-looking units with 64MB of RAM, double-high-res colour transflective screens (think GBA), USB ports, AND full backwards-compatibility with all the wonderful HP48[G/GX/S/SX] software out there (think of how the newer Palm devices can run older Palm software), but no, we get this pile of steamed monkey dung...
Well, that would be something, wouldn't it... wonder why anyone hasn't tried to do a clone of HP48 series calculators. Backwards compability couldn't be native since the old calcs used HP proprietary CPU (Saturn), but I guess there's plenty of power in the new beasts to emulate it faster than original ever ran.
The hardware for your spec'd calculator would basically be nothing more than a PDA with a dedicated calculator keyboard, but I guess the software is the hard part. Of course the biggest obstacle is the no-risks attitude everyone seems to have today, if it's not guaranteed to sell in the millions, it's not made, ever.
Looks like the golden oldies are still top of the line. It's amazing that over 10 years old calculator still beats the living daylights out of these new toys. HP calculator division should take more note about their roots... if you can't design a worthy successor, heck, at least put out a slightly modernified (more memory, higher clockspeed) version of 48GX.
Not that this is even meant to be a competitor for 40>, it's supposed to be few steps below, and the reason for "easy learning curve" is obvious, it just does so much less, but still... it's hard to know if those keys are as bad as they look, but apparently they are if fellow posters are correct, and the display sucks as well (in addition to being way too small for lots of things).
Looks like you still need to pry my 48GX from my cold, dead hands.
Aside from (usually) much more convenient buttons on real calculator mentioned by others, good luck trying to use your newfangled PDA on exam, what's next, why not use a laptop? You can get much better mathematics software for that and it's loads faster than a PDA can offer. Hey it's got this umpteen megapixel beatiful 32-bit tft as well!
Nah, it's you who can't see it, calculators are not going anywhere.
Mozilla rocks, but it took them until 2001 or so to produce a better browser than IE.
Well, they started in 1998. Just three years, it's not that long time...
Interestingly enough, it's also same time (1995-1998) IE took from 1.0 to the first arguably superior version, 5.0 and same time IE took for a relatively minor step from 5.0 to 6.0 (1998-2001).
You are quite badly wrong if you assume from availability of DIMM and Flash cards at PC stores that small memory and flash do not exist any more, same slow CPU's.
RAM and flash measured in _bytes_, CPU's under 10MHz continue to sell a lot. And yes, they are quite a bit cheaper than something like these (which seems to be basically guts of a high-end PDA) Of course you don't find any of those at store, they don't belong there, they are embedded system components, found at electronics store, not something you pick up from shelves at wallmart.
As whether or not you'll save a "significant amount of money" depends mostly on the volume, $10 vs $50 CPU is't much of a difference if you're building one unit and design costs far overweight everything else, but if you're making a million of 'em, that's a lot of cash. There's a place for everything.
Microwaves don't "fry" anything any more than any other wavelength that is absorbed by the thing in question. Actually 2.4GHz waves are several orders of magnitude less energetic than light for example.
Power is the key, sure, 1000W microwave oven magnetron will damn certainly fry (well, boil) everything, but try hopping in front of 1000W laser for example and come back to tell that visible light doesn't fry you equally well.
Where they got the idea hmmh, yeah, obviously it couldn't been any of the kazillion languages that have had foreach or similar construct for decades.
It must've come from C#/Mono since we all know that something is only innovated after Microsoft copi^H^H^H^Hinvents it, right?
Re:Maybe it is because we are skeptical...
on
A New Ice Age?
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· Score: 1
Adaptation of _humans_ as a species is easy.
Adaptation of civilization on the other hand is NOT easy, if you think you could move billion people from india to US mideast easily with no gigantic adverse effects you're nothing short of insane.
Most of countries (including US) couln't even handle a shudden shift in oil price, bringing a billion people over a course of few years would collapse US, cause starvation for whole damn continent, trigger all sorts of nasty things that would make all previous world wars look like children at sandbox. Back to stoneage.
I'm going to nitpick. Apparently you're not familiar with the concept of a lending library?
