BAT Keyboard I used these for a while but gave them up in favor of a dvorak kinesis contour. They are great if you do a lot of CAD, diagramming, or anything else that requires lots of mousing and typing since you can keep one hand on the keyboard and one on the mouse. I suppose they would be awesome for games but I'm not much of a gamer.
Downsides: The idiots STILL have not figured out how to generate the Mac command key and that is a large reason why I gave them up. The travel of the keys is too far so you hands bounce too much, causing undue stress. Less importantly, I couldn't really get over 50wpm, though that means I could type at 25wpm with one hand. The firmware is also somewhat buggy.
Learning the letters is easy. Symbols are harder. Getting a smooth alternating left/right technique was very hard for me.
> Oh, or you could use swarmcasting (for example, BitTorrent). It's not as good, but tends to > mean bandwidth usage is more localised (because clients will tend to connect to clients close > to themselves in network terms).
No, BitTorrent doesn't care about where peers are. It only cares about how fast they are uploading. If ISPs didn't cap upload between subscribers then the clients would definitely prefer local peers.
In any event, BitTorrent and CacheLogic have announced a caching system so ISPs can reduce the border traffic from BitTorrent transfers.
> Peers download it and keep it on their machines.
No , they don't. Not unless they really want it.
> The P2P network automatically polls for chunks and ensure redundancy by > pushing rare pieces to clients.
Like UseNet?
> Some sort of bittorrent expect it's rather a bitpool.
Good one! You realize that Bram was working on just such a distributed file store before he decided it was a rat-hole and quit? Then a bit later he wrote BitTorrent.
Apple was planning to introduce intel Macs at this Macworld all along. They just said it would be "a year and a half" (i.e. Macworld 2007) to avoid the so-called "Osbourne Effect." People are supposed to think "Well, I really can't wait another year, so I'll buy a new computer now."
The US Military already minimizes losses by killing everyone in the house before going in. They call in an air strike or lob a combo of HE+WP shells ("Shake 'n Bake"). See Fallujah, Najaf, Baghdad, etc...
PyObjC is the best way to develop software on the Mac. The bridge is reasonably comprehensive and complete. You can always drop down to Objective-C if necessary. Python is just a good of a programming language as C# yet much more mature. Cocoa is by far the best and most mature set of APIs available for writing software on any platform.
Personally, I have used PyObjC to build an application that won a MacWorld Eddy and has enjoyed millions of downloads. PyObjC saved me tons of time and allowed me to focus on making my app work well rather than simply work. The developers are responsive and seem committed to making PyObjC the best environment for writing Mac software. I think they have succeeded and I have nothing but good things to say about PyObjC.
BTW, the 100 song limit is no problem for me. I encode at a minimum of 192k and I listen to live concert performances which have long tracks. I have never gotten close to hitting the 100 song limit. Clearly, the limit is there to prevent you from using a larger storage card in the phone. It shouldn't be a problem when you use the 512 megger that came with it.
Apple didn't sabotage the ROKR, Motorola did. USB1 - it's 2005 and a new device came out with USB1? That's insane! It takes about an hour to fill the thing up!
OK, so it takes an hour. No problem, I'll just plug it into my computer before I go to bed and I'll wake up with a fully charged phone full of new music, right?
WRONG! The phone does NOT charge while connected to the computer!
What also sucks about the SU^H^HROKR:
When playing music, UI becomes unacceptably unresponsive. Like 2 seconds of lag between pushing a key and anything happening.
Despite the fact that you can play MP3s with it, you cannot set an MP3 to be your ring tone. What if I want my kids voice to be my ringtone? I will NEVER pay for a ring tone.
I couldn't get it to display any jpg I uploaded to it. It only wants to display images that came with it or were taken with it's own camera.
The built in amp wont drive my headphones very well (Etymotic ER4) so I tried plugging in my own headphone amp (Headroom BitHead). However, the ROKR headphone detection circuit has too low of a threshold and it cannot detect that an external amp with high impedence is plugged in: so the music continues to come out of the speakers! I had to wire a 10K resistor in parallel to get it to work. Then I discovered that the ROKR powers the headphones the entire time they are plugged in, not just when it is playing music. If you forget to unplug your headhpones when not listening to music your phone will quickly run out of juice.
