I would love to try one of these beam-spring keyboards sometime. I have heard that they are awesome.
Apparently, the beam-spring was designed to emulate the feel of the IBM Selectric typewriter. ... and the buckling spring switches in the Model M were designed to be a lower-cost version that achieved the same feel, except that they weren't as good. ... and the clicky Cherry MX switches were made to emulate the feel of the buckling springs, except that they weren't as good. ...
The Cherry MX Green does not feel like a buckling spring from the Model F or Model M keyboards, really. While it is a stiff clicky switch, it is far less tactile, and the tactile point is different. The Buckling Spring on a IBM Model M or Model F has a slow progression in resistance followed by a sharp drop at the actuation point at around 2/3 - 3/4 way down the stroke. The Cherry MX Blue and Green have a small bump at the actuation point, which is higher up, at about 1/2-way down the stroke.
As other posters have already written, the MX Green is just like a MX Blue with a stiffer spring. It was made to be used for the Space Bar on a keyboard that is otherwise populated with MX Blue. Compared to the Blue, with the Green's stiffer spring you tend to press harder on it and that diminishes the feel of the tactile bump somewhat. The Green has always been used as the space bar switch on Cherry's own keyboards with Blue switches. The only new thing is that it is used on a whole keyboard. Having a stiffer switch on the space bar is common. Ordinary rubber dome keyboards often come with coiled springs under the space bar to make it stiffer.
If you want a Buckling Spring keyboard, you could buy a new Model M from Unicomp. They are built using the same machines and tooling that the old IBM keyboards were. They even cost less than many gaming keyboards with Cherry MX switches.
BTW. This post was typed on a Dolch keyboard (Cherry G80-1813HFX) with Cherry MX Blue switches, except for the Green switch on the space bar.
I know of at least seven other people with the same first and last name as me. One of them has published scientific papers in the same field as I have. One works in the same industry as me. Yet another has a similar hobby as me. Yet another of them is a rapist. I know this, because people have confused me with them. I have received mail, both physical letters and emails that were intended for them.
I'd rather use my handle than my real name, because then people will not confuse me with any of the other guys. My handle is practically unique.
I am sorry that you still believe that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were "wars against terrorism". Missions into these countries were already planned before September 11, 2011.
Do read up on the organisation Project for the New American Century. Read what the PNAC had been lobbying the Clinton administration to do, long before September 11, 2001, and do look at which high-ranking members of PNAC that had got high positions in the Bush administration in 2001. This is not a theory of mine about a supposed secret conspiracy. It has been out in the open all the time. For years, PNAC had a public web site where all this information was available.
Torture is not only not civilized, it is also not reliable. The victim tends to not answer what the torturer wants to hear, not he truth. Back in 2003, there was no indication whatsoever that Al-Qaeda had any connection with Saddam Hussein. The only testimony that there was a link had been obtained during torture - a testimony that was later proven to be false. After the invasion, no proof of any link had been found.
I have tried a similar system at Eyetech's competitor Tobii where eye-tracking was used instead of a mouse.
While it was relatively precise and fast, it felt weird and constraining. Instead of the pointing device being an extension of myself, where I was controlling the pointer, the computer was controlling where I was going to look. I don't keep my gaze fixed on the mouse pointer all the time, just as I don't always keep both eyes on both hands all the time when I am doing various tasks. It felt also as if gaze-as-mouse could give me serious eye strain after prolonged use.
I think that the model is fundamentally wrong. My eyes are part of my input device, not my output device (that is controlling the pointer when I am using a mouse).
I wonder if automatic quoting of a message on an online message board could cause a crash of the web browser... Many message boards, although not Slashdot, has quoting of the previous message enabled by default when you click the [Reply] button. That would copy the previous post into a text field, which would trigger the bug, apparently.
Then all a MacOS/Mountain Lion user would have to do to crash his web browser on those message boards would be to hit the Reply button to the wrong post.
I expect File:/// trolling to explode on message boards in the next few days...
Digital Cinema is using a codec that is so difficult that it requires specialized hardware to decode. (One JPEG [b]2000[/b] image per frame, not good old JPEG, which is completely different)
The lifespan of cinema digital projection equipment is also quite short, so it will have to be replaced regularly.
Not all NeXT keyboards talked ADB, but rather some proprietary NeXT protocol.
The commercial USB-to-ADB adapters, such as the Belkin iMate are not that easy to come by. The best option might just be to use a small microcontroller board and load it up with custom firmware.
Most keyboard hackers use the Teensy instead of an Arduino, but the boards have more similarities than differences. You can find open source ADB adapter firmware made for the Teensy over on the Geekhack.org forum. It was made by a guy with the handle "Hasu".