Apparently you're not familiar with the fact that libraries already charge for photocopying, for example?
But the point to lending libraries is that they are free, as in beer. So all you need to borrow anything is your library card, and zero dollars. Just borrow the CD, install on your system, and bring it back.
Lending makes sense for books, they're expensive. But a $0.50 cd? Nope, can't see it.
Besides, as others have pointed out, lending burned cd's has serious security implications, nothing prevents someone from lending it and bringing back something that looks same but isn't.
So I was able to unlock the keypad, search the phonebook for a number, and tell time, all while blacked out. Clearly, I am either the next step in evolution, or you're a much sloppier drunk than I am.;)
From quite a few comments it looks like many people have tendency to call their exes when wasted. Curious, wonder where that one comes from.
I, too can attest that I manage to type (both normal keyboard and phone) pretty good even when so smashed I don't remember aything about it in the morning.
Looks like the next steps in evolution are gathered at/.
1) Media. Including bad burns that must be discarded.
Can be dealt in the same way as paper & ink costs for photocopies are - sell the media.
2) Computer time. Libraries often do not have state-of-the-art equipment. The computer doing the burning might not be able to do anything else while it's running.
Burning only takes few minutes on modern burners, so this it not really big problem... however, I'd delegate a computer (it does not need to be very good) solely for this mostly for the next one.
3) Staff time. Something that is often missed. While this could be delegated to a library assistant.
This is a problem if it's general purpose burning station with normal software, people wouldn't know how to use it and would need staff help, however if it's only burning predetermined collection of software there could be a special software with dead simple GUI that turns it into a vending machine machine of sort - insert cd, select a category (applications, games, os), and be presented with selection, burning wouldn't need anything more than inserting cd to drive and clicking an icon. This does probably not exist but it's not complicated, I expect you'd find a load of volunteers for writing such a program if you ask.
Imagine what would happen if that number increased tenfold. We're talking thousands of dollars.
With system like that the only requirements for staff time would be initial set-up and keeping the software stored in it up to date, no matter how many thousand patrons would be using it. What comes to that initial cost, the system would be perhaps $200 or so, maybe $50 for initial stack of 100 cd's and let's say a day to set it up. I don't know whether that's too much, enlighten me.
Of course there's always a change something we don't know is going on, but the unfortunate fact is that 999999 cases in a million it's a crook. Besides, it's very easy for this guy to prove his claims.
If he hooks up the miracle motor to generator and uses that generator to power up the motor and it keeps running (should be easy with 330% efficiency, you can also draw infinite amount of energy from the circuit while at it) then he has either found the invisible and so far unexplainable power source or has proven that laws of thermodynamics don't work and perpetual motion machines are possible, you can bet that million physicists will swarm in to observe it and everything we though we know will be turned upside down. He'll also be worlds richest person in no time.
Carefully observe how he fails to do that, and instead relies on (probably wrongly calculated or rigged) simple electrical meter. Now ask yourself why? Simple answer: because it doesn't work, and this is nothing but a con.
Security? A requirement for something to take off?
What world are you coming from? Most people unfortunately do not care about security in the slightest. Bazillions of wide-open WiFi networks, unpatched windows infe^H^Hstallations, and the like clearly prove it.
Since the car's data belongs to me (my car, my data,) does forcing presentation in court violate my 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination?
No more so than any other things that belong to you. Things like murder weapons, accidental or intentional recordings of you doing bad things, etc. You know, usually grouped together under the title "evidence".
Some people would say yes, including me.
Really? Would you say so to all of the above then, also? You should be perfecly free to kill someone and film the process, and that should not be allowed to be used against you because it's "your data"?
If would be forced by the government to log your actions, then it probably would fall under self-incrimination, but if not, the fact that it's "your data" or "your property" does not have anything at all to do with it.
Or are you saying you can murder someone in cold blood under a surveillance camera as long as it's your property, because that can't be compelled to testify against owner?
Still, if you enjoyed SC2 and are willing to endure some pixelation and the hassle of getting it to run in DosBox or something, the starflight series is still quite a playable game. Great plot too.
