Battery life could be increased by plugging it in. Just rig up an ATX supply and run the cable through the floppy drive slot.
With a good pair of gator clips (poor man's jumper cables) you could connect to an external system bus. Hook it to an Athlon MB and you've got a great memory bus too.
This would obviously be pretty expensive. It might be a good idea to get an old case (from the 80s or so, when they were made from plate steel and practically bulletproof) and use it to house your new-and-improved laptop. Technically, it's still portable, just remember to lift with your legs.
All this power would play a hell of a Quake, so they should come with big monitors...
For the ultimate in perversity, how about a multiprocessor laptop? I vaguely recall reading that the Crusoes are physically smaller than portable P3s, so it might be doable.
With the same power consumption, and at comparable cost (maybe?), as a P3 laptop, they could make a multiprocessor Crusoe system that blows away anything else out there.
Or we could all go do things that aren't insane, but what fun would that be?
I suspect we will see the "net split" at first, and for quite a while. However, I don't think it will be quite as bad as you think. Although it is uncommon in America, in most countries it is normal for people to be multilingual. Children's education includes multiple languages, often English.
Somebody in Russia or China probably isn't a native English speaker, or able to read it fluently, but maybe they can do well enough to read a web page if it's interesting enough to justify the effort.
I doubt there will be one language for the net, but there will probably be more consensus eventually. The top two or three languages may dominate the rest disproportionately. Some dialect of Chinese may be the language of choice for the East, but Chinese is notoriously difficult to learn (but hey, X million Chinese can't be wrong).
Translation technology keeps getting better, but slowly...give it ten years or so...
(I focus on English because it's the most common language, spoken or webbed.)
Maybe after lightsabers, you geeks will figure out how to have sex with real women. Or maybe that's too much?
You do bring up an interesting game idea. Virtual Sex. Just wave your flesh saber in front of the camera and try to bop the computer controlled chick. Lose points if she gets pregnant.
(I tried to make this post less exclusive of the female readers, but it would have turned out just plain indecent)
This is off topic, but I think the people interested in this story will find this information useful.
Two pissy things to avoid if you want C++ code to run really fast:
Multiple inheritance is great for design and code reuse, but very bad for speed. Calling a virtual function can have 5-10 times as much overhead as a conventional call. This is because your program has to look up in a "v-table" to find out exactly which function is actually being used.
Mixed mode arithmetic. I don't just mean floating point vs. integer, although that is very bad too. Don't mix integer sizes in an expression, i.e. unsigned int and unsigned long. Unless space efficiency is a very high priority, the time to convert should be avoided.
(IIRC) Yes and no. We can make damascus (basically, folding layered metal over and over) but we don't know how it was originally done. It's extremely difficult, and the technology/techniques seem too advance for the time period that damascus steel first appeared in.
As a knife guy (and certified gun nut) this thing irks me a bit. The knife maker, though obviously talented (and patient to work with Damascus), has gone out of his way to make a knife that is too fragile to use. It's like a solid gold shotgun...kinda pretty and nifty, but not at all functional.
Given the recent crashing troubles, it's good that Nasa is letting the world know up front that this is supposed to happen. Maybe they should put some guys in lab coats around the crash site (yeah, I know, ocean) to wave their hands and shout "It's OK, this is supposed to happen! It's a good crash!"
Of course there's good reason to put down some of the specifics of this proposal. But what do you expect? Is MS supposed to make suggestions that screw them even harder?
I didn't read the whole thing (which explains my lingering remnants of sanity) but it seems like the MS lawyers are complaining how harsh the terms are. What they are ignoring is that MS is being punished for doing something illegal. This document makes MS look like a whining child, chanting "It's not fair, it's not fair" when being punished.
If MS wants to make suggestions that will be taken seriously, may the lawyers should base suggestions on negative effects to people outside MS. Arguing that losing the right to make pricing deals with OEMs will result in higher prices for consumers is more effective that just saying how unfair it is.
This device is not intended to produce oxygen for the entire planet. I like reading about wild-ass speculation for long term stuff as much as the next guy, but don't call this a pointless device just because it's doesn't do something it's not intended to do!
I really wish the article had more information. What are the byproducts? Carbon monoxide, which is toxic to (earth) life, seems to be likely. I hate the think that the "first step towards colonizing Mars" results in dumping toxins into its atmosphere. That shouldn't start until the Martian Industrial Revolution.
Maybe they will invent a machine to convert carbon monoxide to pure oxygen too, with carbon as the only byproduct. Then the astronauts will have even pencils.
Wow. Pretty pictures. But there's a whole lot of important info that isn't provided.
