Being a sophisticated internetizen, realize "April Fool's" is fair game as long as there's some place on this planet where the date is still April 1. At the time of this posting, the sun is still many hours from setting on April 1.
Given the way the international date line is drawn, the same sunrise on April 1st (in Tonga) was the same sunrise as Mar 31st in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. What's more: The Sun shone in Tonga on April 1 before the Sun rose for Mar 31 in Alaska.
So deal with it. If you live in Tonga, it will be April 3 for a short time before April 1 ends in the US.
Are you suggesting that news sites (like the BBC) should display entirely different content until the local time matches?
I can see it now... the BBC reports that the Queen's dog has died at 18:00 UTC, but I can't read the story for another 8 hours, when it's 18:00 local time. I'd hate to cover Asia, and have to write the news before it happens...
It's not even noon local time, and I've been dealing with April Fool's for 18+ hours already, and I have another 11 hours to go. Funny how that happens - I hadn't even eaten dinner with my family on Sunday, and those crazy Aussies start cracking April Fool's jokes.
It's so annoying reading about how North Korea has made their latest threats on the morning of Tuesday April 2nd, when it's barely past noon on April Fool's day...
So yeah... deal with it. In a world of global news, every day lasts almost 48 hours.
If you want dates & times to make sense, stick to the local news.
You're aware that the texts were written such that they had a built-in checksum, right? The scribes used the checksums to verify that transcription errors did not occur. There were many procedures and standards in transcribing these texts, all of which are aimed at ensuring that the transcription error level is zero.
Google "masoretic" and "checksum" - Masoretic is the primary source for a number of the earlier texts used in the Bible. Transcribing isn't the issue at all. Translation, however, is the real issue.
The notion that someone should take a literal interpertation of a text that has been between many entirely different cultures and languages - from Hebrew to Greek, to Latin, to Mid-English, to modern English, without knowing intimately how each culture would influence the translation... is pure folly. There's nothing in the bible that says "This part is translated from source A, in language A", and "that portion is translated from source B, in language C".
Reading the Bible should give you a fair idea of the concepts or lessons intended to be passed on. To insist on taking the entire Bible literally, especially the oldest part of it (the creation story), is as logical as reading tea leaves. Most words (in any language) have multiple meanings, depending on the context. Even the much-quoted "six days" - well what is a "day?" One definition is a rotation of the Earth around its axis. Another is a period of time - like an age; think of grandpa saying "back in my day..." he isn't talking about one day, but a period of time... And that's just English - to say nothing of the original languages used...
For that matter, do you know how few people know that in a properly printed KJV bible, italicized words are NOT there for emphasis? The words & phrases in italic were never in the source text(s) - they are added by the translator to round out a phrase or give hints to what the translator felt the intent of the passage is. The translators were attempting to be honest about the translation, and were trying to keep meaning from being lost in translation between languages and cultures.
Trying to argue logically around the collection of documents called "The Bible" displays a profound ignorance about the literary styles, cultures, and time involved. Mixing allegory and history was an accepted and expected literary practice in ancient Hebrew. And that's just one of the time periods and cultures covered by the bible, and only one set of literary quirks...
If so, good! Maybe those damn kids will stop staring at their phones to two seconds and get the hell off my lawn!
Now will you believe that there are good reasons to not open your WiFi?
!!! You've got kids from the whole neighborhood just hanging out on your lawn, leeching your WiFi. Think of all the pheromones coming from all those kids wishing that cute thing a few steps over would look up from the phone and talk to them. All of those awkward glances and giggles.
At this point, the last thing you need is one of them downloading a nude picture of one of their classmates (which will happen several times a week...). Can you imagine the fallout if you not only have "kiddie porn" being downloaded on your network -- but said "kiddie" was regularly seen on your yard
Keep your WiFi closed. Turn on your sprinklers, loose the hounds! You'll get those damn kids off your lawn, clean up your air, and stay out of jail!
I find it convenient to just assume that both sides are lying sacks of shit.
I decided long ago there were no "good guys" in the conflict. The rest becomes a question of how to handle the situation best.
- It's clear that it's a civil war. - I'm not seeing reports of systematic extermination, which is good. - There are a huge number of refugees, and they deserve help and protection. - This seems suspiciously well-timed with France's efforts to lift the EU arms embargo. - I hope that the US is merely cautious about accusations of chemical weapon use - having made a huge ass of itself in the past decade, combined with a host of news stories about the 10 year anniversary of the Iraqi WMD farce. - I hope the US never supplies anything but food & medical supplies to either side. - Russia's backing of the chemical weapon claims might be a conflict of interest, given they've made a lot of money supplying arms to the Syrian gov't. - I don't know a huge amount about chemical weapons, but when I think about it, Chlorine seems to be the easiest to obtain/create, even with household chemicals. It's one of the few I would find credible for the rebels to even have. - Even if chemical weapons are being used... what then?
