I like the idea of keeping the phone line connected all the time by default, and it makes some other things easier. That said, I bet you could easily make the circuit to eat that first ring so it doesn't go through to the house wiring. You could eat ALL rings and just re-generate them yourself on the outputs (house and answering machine).
Heck, you could use a voltage comparison to trigger a disconnect so when the phone rang the line is temporarily disconnect for the duration of the ring signal. The the right sized capacitor to absorb the spike that did get through and a transistor to let you turn that feature on and off (so you can let rings through if you want) would probably do it.
As for how to get the data on and off, there are a few ways. You can go the program the MCU way, but that's annoying as you mentioned. You can make the MCU take direction form a serial port so you can program some flash memory that holds the list. But the easiest way is that it's not too hard to interface to a SD card or similar. You can buy very simple devices that let you access them with just a serial line or two. Put the list in a text file with a simple format (first line is the number of entries, after that each line is a valid number, sorted to allow for binary search) and you can update it trivially without having to reprogram and such.
That said, as the parent poster said you could use a Rabbit or some other MCU with easy external access. There are ethernet (often an add on you can buy for another MCU), you could use serial or USB or BlueTooth. Plus there is always the LCD/buttons approach.
Heck, program it with your phone. Pick up the phone and dial a magic sequence (###) or press a button then pick up the phone and you can do simple button combinations to program it. When in "magic mode" press 1 and then a 10 digit number to add it to the list. Press 2 and then a 10 digit number to remove it from the list. Both are confirmed with a simple tone. Press 3 then a 10 digit number to find out if it is in the list or not (one beep yes, two no). You could add other features later this way too. A simple way to turn on/off the filter for when you are expecting a call but you don't know who it will come from, or you want to go into "silent mode" to watch a movie where EVERYTHING goes to the machine.
You could do other fun stuff. If someone calls from a blocked number and gets the machine, you can monitor that with the PIC. If you detect they press the magic button sequence (44666, spells "HI MOM") then the PIC generates a ring on your phone. This could be used for emergencies. Then you just pick up and the auto-detect I mentioned earlier connects you and you take over from the machine.
The only complication I can see is the issue of how to handle call waiting, but you can avoid that just by turning it off.
I gotta say, the more I write about this the more fun it sounds. Too bad I have no use for it or time to work on it right now.
The wire services are a big part of what I see as the problem. I understand that not every paper can keep up with the NYT and such, but so many news casts and papers and sites are so close to straight wire service copies it's insane. It doesn't cost a fortune to send an article across the world. News papers could team up (like sister papers).
There are other things that drive me off. What I see as a very clear bias is one thing. This is both a political bias (most outlets are liberal to varying degrees, although many will argue that point) and a "sexiness" bias . Why report the 12 new schools build in Iraq or the new film clubs that weren't allowed under Saddam or whatever when you can report "Devastating news in Iraq as one soldier is killed." I see that as partly political, but everything is sensationalized. The economy is crumbling (it's not, it's doing great). One shark attack is a wave of terror that deserves 6 months of coverage. The way the war is covered you'd think it was Vietnam. In 'Nam 9 soldier died every day on average. In the Iraq war it is about 2, and if we only took the average for the last few months it would be lower. Our "atrocities" are reported constantly, the atrocities committed by our enemies are ignored or censored.
What would the modern media make of WW I or WW II? In WW I we lost about 300 men a day. In WW II we lost almost 2200 per day. With casualty rates like it's amazing wars ever happened. If modern America faced that kind of loss even in the face of such evil as Hitler and pre-war Japan, it's clear what our path would be.
To get back on point, newspapers and the media in general are in deep trouble and it isn't just "people don't like physical paper".
After all, when every news outlet reports the same story, why should I pay to read tomorrow what I can hear today on the news or read now on the web?
Hint: cutting back editorial staff and covering more national and international events is NOT a good idea.
First would be to set up some kind of PBX. It's a little complex, but it would work. You could use Asterisk (I think that is what it's called) and some hardware (since I think it was designed for VOIP) and do it that way.
The more fun (in my eyes) and complicated way is to build it yourself. You could do this with a PIC micro-controller (or similar). You could put the little box you would make at the phone entry point of your house. When the phone rings you let the first ring through (so you know someone called). Caller ID is transfered between the 1st and 2nd rings so that is when the MCU picks that up. Based on that, it can power a double pole double throw relay. In the normally closed position the phone signals are routed to your house wiring. When a "bad" caller ID is encountered it simply powers the relay switching the phone line from being connected to the phones to the answering machine. Of course the answering machine could be anywhere if you can isolate it's phone jack from the rest (shouldn't be too hard).
Now there are a few little things to take into account here. First is that you may want to generate a ring for the answering machine so that it picks up on the 4th ring (or whatever) instead of the 5th because of the "lost ring". Second is that if you automatically send people to the answering machine unless the right caller ID comes across (i.e. the answering machine is in the normally closed position) then you'll need to make sure you have a way to force the relay to switch. You would want this even if you decide to pick up a call from the machine. When the main wiring is disconnected you could monitor the wiring to see if anyone picks up (you'd have to power it probably) and switch the relay if that happens. That way any time you pick up the phone you will always get the dial tone/caller. Having the relay connect you to the phone line in the normally-closed position is an important idea because you want it to be safe and let you use the line during a power outage.
