As an estonian I really wonder where did you get that bull...russian media probably.
I don't know specifically about Estonia, but my relatives live in Riga, and I know what was happening there firsthand. Probably it is better now, but back then, right after the independence, the rules were very tough on "foreigners" - including those who lived in the country forever, and the only difference is that they originate from Russia or Ukraine or from anywhere else. It *was* an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
Fortunately, my aunt was married to a Latvian guy, and spoke the language fluently; other people were not that fortunate. Admittedly, the language wasn't that hard to learn (I could read some street signs in couple of days), but for older people it would be an insurmountable obstacle. What *civilized* countries do in such cases is that they have several official languages. Changing the rules overnight and forcing people to learn the language on someone's else schedule is nothing but a crude attempt at forcing them out.
With regard to the War, weren't former Nazis parading through Riga? I remember that other Nazi collaborators were elevated to status of War Veterans too; maybe not in Estonia, again, sorry for my lack of distinction between states.
The current tendency of Baltic states of becoming subservient and obedient vassals to Bush does not help either. I hope they actually manage to stay away from the mess. Since you live there, though, you know better about those things...
I can confirm that. I was in Riga (Latvia) in 1983 or so, and I can't recall any problem with water (hot or cold), telephone, TV, electric trains or anything else. Even if some old house didn't have hot water *pipeline* connected, then the gas boilers were installed (pretty much as most of US houses are right now.) But Soviet style was to have central hot water / steam / power plants, and to distribute hot water through a network of insulated pipes to buildings.
The article is simply ridiculous, in many aspects. First, it talks about this water issue as if it is true, and then it louds Internet as a "human right". As other posters mentioned, Baltic states have a lot of more serious human rights problems to worry about. How'd you like, for example, dropping Russian language as one of official state languages, and requiring virtually everyone to pass tests on the national language, overnight, or be kicked out of a job? Or how about malicious prosecutions of World War II veterans who fought Nazis? Baltic states have a lot of very shameful Nazi past (plus some of very racist present, which is apparently OK there), and this "Internet access as a human right" can't hide that.
There is no way I'd replace my Visor Deluxe with one of these pieces of crap even if they offered a straight trade. If it broke, I'd buy a used Visor Prism.
My Visor Deluxe broke last winter - the LCD bias disappeared, I guess, but I have no schematic drawings to fix it.
For several weeks I was determined to replace the thing. I looked at Palm, Handspring, Sharp and Sony products, looked long and hard. Every time it seemed that I need that a little bit faster CPU, or that more memory, or that better resolution of the screen... I couldn't decide. This went on for some time.
But in the meantime I needed something to replace the lost device. I had IBM ThinkPad T240 at the office; it is an older (and slower) mini-notebook. I adopted it. Guess what, I still haven't bought the replacement PDA (and the manufacturers went through several upgrades already:-) The notebook is maybe 4x heavier and larger, but it is a real computer, with 6 GB of HDD and 192 MB RAM, and I can do some real work on it. The thing boots Win98 and RedHat 9.0 now, runs OpenOffice, and I can compile Qt apps. To me, returning to an unreadable 160x160 screen is unthinkable. Even the best modern PDAs - with hi-res color screens - are not as good as a standard 800x600 color screen of the T240.
Some features are lost, of course - a notebook does not fit into a pocket, and can't be operated on a few second notice. But I found that it does not matter, since I don't do anything on a few second notice anyway:-) I am now glad that I haven't invested into the pricier PDA back then, because I don't really need it. I decided that I will buy a PDA only when I can explain to myself how I am going to use it, and why I want to use it this way.
If the project is viable, they should assign sufficient resources and have the project done.
It's more like they should assign the minimal and least expensive personnel to do the job, and to squeeze them all dry in the process. That's how it is, and everything else is just wishful thinking. In this market programmers are disposable, especially in a company that does not value the programmers (which seems to be the case here.)
