I just looked at this post again, and it was modded Funny. Funny? It's a legitimate question! Oh well, I should know better than to expect rational moderations on slashdot.
After I read the parent post, but before I read yours, I was thinking along very similar lines. However, I was thinking of setting it up so that your computer would simply wait passively for a phone call on the line. Then if it gets a call, it hooks you up to the GPS reciever and you can track it. This avoids the problem of continuous outgoing messages (and associated charges). Of course I haven't actually built the system. So I'm just curious, what made you decide to do it the way you did it?
If you can figure out how get a tac-nuke on a carrier and detonate it, let the DoD know. Or let somebody else's DoD know, they would probably like that information as well.
A carrier's survivability is based around the inability of any aggressor to get within two hundred miles of it.
You left out the "nuclear-powered" part. I don't know a lot about these things, but I would guess that is a significant difference.
There's also the "aircraft carrier" part. I'm sure there are lots and lots of difficult things that are specific to carriers. Just because two things are equally hard doesn't make them equal.
Yeah, we need a java-like syntax so you too can create lots of debug info in programs with 'if (global_debug==1) ' rather than the infinitely more efficient #ifdef DEBUG.
I'm pretty sure Java guarantees that if the conditional of an if is known at compile-time (as it would be in this case), then the if will be optimized out of your code. Just like an #ifdef. So, nice straw-man, but the two constructs are equally efficient.
Maybe you didn't notice, but they're switching a giant system over from mainframes to Linux. If Microsoft had recieved a contract for this changeover instead, you can bet it would have been news too.
So far, Apple's software has displaced other vendors not because they come from Apple, but because they're the best.
IE vs Safari: Safari kicks IE's ass so hard it's not even funny. IE is old, clunky, ugly, buggy. Safari's the fastest browser I've ever laid hands on, it's beautiful, and it works great.
FCP vs Premiere: I haven't used either of them, but from all indications, FCP is the superior product.
If Apple continues with this trend, we'll have lots of really great Apple software, and I don't see the problem with that. The problem is if Apple were using its position as OS vendor to destroy superior products and replace them with its own inferior offerings, but that's not what's happening.
As to whether it's possible, it's hard to say. If the major application vendors continue to be incompetent (taking years to catch up with OS releases, blaming Apple for their problems, etc.) then it certainly could hoppen.
NTSC is basically North America, PAL (and SECAM, which is also 50Hz IIRC) is nearly everywhere else. (That's probably wrong in places, but it's a nice generalization.) Likewise, 60Hz power is mostly in North America, and 50Hz power is mostly everywhere else. I'm pretty sure it's not at all a coincidence that TV refresh rates and electric power frequencies tend to match, as you observed.
My best guess, coming from playing with PAL and NTSC VCDs, is that the difference in the formats would just be the framerate. Since PAL is 25fps, and NTSC is 29.97fps, you'll get slightly better quality if your digital video has the same fps as your TV. But it will still work otherwise.
A buffer overflow just means that you overflow a buffer. This results in writing to memory beyond the buffer. Most buffer-overflow exploits involve using a buffer overflow to write interesting things to the memory beyond the buffer, resulting in having the program execute code the attacker sends it. But even if writing to that memory just crashes the program, it's still a buffer overflow.
$10,000 per pound is an average cost, not an incremental cost. You get that figure by taking the average cost of a launch and dividing it by the average payload. Adding another pound of payload does not make the shuttle cost an extra $10,000 to launch. Up to a point, they have to put in a little more fuel, which is cheap. Once you pass the shuttle's capacity, then you simply can't add more weight at all no matter how much money you have. The drive to bring in the total weight under capacity is the reason everything is so light; the cost of a pound to orbit is not. I would guess that the shuttle is such a gigantic machine that an extra couple of pounds in a RAID is not going to make a difference to anything.
I realize the logic of these things is sometimes strange. But wouldn't it be easier to just start paying the employees with cash money instead of trying Stupid Stock Market Tricks(tm) to make their stock options go up?
When I was a kid in the 80s, it was hip to make fun of the Post Office. And rightfully so: they were slow and unreliable. The jokes grew up from real experiences.
But now, the USPS will take your money with a smile, and lie to you about the delivery date. The bastards deliver your packages early almost every single time, blasting packages halfway across the country in two days for less than a dollar, or blasting them halfway across the planet in less than a week still for a very reasonable sum.
The USPS has changed from competition from the likes of FedEx and UPS, and they are now very, very good at what they do.
Better than having the only option available be nuclear. Don't you remember living under the constant threat of total nuclear annihilation? Or are you somehow too young for that?
Then on top of that, they said that they'll be at 3GHz in a year. That's a 50% speed increase in 12 months. Notice something? That's slower than Moore's law.
Moore's law is one doubling every 18-24 months. 50% in 12 months is right in the middle of that. After 24 months, you have two 50% increases for a total of a 125% increase.
Slashdot Mirror
I just looked at this post again, and it was modded Funny. Funny? It's a legitimate question! Oh well, I should know better than to expect rational moderations on slashdot.
After I read the parent post, but before I read yours, I was thinking along very similar lines. However, I was thinking of setting it up so that your computer would simply wait passively for a phone call on the line. Then if it gets a call, it hooks you up to the GPS reciever and you can track it. This avoids the problem of continuous outgoing messages (and associated charges). Of course I haven't actually built the system. So I'm just curious, what made you decide to do it the way you did it?