I'd be reluctant to sending any troops/peacekeepers into a warzone where both sides would shoot at them, and chemical weapons may be used.
Given there doesn't seem to be any way for anybody outside Syria to force a peaceful resolution, it seems the best option is to try to contain the conflict to Syria, and take care of the refugees who just want to live in peace.
Doesn't excuse the person in front for driving recklessly and it's clear that the front person initiated the collision, but there are many, many situations where that accident would still have occurred if the person in front had to suddenly stop -- a child chases a ball into the street. Someone jaywalks without even checking for cross traffic. Etcetc.
Of course - that's why the law evaluates each collision on a case-by-case basis, instead of blindly applying faulty logic.
You never know why the guy in front may slam on his brakes, maybe because he is a dog lover and doesn't want to hit the dog running out in the street.
Or it could be the guy in front of you is a sociopath who deserves to be penalized for his reckless and dangerous behavior.
As a juror you can vote however you want; but you only get one vote out of many possible jurors, and you can be outvoted by the other jurors.
The assumption of innocence by virtue of a car's position in traffic is a poor assumption; every collision should be evaluated on a case by case basis, and this is the law in many jurisdictions.
I don't care what you think or feel about the matter, and neither will the courts. It is the law in the corner of the USA I call home.
There have been a number of recent instances where it's been shown that the driver in the front was at fault because the driver in front acted in ways that were reckless and negligent. The state has taken the reasonable position that there is nothing about the position of a car in traffic that absolves its driver from responsibility if that driver's actions resulted in a collision.
Actively creating a public hazard by slamming on your breaks is in fact illegal, and you have no more right to slam on the brakes for no reason in traffic than you have a right to wildly swing an axe around in a public park; the police will cite you for being a public nuisance at a minimum. In both cases operator is wielding a potentially lethal device in a manner that is unsafe and entirely unnecessary while in a public place. If it is determined that the only reason the collision took place was because of the actions of the driver in front, then the fault is that of the one who created the dangerous situation.
Juries are not only empowered but required to assign a "blame percentage" to all parties involved in a collision. It's still often the case that the rearmost driver is responsible for the collision, however this is not universal. I've had a family member who was on a jury that ruled that a woman who was seriously injured in a rear-end collision was largely at fault - and she was in front; the jury found her 90% responsible, with the person behind her 10% responsible. The reason? She slammed on her brakes suddenly, and with no reason. There were corroborating witnesses who testified to that effect.
The driver in front had willfully caused a collision where none would have otherwise occurred. Sociopathic behavior on the roads is not tolerated by the police, nor the juries that judge the cases brought before them.
Far less controversial is that the driver in front is also at fault whenever they merge lanes with insufficient room between themselves and the car behind them - ie. cutting somebody off, and slowing down suddenly - this happened to my parents, and the car in front was assigned 100% of the blame.
And before anyone goes off on a rant about the state being some sort of liberal hippie heaven - it's not. It's often considered one of the reddest of red states... where teachers are allowed to openly carry firearms in class, and there were hundreds of teachers attended free (for teachers) gun courses after the tragedy in Newtown, CT.
If someone rear-ends you, then that's their fault. 100% of the time.
Patently false. In most jurisdictions, there are many exceptions to this rule.
In my home state, it's possible for the person in front to be held accountable for 100% of the damages - in other words, it's the fault of the person in front. In a great many cases, the person in front is held partially liable, and is responsible for paying some of the damages. Slamming on your brakes for no reason will result in the driver in front being fined for reckless driving, public endangerment, and even criminal mischief.
Courts (and law) aren't so naive as to think that "being in front" absolves one from all responsibility in an accident.
Budget is something that you should consider as well. You can get what you want, if you have the coin.
For instance, before I cut the "cable", my setup was as follows:
* Sattelite, outputting to component video and optical spdif * A Hauppage HD-PVR, which takes component video in, and optical spdif in, and records/encodes the video to H.264 * MythTV (though you can choose other options) * An IR blaster, pointed at the sattelite receiver. * A $50 recent nVIDIA or ATI graphics card that supports VDPAU (ie. GPU-accelerated H.264 decode).
What happened is MythTV would signal the IR blaster to change the channel on the satellite, and then record the video.
The HD-PVR made excellent quality video, at an acceptable size. There are limitations to the HD-PVR's video (the video it encodes, while H.264, is in a format that requires a single, fast core to decode - something about multi-core decode not working at all...).