It'd be a very cool project. You can find bits about how to do it on the web. For example, I once saw something about a guy who built his own TTL PBX. That project (which was rather well documented, as I remember) would be a gold mine for you.
If you do it, make sure to write it up and post it. I'd love to read it and I'm sure others would too.
They were paid a living wage (or something close to it). The only difference is that a living wage in Cupertino, CA is WAY higher than one in Calcutta or Bangledesh. Heck, the living wage in Cupertio is WAY higher than one in Kansas City, MO or De Moins, IO.
This is a lie, just like the RIAA saying they want tiered pricing. I'm sure Jobs would agree if the tiers were $2, $4, $6, $8, and $10. But what the industry REALLY means is something more like $10 (just a handful of stuff), $12 (older stuff), $15 (a few years ago), and $20 (anything recent or popular).
Tiered pricing is fine when the tiers are reasonable. THAT is the problem with the industry's proposal.
He forced the RIAA to stick to $1 a song, he has enough clout that if a few small studios would agree he could force the rest of 'em to agree (or lose tons of business).
Viewtiful Joe, while a great game, is not 2D. The action may take place on a rail, but it is a 3D game. Everything is rendered in 3D. I'm glad to see Yoshi's Island on the list. I've always loved that game and it had such a fantastic look. I didn't like Yoshi's Story's style as much, but it was often stunning looking. Loco Roco looks neat, and I'll probably buy or rent it, but to me it just screams "Gish!" so loud, and I want to yell at all the magazines and websites that don't pick up on that obvious similarity (although I realize there are differences). I would have put Super Mario World on there also. I still think that is easily one of the best games ever made, graphics and all.
I don't agree with this at all. A gas engine is what, 15% efficient? Well it has GOT to be easier to get a large power plant to be more efficient than that than thousands of little engines. It's also easier to reduce emissions and such because it's all in one place.
And what's this fossil fuel nonsense? That's not a problem. It's called nuclear power. It's WAY cleaner than burning fossil fuels. Even many environmentalists who fought it 30 years ago have started to say they were wrong. Give everyone electric cars (or fuel cell cars), charge them off the grid, and feed the grid with nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, and (when available) fusion.
it can all be done.
Heck, I think the government could improve things a ton just by mandating that all new cars must have a Continuously Variable Transmission (or the equivalent, such as the Prius). Add in other things that are available now (hybrid technology) and things that may come around in the future (like putting water in the cylinders to make a 6 cycle engine that uses waste heat to create steam making more power) and we'll be doing well.
Want to get off fossil fuels? Go nuclear. No, wait, nuclear is "bad" and "evil". Want to improve cars? Go hybrid. No, wait, all those batteries are "bad" for the environment when they are dead and can't be recharged. Want to use wind power? Sorry, it kills birds and spoils the views of the rich like the Kennedys up in New England.
Yeah. Where would we be without those environmentalists?
PS: The EASIEST way to fix cars? 95% of the pollution they make is made by about 1% of the cars on the road. Take up a collection and buy those people new cars. That will improve things FAST. After all, the people who probably own those 1% of cars are the ones who can least afford to keep them tuned up or replace them with something newer and cleaner.
I love Python, but I hate the dynamic typing. It can be handy at times, but 99% of the time you make a variable to hold one kind of thing. Having the static typing would both improve performance (because the interpreter knew what you were up to) but would also eliminate bugs (because it would complain when I tried to set a double to "And now press...").
I'd love to see Python get optional static typing.
I have owned every game boy model released in the US except for the Micro and I totally get why the DS Lite has sold so well. I just bought one two or three days ago to replace my DS (which worked fine).
Let's ignore that it's smaller, sexier, fixes the top-heavy problem, etc. There is only one thing that matters about the DS above all else...
The screen is amazing.
It's on par with the PSP for clarity (although I realize the resolution is lower). It is an AMAZING step up. It's like going from the original GameBoy to the Pocket. Remember playing a GB after the pocket? It looked so muddy and blurry and such you wondered how you could ever use the thing. The difference with the Lite is just night and day. The lowest brightness setting is about equivalent to the what the DS looks like. But with the settings on the Lite you can play anywhere. Is it dark? You can see great on the lowest setting. Out in the sun? You can see great on the highest setting. It's possible to play the DS Lite outside on sunny days in the shade, where the DS was basically unplayable there.
But it gets BETTER. It's so much sharper and crisper (partially due to the brighter backlight, I'd think). I've been playing Trauma Center and it looks like a different game. I wish I hadn't sold so many of my DS games so I could stick them in to see just how much better they look. It's an AMAZING difference.
