Fueling this thing with sugar is one thing, but fueling it with food scraps is an entirely seperate problem.
What happens when the devices becomes full of un-usuable material? When it is full, and you clean it out - can you buy a little replentishing vial of new E.coli? Will you have to replace the redox chemicals?
How long would it take to get one of these going? That is, if you wanted to use it immediately, would you have to jump start it with sugar and drop some other food in so that the decomposition process could begin? As anyone with a compost bin knows, decomposition is pretty slow process and may only yeild sufficient quantities of enzymes after an initial growing period.
Here's one guy hoping these guys can overcome the obstacles.
I find the full path helpful, but don't like typing commands beginning in the middle of a shell, so I stick a \n character in there and have something that looks like:
I confess, I'm one of those sticking with Netscape 4 for the moment. I'd mod your comments as rather insightful.
For me, one of the prime reasons I haven't migrated is that Mozilla's offerings are offset by it's main weakness; it's slow. Sure it renders faster and better, and has a bunch of nice new features (for me: controlling popups, undo in forms, auto-fill in of forms, searching google from the address bar (took getting used to)) - but as a package, it's still really quite slow.
People have been commenting on how fast the newer Mozilla's are - but I have to disagree. I'm on a dual Celeron 400 w/ 128MB of RAM. While that's not a fast system by today's standards, it's still a respectable. I've just started to use Mozilla (I'm using 0.9.8 right now), but find it too unresponsive. Example: I go 'back' by right clicking and dragging down a little. It's a very quick short sweeping motion that works very well in Netscape 4. Try it in Mozilla, and the menus can't keep up. Plus, the menus change under context - sometimes 'open frame in new window' or other options are at the top of the list. First off, this messes up the whole system I use to navigate. Second, I think it's just rather inconsistent. If I were to do things, the top options would remain constant, with the ones below adapting to the context.
Anyhow, yeah Mozilla has come a LONG way. I remember testing a version where when you dragged around the window all the menu segments would chase to catch up - much like a swarm screensaver.
Following the parent's lead... Having said this, I'm still going to download 0.9.9 and see if I can't make the switch.
I'm just guessing here - but I would say that if you're serious about your description of your work area, then that's a large source of your wrist pain.
I just got a new job, and I have a very nice workstation - which itself aleviated most of my typing-related pain problems. Aside from my desk, which has a seperate keyboard tray part that I can angle away from myself - my Aeron chair is quite comfy.
I also recently purchased a Kinesis. I adapted quickly, and am not experiencing anywhere near as much strain. Combined with the new workstation, I almost don't have any pain. If I could only get away from the mouse more...
My only two gripes with the Kinesis are that I often overshoot when going for c,v,n & m because they require so little motion to reach (which is really a feature of the board), and Ctrl and Alt could be a bit closer to my thumbs.
As for this newfangled pyramid thing - I don't know. I never imagined that sideways motion was a Good Thing; this thing reminds me of the DataHand.
Why do people do anything?
Why do people serve on school boards, PTAs, volunteer at the local hospita or do ANY
THING without compensation?
Simple logic tells us "because they derive some form of satisfaction from doing what ever it is we're talking about."
As a society I don't believe that we emphasize contribution to society nearly enough (volunteering, helping fellow citizens on a regular basis, observing social customs which allow for society to function, participating in our government, respecting others). A healthy democracy only survives when people act together to make their world, community, neighborhood and life better. Civil society is what has made our great country (USA) great. Civic particpation is on the decline, though. I don't have the answers as to why this is the case, but I know that we strongly value the individual. We hold individualism on such a high pedastal, that we forget that we individuals live with many other individuals - in a society. Forgetting that we're "all in this together" leads to many factions claiming autonomy from the rest of everybody; lead
ing to deadlock in government and tension/hate between social groups.
To return to the question at hand, I don't understand why the open source community needs to justify itself to Congressman Boucher. Every individual contributes to the open source movement for his or her own reasons. I would be surprised if there were one common crisply defined motivation behind every open source developer, tester and user.