The HD-PVR even comes with its own IR blaster; I just never took the time to figure out how to use it, as I already had an exceptionally nice IR blaster. The HD-PVR is also a bit finicky, occasionally crashing and requiring a hard power cycle - I even had a network-commanded power relay that would cycle the power to the HD-PVR @ 3:00 AM daily (when even Satellite stopped broadcasting)
In the end, it was not bullet-proof (as occasionally the channel didn't change quite right, for example), but it worked 99% of the time. Full 1080 video with AC3 surround sound.
I've since discontinued my Satellite service, and record on-air ATSC broadcasts - and switched to steaming services. I don't really miss Sattelite, and save about $100/month in subscription fees...
I'm considering hooking a MythTV recording box up at my brother's house (who has cable), and pay him double the "extra TV" charge per month, and then just swap out external hard drives occasionally...
DirectFB certainly is the most successful of the few - it's survival is an important metric to its success.
However, DirectFB hasn't displaced X any more than Fresco or Wayland - the Pi also has X11, which works quite well.
So in one way, it's as good a time as any to try to start yet another graphics architecture, as Wayland hasn't replaced X11 any more than DirectFB has.
I remember Ubuntu being quite vocal that Wayland would be the primary graphics technology for for 12.10 a few years back. I guess Canonical decided that Wayland is taking too long... though I seriously doubt they can do any better.
No, a "finished" and stable btrfs in 2009 was very optimistic... and four years later, it's still experimental, and lacks major features.
This timeline, on the other hand, goes beyond mere optimism, flies past fantasy, and onto the sort of madness one expects of the North Korean Thermonuclear Fusion program.
I wish Canonical well, but I've seen this song before enough times to be more than a little doubtful of their chances. * Fresco * DirectFB * Y Window System
I'd personally go with a solderless breadboard and components.
There are various 'platforms' out there, such as *duino, LaunchPad, and so on. The big advantage to these are: * Predesigned PCB, with most 'electroncis' taken care of for you, * USB built-in * built-in programming/emulation/debugging * an ecosystem of plug-in boards for various tasks.
The platforms make it easy for those with more interest in programming than in hardware to get started. The downside is they are pretty pricey because they have so many bells & whistles.
On the other hand, if you have good Electronics knowledge, then it's hard to beat a solderless breadboard and components. It's hard to get sentimental about a particular MCU when you start to see them as 'just another part'.
In general, some things to consider: If you're just getting into micros, I'd avoid 8-bit, period. Especially for hobby projects, 8-bit is just masochistic; the part costs ~$0.25 less per unit - significant when you build a few thousand of 'em, but to a hobbyist, I'd just get the 32-bit part and enjoy fewer headaches.
My suggestions: * Don't bother with assembly. It's a lot less painful to move to a different platform if you use C/C++ when possible. * Skip the 8-bit AVR-based Arduino entirely. Use one of the 32-bit *duino boards (ARM, for example) or clones (PIC32). * I like the 16 and 32-bit PICs. The PIC18 architecture is OK, but still only 8-bit. Avoid PIC 16, 12, and 10's. PICs are better suited to guys who can do everything on a breadboard, and intend to design a PC Board for a finished design. (There is the *duino-compatible ChipKit, though) * TI has three "Launchpad" platforms. I have at least one of each. TI can't be making money on these things - shipping alone costs more than the purchase price.
* MSP430: A ultra-low power 16-bit MCU. The MSP430 Launchpad is so low-cost ($5 shipped for the MSP430), I'd recommend them as your first option.
* TI's tools for the MSP430 are Windows-Only
* There are (good) free compilers (MSPGCC, MSPGDB) and other tools available for Linux, Mac, etc.
* C2000: A 32-bit real-time MCU. I got it mostly out of curiosity.
* Stellaris: ARM M4 based MCU, full FPU. It's a much cheaper way to get an ARM than an Arduino
* All three have sockets for "booster packs" - similar to an Arduino shield. There's even an MP3 player booster pack. * At least look at the Parallax Propeller. It's a very different, and certainly unconventional, take on microcontrollers.
* The propeller has 8 32-bit cores in it, and has (beta) GCC support (and Linux is a first-class citizen), as well as its own interpreted language, Spin.
* Everything is bit-banged; there are no hardware ADC's, no hardware UART's, no hardware I2C or SPI - just 32 general I/O pins.
* Oddly enough, there a VGA/component video circuitry built-in and available on every I/O pin.
* Propellers also have no interrupts; the idea is to simply activate another MCU core to do whatever task you would use interrupts for. As there are no interrupts, and each 'task' gets a full MCU core.
* Whether you think it's wasteful to dedicate a whole MCU 'core' (even if it is 'sleeping') to do the job of an interrupt, it's a novel solution, and may suit your needs better.