Regardless of how the management came to this job in first place, it is clearly unethical not to pay for the extra work. But ethical considerations don't do well with bean counters. And if you complain too much, the whole thing will be outsourced to the other side of the planet:-)
If you want to object to this treatment you'd better have a job offer in your pocket, or a good job security (such as being a key person who knows certain things that are essential.) Anything else will get you displaced sooner or later, because employers today don't like troublemakers.
I don't think any of them cared about the "long term". And if you check out their history in short term, they achieved a significant success for those times.
Forget flatlanders. A much more significant percentage believes that this planet is directly ruled by an invisible, omnipotent old man that sits on a cloud in the sky...
You can't have 100% reliable bomb screening. It is absolutely impossible. A bomb is a chemical mixture, not a piece of metal (it detonates with supersonic speed without the need of a metal shell, which powder would need to be efficient.)
An explosive sealed in a glass bottle won't emit any vapors even if it goes through the bomb-sniffing machine (which a rare suitcase does.) It doesn't even need to be explosive; a flammable or corrosive liquid will do just as well - and you can't check the contents of all the tequila bottles:-)
Another, yet untried possibility, can be mentioned - of a bomb implanted into the terrorist. It can be easily done, because there is enough space in humans to conceal a large bomb, especially if the terrorist does not need some of his less vital internal organs.
If the bomb detection is not technically possible (without an exploratory surgery on every passenger), then the next best solution is just to ignore the threat and continue with our lives. We routinely take higher risks when we drive at 80 mph in a foot from the oncoming traffic, with only a twitch of a hand separating life from death. A technological solution can not be used to solve the social problem. But to acknowledge defeat is politically so hard to do...
It works for me as an MP3/Ogg player. Boots over the network (thanks to JWZ's HOWTO), runs Blackbox and XMMS. No CD, no HDD, not even Flash. Even the audio files are NFS mounted.
But as a computer it is fairly bad. The video is the worst offender - it uses shared RAM, and there are streaks all over the screen if some serious computations are performed (I tried to run distributed.net on it and gave up.)
The box is also abysmally slow, so much that it is basically unusable. As a browser... sure, it might just work - but who needs just a browser?
In any case, the box works for me as a player just fine, and I am glad that I have it. But it is also good that I found the right use for the thing... otherwise it would have been a total write-off. Don't buy one unless you know how you can use it.
The FDA should inspect any device that gives you a medical advise. Your car does not do that, and neither does your oven. But if you have a calculator that tells you what food is safe for you to eat (or else you die), you'd better be sure it works.
Actually, if anyone badly wants the rental Segway, he will just shove it into the trunk of a car. The metal lid is not RF transparent, so it will act as a decent Faraday cage.
But that' not all. The transmitter in the Segway can not be too powerful, and it does not have a good antenna. This means that the communication distance is probably limited to most of the park at best. As soon as you distance yourself from the monitoring receiver (at the office, probably) the signal disappears, along with the Segway.
The only realistic way to track Segway across a larger distances would be to equip it with a satellite transmitter. However, this is expensive, and it still requires unobstructed view of the sky (since sat uplinks are in microwave band and can't penetrate most materials.) I don't think it is worth of trouble. Also, don't forget that GPS receiver itself requires view of the sky to receive the location.
In other words, the GPS tracking setup - even if it really exists - is mostly scare tactic used to keep honest people honest. But if someone wants to steal the Segway, it is ridiculously easy. He wouldn't even need to rent one, he'd just steal one that is parked next to a public restroom.
who can spend hours downloading it and spend more time transcoding it back to.vob format
Nobody would do such a thing. The DVD format is MPEG2, which is fairly old and inefficient. DivX5.x is 10 times as small, with a similar quality. So you do not need to restore it back to 7GB - all you need is to produce a 700 MB AVI file, and be happy. If you are really picky, make it larger, for two CDs. Any CD-R will do, and the download would be not too difficult (as if it's you who has to copy the bytes by hand:-)
I don't believe they would even think of *BSD or Linux. Or even Mac. Windows [95] is the only OS that is virus friendly; there a RIAA virus has at least a chance of getting in. But on a reasonably configured UNIX system even the complete takeover of the P2P application may not result in any damage whatsoever (aside from he application being in need of restart.)