The buttons have a weird shape and are hard to push without pushing the wrong buttons. I find it very diffcult to work the five way stick without pushing it in.
When you hold the phone between your shoulder and ear, nobody can understand what you are saying.
The shape of wall wart combine with the folding action of the terminals means that it is difficult to plug it into a standard power strip and if you get it plugged in there is a good chance it will loose connection as the terminals fold.
The UI is awful. There is no consistency. Sometimes it is "Back" sometimes "Exit" sometimes you push the left button to go back, sometimes you push the right button to go back.
Drivers within the phone have "crashed" disabling the BlueTooth. My phone told me I needed to reboot it!!
It's junk, I will never buy another Motorola phone.
1. What is the character of the use? In this case, it is commercial. Google is making copies so they can profit from the work. Strike one.
2. What is the nature of the work? For the most part it's original works of creative authorship and not so much compilations of facts. Strike two.
3. How much of the work is being used? From what I understand, Google is scanning the entire book, cover to cover. Strike three, and a big one.
For the first three tests, this is definitely not fair use. Add to that the active permissions market for books.
4. Does this type of use effect the value of the works or the potential of new markets for the works?
Everyone says this helps sell books. Yes, it does. However, if Google and everyone else is allowed to do this then it probably will impact the ability of publishers to effectively operate ther own search engines for their own works. Further, even if it helps, there is an active permissions market for making copies of books that Google ignored. Indexing and searching of books is not a new concept.
if Google can make digital copies of the books, ANYONE can make digital copies. (duh). So, exactly what it the concern about this?
What is the concern? Making copies of a work is the exclusive right of the Copyright holder. Google is infringinging on the rights of AAP members. That's why they are suing. That piracy of books isn't widespread or is more expensive than an official copy is irrelevant.
She's right! This does go far beyond creating a digital version of a card catalog! Google's super-sized revved up digital card catalog qualifies as a godsend to the publishing industry.
If Google's product is such a godsend to the publishing industry, they should have no problem getting permission to make copies of books from the rights holders. Until then, the AAP believes that Google is infringing.
This sounds great...if you want to explore the existing base of popular music. What about new music that isn't yet on the radar? We need a system where my band can cut a track in our basement, master it on our computer, upload it, and have it spread organically. A system where if the track is good enough, days later millions of people have downloaded it and the world is beating a path to our door.
Many people will attack the author because of his inexperience. I will only support his point that software developers shouldn't accept a cubicle. If a company cannot afford to provide a proper working environment for each of their employees then they simply have too many employees. Is it any surprise that the same companies with vast farms of cubicles are forced to shed bodies at the merest dip in their stock price?
Facilities expenditures are dwarfed by salary. You don't have to remove many salaries to cover the difference in costs for offices vs. cubicles for software developers. By offering a good work environment, existing empolyees will produce better work and the company will be able to attract higher quality candidates. This results in a net increase in productivity despite reducing head counts.
In other words, cubicles are a false economy. Rather than saving money, business are forced use the savings from cubicles to hire more mediocre employees.
Don't be stupid. These people want broadband because they are painfully aware of how long it takes to download pictures, music, movies, tv shows, and porn. They don't do it just because they are told to.
Re:A predecessor of DESCHALL
on
Brute Force
·
· Score: 2, Informative
My impression at the time is that DIC and it's immediate predecessor, which involved much the same team and cracked 40-bit RC5 in 3.5 days, were among the first to use this sort of distributed computing (involving volunteered computer time, coordinated via the internet) on such a large scale. I'd be very interested in learning about any predecessors of these projects.
Sorry, the first major distributed computing project on the 'Net was the factoring of RSA-129 in 1993. Credit goes to Arjen Lenstra, Paul Leyland, and Derek Atkins. I fondly remember using Zilla to setup a cluster of NeXT slabs for the project.
Competitive programming looks like fun and I think you can learn quite a bit from it. You can also earn reputation capital that can help in getting a job. I would think most employers would be more impressed with a high rank on a competitive site than with paid certs.
That said, I think "undiscovered developers wanting to get a break" should spend most of their time writing some useful software or web application instead. You get more experience than just solving puzzles at breakneck speed. Writing a good piece of software or site that your interviewer has used goes further than anything short of a personal recommendation. When people use your software and are impressed with your skillz, work comes to you. Plus, you could end up founding a software business that makes you a millionare.