For 60 years now, everyone growing up there has been indoctrinated into a system that pounds into them from childhood that the U.S. is the great evil which must be fought and destroyed.
I recall a documentary made by a Swedish film crew, I think - they followed a mother as she walked her child to school. They were singing a children's song about killing Americans.
In fact, every documentary I've seen about North Korea appear to show a picture of a populace that is so indoctrinated that you can take pretty much any stereotype from a megachurch, and apply it to their worship of "the dear leader". The major problem with the metaphor is that even a megachurch (which is supposedly there to worship a God) doesn't have the level of devotion you see in the North Koreans. So when they're taught that Americans are the great evil of the universe, it's "God's truth" - and beyond question. Their God speaks to them firsthand, not through some guy interpreting a set of ancient writings.
Surrender wouldn't even occur to them were war to break out, any more than a "good Christian" would surrender to the Devil's legions.
There's also more Platinum than Gold in Earth's Crust. Platinum is considerably more valuable than Gold, and more useful as well. One would think that we would be mining/smelting far more Platinum, but no, Gold production is 14x that of Platinum.
There's a real difference between the abundance of a material in Earth's crust, and the ability to obtain useful quantities of it. Until we develop the technology to "crack" planets and refine the contents wholesale, relative amounts of an element in the crust is meaningless.
Even after we've developed planet-cracking technology, I doubt we'd use it on Earth. The alt.pave.the.earth crowd may like the idea, though.
Whether they are smug about it isn't a point I'll go into; but Intel absolutely can dictate to the current market.
With AMD in a nosedive, laying off engineering teams, and consistently under-delivering in every possible way, it's hard to take AMD credibly anymore (which is really quite sad). AMD's performance lags substantially (usually by a full generation) behind Intel's chips, to say nothing of their own broken promises. It's been a number of years since an AMD chip topped Intel's equivalent-gen chip. Even AMD-exclusive Cray recently introduced a line of Intel computers, because AMD has been sucking so hard for the past few years.
It's not that I dislike AMD; it's that I'm pissed that they have blown their lead so spectacularly. Laying off whole engineering teams is just adding nails to the coffin; either way, unless there's a Steve Jobs-like turnaround from its current vicious cycle, AMD's finished in the CPU business - and possibly completely finished.
So who else is there to force Intel to change their tune? * MIPS is largely stuck in embedded land... unless the Chinese MIPS processor manages to take off, which is possible... * ARM is similarly stuck in embedded land; even the new ARM-64 arch isn't a serious contender to Intel. * SPARC is both slower and considerably more expensive, thanks, Oracle. * PowerPC is all but dead on the desktop.
So yeah... it really sucks, but Intel really can dictate to the market. AMD's fall began with the Barcelona core (which was very late & much slower than promised) back in 2007. Every major core release since then has been more of the same (late & slow). After five years of this, Intel has every reason to believe AMD is being run and staffed by used car salesmen.
I care far less about whether the summary is biased than I care that the summary is horrible.
Apple throws a tantrum and adds a bunch of new products to the never-ending list of products Samsung has infringed on... because of a ruling on Thursday, Apple throws a tantrum and is trying to add even more products into the lawsuit
Here's a tip: Repeating bad grammar doesn't improve it; repeating bad grammar in what should be a summary is both embarrassing and redundant.
Slashdot Mirror
I find it entertaining to laugh at chumps like you who can't let things go; so it's funny and worthwhile to me.
Local time is irrelevant.
Being a sophisticated internetizen, realize "April Fool's" is fair game as long as there's some place on this planet where the date is still April 1. At the time of this posting, the sun is still many hours from setting on April 1.
Given the way the international date line is drawn, the same sunrise on April 1st (in Tonga) was the same sunrise as Mar 31st in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. What's more: The Sun shone in Tonga on April 1 before the Sun rose for Mar 31 in Alaska.
So deal with it. If you live in Tonga, it will be April 3 for a short time before April 1 ends in the US.
I know. It's April 1st, and there's not a pony in sight on slashdot.
Are you suggesting that news sites (like the BBC) should display entirely different content until the local time matches?
I can see it now... the BBC reports that the Queen's dog has died at 18:00 UTC, but I can't read the story for another 8 hours, when it's 18:00 local time. I'd hate to cover Asia, and have to write the news before it happens...
It's not even noon local time, and I've been dealing with April Fool's for 18+ hours already, and I have another 11 hours to go. Funny how that happens - I hadn't even eaten dinner with my family on Sunday, and those crazy Aussies start cracking April Fool's jokes.
It's so annoying reading about how North Korea has made their latest threats on the morning of Tuesday April 2nd, when it's barely past noon on April Fool's day...