People complain about Nintendo doing things like this because "it's the same system", but the difference is night and day. I dare anyone to look at both and like the DS's screen over the Lite's. About the only way I could see you complaining about the Lite is the buttons (they have a different feel and if you had large hands I could see it being uncomfortable).
The thing is selling that well for a reason. It's just that good.
There is a good question. Is this going to be like the Apple store where you can rate 3rd party products but all Apple products automatically get a 5/5 and that can't be changed?
Good for them to try to do something like this, but will it work? After all, aren't all major PC manufacturers generally shipping parts by good companies (ATI, nVidia, Creative, Intel, etc.)? I'm not sure this will do much there, but for the end user market it may be quite a bit better. The only question is how you would rate all those companies that sell nVidia cards and just repackage the drivers. Do they get nVidia's rating since it's their driver, or do they get a lower one since they take longer to package updates?
Driver manufacturers can't exactly be trusted though. Read this story I found today on a MS weblog.
I know the modem in my computer is necessary for boot-up.
I really don't know, I'm sorry to say. I remember when I had to switch from the MS JVM to the Sun one. Things just slowed down SO MUCH when that happened.
I think it's the startup that causes people to say "Java is slow", because once you get INTO the app if it is written half-decently Java can be very peppy. It's just the launch time that kills it. It's just like it doesn't matter how fast the computers at your office are, if they take 1 minute to boot people will call them slow.
Try a Mac the next time you're at a store that sells them. You'll be amazed how fast Java starts. THAT'S how Java should be.
Can anyone comment on how fast Java is to start on Linux? I haven't messed with Linux in over a year, and Linux + Java in longer than that.
I agree. But whether it's my mother's 2.16 GHz P4 laptop or one of the brand new P4 HT desktops at my school, there is a delay. It's slightly better on the newer computers. But on the older computers I have access to (and by older I mean early P4, late P3) the computers just DRAG when you start Java and can sometimes almost seem to be frozen. All of this is on computers that are quite responsive opening other apps and such.
The computers I use with Windows and Java have 1.5.06 and it is still very slow. Once it gets running Java is nice and fast on Windows. But it just takes forever to start up. Even if Java was running 1/2 hour ago and I've used other stuff since, it's slow.
On my Mac, it never takes much time at all. It's quite quick. I may not use Java for 2 days (I don't turn my Mac off) but the next time I go to use Java it pops up quite fast.
I remember the MS JVM and how much faster it was. That was nice. Still, with Windows being such a HUGE platform you'd think they'd work on better performance for it.
Have you ever USED a Java application or applet on Windows? Once they launch they perform pretty good. Once they launch.
On every computer I use with Windows it takes up to 20-30 seconds to launch Java. Web page have a little "yes, you have Java" applet? Prepare for a massive slowdown. I'd hate to see what it does with applications that may just appear to hang the computer while Java launches. And don't get me started on taht stupid "Welcome to Java 2" dialog that pops up from the taskbar.
Now on my Mac, things are different. Java applets launch just as fast as Flash if not faster (basically, instantly). This is on my G4 so things would only be better with a CoreDuo. Same goes for applications. I've been using an appilcation called YourSQL for over a year. It accesses a MySQL server and works great. It's very fast, has a perfectly native interface. You would think it is a native app, but I recently discovered that it's Java. The end use would NEVER notice that kind of thing except I was trying to debug a problem in my own code so I went to invesitage how it worked. It was Open Source and when I downloaded it... it was Java.
Java is fantastic on Mac OS X. I don't know how fast it is on Linux. But as long as there is a 20-30 second launching penalty on Windows, Java will never be accpeted. I don't think.NET has this problem, but probably because MS is keeping it memory resident in Vista even if no one is using it.
Then again, maybe Mac OS X preloads Java. I don't know if it has tricks, or if the Windows implementation is just that bad.
The best example of this is a gradient. Take your monitor and make a gradient that is full screen from solid red to solid black. As things are now you get 256 bands of color because there are 256 possible values for red. The problem with this is that the transitions are VERY obvious.
Now if you have 4090 possible values of red, your eye may not be able to perceive the difference between #1024 and #1032 individually. But when you make that large gradient while you will not be able to see the individual bands.
You've gone from blocky to smooth. Anywhere you want a gradient, this is good. Fading to black, the sky, etc. And let's not forget that this can give us better HDR.
A private school can do that kind of thing. That's why I like them better (among MANY other reasons). That's the way things are.
But, you said it's a public school. I don't see why a public school can do that. And I'd be willing to wager a large amount of cash he didn't have to sign a "I will not host a web proxy server" document when he started to attend the school.
So what does he do?
Sue
That's all that works these days. If the school administration is going to be like that (note: I'm assuming he just set it up for personal use or something and isn't encouraging other students to use it to break school policy) then they obviously aren't willing to deal with him on this. In such situations (especially with a government institution like a school) a strongly worded nasty-gram from a lawyer will make a world of difference. Indicate you are willing to reach a compromise or something (that you're not just a "Free speech at all costs sue the school for $100,000,000" nut-job and are willing to be reasonable) and I'm sure something will get worked out quickly.