The technology is out there. The founding father of untraceability is David Chaum. There is a tradeoff between untraceability and practicality. Chaum describes perfect untraceability in the Dining Cryptographers paper, but it is impractical and subject to DOS attacks. Chaum's Digital Mixes are a more practical type of system and all of the anonymous remailers are based in this principal. TOR: The Onion Router Project is what you should check out, it is a real time Chaum mix net for TCP connections.
i DARE you to download a torrent from a legitimate source with a dedicated seed instead of warez where the seeder bails the instant other peers start finishing.
Re:How this for an astronomy hack?
on
Astronomy Hacks
·
· Score: 1
Don't be silly. Even if it doesn't burn out your CCD, you need more resolution than you can get with a pinhole lens. Leave the lens on and use some readily available solar filter material. Constructing a cell for your filter would certainly qualify as a hack.
Re:my favorite hack for those without a nice scope
on
Astronomy Hacks
·
· Score: 1
Of course, the nerds on Slashdot know better. In any event, I have paid my dues for mooching views before I got a nice scope. I didn't have a secluded observing spot at my old apartment in San Francisco so I would wheel the 14.5" out onto the sidewalk and share views of Saturn and Jupiter. I doubt there is much coating left on the eye lens of the Nagler zoom. The only time it was really a hassle was when that drunk homeless guy spent 2 hours telling me how he wanted me to teach him and his grandson about astronomy. If that night hadn't been the best seeing of the year I would have packed it in early!
Re:my favorite hack for those without a nice scope
on
Astronomy Hacks
·
· Score: 1
Everyone knows the moon is not made of cheese! Ever since Bush announced his moon base strategy the secret has been out: the moon is made of OIL!
my favorite hack for those without a nice scope
on
Astronomy Hacks
·
· Score: 1
1) Go to the local public dark sky observing site on the saturday closest to the new moon.
2) set up the little crap scope that has been in your closet for years
3) spend the rest of the night looking through everyone else's 18" dob
If you read the Grokster decision, it talks about how failure to take steps to prevent infringement are merely complements to the direct evidence and "alone would not justify an inference of unlawful intent."
Slashdot Mirror
BAT Keyboard I used these for a while but gave them up in favor of a dvorak kinesis contour. They are great if you do a lot of CAD, diagramming, or anything else that requires lots of mousing and typing since you can keep one hand on the keyboard and one on the mouse. I suppose they would be awesome for games but I'm not much of a gamer.
Downsides: The idiots STILL have not figured out how to generate the Mac command key and that is a large reason why I gave them up. The travel of the keys is too far so you hands bounce too much, causing undue stress. Less importantly, I couldn't really get over 50wpm, though that means I could type at 25wpm with one hand. The firmware is also somewhat buggy.
Learning the letters is easy. Symbols are harder. Getting a smooth alternating left/right technique was very hard for me.
If it is really popular, it must be really good. See C++, Java, XML, Windows, McDonalds, etc...
> Oh, or you could use swarmcasting (for example, BitTorrent). It's not as good, but tends to
> mean bandwidth usage is more localised (because clients will tend to connect to clients close
> to themselves in network terms).
No, BitTorrent doesn't care about where peers are. It only cares about how fast they are uploading. If ISPs didn't cap upload between subscribers then the clients would definitely prefer local peers.
In any event, BitTorrent and CacheLogic have announced a caching system so ISPs can reduce the border traffic from BitTorrent transfers.
Something tells me that Peter Chung, formerly of the Carlyle Group, still regrets sending the infamous e-mail to his buddies that ended up in the NYT.
> Peers download it and keep it on their machines.
No , they don't. Not unless they really want it.
> The P2P network automatically polls for chunks and ensure redundancy by
> pushing rare pieces to clients.
Like UseNet?
> Some sort of bittorrent expect it's rather a bitpool.
Good one! You realize that Bram was working on just such a distributed file store before he decided it was a rat-hole and quit? Then a bit later he wrote BitTorrent.
Apple was planning to introduce intel Macs at this Macworld all along. They just said it would be "a year and a half" (i.e. Macworld 2007) to avoid the so-called "Osbourne Effect." People are supposed to think "Well, I really can't wait another year, so I'll buy a new computer now."
The US Military already minimizes losses by killing everyone in the house before going in. They call in an air strike or lob a combo of HE+WP shells ("Shake 'n Bake"). See Fallujah, Najaf, Baghdad, etc...
PyObjC is the best way to develop software on the Mac. The bridge is reasonably comprehensive and complete. You can always drop down to Objective-C if necessary. Python is just a good of a programming language as C# yet much more mature. Cocoa is by far the best and most mature set of APIs available for writing software on any platform.
Personally, I have used PyObjC to build an application that won a MacWorld Eddy and has enjoyed millions of downloads. PyObjC saved me tons of time and allowed me to focus on making my app work well rather than simply work. The developers are responsive and seem committed to making PyObjC the best environment for writing Mac software. I think they have succeeded and I have nothing but good things to say about PyObjC.
Check it out, http://pyobjc.sourceforge.net/
BTW, the 100 song limit is no problem for me. I encode at a minimum of 192k and I listen to live concert performances which have long tracks. I have never gotten close to hitting the 100 song limit. Clearly, the limit is there to prevent you from using a larger storage card in the phone. It shouldn't be a problem when you use the 512 megger that came with it.
Apple didn't sabotage the ROKR, Motorola did. USB1 - it's 2005 and a new device came out with USB1? That's insane! It takes about an hour to fill the thing up!
OK, so it takes an hour. No problem, I'll just plug it into my computer before I go to bed and I'll wake up with a fully charged phone full of new music, right?
WRONG! The phone does NOT charge while connected to the computer!
What also sucks about the SU^H^HROKR:
When playing music, UI becomes unacceptably unresponsive. Like 2 seconds of lag between pushing a key and anything happening.
Despite the fact that you can play MP3s with it, you cannot set an MP3 to be your ring tone. What if I want my kids voice to be my ringtone? I will NEVER pay for a ring tone.
I couldn't get it to display any jpg I uploaded to it. It only wants to display images that came with it or were taken with it's own camera.
The built in amp wont drive my headphones very well (Etymotic ER4) so I tried plugging in my own headphone amp (Headroom BitHead). However, the ROKR headphone detection circuit has too low of a threshold and it cannot detect that an external amp with high impedence is plugged in: so the music continues to come out of the speakers! I had to wire a 10K resistor in parallel to get it to work. Then I discovered that the ROKR powers the headphones the entire time they are plugged in, not just when it is playing music. If you forget to unplug your headhpones when not listening to music your phone will quickly run out of juice.
The buttons have a weird shape and are hard to push without pushing the wrong buttons. I find it very diffcult to work the five way stick without pushing it in.
When you hold the phone between your shoulder and ear, nobody can understand what you are saying.
The shape of wall wart combine with the folding action of the terminals means that it is difficult to plug it into a standard power strip and if you get it plugged in there is a good chance it will loose connection as the terminals fold.
The UI is awful. There is no consistency. Sometimes it is "Back" sometimes "Exit" sometimes you push the left button to go back, sometimes you push the right button to go back.
Drivers within the phone have "crashed" disabling the BlueTooth. My phone told me I needed to reboot it!!
It's junk, I will never buy another Motorola phone.
1. What is the character of the use? In this case, it is commercial. Google is making copies so they can profit from the work. Strike one.
2. What is the nature of the work? For the most part it's original works of creative authorship and not so much compilations of facts. Strike two.
3. How much of the work is being used? From what I understand, Google is scanning the entire book, cover to cover. Strike three, and a big one.
For the first three tests, this is definitely not fair use. Add to that the active permissions market for books.
4. Does this type of use effect the value of the works or the potential of new markets for the works?
Everyone says this helps sell books. Yes, it does. However, if Google and everyone else is allowed to do this then it probably will impact the ability of publishers to effectively operate ther own search engines for their own works. Further, even if it helps, there is an active permissions market for making copies of books that Google ignored. Indexing and searching of books is not a new concept.
I don't think it looks very good for Google.
What is the concern? Making copies of a work is the exclusive right of the Copyright holder. Google is infringinging on the rights of AAP members. That's why they are suing. That piracy of books isn't widespread or is more expensive than an official copy is irrelevant.
She's right! This does go far beyond creating a digital version of a card catalog! Google's super-sized revved up digital card catalog qualifies as a godsend to the publishing industry.
If Google's product is such a godsend to the publishing industry, they should have no problem getting permission to make copies of books from the rights holders. Until then, the AAP believes that Google is infringing.
You are correct, the BitTorrent protocol is important. Too bad Azureus doesn't implement it fully or properly.
One mans feature-rich is another mans bloated.
This sounds great...if you want to explore the existing base of popular music. What about new music that isn't yet on the radar? We need a system where my band can cut a track in our basement, master it on our computer, upload it, and have it spread organically. A system where if the track is good enough, days later millions of people have downloaded it and the world is beating a path to our door.
Many people will attack the author because of his inexperience. I will only support his point that software developers shouldn't accept a cubicle. If a company cannot afford to provide a proper working environment for each of their employees then they simply have too many employees. Is it any surprise that the same companies with vast farms of cubicles are forced to shed bodies at the merest dip in their stock price?
Facilities expenditures are dwarfed by salary. You don't have to remove many salaries to cover the difference in costs for offices vs. cubicles for software developers. By offering a good work environment, existing empolyees will produce better work and the company will be able to attract higher quality candidates. This results in a net increase in productivity despite reducing head counts.
In other words, cubicles are a false economy. Rather than saving money, business are forced use the savings from cubicles to hire more mediocre employees.
Don't be stupid. These people want broadband because they are painfully aware of how long it takes to download pictures, music, movies, tv shows, and porn. They don't do it just because they are told to.
Sorry, the first major distributed computing project on the 'Net was the factoring of RSA-129 in 1993. Credit goes to Arjen Lenstra, Paul Leyland, and Derek Atkins. I fondly remember using Zilla to setup a cluster of NeXT slabs for the project.
The magic words are SQEAMISH OSSIFRAGE!!
Competitive programming looks like fun and I think you can learn quite a bit from it. You can also earn reputation capital that can help in getting a job. I would think most employers would be more impressed with a high rank on a competitive site than with paid certs.
That said, I think "undiscovered developers wanting to get a break" should spend most of their time writing some useful software or web application instead. You get more experience than just solving puzzles at breakneck speed. Writing a good piece of software or site that your interviewer has used goes further than anything short of a personal recommendation. When people use your software and are impressed with your skillz, work comes to you. Plus, you could end up founding a software business that makes you a millionare.
There are a lot of opportunities out there.
The technology is out there. The founding father of untraceability is David Chaum. There is a tradeoff between untraceability and practicality. Chaum describes perfect untraceability in the Dining Cryptographers paper, but it is impractical and subject to DOS attacks. Chaum's Digital Mixes are a more practical type of system and all of the anonymous remailers are based in this principal. TOR: The Onion Router Project is what you should check out, it is a real time Chaum mix net for TCP connections.
i DARE you to download a torrent from a legitimate source with a dedicated seed instead of warez where the seeder bails the instant other peers start finishing.
Don't be silly. Even if it doesn't burn out your CCD, you need more resolution than you can get with a pinhole lens. Leave the lens on and use some readily available solar filter material. Constructing a cell for your filter would certainly qualify as a hack.
Of course, the nerds on Slashdot know better. In any event, I have paid my dues for mooching views before I got a nice scope. I didn't have a secluded observing spot at my old apartment in San Francisco so I would wheel the 14.5" out onto the sidewalk and share views of Saturn and Jupiter. I doubt there is much coating left on the eye lens of the Nagler zoom. The only time it was really a hassle was when that drunk homeless guy spent 2 hours telling me how he wanted me to teach him and his grandson about astronomy. If that night hadn't been the best seeing of the year I would have packed it in early!
Everyone knows the moon is not made of cheese! Ever since Bush announced his moon base strategy the secret has been out: the moon is made of OIL!
1) Go to the local public dark sky observing site on the saturday closest to the new moon.
2) set up the little crap scope that has been in your closet for years
3) spend the rest of the night looking through everyone else's 18" dob
4) ????
5) PROFIT!
If you read the Grokster decision, it talks about how failure to take steps to prevent infringement are merely complements to the direct evidence and "alone would not justify an inference of unlawful intent."