As an example, I have a Web server; but it is not permitted to write (especially into HTML files, and into its own executable), runs chrooted, and gets automatically restarted after so many client connections. Also, it is custom compiled to have only few modules that I need; the rest, like mod_dir, is not even there. So how much can be done with it?
There sure are reasons to browse in a book store. I definitely can read more than 20 sample pages of the book, but rarely do that - if I am still reading after few pages, the book is probably worth of buying anyway.
Another reason to buy through Amazon et al is the used books. I recently bought a used book about PostreSQL, list price about $45, my price... $5. Tough to beat that:-) And the book is in very good condition.
They're nicer to hold, and easier/more comfortable to read.
But this is not applicable to newspapers. The latter are awfully large, inconvenient to hold, and require either eagle-sharp vision to see the whole sheet, or you have to fold and crumple the page until you can bring it closer to your eyes. Did I mention that I hate newspapers?:-)
Going to libraries and looking through newsPAPERS also helps you find stuff you might otherwise not have looked at.
Where is that magical library which has more stuff than the whole Internet?
That's not enough. The mechanical action of the tool lifts edges of the copper foil, and makes the surface uneven. The tool will start lifting the whole trace if the trace is thin enough. Fine point tool may work well with soft copper.
You should also consider that this technology does not apply solder masks, and does not do plating of pads/vias, or tinning of exposed surfaces. Bare copper is not very suitable for soldering, and it oxidizes quickly.
When I say "unconditionally useless" I mean it. Myself, I went through all PCB technologies, at home and at work - from cutting the traces with a hand tool, to etching, to milling. And now I know that only a professionally made board can be trusted.
Of course, a hobbyist always can use a simpler, home made (and broken) board. But this is a waste of time, IMO. Your time is better spent developing a circuit, instead of making a PCB. Get your free copy of Eagle, and learn how to do boards the right way - through Excellon and Gerber files. This knowledge is very useful in real life (unlike the milling adventure.)
Cost of the board is comparable, if not below, to the cost of components that you intend to solder to the board. If your board is defective (which is a function of its complexity and your technology's reliability) then your whole work will fail, and you will be cutting traces, lifting pins and doing all other kinds of invasive debugging only to find a short circuit between traces, *under* some chip. That's a pain. My advice is simple: just don't go there.
I worked with Sierra Proto Express. They have MIL-SPEC technology. They made me a few boards with 4 mil trace/space, gold plated. They also did a production run for me as well, with excellent quality. If you have the money, they are the best.
Yes, you can make the machine, no problem with that. But the resulting PCB is garbage. There are many problems with this method. As I already said, small trace/space is out of question. Then you have to have very flat sheet of material, or else the tool either cuts air, or dives too deep into the fiberglass (and breaks). You have to have a set of tools as well, and they don't come free (or even cheap), and they break often. Also, fiberglass is a very tough material to cut, it dulls blades very quickly. Also, you often have to breathe this glass dust in, which is not very healthy either.
I do not know how many hobbyists use TQFPs, but today they don't have much of a choice. A fresh example for you: I wanted to do a project with ATMEGA32-16. I chose through-hole part. Went to Digikey... and found that it is not in stock, and delivery time is months away. I changed the part to SMD, and got it in stock and delivered in 2 days.
Fact is, less and less circuits are available in through-hole packages. Also, the more integrated the circuit is, the easier it is to use for a hobbyist. What would you prefer, to put one Atmel AVR chip on board, or 10 boards full of SN74 logic?
I had the machine at previous job, and I used it couple of times. The results are junk. Avoid it if you can. Also notice that these machines are not used in the industry (if they were ever really used in the industry). They fill a very narrow niche, and that's it. They are probably OK for an analog board, preferrably one-sided. But as soon as you start doing something really worth doing, it will fail you, and you will regret that you haven't ordered your boards from a decent board house (as I said, they are now working for pennies).