So yeah... deal with it. In a world of global news, every day lasts almost 48 hours.
If you want dates & times to make sense, stick to the local news.
Tvira gur nzbhag bs fcvevgrq qvfphffvba naq snpg-fgergpuvat gung vf varivgnoyl n cneg bs nal flfgrzq qvfphffvba, V'z hafher jurgure be abg guvf vf na Ncevy Sbby'f wbxr - gbqnl'f qngr or qnzarq...
Whfg rkcynva gung Whenffvp Cnex jnfa'g n jbex bs svpgvba - vg jnf n uvfgbel obbx, znqr vagb n qbphzragnel.
Lrg gurer'f ab zragvba bs gur pbzchgre V phg zl grrgu jvgu: Gur Nccyr ][ naq
pybarf.
V unir sbaq zrzbevrf bs sylvat zl svefg syvtug fvzhyngbe, cynlvat Jbysrafgrva sbe gur svefg gvzr, naq yrneavat gb cebtenz -- nyy ba na Nccyr ][ Pybar.
Va snpg, V cynlrq frireny syvtug fvzhyngbef ba zl Nccyr ][ pybar - sebz Zvpebfbsg Syvtug Fvzhyngbe gb Puhpx Lrntre'f Nqinaprq Syvtug Genvare.
Nalbar erzrzore Oebqreohaq'f "Gur Cevag Fubc" jurer lbh pbhyq cevag pneqf, onaaref, naq cbfgref sbe gur svefg gvzr? Ubzrpbzvatf unir arire orra gur fnzr jvgubhg n qbg-zngevk cresbengrq onaare.
Fbeel, ohg V'yy gnxr uneqjner ol gur Jbm nal qnl.
You're aware that the texts were written such that they had a built-in checksum, right? The scribes used the checksums to verify that transcription errors did not occur. There were many procedures and standards in transcribing these texts, all of which are aimed at ensuring that the transcription error level is zero.
Google "masoretic" and "checksum" - Masoretic is the primary source for a number of the earlier texts used in the Bible. Transcribing isn't the issue at all. Translation, however, is the real issue.
The notion that someone should take a literal interpertation of a text that has been between many entirely different cultures and languages - from Hebrew to Greek, to Latin, to Mid-English, to modern English, without knowing intimately how each culture would influence the translation... is pure folly. There's nothing in the bible that says "This part is translated from source A, in language A", and "that portion is translated from source B, in language C".
Reading the Bible should give you a fair idea of the concepts or lessons intended to be passed on. To insist on taking the entire Bible literally, especially the oldest part of it (the creation story), is as logical as reading tea leaves. Most words (in any language) have multiple meanings, depending on the context. Even the much-quoted "six days" - well what is a "day?" One definition is a rotation of the Earth around its axis. Another is a period of time - like an age; think of grandpa saying "back in my day..." he isn't talking about one day, but a period of time... And that's just English - to say nothing of the original languages used...
For that matter, do you know how few people know that in a properly printed KJV bible, italicized words are NOT there for emphasis? The words & phrases in italic were never in the source text(s) - they are added by the translator to round out a phrase or give hints to what the translator felt the intent of the passage is. The translators were attempting to be honest about the translation, and were trying to keep meaning from being lost in translation between languages and cultures.
Trying to argue logically around the collection of documents called "The Bible" displays a profound ignorance about the literary styles, cultures, and time involved. Mixing allegory and history was an accepted and expected literary practice in ancient Hebrew. And that's just one of the time periods and cultures covered by the bible, and only one set of literary quirks...
If so, good! Maybe those damn kids will stop staring at their phones to two seconds and get the hell off my lawn!
Now will you believe that there are good reasons to not open your WiFi?
!!! You've got kids from the whole neighborhood just hanging out on your lawn, leeching your WiFi. Think of all the pheromones coming from all those kids wishing that cute thing a few steps over would look up from the phone and talk to them. All of those awkward glances and giggles.
At this point, the last thing you need is one of them downloading a nude picture of one of their classmates (which will happen several times a week...). Can you imagine the fallout if you not only have "kiddie porn" being downloaded on your network -- but said "kiddie" was regularly seen on your yard
Keep your WiFi closed. Turn on your sprinklers, loose the hounds! You'll get those damn kids off your lawn, clean up your air, and stay out of jail!
I find it convenient to just assume that both sides are lying sacks of shit.
I decided long ago there were no "good guys" in the conflict. The rest becomes a question of how to handle the situation best.
- It's clear that it's a civil war.
- I'm not seeing reports of systematic extermination, which is good.
- There are a huge number of refugees, and they deserve help and protection.