When faced with a lawsuit, most of the time in the US the person being threatened with the suit will just cave or try to work it out fast, even if they are right (which, in this case, is easily debatable).
Sounds like an excellent opportunity for a Wiki. Just host it yourself or buy a web-hosting service contract (try Dreamhost, note that is a referral link) and then everyone can easily edit and upload and such without having to know tons of technology.
At one of the schools I once visited, I saw something cool while helping out with their computers. For some reason they had a point to point laser link. This was years ago. From what I could find it was token-ring and I assume 10 megabits. It wasn't working at the time (half the system was just on a desk).
Still, someone must make something like that today. It would fit your situation perfectly. First of all, it's not broadcast. You can't stand 5 feet from the thing and intercept the signal. Second, even if you did manage to intercept the signal somehow, it is much harder to mess with than if you use some kind of 802.11.
I literally can suspend my 2 servers, disconnect my external SATA drive, move it to a beefy machine, connect it, and resume the 2 servers on the faster machine; that's slick.
That's one of those interesting ideas that we could do with hyper-visors. Sure the technologies Intel and AMD are putting in their chips lets you run 2 OSes on a machine, but what if you just ran one OS but ran it under a hyper-visor letting you do something like you described. Time to upgrade your hardware? Your hardware die? Move the drive to another PC and you can boot it instantly to where you were without having to worry about Windows/Linux being able to adapt to the new northbridge/southbridge/whatever.
I can't wait to see some of the cool stuff people use hardware vitalization for if they think out of the box. That has got to be quite a few neat ideas one could use it for.
Wow. I can't believe you got modded up. To me, you look like a classic troll. Let's play dissection, shall we?
The PowerGlove. Favorite "Nintendo sucks" point of everyone. Let's start off with the fact it didn't have a killer game. Then let's add the fact that it costs 50% as much as the NES. In todays dollars, it would have cost about $175 (based on adjust NES price). Then we'll add the question "how good of a cooking simulator could the NES have made" and that point is rather obvious.
Real adults are lazy. No kidding. How many adults would buy a game where they would have to learn new motor skills to simulate a real life activity. Hmm. I wonder how many copies this obscure game sold before it failed on the market with it's $80 price tag? And let's not forget that if you had to swing a golf club all the time for a game or swing a sword, it would get tiring. Don't you think they will take that into account when companies make the games?
Sony and MS threw millions into gaming. What have they done... hmm.. instead of little kids, now some adults pay games too. Amazing! Yet, as a proportion of the total population, very few people play console games. TONS play little web games like Popcap's games. That is what Nintendo is trying to do. As for the "advances" that Sony and MS have made let's see about those...
PS1 - Sony added a second set of shoulder buttons from the controller they stole off Nintendo. Wow.
PS1 Analog - Sony added two analog sticks in rather dumb spots. Nintendo added an analog stick first.
PS1 Dual Shock - Sony added rumble. Nintendo did that first too.
PS2 - Hmm... nothing changed. No... wait... analog buttons. How many games use those successfully? Yeah, basically none.
XBox - Took the Analog Saturn controller, move the main analog stick to where it should be, and made it the size of a bear. Oh yeah, it had those vestigial black and white buttons too.
Nintendo has, on the other hand, made the d-pad, the analog stick, rumble, the first excellent wireless controller, the first microphone in a controller (in the Famicom), etc. Nintendo introduced an expandable controller with the N64. MS copied it (and the DC's controller) to the letter.
Want proof controllers don't matter? Let's point out a special controller that costs at least $40 for a piece of junk (the wheel) and probably $100 for a good one, is only good for one kind of games, and is not included with the system and see how well it sells compared to the games. You're kidding right? You're comparing a single use controller that isn't bundled in (see: any fishing controller, light guns since after the Zapper) to a multi-purpose controller with motion sensing, accurate pointing, a speaker, a microphone (according to some), and more that will come bundled with the console?
In conclusion, the Atari 2600 killed the game industry because it was flooded with crappy "me too" content and Nintendo came around and resurrected it. Now Nintendo will kill the industry by innovating and trying new things while Sony and MS flood the market with crappy "me too" content which will save it thanks to their innovative new controllers that add two vestigial buttons.
I hope your post was sarcasm and every mod (and me) just misread it.
Game Informer seems to have leaked a bunch of stuff, although it is rumor quality. It apparently comes from a "What are the pros/cons of the Wii" type question. The forum post with the details is here. I've copied it below because it comes from forms which could get hit hard (/., Dig, and tons of others).
This article from the upcoming Game Informer magazine focuses on the pros and cons of the development environment of the upcoming Nintendo Wii. As well as revealing the last big secret concerning hardware functionality. Here are some summarizations from that article.
-Pros-
-Inexpensive graphics development.
-Developer-friendly "camera" program
-Will support HDR lighting, normal maps, bump-mapping, nurbs rendering, and panoramically-composted depth-composited cubemappng, ray-tracing.