If you can figure out how get a tac-nuke on a carrier and detonate it, let the DoD know. Or let somebody else's DoD know, they would probably like that information as well.
A carrier's survivability is based around the inability of any aggressor to get within two hundred miles of it.
You left out the "nuclear-powered" part. I don't know a lot about these things, but I would guess that is a significant difference.
There's also the "aircraft carrier" part. I'm sure there are lots and lots of difficult things that are specific to carriers. Just because two things are equally hard doesn't make them equal.
Yeah, we need a java-like syntax so you too can create lots of debug info in programs with 'if (global_debug==1) ' rather than the infinitely more efficient #ifdef DEBUG.
I'm pretty sure Java guarantees that if the conditional of an if is known at compile-time (as it would be in this case), then the if will be optimized out of your code. Just like an #ifdef. So, nice straw-man, but the two constructs are equally efficient.
Maybe you didn't notice, but they're switching a giant system over from mainframes to Linux. If Microsoft had recieved a contract for this changeover instead, you can bet it would have been news too.
No. But the "you shouldn't be talking if you don't agree with me" attitude really does suck.
Stop watching Fox News. Start reading Noam Chomsky. While you are doing that, how about you shut the fuck up.
I love the attitudes of people like this. "You can have any opinion you want as long as it's the same as mine."
Most computer systems have programs to magnify portions of the screen. Magnification can be adequately handled on the end-user's computer.
Of course, the magnified thumbnail will look like crap. But that's hardly discriminatory; the tiny one looks like crap too.
So far, Apple's software has displaced other vendors not because they come from Apple, but because they're the best.
IE vs Safari: Safari kicks IE's ass so hard it's not even funny. IE is old, clunky, ugly, buggy. Safari's the fastest browser I've ever laid hands on, it's beautiful, and it works great.
FCP vs Premiere: I haven't used either of them, but from all indications, FCP is the superior product.
If Apple continues with this trend, we'll have lots of really great Apple software, and I don't see the problem with that. The problem is if Apple were using its position as OS vendor to destroy superior products and replace them with its own inferior offerings, but that's not what's happening.
As to whether it's possible, it's hard to say. If the major application vendors continue to be incompetent (taking years to catch up with OS releases, blaming Apple for their problems, etc.) then it certainly could hoppen.
As far as I know, you're correct.
NTSC is basically North America, PAL (and SECAM, which is also 50Hz IIRC) is nearly everywhere else. (That's probably wrong in places, but it's a nice generalization.) Likewise, 60Hz power is mostly in North America, and 50Hz power is mostly everywhere else. I'm pretty sure it's not at all a coincidence that TV refresh rates and electric power frequencies tend to match, as you observed.
My best guess, coming from playing with PAL and NTSC VCDs, is that the difference in the formats would just be the framerate. Since PAL is 25fps, and NTSC is 29.97fps, you'll get slightly better quality if your digital video has the same fps as your TV. But it will still work otherwise.
A buffer overflow just means that you overflow a buffer. This results in writing to memory beyond the buffer. Most buffer-overflow exploits involve using a buffer overflow to write interesting things to the memory beyond the buffer, resulting in having the program execute code the attacker sends it. But even if writing to that memory just crashes the program, it's still a buffer overflow.
$10,000 per pound is an average cost, not an incremental cost. You get that figure by taking the average cost of a launch and dividing it by the average payload. Adding another pound of payload does not make the shuttle cost an extra $10,000 to launch. Up to a point, they have to put in a little more fuel, which is cheap. Once you pass the shuttle's capacity, then you simply can't add more weight at all no matter how much money you have. The drive to bring in the total weight under capacity is the reason everything is so light; the cost of a pound to orbit is not. I would guess that the shuttle is such a gigantic machine that an extra couple of pounds in a RAID is not going to make a difference to anything.
I realize the logic of these things is sometimes strange. But wouldn't it be easier to just start paying the employees with cash money instead of trying Stupid Stock Market Tricks(tm) to make their stock options go up?
Magic pixie dust would solve a good portion of the problem as well. And it's probably more likely than peace in the middle east.
When I was a kid in the 80s, it was hip to make fun of the Post Office. And rightfully so: they were slow and unreliable. The jokes grew up from real experiences.
But now, the USPS will take your money with a smile, and lie to you about the delivery date. The bastards deliver your packages early almost every single time, blasting packages halfway across the country in two days for less than a dollar, or blasting them halfway across the planet in less than a week still for a very reasonable sum.
The USPS has changed from competition from the likes of FedEx and UPS, and they are now very, very good at what they do.
Better than having the only option available be nuclear. Don't you remember living under the constant threat of total nuclear annihilation? Or are you somehow too young for that?
Do you mean batteries like this?
I have never had trouble finding batteries for old laptops. If you need one, you can find one no problem.
Then on top of that, they said that they'll be at 3GHz in a year. That's a 50% speed increase in 12 months. Notice something? That's slower than Moore's law.
Moore's law is one doubling every 18-24 months. 50% in 12 months is right in the middle of that. After 24 months, you have two 50% increases for a total of a 125% increase.
For $600 you might be able to score an old iMac.
For $800 you "might" be able to score a brand-new eMac, which will run OS X like a dream, and be able to do anything you can do on your economy PC.
Crap, looks like you're right. I guess I spoke too soon.
They're all dual-processor machines.
Please explain, in 300 words or less, how Apple is forcing the upgrade.
It seems telling that the first serious poster ends up being clueless and making no sense.
I guess all we can handle is jokes and idiocy.