4) Spotify -- well, many people enjoy streaming music, and it's not like Spotify slows your computer down just by being installed there
Spotify is actually using a peer-to-peer file-sharing for distributing music files. File-sharing music files does not consume that much resources (compared to, say, file-sharing movies...), but saying that it does not consume resources at all is wrong.
No, you are wrong about rollover. Practically only the best mechanical gaming keyboards these days have unlimited rollover, because of there being a diode for each switch in the matrix.
Most inexpensive keyboards have instead a matrix that is optimized so that keys that are commonly used together don't block each other.. There are still combinations of keys that do. Modern cheap gaming keyboards these days have matrices that are optimized so that the keys in and around the WASD cluster can be used together.
One thing that irks me whenever I see the iPad's.. or even most Android keyboards, is that the row staggering is non-standard compared to physical keyboards.
No, the PS/2 came with the IBM Model M2, which was made even cheaper. All plastic construction. Smaller, cheaper key caps. The stabilizer bars were not even made of metal. No curve to the keyboard. More noisy than the bigger Model M even though it had the same springs and hammers.
A weird side-note, is that the most expensive vintage keyboard on the collector's market: the "ergonomic" IBM Adjustable Keyboard (Model M15) is closer in construction to the M2 than to the old Model M.
While I agree with the author about Java, there are other things why I prefer to use Eclipse (over other editors/IDEs)
* The compare editor. Especially in conjunction with the SVN plugin. Very very useful.
* I can have more than one project open, and edit and compare files in both. I may seem like something trivial, but too many other IDEs are deficient in this regard.
Also, look at doors and drawers and different solutions for different areas. A slide-out drawer for pots and pans is much more convenient than a cupboard under the sink that you would have to crouch down to.
Make sure that the doors and drawers have handles that your wife can use without breaking a nail.
Doors that open upwards on a spring-loaded hinge are dangerous. Don't even think about having them unless the cupboard is very very high up.
All doors should have dampeners.
Make sure you have power outlets where you will need them.
Coding style is not just be about making code look pretty (according to someone's personal definition of pretty). The purpose of a coding standard is to make the code more readable and thus, more understandable. Having the code look consistent helps in that regard. Most of the time as a programmer is not spent on producing code but on skimming through other people's code and trying to figure out how something works, or why something doesn't work. Time is money, and it is better that a code writer spends a few extra seconds on making the code more readable than a code reader spending maybe fifteen minutes on the same piece of code because he misunderstood some detail of it the first time around because it was written in a weird way.
There are some things that are more important than whitespace and braces, that are too often overlooked. A coding style/code standard should also include conventions for code patterns, comments and how to choose reasonable variable names... and these things can not be changed by a "pretty printer".
Wayland's protocol is asynchronous, in the same way as X11.
X11 requires a round-trip to the application whenever it needs to redraw a damaged portion of a window. This means that if the application (or the communication to the application) is slow, then redraw is slow. Compare the redraw of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Chrome redraws fast. Firefox redraws slowly, especially when loading a page.
Wayland, MacOS X Quartz and the Windows 7 compositor avoid this problem by being "compositing window managers". They cache the contents of each window in a local buffer, a so called "backing store" and redraw by copying pixels from the backing store.
You can use the compositing window manager Compiz together with X11 to get faster redraw. Today. Without needing to stop using X. With retained network transparency, etc. With all the X extensions that you need.
To me, Wayland seems like a solution to only one problem: There is some tiny tiny lag in the way that Compiz redraws. Not enough that people will notice it, though.
In the case of 'a', there have been a few studies that have shown that there can be a real effect. You have not looked enough. One problem is that radiation in different frequency band can have different effects, or none. The science that has been done has been done on 1G and 2G frequencies, while most people that use a mobile phone a lot are using 3G, or even 4G these days.
I think that in-air gesture recognition needs to be integrated with eye tracking so that the computer can map hand to screen object from the user's line of sight to the screen. Otherwise, there always needs to be a "pointer" of some kind, a proxy, like a virtual hand or pen on the screen.
It does not need to be a fancy type of eye tracking that detects where your gaze is. It only needs to locate where the eyes are in space.
Slashdot Mirror
The S IV's screen isn't LCD, it is AMOLED.
R2-D2 communicates with other devices (C-3PO) using beeps, ... and he can store and play back content in form of holographic messages.
Besides, R2-D2 was made a long long time ago... Definitely prior art.
I would love to try one of these beam-spring keyboards sometime. I have heard that they are awesome.
... and the buckling spring switches in the Model M were designed to be a lower-cost version that achieved the same feel, except that they weren't as good.