-Chipsets are very inexpensive although EXTREMELY powerful, WILL incorporate many aspects of the Project Reality study.
-Nintendo is providing extensive documentation to ease the incorporation of the Wii-mote.
-Cons-
-Challenging to program effectively for the Wii-mote, due to it being very new to the industry.
-Marketing to be more challenging for bigger third-party franchises due to nature of the innovative qualities.
-The development cycle to possibly equal the time cycles of PS3 and Xbox360 due to the time needed to be innovative and effectively program for the controller.
-The challenge of marketing the Wii's controller in ads and commercial may turn third-parties away from exclusivity. (The challenge to display through ads how "playing is believing")
-The Final Secret/minor surprises also-
-Wii will include a built-in decent resolution camera that can be used to add your face to character models and add innovation to games. These snapshots can be tweaked as well. It is still being decided whether to allow camera to record and stream video. Mention made to have this feature be a strong feature in online play.
-A wireless headset will be made available at launch.
-SD cards will range from 2GB to 7GB and will be priced "within reason".
-A new router technology is still in development and not yet available to developers. In the final product Nintendo hopes to be able to make every Wii a sort of "Wi-Fi hotspot" with each user connecting to that user and so on. They also want to be able to allow different users to share things and are thinking about setting up a pseudo-P2P network through Connect24, where users can share content and "other things". This means that even if you have a dial-up connection or no internet, you can still connect to Wii Connect24.
-The Wii will indeed have a PPU included in final hardware. It will have only 32MB though, which will still take a considerable amount of pressure off of other chips.
-A still-in-development simple dev tool will be made available to users through the Connect24 network. It will allow users to create a simple game in 2D or simple 3D and share it with the world. This will hopefully be available on the network by launch.
-The last big secret is the "graphics solution". It revolves around a whole lot of non-volatile RAM (opting out of HDD support, RAM is much faster than a HDD). And a development interface that centers on a AI-controlled command-line interface. This additional tech only included in final dev kits, while most developers don't have access to final dev kits.
Slashdot Mirror
I like the idea of keeping the phone line connected all the time by default, and it makes some other things easier. That said, I bet you could easily make the circuit to eat that first ring so it doesn't go through to the house wiring. You could eat ALL rings and just re-generate them yourself on the outputs (house and answering machine).
Heck, you could use a voltage comparison to trigger a disconnect so when the phone rang the line is temporarily disconnect for the duration of the ring signal. The the right sized capacitor to absorb the spike that did get through and a transistor to let you turn that feature on and off (so you can let rings through if you want) would probably do it.
As for how to get the data on and off, there are a few ways. You can go the program the MCU way, but that's annoying as you mentioned. You can make the MCU take direction form a serial port so you can program some flash memory that holds the list. But the easiest way is that it's not too hard to interface to a SD card or similar. You can buy very simple devices that let you access them with just a serial line or two. Put the list in a text file with a simple format (first line is the number of entries, after that each line is a valid number, sorted to allow for binary search) and you can update it trivially without having to reprogram and such.
That said, as the parent poster said you could use a Rabbit or some other MCU with easy external access. There are ethernet (often an add on you can buy for another MCU), you could use serial or USB or BlueTooth. Plus there is always the LCD/buttons approach.
Heck, program it with your phone. Pick up the phone and dial a magic sequence (###) or press a button then pick up the phone and you can do simple button combinations to program it. When in "magic mode" press 1 and then a 10 digit number to add it to the list. Press 2 and then a 10 digit number to remove it from the list. Both are confirmed with a simple tone. Press 3 then a 10 digit number to find out if it is in the list or not (one beep yes, two no). You could add other features later this way too. A simple way to turn on/off the filter for when you are expecting a call but you don't know who it will come from, or you want to go into "silent mode" to watch a movie where EVERYTHING goes to the machine.
You could do other fun stuff. If someone calls from a blocked number and gets the machine, you can monitor that with the PIC. If you detect they press the magic button sequence (44666, spells "HI MOM") then the PIC generates a ring on your phone. This could be used for emergencies. Then you just pick up and the auto-detect I mentioned earlier connects you and you take over from the machine.
The only complication I can see is the issue of how to handle call waiting, but you can avoid that just by turning it off.
I gotta say, the more I write about this the more fun it sounds. Too bad I have no use for it or time to work on it right now.
The wire services are a big part of what I see as the problem. I understand that not every paper can keep up with the NYT and such, but so many news casts and papers and sites are so close to straight wire service copies it's insane. It doesn't cost a fortune to send an article across the world. News papers could team up (like sister papers).
There are other things that drive me off. What I see as a very clear bias is one thing. This is both a political bias (most outlets are liberal to varying degrees, although many will argue that point) and a "sexiness" bias . Why report the 12 new schools build in Iraq or the new film clubs that weren't allowed under Saddam or whatever when you can report "Devastating news in Iraq as one soldier is killed." I see that as partly political, but everything is sensationalized. The economy is crumbling (it's not, it's doing great). One shark attack is a wave of terror that deserves 6 months of coverage. The way the war is covered you'd think it was Vietnam. In 'Nam 9 soldier died every day on average. In the Iraq war it is about 2, and if we only took the average for the last few months it would be lower. Our "atrocities" are reported constantly, the atrocities committed by our enemies are ignored or censored.