Also, unless I remember my retro-wading trough Starflight totally wrong, Amiga versions look somewhat better than DOS ones.
Sega Genesis version even more so, but being a console one, I think it made some stupid sacrifices.
So playing them trough UAE might be a good option if you've got a box that can handle it.
More like what about the animals that are eating it?
Yeah, what about animals eating a herbicide (plant poison) resistant grass? Well, nothing at all.
Insects that are now intolerant to pesticides
Yes, some insects are not resistant to pesticides, no, they didn't pick up any resistance genes from plants they were eating, they adapted to survive, it's called evolution.
and now spread new diseaes that are now genetically modified because of the modifications in the first link in the chain.
Huh?
Don't say it can't happen because it does and has. Some of these are probably not related to genetic egineering but who is to say some are not.
Nice circular logic. New diseases (bacteria and viruses mutate fast, new diseases are continually emerging) -> who's to say they aren't related to genetic engineering?!?! -> pass it as a fact, "don't say it can't happen because it does".
No thanks. Not that the current systems are working as intended but stupid masses sure won't be any better. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be anything that solves the problems, yet.
I can't understand, or stand for that matter, people who think everyone absolutely should have a tax meter ticking for every last frickin' second of their lives.
Have you ever heard of a concept called free time?
Slashdot Mirror
How is this better than a used HP48G that you could get for probably the same price?
It might be faster (no idea if it is, just guessing, CPU speeds have climbed quite a bit in the last ten years), but yep, in all other respects it's obviously nowhere near 48's... Not that it's meant to, but 49's are and they are supposedly crap too.
Jesus Christ, it's 2004. We should have HP48G-looking units with 64MB of RAM, double-high-res colour transflective screens (think GBA), USB ports, AND full backwards-compatibility with all the wonderful HP48[G/GX/S/SX] software out there (think of how the newer Palm devices can run older Palm software), but no, we get this pile of steamed monkey dung...
Well, that would be something, wouldn't it... wonder why anyone hasn't tried to do a clone of HP48 series calculators. Backwards compability couldn't be native since the old calcs used HP proprietary CPU (Saturn), but I guess there's plenty of power in the new beasts to emulate it faster than original ever ran.
The hardware for your spec'd calculator would basically be nothing more than a PDA with a dedicated calculator keyboard, but I guess the software is the hard part. Of course the biggest obstacle is the no-risks attitude everyone seems to have today, if it's not guaranteed to sell in the millions, it's not made, ever.
Looks like the golden oldies are still top of the line. It's amazing that over 10 years old calculator still beats the living daylights out of these new toys. HP calculator division should take more note about their roots... if you can't design a worthy successor, heck, at least put out a slightly modernified (more memory, higher clockspeed) version of 48GX.
Not that this is even meant to be a competitor for 40>, it's supposed to be few steps below, and the reason for "easy learning curve" is obvious, it just does so much less, but still... it's hard to know if those keys are as bad as they look, but apparently they are if fellow posters are correct, and the display sucks as well (in addition to being way too small for lots of things).
Looks like you still need to pry my 48GX from my cold, dead hands.
Aside from (usually) much more convenient buttons on real calculator mentioned by others, good luck trying to use your newfangled PDA on exam, what's next, why not use a laptop? You can get much better mathematics software for that and it's loads faster than a PDA can offer. Hey it's got this umpteen megapixel beatiful 32-bit tft as well!
Nah, it's you who can't see it, calculators are not going anywhere.
Mozilla rocks, but it took them until 2001 or so to produce a better browser than IE.
Well, they started in 1998. Just three years, it's not that long time...
Interestingly enough, it's also same time (1995-1998) IE took from 1.0 to the first arguably superior version, 5.0 and same time IE took for a relatively minor step from 5.0 to 6.0 (1998-2001).
You are quite badly wrong if you assume from availability of DIMM and Flash cards at PC stores that small memory and flash do not exist any more, same slow CPU's.