I can't get to the site (slashdotted). But I used one of such machines. Nowadays they are absolutely, unconditionally useless. They can't make the fine traces that are required for modern chips. Instead, it is cheaper now to order your PCBs from a board house (such as Advanced Circuits). $30 per board is not that expensive.
Except that the American programmer can meet with the customer.
You must be joking. In most companies programmers neither want, nor are allowed to talk to a customer. This is reserved for managers and technical support people (who have their own guidelines, training and clothes).
If a typical programmer meets a customer it would cause a disaster. For example, the programmer will honestly say that feature X that the customer bought not only does not work, its development hasn't even started yet!
Businesses may want LCD panels because they take less space on employees' desks. However, home users are rarely concerned with the size (or weight) of a single 19" monitor. The LCD price must be actually below the CRTs' price, and LCD must be fit for gaming, before many home users consider them.
Even in a business environment CRT still has benefits. It has variable resolution to begin with, and can be adjusted to match the needs of the user. A CAD user will want to run 1600x1200 at very least; other people may want resolution as low as 800x600.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know specifically about Estonia, but my relatives live in Riga, and I know what was happening there firsthand. Probably it is better now, but back then, right after the independence, the rules were very tough on "foreigners" - including those who lived in the country forever, and the only difference is that they originate from Russia or Ukraine or from anywhere else. It *was* an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
Fortunately, my aunt was married to a Latvian guy, and spoke the language fluently; other people were not that fortunate. Admittedly, the language wasn't that hard to learn (I could read some street signs in couple of days), but for older people it would be an insurmountable obstacle. What *civilized* countries do in such cases is that they have several official languages. Changing the rules overnight and forcing people to learn the language on someone's else schedule is nothing but a crude attempt at forcing them out.
Gradual elimination of state - and municipally funded education in minority languages is a stated goal for most political parties in Latvia. Nice, isn't it? And this ordeal is not over yet. Most countries today try to become multi-cultural, because variety is good. But Latvia wants to become a monoculture, a thing in itself. Too sad.
With regard to the War, weren't former Nazis parading through Riga? I remember that other Nazi collaborators were elevated to status of War Veterans too; maybe not in Estonia, again, sorry for my lack of distinction between states.
The current tendency of Baltic states of becoming subservient and obedient vassals to Bush does not help either. I hope they actually manage to stay away from the mess. Since you live there, though, you know better about those things...
The article is simply ridiculous, in many aspects. First, it talks about this water issue as if it is true, and then it louds Internet as a "human right". As other posters mentioned, Baltic states have a lot of more serious human rights problems to worry about. How'd you like, for example, dropping Russian language as one of official state languages, and requiring virtually everyone to pass tests on the national language, overnight, or be kicked out of a job? Or how about malicious prosecutions of World War II veterans who fought Nazis? Baltic states have a lot of very shameful Nazi past (plus some of very racist present, which is apparently OK there), and this "Internet access as a human right" can't hide that.
Give them my business card. I won't charge too much :-) And I think I could find some use for that extra income...
My Visor Deluxe broke last winter - the LCD bias disappeared, I guess, but I have no schematic drawings to fix it.
For several weeks I was determined to replace the thing. I looked at Palm, Handspring, Sharp and Sony products, looked long and hard. Every time it seemed that I need that a little bit faster CPU, or that more memory, or that better resolution of the screen... I couldn't decide. This went on for some time.
But in the meantime I needed something to replace the lost device. I had IBM ThinkPad T240 at the office; it is an older (and slower) mini-notebook. I adopted it. Guess what, I still haven't bought the replacement PDA (and the manufacturers went through several upgrades already :-) The notebook is maybe 4x heavier and larger, but it is a real computer, with 6 GB of HDD and 192 MB RAM, and I can do some real work on it. The thing boots Win98 and RedHat 9.0 now, runs OpenOffice, and I can compile Qt apps. To me, returning to an unreadable 160x160 screen is unthinkable. Even the best modern PDAs - with hi-res color screens - are not as good as a standard 800x600 color screen of the T240.