What would the modern media make of WW I or WW II? In WW I we lost about 300 men a day. In WW II we lost almost 2200 per day. With casualty rates like it's amazing wars ever happened. If modern America faced that kind of loss even in the face of such evil as Hitler and pre-war Japan, it's clear what our path would be.
To get back on point, newspapers and the media in general are in deep trouble and it isn't just "people don't like physical paper".
After all, when every news outlet reports the same story, why should I pay to read tomorrow what I can hear today on the news or read now on the web?
Hint: cutting back editorial staff and covering more national and international events is NOT a good idea.
OK, you have a couple of options as I see it.
First would be to set up some kind of PBX. It's a little complex, but it would work. You could use Asterisk (I think that is what it's called) and some hardware (since I think it was designed for VOIP) and do it that way.
The more fun (in my eyes) and complicated way is to build it yourself. You could do this with a PIC micro-controller (or similar). You could put the little box you would make at the phone entry point of your house. When the phone rings you let the first ring through (so you know someone called). Caller ID is transfered between the 1st and 2nd rings so that is when the MCU picks that up. Based on that, it can power a double pole double throw relay. In the normally closed position the phone signals are routed to your house wiring. When a "bad" caller ID is encountered it simply powers the relay switching the phone line from being connected to the phones to the answering machine. Of course the answering machine could be anywhere if you can isolate it's phone jack from the rest (shouldn't be too hard).
Now there are a few little things to take into account here. First is that you may want to generate a ring for the answering machine so that it picks up on the 4th ring (or whatever) instead of the 5th because of the "lost ring". Second is that if you automatically send people to the answering machine unless the right caller ID comes across (i.e. the answering machine is in the normally closed position) then you'll need to make sure you have a way to force the relay to switch. You would want this even if you decide to pick up a call from the machine. When the main wiring is disconnected you could monitor the wiring to see if anyone picks up (you'd have to power it probably) and switch the relay if that happens. That way any time you pick up the phone you will always get the dial tone/caller. Having the relay connect you to the phone line in the normally-closed position is an important idea because you want it to be safe and let you use the line during a power outage.
It'd be a very cool project. You can find bits about how to do it on the web. For example, I once saw something about a guy who built his own TTL PBX. That project (which was rather well documented, as I remember) would be a gold mine for you.
If you do it, make sure to write it up and post it. I'd love to read it and I'm sure others would too.
They were paid a living wage (or something close to it). The only difference is that a living wage in Cupertino, CA is WAY higher than one in Calcutta or Bangledesh. Heck, the living wage in Cupertio is WAY higher than one in Kansas City, MO or De Moins, IO.
This is a lie, just like the RIAA saying they want tiered pricing. I'm sure Jobs would agree if the tiers were $2, $4, $6, $8, and $10. But what the industry REALLY means is something more like $10 (just a handful of stuff), $12 (older stuff), $15 (a few years ago), and $20 (anything recent or popular).
Tiered pricing is fine when the tiers are reasonable. THAT is the problem with the industry's proposal.
He forced the RIAA to stick to $1 a song, he has enough clout that if a few small studios would agree he could force the rest of 'em to agree (or lose tons of business).
Viewtiful Joe, while a great game, is not 2D. The action may take place on a rail, but it is a 3D game. Everything is rendered in 3D. I'm glad to see Yoshi's Island on the list. I've always loved that game and it had such a fantastic look. I didn't like Yoshi's Story's style as much, but it was often stunning looking. Loco Roco looks neat, and I'll probably buy or rent it, but to me it just screams "Gish!" so loud, and I want to yell at all the magazines and websites that don't pick up on that obvious similarity (although I realize there are differences). I would have put Super Mario World on there also. I still think that is easily one of the best games ever made, graphics and all.
I don't agree with this at all. A gas engine is what, 15% efficient? Well it has GOT to be easier to get a large power plant to be more efficient than that than thousands of little engines. It's also easier to reduce emissions and such because it's all in one place.
And what's this fossil fuel nonsense? That's not a problem. It's called nuclear power. It's WAY cleaner than burning fossil fuels. Even many environmentalists who fought it 30 years ago have started to say they were wrong. Give everyone electric cars (or fuel cell cars), charge them off the grid, and feed the grid with nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, and (when available) fusion.
it can all be done.
Heck, I think the government could improve things a ton just by mandating that all new cars must have a Continuously Variable Transmission (or the equivalent, such as the Prius). Add in other things that are available now (hybrid technology) and things that may come around in the future (like putting water in the cylinders to make a 6 cycle engine that uses waste heat to create steam making more power) and we'll be doing well.