RAM and flash measured in _bytes_, CPU's under 10MHz continue to sell a lot. And yes, they are quite a bit cheaper than something like these (which seems to be basically guts of a high-end PDA)
Of course you don't find any of those at store, they don't belong there, they are embedded system components, found at electronics store, not something you pick up from shelves at wallmart.
As whether or not you'll save a "significant amount of money" depends mostly on the volume, $10 vs $50 CPU is't much of a difference if you're building one unit and design costs far overweight everything else, but if you're making a million of 'em, that's a lot of cash. There's a place for everything.
I guess it (and CDE) was an industry standard of some kind for quite a few of commercial unices at some time.
That doesn't mean much else than that it was used much, though... quite a bit like the position GTK and Qt are now in.
g++ gives me terrible headaches, what with refusing to compile code with throw statements
What do you mean by that? G++ absolutely does support throw statements. How about an example of code snippet that doesn't work because of throw?
Oh, and you're using 3.3, right? C++ has been moving so fast only recent compilers are any good...
Motif is no more native than GTK or Qt, they're all parallel.
Xlib is the only thing that could reasonably claim that.
Microwaves don't "fry" anything any more than any other wavelength that is absorbed by the thing in question. Actually 2.4GHz waves are several orders of magnitude less energetic than light for example.
Power is the key, sure, 1000W microwave oven magnetron will damn certainly fry (well, boil) everything, but try hopping in front of 1000W laser for example and come back to tell that visible light doesn't fry you equally well.
Where they got the idea hmmh, yeah, obviously it couldn't been any of the kazillion languages that have had foreach or similar construct for decades.
It must've come from C#/Mono since we all know that something is only innovated after Microsoft copi^H^H^H^Hinvents it, right?
Adaptation of _humans_ as a species is easy.
Adaptation of civilization on the other hand is NOT easy, if you think you could move billion people from india to US mideast easily with no gigantic adverse effects you're nothing short of insane.
Most of countries (including US) couln't even handle a shudden shift in oil price, bringing a billion people over a course of few years would collapse US, cause starvation for whole damn continent, trigger all sorts of nasty things that would make all previous world wars look like children at sandbox. Back to stoneage.
I'm going to nitpick. Apparently you're not familiar with the concept of a lending library?
Apparently you're not familiar with the fact that libraries already charge for photocopying, for example?
But the point to lending libraries is that they are free, as in beer. So all you need to borrow anything is your library card, and zero dollars. Just borrow the CD, install on your system, and bring it back.
Lending makes sense for books, they're expensive. But a $0.50 cd? Nope, can't see it.
Besides, as others have pointed out, lending burned cd's has serious security implications, nothing prevents someone from lending it and bringing back something that looks same but isn't.
So I was able to unlock the keypad, search the phonebook for a number, and tell time, all while blacked out. Clearly, I am either the next step in evolution, or you're a much sloppier drunk than I am. ;)
/.
From quite a few comments it looks like many people have tendency to call their exes when wasted. Curious, wonder where that one comes from.
I, too can attest that I manage to type (both normal keyboard and phone) pretty good even when so smashed I don't remember aything about it in the morning.
Looks like the next steps in evolution are gathered at
1) Media. Including bad burns that must be discarded.
Can be dealt in the same way as paper & ink costs for photocopies are - sell the media.
2) Computer time. Libraries often do not have state-of-the-art equipment. The computer doing the burning might not be able to do anything else while it's running.
Burning only takes few minutes on modern burners, so this it not really big problem... however, I'd delegate a computer (it does not need to be very good) solely for this mostly for the next one.
3) Staff time. Something that is often missed. While this could be delegated to a library assistant.
This is a problem if it's general purpose burning station with normal software, people wouldn't know how to use it and would need staff help, however if it's only burning predetermined collection of software there could be a special software with dead simple GUI that turns it into a vending machine machine of sort - insert cd, select a category (applications, games, os), and be presented with selection, burning wouldn't need anything more than inserting cd to drive and clicking an icon. This does probably not exist but it's not complicated, I expect you'd find a load of volunteers for writing such a program if you ask.