Plus, I don't like the tone of the question. To me, it sounded as if the Congressman was saying "Why the hell are all you fools doing this work without pay or other tangible recompense?" It's as if he was challenging the very notion of volunteering time and contributing to some larger good. It seems like the Congressman (and society)
have taken a purely rational being straight out of an intro economics text and made it our model individual. As a society, we can not afford such rational citizens. Self interest and the unwillingness to contribute to anything except ourselves is tearing our country apart; just read the news someday.
Are moderators reading beyond the first two lines? I thought not. This guy says he's jesus, and this is worth my time?
I read at two, because I don't like wasting time on the crap. One, or even zero, is strictly for when I'm moderating. It's sad when this shite gets through.
----
As for my comment on when to release, I would think it would be better to realease at least beta software. I don't see why anyone would want to d/l really unstable software to fix. I always thought the primary benefits to open sourcing software was to provide customers/users with the ability to customize and fix stray bugs - not do core development...
A possible exception would be if you're working with someone to develop the software. Example: I worked on a newly developed relative isotope mass spectrometer, and my boss provided direct feedback on what functionality should be in the controlling sofware package. Now, in this case a source release wouldn't have really mattered, because a) only a couple machines existed at the time and b) my boss didn't code. If it had been a more widely used product, and there were users who would potentially want to customize NOW - I would think it to be good to release. Again, however, this suggests you have at least a basically functional product.
I should have noted, after reading below the 2 threshold - that I run Linux 2.2.14.
Maybe w/o the multitasking, Win95 or MacOS can't keep up, and all of this is a big trouble, but I wouldn't know. Even when I ran NT4 (for the week before my computer had an ethernet connection), and burned a couple CDs using Adaptec's software (good stuff) - I didn't have any trouble.
While I'm talking, I'd like to third the motion that this was a stupid question. I realize this is going to sound as if I'm one of those "I-was-here-before-it-got-trendy" types - but I picked up Slashdot just about two years ago (as an hourly habit) - back when BoReD aT WoRk and Anonymous Coward (the REAL GUY) were around. I remember the articles and posts being more technical, more informative, and generally of a higher caliber....I miss that sort of forum, where I actually learned some things by sitting down and reading posts!
I sympathize with the true old-timers, being a medium tenured member of the 'Slashdot Community' myself.
DISCLAIMER? I have a dual Celeron 400 box w/ 128MB of RAM - a sweet IBM Ultra2 Wide LVD hard drive and a SCSI Plextor PlexWriter 8/20.
Anyhow, I run RC5 24/7, always with enough apps open to use all of my physical RAM (Navigator, xemacs, WordPerfect, XFMail, x11amp, bash, etc.). I don't ever close anything down, or use the computer less while burning (hell, I think I was even compiling something while burning once), and have yet to make a coaster.
Maybe it's the dual processors - who knows, but I don't think this is even an issue on newer machines. Maybe with some older PIIs you run the risk of making duds, I don't know...
Besides, how often do you really burn something? Are you burning CDs twice a day, or something? Why would you need a dedicated machine for burning?
Anybody got a source for good replacement switches?
Try Mouser Electronics. They've always been great for me. If that doesn't work for you, there's one other big one I'm familiar with - but the name escapes me.
Also, here's a DMOZ listing for electronics distributors & vendors.
Why would the laptop have to be on, and not just the 'LoJack' unit - whatever that may be?
Here's a neat idea (yes, I'm bored - and no, I did not sleep last night). Make a GPS receiver/position broadcaster only activate when a 'daughter' unit was not within a predifined range. That way, the LoJack system would be merely sipping at its own battery on standby, but would start transmitting its location as soon as the daughter hardware was out of range. How does that sound? Sure it requires its own battery, but it's entirely internal (Don't ask how you change the battery. I don't know. Lift up the keyboard? okay - LOCKED under the keyboard?)
Imposing one's own beliefs on others makes for a better society. Homogeneity makes for a better society.