- This seems suspiciously well-timed with France's efforts to lift the EU arms embargo.
- I hope that the US is merely cautious about accusations of chemical weapon use - having made a huge ass of itself in the past decade, combined with a host of news stories about the 10 year anniversary of the Iraqi WMD farce.
- I hope the US never supplies anything but food & medical supplies to either side.
- Russia's backing of the chemical weapon claims might be a conflict of interest, given they've made a lot of money supplying arms to the Syrian gov't.
- I don't know a huge amount about chemical weapons, but when I think about it, Chlorine seems to be the easiest to obtain/create, even with household chemicals. It's one of the few I would find credible for the rebels to even have.
- Even if chemical weapons are being used... what then?
I'd be reluctant to sending any troops/peacekeepers into a warzone where both sides would shoot at them, and chemical weapons may be used.
Given there doesn't seem to be any way for anybody outside Syria to force a peaceful resolution, it seems the best option is to try to contain the conflict to Syria, and take care of the refugees who just want to live in peace.
Doesn't excuse the person in front for driving recklessly and it's clear that the front person initiated the collision, but there are many, many situations where that accident would still have occurred if the person in front had to suddenly stop -- a child chases a ball into the street. Someone jaywalks without even checking for cross traffic. Etcetc.
Of course - that's why the law evaluates each collision on a case-by-case basis, instead of blindly applying faulty logic.
You never know why the guy in front may slam on his brakes, maybe because he is a dog lover and doesn't want to hit the dog running out in the street.
Or it could be the guy in front of you is a sociopath who deserves to be penalized for his reckless and dangerous behavior.
As a juror you can vote however you want; but you only get one vote out of many possible jurors, and you can be outvoted by the other jurors.
The assumption of innocence by virtue of a car's position in traffic is a poor assumption; every collision should be evaluated on a case by case basis, and this is the law in many jurisdictions.
I don't care what you think or feel about the matter, and neither will the courts. It is the law in the corner of the USA I call home.
There have been a number of recent instances where it's been shown that the driver in the front was at fault because the driver in front acted in ways that were reckless and negligent. The state has taken the reasonable position that there is nothing about the position of a car in traffic that absolves its driver from responsibility if that driver's actions resulted in a collision.
Actively creating a public hazard by slamming on your breaks is in fact illegal, and you have no more right to slam on the brakes for no reason in traffic than you have a right to wildly swing an axe around in a public park; the police will cite you for being a public nuisance at a minimum. In both cases operator is wielding a potentially lethal device in a manner that is unsafe and entirely unnecessary while in a public place. If it is determined that the only reason the collision took place was because of the actions of the driver in front, then the fault is that of the one who created the dangerous situation.
Juries are not only empowered but required to assign a "blame percentage" to all parties involved in a collision. It's still often the case that the rearmost driver is responsible for the collision, however this is not universal. I've had a family member who was on a jury that ruled that a woman who was seriously injured in a rear-end collision was largely at fault - and she was in front; the jury found her 90% responsible, with the person behind her 10% responsible. The reason? She slammed on her brakes suddenly, and with no reason. There were corroborating witnesses who testified to that effect.
The driver in front had willfully caused a collision where none would have otherwise occurred. Sociopathic behavior on the roads is not tolerated by the police, nor the juries that judge the cases brought before them.
Far less controversial is that the driver in front is also at fault whenever they merge lanes with insufficient room between themselves and the car behind them - ie. cutting somebody off, and slowing down suddenly - this happened to my parents, and the car in front was assigned 100% of the blame.
And before anyone goes off on a rant about the state being some sort of liberal hippie heaven - it's not. It's often considered one of the reddest of red states... where teachers are allowed to openly carry firearms in class, and there were hundreds of teachers attended free (for teachers) gun courses after the tragedy in Newtown, CT.
If someone rear-ends you, then that's their fault. 100% of the time.
Patently false. In most jurisdictions, there are many exceptions to this rule.
In my home state, it's possible for the person in front to be held accountable for 100% of the damages - in other words, it's the fault of the person in front. In a great many cases, the person in front is held partially liable, and is responsible for paying some of the damages. Slamming on your brakes for no reason will result in the driver in front being fined for reckless driving, public endangerment, and even criminal mischief.
Courts (and law) aren't so naive as to think that "being in front" absolves one from all responsibility in an accident.
Budget is something that you should consider as well. You can get what you want, if you have the coin.
For instance, before I cut the "cable", my setup was as follows:
* Sattelite, outputting to component video and optical spdif
* A Hauppage HD-PVR, which takes component video in, and optical spdif in, and records/encodes the video to H.264
* MythTV (though you can choose other options)
* An IR blaster, pointed at the sattelite receiver.