Imagine what would happen if that number increased tenfold. We're talking thousands of dollars.
With system like that the only requirements for staff time would be initial set-up and keeping the software stored in it up to date, no matter how many thousand patrons would be using it. What comes to that initial cost, the system would be perhaps $200 or so, maybe $50 for initial stack of 100 cd's and let's say a day to set it up. I don't know whether that's too much, enlighten me.
Well, no.
If you compress 11 -> 1 you don't know afterwards whether 1 is 1 or 3. Or am I missing something obvious here?
Of course there's always a change something we don't know is going on, but the unfortunate fact is that 999999 cases in a million it's a crook. Besides, it's very easy for this guy to prove his claims.
If he hooks up the miracle motor to generator and uses that generator to power up the motor and it keeps running (should be easy with 330% efficiency, you can also draw infinite amount of energy from the circuit while at it) then he has either found the invisible and so far unexplainable power source or has proven that laws of thermodynamics don't work and perpetual motion machines are possible, you can bet that million physicists will swarm in to observe it and everything we though we know will be turned upside down. He'll also be worlds richest person in no time.
Carefully observe how he fails to do that, and instead relies on (probably wrongly calculated or rigged) simple electrical meter. Now ask yourself why? Simple answer: because it doesn't work, and this is nothing but a con.
Security? A requirement for something to take off?
What world are you coming from? Most people unfortunately do not care about security in the slightest. Bazillions of wide-open WiFi networks, unpatched windows infe^H^Hstallations, and the like clearly prove it.
If more of a case with data density, write some text on paper and it's perfectly readable even if it degrades a bit.
Write kazillion über-small very precisely aligned dots on CD (or a paper disk) and have it degrade a big? KABOOM. Gone.
Since the car's data belongs to me (my car, my data,) does forcing presentation in court violate my 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination?
No more so than any other things that belong to you. Things like murder weapons, accidental or intentional recordings of you doing bad things, etc. You know, usually grouped together under the title "evidence".
Some people would say yes, including me.
Really? Would you say so to all of the above then, also? You should be perfecly free to kill someone and film the process, and that should not be allowed to be used against you because it's "your data"?
If would be forced by the government to log your actions, then it probably would fall under self-incrimination, but if not, the fact that it's "your data" or "your property" does not have anything at all to do with it.
Well, I guess there might be a good point there, somewhere in the future.
If, that is, government would require that every car has a recording device of sorts. So far, it's not the case, however.
Why it couldn't?
Or are you saying you can murder someone in cold blood under a surveillance camera as long as it's your property, because that can't be compelled to testify against owner?
Still, if you enjoyed SC2 and are willing to endure some pixelation and the hassle of getting it to run in DosBox or something, the starflight series is still quite a playable game. Great plot too.
Also, unless I remember my retro-wading trough Starflight totally wrong, Amiga versions look somewhat better than DOS ones.
Sega Genesis version even more so, but being a console one, I think it made some stupid sacrifices.
So playing them trough UAE might be a good option if you've got a box that can handle it.
More like what about the animals that are eating it?
Yeah, what about animals eating a herbicide (plant poison) resistant grass? Well, nothing at all.
Insects that are now intolerant to pesticides
Yes, some insects are not resistant to pesticides, no, they didn't pick up any resistance genes from plants they were eating, they adapted to survive, it's called evolution.
and now spread new diseaes that are now genetically modified because of the modifications in the first link in the chain.
Huh?
Don't say it can't happen because it does and has. Some of these are probably not related to genetic egineering but who is to say some are not.
Nice circular logic. New diseases (bacteria and viruses mutate fast, new diseases are continually emerging) -> who's to say they aren't related to genetic engineering?!?! -> pass it as a fact, "don't say it can't happen because it does".
Also known as mob rule.
No thanks. Not that the current systems are working as intended but stupid masses sure won't be any better. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be anything that solves the problems, yet.
I can't understand, or stand for that matter, people who think everyone absolutely should have a tax meter ticking for every last frickin' second of their lives.
Have you ever heard of a concept called free time?