... and the clicky Cherry MX switches were made to emulate the feel of the buckling springs, except that they weren't as good.
...
Apparently, the beam-spring was designed to emulate the feel of the IBM Selectric typewriter.
Marketing on Slashdot again, huh... *sigh*
The Cherry MX Green does not feel like a buckling spring from the Model F or Model M keyboards, really.
While it is a stiff clicky switch, it is far less tactile, and the tactile point is different.
The Buckling Spring on a IBM Model M or Model F has a slow progression in resistance followed by a sharp drop at the actuation point at around 2/3 - 3/4 way down the stroke.
The Cherry MX Blue and Green have a small bump at the actuation point, which is higher up, at about 1/2-way down the stroke.
As other posters have already written, the MX Green is just like a MX Blue with a stiffer spring. It was made to be used for the Space Bar on a keyboard that is otherwise populated with MX Blue.
Compared to the Blue, with the Green's stiffer spring you tend to press harder on it and that diminishes the feel of the tactile bump somewhat.
The Green has always been used as the space bar switch on Cherry's own keyboards with Blue switches. The only new thing is that it is used on a whole keyboard.
Having a stiffer switch on the space bar is common. Ordinary rubber dome keyboards often come with coiled springs under the space bar to make it stiffer.
If you want a Buckling Spring keyboard, you could buy a new Model M from Unicomp. They are built using the same machines and tooling that the old IBM keyboards were. They even cost less than many gaming keyboards with Cherry MX switches.
BTW. This post was typed on a Dolch keyboard (Cherry G80-1813HFX) with Cherry MX Blue switches, except for the Green switch on the space bar.
I know of at least seven other people with the same first and last name as me. One of them has published scientific papers in the same field as I have. One works in the same industry as me. Yet another has a similar hobby as me. Yet another of them is a rapist.
I know this, because people have confused me with them. I have received mail, both physical letters and emails that were intended for them.
I'd rather use my handle than my real name, because then people will not confuse me with any of the other guys. My handle is practically unique.
I am sorry that you still believe that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were "wars against terrorism". Missions into these countries were already planned before September 11, 2011.
Do read up on the organisation Project for the New American Century.
Read what the PNAC had been lobbying the Clinton administration to do, long before September 11, 2001, and do look at which high-ranking members of PNAC that had got high positions in the Bush administration in 2001.
This is not a theory of mine about a supposed secret conspiracy. It has been out in the open all the time. For years, PNAC had a public web site where all this information was available.
Torture is not only not civilized, it is also not reliable. The victim tends to not answer what the torturer wants to hear, not he truth.
Back in 2003, there was no indication whatsoever that Al-Qaeda had any connection with Saddam Hussein. The only testimony that there was a link had been obtained during torture - a testimony that was later proven to be false. After the invasion, no proof of any link had been found.
I have tried a similar system at Eyetech's competitor Tobii where eye-tracking was used instead of a mouse.
While it was relatively precise and fast, it felt weird and constraining. Instead of the pointing device being an extension of myself, where I was controlling the pointer, the computer was controlling where I was going to look.
I don't keep my gaze fixed on the mouse pointer all the time, just as I don't always keep both eyes on both hands all the time when I am doing various tasks.
It felt also as if gaze-as-mouse could give me serious eye strain after prolonged use.
I think that the model is fundamentally wrong. My eyes are part of my input device, not my output device (that is controlling the pointer when I am using a mouse).
There is only one person who owns my genes: me.
I wonder if automatic quoting of a message on an online message board could cause a crash of the web browser ...
Many message boards, although not Slashdot, has quoting of the previous message enabled by default when you click the [Reply] button. That would copy the previous post into a text field, which would trigger the bug, apparently.
Then all a MacOS/Mountain Lion user would have to do to crash his web browser on those message boards would be to hit the Reply button to the wrong post.
I expect File:/// trolling to explode on message boards in the next few days ...
Digital Cinema is using a codec that is so difficult that it requires specialized hardware to decode. (One JPEG [b]2000[/b] image per frame, not good old JPEG, which is completely different)
The lifespan of cinema digital projection equipment is also quite short, so it will have to be replaced regularly.
You're kidding me! I paid five times that to see the Hobbit movie in Sweden.
I agree with both shani's and vossman77's comments ...
Decommission would also be simple. Just tow it over a deep-water trench and sink it ...
Not all NeXT keyboards talked ADB, but rather some proprietary NeXT protocol.
The commercial USB-to-ADB adapters, such as the Belkin iMate are not that easy to come by.
The best option might just be to use a small microcontroller board and load it up with custom firmware.