Want to get off fossil fuels? Go nuclear. No, wait, nuclear is "bad" and "evil". Want to improve cars? Go hybrid. No, wait, all those batteries are "bad" for the environment when they are dead and can't be recharged. Want to use wind power? Sorry, it kills birds and spoils the views of the rich like the Kennedys up in New England.
Yeah. Where would we be without those environmentalists?
PS: The EASIEST way to fix cars? 95% of the pollution they make is made by about 1% of the cars on the road. Take up a collection and buy those people new cars. That will improve things FAST. After all, the people who probably own those 1% of cars are the ones who can least afford to keep them tuned up or replace them with something newer and cleaner.
I love Python, but I hate the dynamic typing. It can be handy at times, but 99% of the time you make a variable to hold one kind of thing. Having the static typing would both improve performance (because the interpreter knew what you were up to) but would also eliminate bugs (because it would complain when I tried to set a double to "And now press...").
I'd love to see Python get optional static typing.
I have owned every game boy model released in the US except for the Micro and I totally get why the DS Lite has sold so well. I just bought one two or three days ago to replace my DS (which worked fine).
Let's ignore that it's smaller, sexier, fixes the top-heavy problem, etc. There is only one thing that matters about the DS above all else...
The screen is amazing.
It's on par with the PSP for clarity (although I realize the resolution is lower). It is an AMAZING step up. It's like going from the original GameBoy to the Pocket. Remember playing a GB after the pocket? It looked so muddy and blurry and such you wondered how you could ever use the thing. The difference with the Lite is just night and day. The lowest brightness setting is about equivalent to the what the DS looks like. But with the settings on the Lite you can play anywhere. Is it dark? You can see great on the lowest setting. Out in the sun? You can see great on the highest setting. It's possible to play the DS Lite outside on sunny days in the shade, where the DS was basically unplayable there.
But it gets BETTER. It's so much sharper and crisper (partially due to the brighter backlight, I'd think). I've been playing Trauma Center and it looks like a different game. I wish I hadn't sold so many of my DS games so I could stick them in to see just how much better they look. It's an AMAZING difference.
People complain about Nintendo doing things like this because "it's the same system", but the difference is night and day. I dare anyone to look at both and like the DS's screen over the Lite's. About the only way I could see you complaining about the Lite is the buttons (they have a different feel and if you had large hands I could see it being uncomfortable).
The thing is selling that well for a reason. It's just that good.
There is a good question. Is this going to be like the Apple store where you can rate 3rd party products but all Apple products automatically get a 5/5 and that can't be changed?
Good for them to try to do something like this, but will it work? After all, aren't all major PC manufacturers generally shipping parts by good companies (ATI, nVidia, Creative, Intel, etc.)? I'm not sure this will do much there, but for the end user market it may be quite a bit better. The only question is how you would rate all those companies that sell nVidia cards and just repackage the drivers. Do they get nVidia's rating since it's their driver, or do they get a lower one since they take longer to package updates?
Driver manufacturers can't exactly be trusted though. Read this story I found today on a MS weblog.
I know the modem in my computer is necessary for boot-up.
You don't HAVE to be sitting on your ass staring at an electron gun to be content.
Yeah! You can lay on it and watch an LCD instead!
It's much more fun that way.
I like Java quite a bit. It's a nice language with a great environment and a wonderful library and fantastic documentation.
It's probably about my favorite at this point, based solely on the library and documentation.
I think it's the startup that causes people to say "Java is slow", because once you get INTO the app if it is written half-decently Java can be very peppy. It's just the launch time that kills it. It's just like it doesn't matter how fast the computers at your office are, if they take 1 minute to boot people will call them slow.
Try a Mac the next time you're at a store that sells them. You'll be amazed how fast Java starts. THAT'S how Java should be.
Can anyone comment on how fast Java is to start on Linux? I haven't messed with Linux in over a year, and Linux + Java in longer than that.
I agree. But whether it's my mother's 2.16 GHz P4 laptop or one of the brand new P4 HT desktops at my school, there is a delay. It's slightly better on the newer computers. But on the older computers I have access to (and by older I mean early P4, late P3) the computers just DRAG when you start Java and can sometimes almost seem to be frozen. All of this is on computers that are quite responsive opening other apps and such.
On my Mac, it never takes much time at all. It's quite quick. I may not use Java for 2 days (I don't turn my Mac off) but the next time I go to use Java it pops up quite fast.
I remember the MS JVM and how much faster it was. That was nice. Still, with Windows being such a HUGE platform you'd think they'd work on better performance for it.
On every computer I use with Windows it takes up to 20-30 seconds to launch Java. Web page have a little "yes, you have Java" applet? Prepare for a massive slowdown. I'd hate to see what it does with applications that may just appear to hang the computer while Java launches. And don't get me started on taht stupid "Welcome to Java 2" dialog that pops up from the taskbar.
Now on my Mac, things are different. Java applets launch just as fast as Flash if not faster (basically, instantly). This is on my G4 so things would only be better with a CoreDuo. Same goes for applications. I've been using an appilcation called YourSQL for over a year. It accesses a MySQL server and works great. It's very fast, has a perfectly native interface. You would think it is a native app, but I recently discovered that it's Java. The end use would NEVER notice that kind of thing except I was trying to debug a problem in my own code so I went to invesitage how it worked. It was Open Source and when I downloaded it... it was Java.