We all know those guys (and few gals) over in Congress are so educated and wise... I don't know about you, but I don't think the decisions they make are biased by campaign money. They pick what's right for "the people."
I like our government. I trust the people who conduct its duties.
</sarcasm> I applaud Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They seem to be the only two who are intelligent enough to remember the founding principles of our [crumbling] democracy. Our country was founded on some very simple principles, and I am utterly disgusted by the conduct of the Congress and Supreme Court for violating those fundamental concepts. I am sick and tired of their preaching, and wasting our nation's time pursuing of their narrow, conceited and undemocratic goals.
It's due to your brain adapting to the movement, and then an "after-image" of sorts. It's similar to looking at green, and seeing a red afterimage. Opponent processes going on in your head.
The 'lateral inhibition' you mentioned is due to the center surround component of vision. Think of it as a bulls-eye. The center generates a positive signal when stimulated, but gets damped when the surrounding area is stimulated. It's good for edge detection and things.
It all falls under 'perception' which falls under cognitive science. I'm taking a class right now called "Perception and the Mind." It's intro stuff, but we've talked about all this stuff. It's kinda neat.
there was a pretty large thread there this summer on a guy who was doing it. plenum vs. not plenum - which kind of patch boxes to use - most everything.
I guess this is here to stay until it gets disproved, but I personally am skeptical of this example.
I'm curious about how they explain the high altitude ball lightning. What I've seen on it (from a Nova, a while back I think) the majority of ball lightning was happening at very high altitudes in the very tops of huge cumulo-nimbus (thunderheads) clouds. Scientists were observing them with those storm planes - and trying to recreate it in the lab. In what I saw, they were passing the huge impulses of juice through ceramic tile. It didn't always work, though - and they made a lot of tiles explode/break into two.
I did not ask HOW to set up TTFonts, I asked if it would make a difference with respect to ANTI-ALIASING. Thanks for the link, but I'd expect more courtesy from a "typical Slashdot reader."
I know this is semi-off topic, but I find the anti-aliasing to be kind of shoddy. Is there any way to improve it? Is there 'configuration' that has to go into what quality anti-aliasing you want?
I made an image in Photoshop first semester (yay, college!) for an engineering website. Second semester, the prof. changed, so I had to update the image. I was not in the mood for a reboot (who ever is?) so I just used the GIMP. It worked, but the quality of the text was horrid in comparison.
Does anyone know anything about this? How can it be improved? Would it help for me to get TrueType fonts going? Can the GIMP use TTFonts?
Thanks. Is there a mailing list for this kind of thing?
I know this is semi-off topic, but I find the anti-aliasing to be kind of shoddy. Is there any way to improve it? Is there 'configuration' that has to go into what quality anti-aliasing you want? I made an image in Photoshop first semester (yay, college!) for an engineering website. Second semester, the prof. changed, so I had to update the image. I was not in the mood for a reboot (who ever is?) so I just used the GIMP. It worked, but the quality of the text was horrid in comparison. Does anyone know anything about this? How can it be improved? Would it help for me to get TrueType fonts going? Can the GIMP use TTFonts? Thanks. Is there a mailing list for this kind of thing? reds.
You might want to look at Daddy's Junky Music. They sell used equipment, typically have lots of good stuff, too - and are well known. They have a store here where I live, and can pull in stuff from all over the country from their other stores. If your town doesn't have a store, you can also do the mail-order thing through the link on their page, or Used Gear by Mail.
Slashdot Mirror
Fueling this thing with sugar is one thing, but fueling it with food scraps is an entirely seperate problem.
What happens when the devices becomes full of un-usuable material? When it is full, and you clean it out - can you buy a little replentishing vial of new E.coli? Will you have to replace the redox chemicals?
How long would it take to get one of these going? That is, if you wanted to use it immediately, would you have to jump start it with sugar and drop some other food in so that the decomposition process could begin? As anyone with a compost bin knows, decomposition is pretty slow process and may only yeild sufficient quantities of enzymes after an initial growing period.
Here's one guy hoping these guys can overcome the obstacles.