Is the data being pulled realtime from disk, or was it loaded into RAM before playing? What's the frame rate, and can it be sustained? Poly count? How much of the image is done realtime, how much is sprites or other pre-rendered stuff?
If this were a company I trusted, I might give them the benefit of the doubt and say "This is pretty much representative of what the X-Box does."
But coming from Microsoft, I see this as just an absolute best case example, probably better than we'll see for longer than however long a frame lasts. Without more information, these images are almost meaningless.
This is just another illustration of how TOS agreements are too easy to abuse. It's been awhile since I registered at eBay, but I seem to recall the usual phrase "subject to change without notice", in addition to the usual crap about not holding the company libel for anything short of murder.
Those agreements pretty much give the service provider whatever they want. They often don't even have to provide a meaningful notification. Remember the trick Network Solutions pulled?
There are bugs in open source software. There are bugs in closed source software. No surprise; they are bugs in pretty much any program more complicated than "Hello World" (version 2).
So how do we deal with bugs in open source software?
Wait for the main developers to write a patch, which will probably be free.
Wait for one of the bazillions (est.) of other developers to write a patch, which will almost definately be free.
Write your own patch, which will be free.
Or, combine all the above in some unholy conglomerate, which is just creepy.
How do we deal with bugs in closed-source software?
Wait for the owner to admit the problem exists. This can take months or years, or forever.
Wait for the owner to write and release a patch. Arguable, patches are not as flexible as revised source code.
Or, wait for the owner to include the fix in the "next version", which you may have to pay for to get the functionality you thought you were getting in the first place.
I think Metallica is trying to save face now. While they probably had a legal right to demand that certain users be punted from Napster, and at least a decent chance at winning their lawsuit, they made a huge PR blunder by attacking their own fans.
Slashdotters asked some tough questions, and I doubt Metallica (or their lawyers) could think of a good way to answer without looking even worse. Slashdot has been in the convential media a bit lately, so they probably realized that anything they say to Slashdot could end up in the NY Times or some other "respected" news source.
I think they're just trying to avoid having to say things which would make them look even worse.
I have some serious reservation about this. Paying citizens to tattle on each other is serious business. In fact, it's been an early step in many totalitation regimes such as Hitler's (for turning in "disloyal" citizens, not sleazy marketing types though).
How would we react if citizens were rewarded for reporting other crimes? There's a $100 fine for littering, would it bother anybody if I got half if I turned litterers in?
(For once) I think that the lawmakers are genuinely trying to do a Good Thing, but the indirect consequences could be bad.
The article doesn't make any reference to DMCA. Maybe the judge considered DMCA and decided that Connectix didn't violate it. Maybe DMCA wasn't brought up at all. There's a whole lot the article doesn't say, so my comments are mostly speculation...
Baring that disclaimer in mind, I suspect that Sony didn't bring it up because they don't have any "security" for their technology. No encryption like DVDs, no licenses like MS Kerberos.
So apparently it's OK to reverse engineer (or just peek under the hood) only if the company who holds the copyrights doesn't try to prevent it. Under DMCA, the act of putting some (possibly flimsy) protection in place makes reverse engineering illegal.
One of these days, I'm going to get sued for bypassing the copyright protections on a paperback novel by opening the cover.
AMD already has processors that can compete with the Celeron series.
K6-2 and K6-3 were designed to compete with the P2 and P3, but fell short. However, they outdo the celerons at the same clockspeed, for more-or-less the same price.
I'm not sure how well the K6 series overclocks compared to the Celerons, but that isn't really a marketing point.
Of course, some strange people do want processors over 550mhz...
I load up a free ISP, for which I had to agree to a TOS agreement. The TOS had a clause stating that the terms of the agreement are subject to change at the ISP's whim, without notifying me in any real way.
I check a few free e-mail accounts, for which I had to sign TOS agreements with similar clauses.
In my.sig, I advertise my crappy website which is hosted for free by Tripod. To get it hosted, I clicked "accept" for yet another TOS agreement which binds me very tightly, but the service provider hardly at all.
There are now three organizations which could, more or less, claim my first born child if they wanted.
I'm hardly the only one. And these terrible practices (terrible for them when they abuse the agreements, and terrible for us to sign them) will keep on going until people just won't accept the agreements any more. Companies who make money by providing services will have to offer better terms if nobody will accept the crap that's standard now.
According to this AP story, the lab thought that letting reporters tour the facility was the best way to defuse fears that the fires had brought a risk to public health.
It's good to see the government working with such efficiency. If everything is nice and safe, as we all hope, then the press can relay the information very quickly.
On the other hand, if something terrible did happen, then this tactic will kill off the press. