There are a lot of good distros out there, I bought SuSE which came with a vast plethora of HowTo's and FAQ's but you never actually know which ones you'll need and its sods law that the one you need will be the one you ain't got:)
Hows about "The Linux Documentation in Public Libraries Project" ??;)
The linux newbie was sceptical about the support available to linux users but his friends told him "don't worry, theres plenty of help available". Spurred on by this the newbie stripped out his old O/S and installed linux....
Then he hit a problem; he racked his brains and thought hard: then he remembered what his friends had said:"Just connect to the net and go to linuxdoc.org" this would have been great! - except for his problem - *pppd*;)
The new page looks great and is quite navigable: go check it out:)
According to sony, the HD, Keyboard + Mouse have to be sony products: the other peripherals are the normal market price - not that the sony bits are even that expensive, its just that when you add it all up, you may as well have just bought a PC:)
The PSX2's uptake as a 'replacement' or rather alternative to the desktop will hinge largely on its extensibility or upgradeability.
Although the PSX2 is forecast around $340 dollars, you then need to buy some more add-ins from Sony to make it a semi-practical computing solution:
1) Digital Display (You wouldn't like to wp on a 600line tv) $110
2) Hard Drive (nothing like filling em up) - Sony 10Gb $140
3) Keyboard+Mouse (also has to be Sony) $40
4) Printer (for that paper-full office feeling) $135
TOTAL $765 US
Its a bit pricey when you consider what kind of kit you could buy PC wise for that money....
However, I *really* like the idea of using the PSX2 (when I get one) as the centrepiece of my home entertainment system ie: Sony stereo, VCR and HDTV all controlled by the PSX2:) kewl!!
The biggest challenge here is developing a bot which can tell when the conversation is still directed to it: The conversation might change to something which could be commony known by two channel users but utterly confuse the bot.....
I used to write text acknowledgement programs back in the early nineties, just for fun. But human speech (or text) even in mundane English is profoundly difficult to interpret in programming.
Yes but the inertia of even the smallest black hole (smallest critical mass to cause an event) is so incomprehesibly massive (literally) that if you got you magnets to 'attract the hole', the magnets + whatever they were attached to would rather go to the hole than the hole come to you...... not: I cant remember what the smallest possible critical mass of on 'hole is but I saw the figure and remeber being blow away by it! My brain hurts: lets go talk about OSS now (another blackhole some would say):)
Ive tried electrical fields before, but the grass was imperfect:)
No,but seriously, even if you could create a conductive core which could touch a black hole (precisely on the event horizon) any electricity would instanty be consumed by the hole itself; or rather the matter entering the hole (electrons being a component of matter but inexistent without it)
I however do know of one plausible way of moving (not containing) a very small black hole: you can 'tow' an object of simmilar mass infront of you black hole and the black hole will be constantly attracted to your object, and so long as your object doesn't approach the event horizon you are safe - quite how you re orient yourself to stop your 'hole' is another matter:) The major problem with moving a hole this way is a - there is no scientific proof or disproof that an 'event' can exist in any other place other than where it begins. b - the energy needed to pull your 'equally massive object' would somewhere in the order of 10_-100,000,000,000Nm
As for how much matter you would need to create a charge high enough to charge the event horizon; every particle in the universe might be a good start.
And if you could use an electronic field to attract a hole, your still left with the same problem of how to generate enough energy to move your cosmic 'tow' vehicle.
The bottom line is that a gravity well at critical mass (a black hole) the size of a teacup would have roughly equal mass to 1 sun: if it oversteps critical mass, you haven't got enough fingers & toes to count the relative mass....
It seems that everything you talk about relating to black holes is a paradox, it tookme a few seconds to work this out (because they expect you to know what *they* are talking about):
Here goes: They use the word 'comparable' when it may have been better to use 'relative'.
The gist of it is you can't accelerate matter up to the speed of light; therefore you slow the light down instead. So you don't need a whirlpool which spins at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour:)
It would be interesting to see if some of Steven Hawkings theory is correct, and if you haven't read the 'brief history of time' go out and buy now! (but not from amazon.com) its worth it just to have on the coffee table when friends are round (friend:"ooh, whats that book about" you:"well....");)
Maybe you all understood better than I, just thought I would post this incase anyone was left scratching their head.....
I would agree that this is the ideal thing for the 'PnP Generation'. - But its not for me, or many others. Where would the fun be if you couldn't successfully construct your own pc from components which you purchased from 30+ different suppliers so you could have the machine *exactly* the way you want it? Perhaps one day the only PC's we can buy will be web appliances (super servers will be hugely overpriced) and that will ultimately be the demise of the hardware hacker - perhaps its just the price we have to pay for being 'Old Skool':)
That is until, the immortal day when a slashdotter gets out of bed (as if), turns to his Web Appliance(TM) and thinks: "I wonder. If I take the back off this.....and get that 'ol UW SCSI interface from over there......and use this lead and.........:)"
According to a Microsoft leak ages back, the code is there; and whats more it happened to me, only once on a educational notebook & no I didn't get a photo, sorry:(
Question 2 - will we be able to upgrade a TV's code for free with linux or will we have to pay for the operation from our manufacturers web server?
Well, as we all know Microsoft would love nothing more than to control the entire broadcasting market by making a TV with WinCE the de-facto standard for watching you favourite soap opera.
Apart from this being the one thing that could stop the world population from watching tele (would you boot a tv to windows?) they also now have competition.
The real shame here is that whichever 'side' gets the lions share of the market they will have made a GUI the de-facto standard whether its X11 style, palm style or even PSX style; you won't be able to use your TV unless you have this GUI on it. (A bit like Betamax dying and VHS prevailing)
What I would like to see is this: a range of television sets which can be configured with whatever you like (ie: O/S / GUI) so you don't have to have it forced down your throat.
And first and foremost *all* the GUI's should be made compatable to a _fair_ industry standard so everyone can compete on equal grounds.
Lastly why isn't England going to get decent HDTV's until last?
I just discovered a commodore pet in my garage, tape drive, warts 'n' all! The stickers are coming off the keys and its to heavy to lift; If I can get it out, I'll try and get it running (fire extinguisher at hand!) If your interested, check my website and I'll get a photo or two on there:)
I am yet to find a department store which requires you to have keys to enter and do some shopping. At the end of the day, this is all that it ammounts to:
They are locking their customers out of their shop (as well as alienating them)
All this community ever wanted from this was a useable DVD codec for their operating systems. Instead the industry now decides that it doesn't like a bit of perfectly legal innovation and decides to try to *bend* and even *break* the law to make its own ends.
The outcome so far is obviously that the number of people in the OSS community who will go out and buy a DVD, I can count all on one hand!
My message to the MPAA is this:
DON'T COME RUNNING TO US IF YOU CUT OFF BOTH YOUR LEGS!
Gartner Group have previously tried to play down the part of OSS in the commercial environment and now we see this report which is to the contrary; it would seem that gartner group (who have some interesting sources of funding) were originally playing into the hands of their corporate peers in justifying the use of commercial software as an exclusive means. Now this is no longer what the corporate 'customers' want to hear so Gartner (who are never inacurate in reports, just evasive:) have changed tack in order to 'gently ease' OSS under the corporate door.
This isn't strange; Gartner group just need to play the tune their customers want to hear.
I believe that Jon is going to have to be extremely careful what he says on camera.
Right now I would seem that the media could hinge either way although they are always more inclined to go in the direction of the scandal (which at the moment is in the 'prosecution' favour)
What I would say at the moment (and Jon, if you are reading) take care and think very carefully about what you say before you say it....
Bear Island (74d 30m 10s N - 19d 00m 05s E) in the arctic circle - impossible to land for 10/11 months of the year and the lease is up for the Norwegian government soon so we just need to persuade the hard-up Russian government to part company with it:)
Slashdot Mirror
There are a lot of good distros out there, I bought SuSE which came with a vast plethora of HowTo's and FAQ's but you never actually know which ones you'll need and its sods law that the one you need will be the one you ain't got :)
;)
Hows about "The Linux Documentation in Public Libraries Project" ??
The Linux Newbie:
;)
:)
The linux newbie was sceptical about the support available to linux users but his friends told him "don't worry, theres plenty of help available". Spurred on by this the newbie stripped out his old O/S and installed linux....
Then he hit a problem; he racked his brains and thought hard: then he remembered what his friends had said:"Just connect to the net and go to linuxdoc.org" this would have been great! - except for his problem - *pppd*
The new page looks great and is quite navigable: go check it out
I tend to agree here, whether or not it is possible; I do not know but I believe that Slashdot needs to be free (beer & otherwise:)
According to sony, the HD, Keyboard + Mouse have to be sony products: the other peripherals are the normal market price - not that the sony bits are even that expensive, its just that when you add it all up, you may as well have just bought a PC :)
Thats more or less what I said :)
The PSX2's uptake as a 'replacement' or rather alternative to the desktop will hinge largely on its extensibility or upgradeability.
:) kewl!!
Although the PSX2 is forecast around $340 dollars, you then need to buy some more add-ins from Sony to make it a semi-practical computing solution:
1) Digital Display (You wouldn't like to wp on a 600line tv)
$110
2) Hard Drive (nothing like filling em up) - Sony 10Gb
$140
3) Keyboard+Mouse (also has to be Sony)
$40
4) Printer (for that paper-full office feeling)
$135
TOTAL $765 US
Its a bit pricey when you consider what kind of kit you could buy PC wise for that money....
However, I *really* like the idea of using the PSX2 (when I get one) as the centrepiece of my home entertainment system ie: Sony stereo, VCR and HDTV all controlled by the PSX2
The biggest challenge here is developing a bot which can tell when the conversation is still directed to it:
The conversation might change to something which could be commony known by two channel users but utterly confuse the bot.....
I used to write text acknowledgement programs back in the early nineties, just for fun. But human speech (or text) even in mundane English is profoundly difficult to interpret in programming.
Yes but the inertia of even the smallest black hole (smallest critical mass to cause an event) is so incomprehesibly massive (literally) that if you got you magnets to 'attract the hole', the magnets + whatever they were attached to would rather go to the hole than the hole come to you...... not: I cant remember what the smallest possible critical mass of on 'hole is but I saw the figure and remeber being blow away by it! My brain hurts: lets go talk about OSS now (another blackhole some would say) :)
Ive tried electrical fields before, but the grass was imperfect :)
:)
No,but seriously, even if you could create a conductive core which could touch a black hole (precisely on the event horizon) any electricity would instanty be consumed by the hole itself; or rather the matter entering the hole (electrons being a component of matter but inexistent without it)
I however do know of one plausible way of moving (not containing) a very small black hole: you can 'tow' an object of simmilar mass infront of you black hole and the black hole will be constantly attracted to your object, and so long as your object doesn't approach the event horizon you are safe - quite how you re orient yourself to stop your 'hole' is another matter
The major problem with moving a hole this way is a - there is no scientific proof or disproof that an 'event' can exist in any other place other than where it begins.
b - the energy needed to pull your 'equally massive object' would somewhere in the order of 10_-100,000,000,000Nm
As for how much matter you would need to create a charge high enough to charge the event horizon; every particle in the universe might be a good start.
And if you could use an electronic field to attract a hole, your still left with the same problem of how to generate enough energy to move your cosmic 'tow' vehicle.
The bottom line is that a gravity well at critical mass (a black hole) the size of a teacup would have roughly equal mass to 1 sun: if it oversteps critical mass, you haven't got enough fingers & toes to count the relative mass....
BTW there is no theoretical or practical means of containing a gravity well black hole
:)
A black hole will contain you before you can contain it
The text shows that these only trap light by chemical means in order to simulate a black hole, there is no actual gravity well produced :)
It seems that everything you talk about relating to black holes is a paradox, it tookme a few seconds to work this out (because they expect you to know what *they* are talking about):
:)
;)
Here goes: They use the word 'comparable' when it may have been better to use 'relative'.
The gist of it is you can't accelerate matter up to the speed of light; therefore you slow the light down instead. So you don't need a whirlpool which spins at hundreds of thousands of miles
per hour
It would be interesting to see if some of Steven Hawkings theory is correct, and if you haven't read the 'brief history of time' go out and buy now! (but not from amazon.com) its worth it just to have on the coffee table when friends are round
(friend:"ooh, whats that book about" you:"well....")
Maybe you all understood better than I, just thought I would post this incase anyone was left scratching their head.....