You're wrong on the noise count: my Atlas 10k III is awfully quiet. You're right on the cost, though, it was pretty expensive.
An economic argument: David Levine
I confess, I'm one of those sticking with Netscape 4 for the moment. I'd mod your comments as rather insightful.
For me, one of the prime reasons I haven't migrated is that Mozilla's offerings are offset by it's main weakness; it's slow. Sure it renders faster and better, and has a bunch of nice new features (for me: controlling popups, undo in forms, auto-fill in of forms, searching google from the address bar (took getting used to)) - but as a package, it's still really quite slow.
People have been commenting on how fast the newer Mozilla's are - but I have to disagree. I'm on a dual Celeron 400 w/ 128MB of RAM. While that's not a fast system by today's standards, it's still a respectable. I've just started to use Mozilla (I'm using 0.9.8 right now), but find it too unresponsive. Example: I go 'back' by right clicking and dragging down a little. It's a very quick short sweeping motion that works very well in Netscape 4. Try it in Mozilla, and the menus can't keep up. Plus, the menus change under context - sometimes 'open frame in new window' or other options are at the top of the list. First off, this messes up the whole system I use to navigate. Second, I think it's just rather inconsistent. If I were to do things, the top options would remain constant, with the ones below adapting to the context.
Anyhow, yeah Mozilla has come a LONG way. I remember testing a version where when you dragged around the window all the menu segments would chase to catch up - much like a swarm screensaver.
Following the parent's lead...
Having said this, I'm still going to download 0.9.9 and see if I can't make the switch.
That's nice if you're going for a modern look, but then again so is this.
I'm just guessing here - but I would say that if you're serious about your description of your work area, then that's a large source of your wrist pain.
Here are a couple of links describing a good workstation:
cornell ergo
east carolina u
I just got a new job, and I have a very nice workstation - which itself aleviated most of my typing-related pain problems. Aside from my desk, which has a seperate keyboard tray part that I can angle away from myself - my Aeron chair is quite comfy.
I also recently purchased a Kinesis. I adapted quickly, and am not experiencing anywhere near as much strain. Combined with the new workstation, I almost don't have any pain. If I could only get away from the mouse more...
My only two gripes with the Kinesis are that I often overshoot when going for c,v,n & m because they require so little motion to reach (which is really a feature of the board), and Ctrl and Alt could be a bit closer to my thumbs.
As for this newfangled pyramid thing - I don't know. I never imagined that sideways motion was a Good Thing; this thing reminds me of the DataHand.
Why do people do anything?
Why do people serve on school boards, PTAs, volunteer at the local hospita or do ANY
THING without compensation?
Simple logic tells us "because they derive some form of satisfaction from doing what ever it is we're talking about."
As a society I don't believe that we emphasize contribution to society nearly enough (volunteering, helping fellow citizens on a regular basis, observing social customs which allow for society to function, participating in our government, respecting others). A healthy democracy only survives when people act together to make their world, community, neighborhood and life better. Civil society is what has made our great country (USA) great. Civic particpation is on the decline, though. I don't have the answers as to why this is the case, but I know that we strongly value the individual. We hold individualism on such a high pedastal, that we forget that we individuals live with many other individuals - in a society. Forgetting that we're "all in this together" leads to many factions claiming autonomy from the rest of everybody; lead
ing to deadlock in government and tension/hate between social groups.
To return to the question at hand, I don't understand why the open source community needs to justify itself to Congressman Boucher. Every individual contributes to the open source movement for his or her own reasons. I would be surprised if there were one common crisply defined motivation behind every open source developer, tester and user.
Plus, I don't like the tone of the question. To me, it sounded as if the Congressman was saying "Why the hell are all you fools doing this work without pay or other tangible recompense?" It's as if he was challenging the very notion of volunteering time and contributing to some larger good. It seems like the Congressman (and society)
have taken a purely rational being straight out of an intro economics text and made it our model individual. As a society, we can not afford such rational citizens. Self interest and the unwillingness to contribute to anything except ourselves is tearing our country apart; just read the news someday.