Some features are lost, of course - a notebook does not fit into a pocket, and can't be operated on a few second notice. But I found that it does not matter, since I don't do anything on a few second notice anyway :-) I am now glad that I haven't invested into the pricier PDA back then, because I don't really need it. I decided that I will buy a PDA only when I can explain to myself how I am going to use it, and why I want to use it this way.
"Sen." means senile?
It's more like they should assign the minimal and least expensive personnel to do the job, and to squeeze them all dry in the process. That's how it is, and everything else is just wishful thinking. In this market programmers are disposable, especially in a company that does not value the programmers (which seems to be the case here.)
Regardless of how the management came to this job in first place, it is clearly unethical not to pay for the extra work. But ethical considerations don't do well with bean counters. And if you complain too much, the whole thing will be outsourced to the other side of the planet :-)
If you want to object to this treatment you'd better have a job offer in your pocket, or a good job security (such as being a key person who knows certain things that are essential.) Anything else will get you displaced sooner or later, because employers today don't like troublemakers.
I don't think any of them cared about the "long term". And if you check out their history in short term, they achieved a significant success for those times.
The scrith won't be strong enough; existence of The Fist Of God proves that.
Forget flatlanders. A much more significant percentage believes that this planet is directly ruled by an invisible, omnipotent old man that sits on a cloud in the sky...
And what would be the alleged crime?
You can't have 100% reliable bomb screening. It is absolutely impossible. A bomb is a chemical mixture, not a piece of metal (it detonates with supersonic speed without the need of a metal shell, which powder would need to be efficient.)
An explosive sealed in a glass bottle won't emit any vapors even if it goes through the bomb-sniffing machine (which a rare suitcase does.) It doesn't even need to be explosive; a flammable or corrosive liquid will do just as well - and you can't check the contents of all the tequila bottles :-)
Another, yet untried possibility, can be mentioned - of a bomb implanted into the terrorist. It can be easily done, because there is enough space in humans to conceal a large bomb, especially if the terrorist does not need some of his less vital internal organs.
If the bomb detection is not technically possible (without an exploratory surgery on every passenger), then the next best solution is just to ignore the threat and continue with our lives. We routinely take higher risks when we drive at 80 mph in a foot from the oncoming traffic, with only a twitch of a hand separating life from death. A technological solution can not be used to solve the social problem. But to acknowledge defeat is politically so hard to do...
But as a computer it is fairly bad. The video is the worst offender - it uses shared RAM, and there are streaks all over the screen if some serious computations are performed (I tried to run distributed.net on it and gave up.)
The box is also abysmally slow, so much that it is basically unusable. As a browser... sure, it might just work - but who needs just a browser?
In any case, the box works for me as a player just fine, and I am glad that I have it. But it is also good that I found the right use for the thing... otherwise it would have been a total write-off. Don't buy one unless you know how you can use it.
The FDA should inspect any device that gives you a medical advise. Your car does not do that, and neither does your oven. But if you have a calculator that tells you what food is safe for you to eat (or else you die), you'd better be sure it works.
But that' not all. The transmitter in the Segway can not be too powerful, and it does not have a good antenna. This means that the communication distance is probably limited to most of the park at best. As soon as you distance yourself from the monitoring receiver (at the office, probably) the signal disappears, along with the Segway.
The only realistic way to track Segway across a larger distances would be to equip it with a satellite transmitter. However, this is expensive, and it still requires unobstructed view of the sky (since sat uplinks are in microwave band and can't penetrate most materials.) I don't think it is worth of trouble. Also, don't forget that GPS receiver itself requires view of the sky to receive the location.
In other words, the GPS tracking setup - even if it really exists - is mostly scare tactic used to keep honest people honest. But if someone wants to steal the Segway, it is ridiculously easy. He wouldn't even need to rent one, he'd just steal one that is parked next to a public restroom.
Nobody would do such a thing. The DVD format is MPEG2, which is fairly old and inefficient. DivX5.x is 10 times as small, with a similar quality. So you do not need to restore it back to 7GB - all you need is to produce a 700 MB AVI file, and be happy. If you are really picky, make it larger, for two CDs. Any CD-R will do, and the download would be not too difficult (as if it's you who has to copy the bytes by hand :-)
As an example, I have a Web server; but it is not permitted to write (especially into HTML files, and into its own executable), runs chrooted, and gets automatically restarted after so many client connections. Also, it is custom compiled to have only few modules that I need; the rest, like mod_dir, is not even there. So how much can be done with it?