Most keyboard hackers use the Teensy instead of an Arduino, but the boards have more similarities than differences.
You can find open source ADB adapter firmware made for the Teensy over on the Geekhack.org forum. It was made by a guy with the handle "Hasu".
4) Spotify -- well, many people enjoy streaming music, and it's not like Spotify slows your computer down just by being installed there
Spotify is actually using a peer-to-peer file-sharing for distributing music files.
File-sharing music files does not consume that much resources (compared to, say, file-sharing movies...), but saying that it does not consume resources at all is wrong.
No, you are wrong about rollover. Practically only the best mechanical gaming keyboards these days have unlimited rollover, because of there being a diode for each switch in the matrix.
Most inexpensive keyboards have instead a matrix that is optimized so that keys that are commonly used together don't block each other ..
There are still combinations of keys that do.
Modern cheap gaming keyboards these days have matrices that are optimized so that the keys in and around the WASD cluster can be used together.
One thing that irks me whenever I see the iPad's .. or even most Android keyboards, is that the row staggering is non-standard compared to physical keyboards.
No, the PS/2 came with the IBM Model M2 , which was made even cheaper.
All plastic construction. Smaller, cheaper key caps. The stabilizer bars were not even made of metal. No curve to the keyboard. More noisy than the bigger Model M even though it had the same springs and hammers.
A weird side-note, is that the most expensive vintage keyboard on the collector's market: the "ergonomic" IBM Adjustable Keyboard (Model M15) is closer in construction to the M2 than to the old Model M.
Trash from Napoli is already being incinerated in Sweden. At Värtaverket in Stockholm.
story (Swedish).
While I agree with the author about Java, there are other things why I prefer to use Eclipse (over other editors/IDEs)
* The compare editor. Especially in conjunction with the SVN plugin. Very very useful.
* I can have more than one project open, and edit and compare files in both. I may seem like something trivial, but too many other IDEs are deficient in this regard.
I agree completely with this.
Also, look at doors and drawers and different solutions for different areas. A slide-out drawer for pots and pans is much more convenient than a cupboard under the sink that you would have to crouch down to.
Make sure that the doors and drawers have handles that your wife can use without breaking a nail.
Doors that open upwards on a spring-loaded hinge are dangerous. Don't even think about having them unless the cupboard is very very high up.
All doors should have dampeners.
Make sure you have power outlets where you will need them.
Coding style is not just be about making code look pretty (according to someone's personal definition of pretty). The purpose of a coding standard is to make the code more readable and thus, more understandable. Having the code look consistent helps in that regard.
Most of the time as a programmer is not spent on producing code but on skimming through other people's code and trying to figure out how something works, or why something doesn't work. Time is money, and it is better that a code writer spends a few extra seconds on making the code more readable than a code reader spending maybe fifteen minutes on the same piece of code because he misunderstood some detail of it the first time around because it was written in a weird way.
There are some things that are more important than whitespace and braces, that are too often overlooked. A coding style/code standard should also include conventions for code patterns, comments and how to choose reasonable variable names ... and these things can not be changed by a "pretty printer".
Google can price the Nexus at $200 because it takes a loss on each device sold.
Wayland's protocol is asynchronous, in the same way as X11.
X11 requires a round-trip to the application whenever it needs to redraw a damaged portion of a window. This means that if the application (or the communication to the application) is slow, then redraw is slow.
Compare the redraw of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Chrome redraws fast. Firefox redraws slowly, especially when loading a page.
Wayland, MacOS X Quartz and the Windows 7 compositor avoid this problem by being "compositing window managers". They cache the contents of each window in a local buffer, a so called "backing store" and redraw by copying pixels from the backing store.
You can use the compositing window manager Compiz together with X11 to get faster redraw. Today. Without needing to stop using X. With retained network transparency, etc. With all the X extensions that you need.
To me, Wayland seems like a solution to only one problem: There is some tiny tiny lag in the way that Compiz redraws. Not enough that people will notice it, though.
In the case of 'a', there have been a few studies that have shown that there can be a real effect. You have not looked enough.
One problem is that radiation in different frequency band can have different effects, or none. The science that has been done has been done on 1G and 2G frequencies, while most people that use a mobile phone a lot are using 3G, or even 4G these days.
I think that in-air gesture recognition needs to be integrated with eye tracking so that the computer can map hand to screen object from the user's line of sight to the screen.
Otherwise, there always needs to be a "pointer" of some kind, a proxy, like a virtual hand or pen on the screen.
It does not need to be a fancy type of eye tracking that detects where your gaze is. It only needs to locate where the eyes are in space.