Who the hell moderated this to a "Score:2" !?!
Are moderators reading beyond the first two lines? I thought not. This guy says he's jesus, and this is worth my time?
I read at two, because I don't like wasting time on the crap. One, or even zero, is strictly for when I'm moderating. It's sad when this shite gets through.
----
As for my comment on when to release, I would think it would be better to realease at least beta software. I don't see why anyone would want to d/l really unstable software to fix. I always thought the primary benefits to open sourcing software was to provide customers/users with the ability to customize and fix stray bugs - not do core development...
A possible exception would be if you're working with someone to develop the software. Example: I worked on a newly developed relative isotope mass spectrometer, and my boss provided direct feedback on what functionality should be in the controlling sofware package. Now, in this case a source release wouldn't have really mattered, because a) only a couple machines existed at the time and b) my boss didn't code. If it had been a more widely used product, and there were users who would potentially want to customize NOW - I would think it to be good to release. Again, however, this suggests you have at least a basically functional product.
So I just went in a circle. Oh well.
Actually, I didn't sign up for an account until I had been reading for a long time. Hence the 12k number.
Do you always get an account the first time you start reading a site? I didn't think so.
I had to pass through the ranks as a lurker, first.
I should have noted, after reading below the 2 threshold - that I run Linux 2.2.14.
...I miss that sort of forum, where I actually learned some things by sitting down and reading posts!
Maybe w/o the multitasking, Win95 or MacOS can't keep up, and all of this is a big trouble, but I wouldn't know. Even when I ran NT4 (for the week before my computer had an ethernet connection), and burned a couple CDs using Adaptec's software (good stuff) - I didn't have any trouble.
While I'm talking, I'd like to third the motion that this was a stupid question. I realize this is going to sound as if I'm one of those "I-was-here-before-it-got-trendy" types - but I picked up Slashdot just about two years ago (as an hourly habit) - back when BoReD aT WoRk and Anonymous Coward (the REAL GUY) were around. I remember the articles and posts being more technical, more informative, and generally of a higher caliber.
I sympathize with the true old-timers, being a medium tenured member of the 'Slashdot Community' myself.
DISCLAIMER? I have a dual Celeron 400 box w/ 128MB of RAM - a sweet IBM Ultra2 Wide LVD hard drive and a SCSI Plextor PlexWriter 8/20.
Anyhow, I run RC5 24/7, always with enough apps open to use all of my physical RAM (Navigator, xemacs, WordPerfect, XFMail, x11amp, bash, etc.). I don't ever close anything down, or use the computer less while burning (hell, I think I was even compiling something while burning once), and have yet to make a coaster.
Maybe it's the dual processors - who knows, but I don't think this is even an issue on newer machines. Maybe with some older PIIs you run the risk of making duds, I don't know...
Besides, how often do you really burn something? Are you burning CDs twice a day, or something? Why would you need a dedicated machine for burning?
Anybody got a source for good replacement switches?
Try Mouser Electronics. They've always been great for me. If that doesn't work for you, there's one other big one I'm familiar with - but the name escapes me.
Also, here's a DMOZ listing for electronics distributors & vendors.
Why would the laptop have to be on, and not just the 'LoJack' unit - whatever that may be?
Here's a neat idea (yes, I'm bored - and no, I did not sleep last night). Make a GPS receiver/position broadcaster only activate when a 'daughter' unit was not within a predifined range. That way, the LoJack system would be merely sipping at its own battery on standby, but would start transmitting its location as soon as the daughter hardware was out of range. How does that sound? Sure it requires its own battery, but it's entirely internal (Don't ask how you change the battery. I don't know. Lift up the keyboard? okay - LOCKED under the keyboard?)
[first meaningful post?]
this one, too!
382. Janet Reno from Washington DC - Prefered Linux Distribution: Redhat Linux W/ Fidel Castro & Elian Extensions.
don't even think about it.
I'm number 707, thank you very much.
Censorship is good.