* A $50 recent nVIDIA or ATI graphics card that supports VDPAU (ie. GPU-accelerated H.264 decode).
What happened is MythTV would signal the IR blaster to change the channel on the satellite, and then record the video.
The HD-PVR made excellent quality video, at an acceptable size. There are limitations to the HD-PVR's video (the video it encodes, while H.264, is in a format that requires a single, fast core to decode - something about multi-core decode not working at all...).
The HD-PVR even comes with its own IR blaster; I just never took the time to figure out how to use it, as I already had an exceptionally nice IR blaster. The HD-PVR is also a bit finicky, occasionally crashing and requiring a hard power cycle - I even had a network-commanded power relay that would cycle the power to the HD-PVR @ 3:00 AM daily (when even Satellite stopped broadcasting)
In the end, it was not bullet-proof (as occasionally the channel didn't change quite right, for example), but it worked 99% of the time. Full 1080 video with AC3 surround sound.
I've since discontinued my Satellite service, and record on-air ATSC broadcasts - and switched to steaming services. I don't really miss Sattelite, and save about $100/month in subscription fees...
I'm considering hooking a MythTV recording box up at my brother's house (who has cable), and pay him double the "extra TV" charge per month, and then just swap out external hard drives occasionally...
DirectFB certainly is the most successful of the few - it's survival is an important metric to its success.
However, DirectFB hasn't displaced X any more than Fresco or Wayland - the Pi also has X11, which works quite well.
So in one way, it's as good a time as any to try to start yet another graphics architecture, as Wayland hasn't replaced X11 any more than DirectFB has.
I remember Ubuntu being quite vocal that Wayland would be the primary graphics technology for for 12.10 a few years back. I guess Canonical decided that Wayland is taking too long... though I seriously doubt they can do any better.
Their time line seems very optimistic though.
No, a "finished" and stable btrfs in 2009 was very optimistic... and four years later, it's still experimental, and lacks major features.
This timeline, on the other hand, goes beyond mere optimism, flies past fantasy, and onto the sort of madness one expects of the North Korean Thermonuclear Fusion program.
I wish Canonical well, but I've seen this song before enough times to be more than a little doubtful of their chances.
* Fresco
* DirectFB
* Y Window System
For the geographically stupid:
When I read "Oz" I think of "The land of Oz" - ruled by Princess Ozma, and inhabited by Munchkins, Cowardly Lions, and Tin Men...
I'd personally go with a solderless breadboard and components.
There are various 'platforms' out there, such as *duino, LaunchPad, and so on.
The big advantage to these are:
* Predesigned PCB, with most 'electroncis' taken care of for you,
* USB built-in
* built-in programming/emulation/debugging
* an ecosystem of plug-in boards for various tasks.
The platforms make it easy for those with more interest in programming than in hardware to get started. The downside is they are pretty pricey because they have so many bells & whistles.
On the other hand, if you have good Electronics knowledge, then it's hard to beat a solderless breadboard and components. It's hard to get sentimental about a particular MCU when you start to see them as 'just another part'.
In general, some things to consider:
If you're just getting into micros, I'd avoid 8-bit, period. Especially for hobby projects, 8-bit is just masochistic; the part costs ~$0.25 less per unit - significant when you build a few thousand of 'em, but to a hobbyist, I'd just get the 32-bit part and enjoy fewer headaches.
My suggestions:
* Don't bother with assembly. It's a lot less painful to move to a different platform if you use C/C++ when possible.
* Skip the 8-bit AVR-based Arduino entirely. Use one of the 32-bit *duino boards (ARM, for example) or clones (PIC32).
* I like the 16 and 32-bit PICs. The PIC18 architecture is OK, but still only 8-bit. Avoid PIC 16, 12, and 10's. PICs are better suited to guys who can do everything on a breadboard, and intend to design a PC Board for a finished design. (There is the *duino-compatible ChipKit, though)
* TI has three "Launchpad" platforms. I have at least one of each. TI can't be making money on these things - shipping alone costs more than the purchase price.
* MSP430: A ultra-low power 16-bit MCU. The MSP430 Launchpad is so low-cost ($5 shipped for the MSP430), I'd recommend them as your first option.
* TI's tools for the MSP430 are Windows-Only
* There are (good) free compilers (MSPGCC, MSPGDB) and other tools available for Linux, Mac, etc.
* C2000: A 32-bit real-time MCU. I got it mostly out of curiosity.
* Stellaris: ARM M4 based MCU, full FPU. It's a much cheaper way to get an ARM than an Arduino
* All three have sockets for "booster packs" - similar to an Arduino shield. There's even an MP3 player booster pack.
* At least look at the Parallax Propeller. It's a very different, and certainly unconventional, take on microcontrollers.