I would agree that this is the ideal thing for the 'PnP Generation'. - But its not for me, or many others. :)
Where would the fun be if you couldn't successfully construct your own pc from components which you purchased from 30+ different suppliers so you could have the machine *exactly* the way you want it?
Perhaps one day the only PC's we can buy will be web appliances (super servers will be hugely overpriced) and that will ultimately be the demise of the hardware hacker - perhaps its just the price we have to pay for being 'Old Skool'
That is until, the immortal day when a slashdotter gets out of bed (as if), turns to his Web Appliance(TM) and thinks:
"I wonder. If I take the back off this.....and get that 'ol UW SCSI interface from over there......and use this lead and.........:)"
Now this is a point of discussion:
:(
Can a WinCE box go BSOD?
According to a Microsoft leak ages back, the code is there; and whats more it happened to me, only once on a educational notebook & no I didn't get a photo, sorry
Question 2 - will we be able to upgrade a TV's code for free with linux or will we have to pay for the operation from our manufacturers web server?
Food for though (or eating infront of the telly)
Well, as we all know Microsoft would love nothing more than to control the entire broadcasting market by making a TV with WinCE the de-facto standard for watching you favourite soap opera.
Apart from this being the one thing that could stop the world population from watching tele (would you boot a tv to windows?) they also now have competition.
The real shame here is that whichever 'side' gets the lions share of the market they will have made a GUI the de-facto standard whether its X11 style, palm style or even PSX style; you won't be able to use your TV unless you have this GUI on it. (A bit like Betamax dying and VHS prevailing)
What I would like to see is this: a range of television sets which can be configured with whatever you like (ie: O/S / GUI) so you don't have to have it forced down your throat.
And first and foremost *all* the GUI's should be made compatable to a _fair_ industry standard so everyone can compete on equal grounds.
Lastly why isn't England going to get decent HDTV's until last?
Yep, I can't lift it off the shelf - its too high up, god only knows how it got up there.....
I believe its from my fathers *old* business.
Do either of yours still work?
I just discovered a commodore pet in my garage, tape drive, warts 'n' all! The stickers are coming off the keys and its to heavy to lift; If I can get it out, I'll try and get it running (fire extinguisher at hand!) If your interested, check my website and I'll get a photo or two on there :)
I am yet to find a department store which requires you to have keys to enter and do some shopping.
At the end of the day, this is all that it ammounts to:
They are locking their customers out of their shop (as well as alienating them)
All this community ever wanted from this was a useable DVD codec for their operating systems.
Instead the industry now decides that it doesn't like a bit of perfectly legal innovation and decides to try to *bend* and even *break* the law to make its own ends.
The outcome so far is obviously that the number of people in the OSS community who will go out and buy a DVD, I can count all on one hand!
My message to the MPAA is this:
DON'T COME RUNNING TO US IF YOU CUT OFF BOTH YOUR LEGS!
Gartner Group have previously tried to play down the part of OSS in the commercial environment and now we see this report which is to the contrary; it would seem that gartner group (who have some interesting sources of funding) were originally playing into the hands of their corporate peers in justifying the use of commercial software as an exclusive means. :) have changed tack in order to 'gently ease' OSS under the corporate door.
:)
Now this is no longer what the corporate 'customers' want to hear so Gartner (who are never inacurate in reports, just evasive
This isn't strange; Gartner group just need to play the tune their customers want to hear.
1,000,000 frenchmen can't be wrong
I believe that Jon is going to have to be extremely careful what he says on camera.
Right now I would seem that the media could hinge either way although they are always more inclined to go in the direction of the scandal (which at the moment is in the 'prosecution' favour)
What I would say at the moment (and Jon, if you are reading) take care and think very carefully about what you say before you say it....
BTW Good luck to Jon with becoming a TV celeb!
Mainly because the source is PD now and the source posted is incomplete anyway.
It would seem that under todays happenings, the CSS can no longer have a case against him:
1) The source code is released into the public domain
2) Jon is not a US national so he can legally distribute the software from his fathers website again......*not* that it ever was illegal.
Seriously, I will, then I'll send you a cookie :)
Bear Island (74d 30m 10s N - 19d 00m 05s E) in the arctic circle - impossible to land for 10/11 months of the year and the lease is up for the Norwegian government soon so we just need to persuade the hard-up Russian government to part company with it :)
Good joke mate :)