Look Inside
There sure are reasons to browse in a book store. I definitely can read more than 20 sample pages of the book, but rarely do that - if I am still reading after few pages, the book is probably worth of buying anyway.
Another reason to buy through Amazon et al is the used books. I recently bought a used book about PostreSQL, list price about $45, my price... $5. Tough to beat that :-) And the book is in very good condition.
Actually, on Amazon you do.
But this is not applicable to newspapers. The latter are awfully large, inconvenient to hold, and require either eagle-sharp vision to see the whole sheet, or you have to fold and crumple the page until you can bring it closer to your eyes. Did I mention that I hate newspapers? :-)
Going to libraries and looking through newsPAPERS also helps you find stuff you might otherwise not have looked at.
Where is that magical library which has more stuff than the whole Internet?
You should also consider that this technology does not apply solder masks, and does not do plating of pads/vias, or tinning of exposed surfaces. Bare copper is not very suitable for soldering, and it oxidizes quickly.
When I say "unconditionally useless" I mean it. Myself, I went through all PCB technologies, at home and at work - from cutting the traces with a hand tool, to etching, to milling. And now I know that only a professionally made board can be trusted.
Of course, a hobbyist always can use a simpler, home made (and broken) board. But this is a waste of time, IMO. Your time is better spent developing a circuit, instead of making a PCB. Get your free copy of Eagle, and learn how to do boards the right way - through Excellon and Gerber files. This knowledge is very useful in real life (unlike the milling adventure.)
Cost of the board is comparable, if not below, to the cost of components that you intend to solder to the board. If your board is defective (which is a function of its complexity and your technology's reliability) then your whole work will fail, and you will be cutting traces, lifting pins and doing all other kinds of invasive debugging only to find a short circuit between traces, *under* some chip. That's a pain. My advice is simple: just don't go there.
I worked with Sierra Proto Express. They have MIL-SPEC technology. They made me a few boards with 4 mil trace/space, gold plated. They also did a production run for me as well, with excellent quality. If you have the money, they are the best.
I do not know how many hobbyists use TQFPs, but today they don't have much of a choice. A fresh example for you: I wanted to do a project with ATMEGA32-16. I chose through-hole part. Went to Digikey... and found that it is not in stock, and delivery time is months away. I changed the part to SMD, and got it in stock and delivered in 2 days.
Fact is, less and less circuits are available in through-hole packages. Also, the more integrated the circuit is, the easier it is to use for a hobbyist. What would you prefer, to put one Atmel AVR chip on board, or 10 boards full of SN74 logic?
I had the machine at previous job, and I used it couple of times. The results are junk. Avoid it if you can. Also notice that these machines are not used in the industry (if they were ever really used in the industry). They fill a very narrow niche, and that's it. They are probably OK for an analog board, preferrably one-sided. But as soon as you start doing something really worth doing, it will fail you, and you will regret that you haven't ordered your boards from a decent board house (as I said, they are now working for pennies).
I can't get to the site (slashdotted). But I used one of such machines. Nowadays they are absolutely, unconditionally useless. They can't make the fine traces that are required for modern chips. Instead, it is cheaper now to order your PCBs from a board house (such as Advanced Circuits). $30 per board is not that expensive.
You must be joking. In most companies programmers neither want, nor are allowed to talk to a customer. This is reserved for managers and technical support people (who have their own guidelines, training and clothes).
If a typical programmer meets a customer it would cause a disaster. For example, the programmer will honestly say that feature X that the customer bought not only does not work, its development hasn't even started yet!
Even in a business environment CRT still has benefits. It has variable resolution to begin with, and can be adjusted to match the needs of the user. A CAD user will want to run 1600x1200 at very least; other people may want resolution as low as 800x600.