Java is fantastic on Mac OS X. I don't know how fast it is on Linux. But as long as there is a 20-30 second launching penalty on Windows, Java will never be accpeted. I don't think .NET has this problem, but probably because MS is keeping it memory resident in Vista even if no one is using it.
Then again, maybe Mac OS X preloads Java. I don't know if it has tricks, or if the Windows implementation is just that bad.
Now if you have 4090 possible values of red, your eye may not be able to perceive the difference between #1024 and #1032 individually. But when you make that large gradient while you will not be able to see the individual bands.
You've gone from blocky to smooth. Anywhere you want a gradient, this is good. Fading to black, the sky, etc. And let's not forget that this can give us better HDR.
The real question here is whether they can do things like prevent his graduation.
Of course, I agree with one of the other posters that we don't have the whole story here.
But, you said it's a public school. I don't see why a public school can do that. And I'd be willing to wager a large amount of cash he didn't have to sign a "I will not host a web proxy server" document when he started to attend the school.
So what does he do?
Sue
That's all that works these days. If the school administration is going to be like that (note: I'm assuming he just set it up for personal use or something and isn't encouraging other students to use it to break school policy) then they obviously aren't willing to deal with him on this. In such situations (especially with a government institution like a school) a strongly worded nasty-gram from a lawyer will make a world of difference. Indicate you are willing to reach a compromise or something (that you're not just a "Free speech at all costs sue the school for $100,000,000" nut-job and are willing to be reasonable) and I'm sure something will get worked out quickly.
When faced with a lawsuit, most of the time in the US the person being threatened with the suit will just cave or try to work it out fast, even if they are right (which, in this case, is easily debatable).
Sounds like an excellent opportunity for a Wiki. Just host it yourself or buy a web-hosting service contract (try Dreamhost, note that is a referral link) and then everyone can easily edit and upload and such without having to know tons of technology.
Still, someone must make something like that today. It would fit your situation perfectly. First of all, it's not broadcast. You can't stand 5 feet from the thing and intercept the signal. Second, even if you did manage to intercept the signal somehow, it is much harder to mess with than if you use some kind of 802.11.
Point to point laser links may be your answer.
That's one of those interesting ideas that we could do with hyper-visors. Sure the technologies Intel and AMD are putting in their chips lets you run 2 OSes on a machine, but what if you just ran one OS but ran it under a hyper-visor letting you do something like you described. Time to upgrade your hardware? Your hardware die? Move the drive to another PC and you can boot it instantly to where you were without having to worry about Windows/Linux being able to adapt to the new northbridge/southbridge/whatever.
I can't wait to see some of the cool stuff people use hardware vitalization for if they think out of the box. That has got to be quite a few neat ideas one could use it for.
The PowerGlove. Favorite "Nintendo sucks" point of everyone. Let's start off with the fact it didn't have a killer game. Then let's add the fact that it costs 50% as much as the NES. In todays dollars, it would have cost about $175 (based on adjust NES price). Then we'll add the question "how good of a cooking simulator could the NES have made" and that point is rather obvious.
Real adults are lazy. No kidding. How many adults would buy a game where they would have to learn new motor skills to simulate a real life activity. Hmm. I wonder how many copies this obscure game sold before it failed on the market with it's $80 price tag? And let's not forget that if you had to swing a golf club all the time for a game or swing a sword, it would get tiring. Don't you think they will take that into account when companies make the games?
Sony and MS threw millions into gaming. What have they done... hmm.. instead of little kids, now some adults pay games too. Amazing! Yet, as a proportion of the total population, very few people play console games. TONS play little web games like Popcap's games. That is what Nintendo is trying to do. As for the "advances" that Sony and MS have made let's see about those...
Nintendo has, on the other hand, made the d-pad, the analog stick, rumble, the first excellent wireless controller, the first microphone in a controller (in the Famicom), etc. Nintendo introduced an expandable controller with the N64. MS copied it (and the DC's controller) to the letter.
Want proof controllers don't matter? Let's point out a special controller that costs at least $40 for a piece of junk (the wheel) and probably $100 for a good one, is only good for one kind of games, and is not included with the system and see how well it sells compared to the games. You're kidding right? You're comparing a single use controller that isn't bundled in (see: any fishing controller, light guns since after the Zapper) to a multi-purpose controller with motion sensing, accurate pointing, a speaker, a microphone (according to some), and more that will come bundled with the console?
In conclusion, the Atari 2600 killed the game industry because it was flooded with crappy "me too" content and Nintendo came around and resurrected it. Now Nintendo will kill the industry by innovating and trying new things while Sony and MS flood the market with crappy "me too" content which will save it thanks to their innovative new controllers that add two vestigial buttons.
I hope your post was sarcasm and every mod (and me) just misread it.