* The propeller has 8 32-bit cores in it, and has (beta) GCC support (and Linux is a first-class citizen), as well as its own interpreted language, Spin.
* Everything is bit-banged; there are no hardware ADC's, no hardware UART's, no hardware I2C or SPI - just 32 general I/O pins.
* Oddly enough, there a VGA/component video circuitry built-in and available on every I/O pin.
* Propellers also have no interrupts; the idea is to simply activate another MCU core to do whatever task you would use interrupts for. As there are no interrupts, and each 'task' gets a full MCU core.
* Whether you think it's wasteful to dedicate a whole MCU 'core' (even if it is 'sleeping') to do the job of an interrupt, it's a novel solution, and may suit your needs better.
"which is essentially an immortal ally." Damn, I'd heard their health care was good... I had no idea!
Well, they sent us packing every time we've tried to invade.
We thought we could invade them with Hollywood, but they retaliated with Bill Shatner, Nickelback, Bieber, and Celine Dion.
I've heard the best weed we can get comes from British Columbia...
It's also our hat; keeping that cold polar chill from reaching as far.
Plus, any country that has a strategic Maple Syrup reserve is a force to be reckoned with.
For 60 years now, everyone growing up there has been indoctrinated into a system that pounds into them from childhood that the U.S. is the great evil which must be fought and destroyed.
I recall a documentary made by a Swedish film crew, I think - they followed a mother as she walked her child to school. They were singing a children's song about killing Americans.
In fact, every documentary I've seen about North Korea appear to show a picture of a populace that is so indoctrinated that you can take pretty much any stereotype from a megachurch, and apply it to their worship of "the dear leader". The major problem with the metaphor is that even a megachurch (which is supposedly there to worship a God) doesn't have the level of devotion you see in the North Koreans. So when they're taught that Americans are the great evil of the universe, it's "God's truth" - and beyond question. Their God speaks to them firsthand, not through some guy interpreting a set of ancient writings.
Surrender wouldn't even occur to them were war to break out, any more than a "good Christian" would surrender to the Devil's legions.
A summary that merely states that Apple has a warranty, and that Apple is misleading customers.
OK, fine, but... how is Apple misleading customers? Neither the summary, nor the linked article give any clue.
There's also more Platinum than Gold in Earth's Crust. Platinum is considerably more valuable than Gold, and more useful as well. One would think that we would be mining/smelting far more Platinum, but no, Gold production is 14x that of Platinum.
There's a real difference between the abundance of a material in Earth's crust, and the ability to obtain useful quantities of it. Until we develop the technology to "crack" planets and refine the contents wholesale, relative amounts of an element in the crust is meaningless.
Even after we've developed planet-cracking technology, I doubt we'd use it on Earth. The alt.pave.the.earth crowd may like the idea, though.
Whether they are smug about it isn't a point I'll go into; but Intel absolutely can dictate to the current market.
With AMD in a nosedive, laying off engineering teams, and consistently under-delivering in every possible way, it's hard to take AMD credibly anymore (which is really quite sad). AMD's performance lags substantially (usually by a full generation) behind Intel's chips, to say nothing of their own broken promises. It's been a number of years since an AMD chip topped Intel's equivalent-gen chip. Even AMD-exclusive Cray recently introduced a line of Intel computers, because AMD has been sucking so hard for the past few years.
It's not that I dislike AMD; it's that I'm pissed that they have blown their lead so spectacularly. Laying off whole engineering teams is just adding nails to the coffin; either way, unless there's a Steve Jobs-like turnaround from its current vicious cycle, AMD's finished in the CPU business - and possibly completely finished.
So who else is there to force Intel to change their tune?
* MIPS is largely stuck in embedded land... unless the Chinese MIPS processor manages to take off, which is possible...
* ARM is similarly stuck in embedded land; even the new ARM-64 arch isn't a serious contender to Intel.
* SPARC is both slower and considerably more expensive, thanks, Oracle.
* PowerPC is all but dead on the desktop.
So yeah... it really sucks, but Intel really can dictate to the market. AMD's fall began with the Barcelona core (which was very late & much slower than promised) back in 2007. Every major core release since then has been more of the same (late & slow). After five years of this, Intel has every reason to believe AMD is being run and staffed by used car salesmen.
I care far less about whether the summary is biased than I care that the summary is horrible.
Apple throws a tantrum and adds a bunch of new products to the never-ending list of products Samsung has infringed on... because of a ruling on Thursday, Apple throws a tantrum and is trying to add even more products into the lawsuit
Here's a tip: Repeating bad grammar doesn't improve it; repeating bad grammar in what should be a summary is both embarrassing and redundant.