Imposing one's own beliefs on others makes for a better society. Homogeneity makes for a better society.
We all know those guys (and few gals) over in Congress are so educated and wise... I don't know about you, but I don't think the decisions they make are biased by campaign money. They pick what's right for "the people."
I like our government. I trust the people who conduct its duties.
</sarcasm>
I applaud Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They seem to be the only two who are intelligent enough to remember the founding principles of our [crumbling] democracy. Our country was founded on some very simple principles, and I am utterly disgusted by the conduct of the Congress and Supreme Court for violating those fundamental concepts. I am sick and tired of their preaching, and wasting our nation's time pursuing of their narrow, conceited and undemocratic goals.
It's due to your brain adapting to the movement, and then an "after-image" of sorts. It's similar to looking at green, and seeing a red afterimage. Opponent processes going on in your head.
The 'lateral inhibition' you mentioned is due to the center surround component of vision. Think of it as a bulls-eye. The center generates a positive signal when stimulated, but gets damped when the surrounding area is stimulated. It's good for edge detection and things.
It all falls under 'perception' which falls under cognitive science. I'm taking a class right now called "Perception and the Mind." It's intro stuff, but we've talked about all this stuff. It's kinda neat.
yet another mirror: ftp://128.148.190.238
enjoy!
check out the ars technica forum.
there was a pretty large thread there this summer on a guy who was doing it. plenum vs. not plenum - which kind of patch boxes to use - most everything.
i remember it being pretty good.
I guess this is here to stay until it gets disproved, but I personally am skeptical of this example.
I'm curious about how they explain the high altitude ball lightning. What I've seen on it (from a Nova, a while back I think) the majority of ball lightning was happening at very high altitudes in the very tops of huge cumulo-nimbus (thunderheads) clouds. Scientists were observing them with those storm planes - and trying to recreate it in the lab. In what I saw, they were passing the huge impulses of juice through ceramic tile. It didn't always work, though - and they made a lot of tiles explode/break into two.
I need to learn more about electricity.
Thanks to everyone for their info.
I appreciate it.
I'll give it a whirl when I finally get my box back together. (made a new one, and turned the old one into an OpenBSD server)
reds.
Thanks for the compliment.
Actually, I already HAD read the FAQ...
I did not ask HOW to set up TTFonts, I asked if it would make a difference with respect to ANTI-ALIASING. Thanks for the link, but I'd expect more courtesy from a "typical Slashdot reader."
Whoops, sorry. Got greedy with the 'Submit'
I know this is semi-off topic, but I find the anti-aliasing to be kind of shoddy. Is there any way to improve it? Is there 'configuration' that has to go into what quality anti-aliasing you want?
I made an image in Photoshop first semester (yay, college!) for an engineering website. Second semester, the prof. changed, so I had to update the image. I was not in the mood for a reboot (who ever is?) so I just used the GIMP. It worked, but the quality of the text was horrid in comparison.
Does anyone know anything about this?
How can it be improved?
Would it help for me to get TrueType fonts going?
Can the GIMP use TTFonts?
Thanks.
Is there a mailing list for this kind of thing?
reds.
I know this is semi-off topic, but I find the anti-aliasing to be kind of shoddy. Is there any way to improve it? Is there 'configuration' that has to go into what quality anti-aliasing you want? I made an image in Photoshop first semester (yay, college!) for an engineering website. Second semester, the prof. changed, so I had to update the image. I was not in the mood for a reboot (who ever is?) so I just used the GIMP. It worked, but the quality of the text was horrid in comparison. Does anyone know anything about this? How can it be improved? Would it help for me to get TrueType fonts going? Can the GIMP use TTFonts? Thanks. Is there a mailing list for this kind of thing? reds.
You might want to look at Daddy's Junky Music. They sell used equipment, typically have lots of good stuff, too - and are well known. They have a store here where I live, and can pull in stuff from all over the country from their other stores. If your town doesn't have a store, you can also do the mail-order thing through the link on their page, or Used Gear by Mail.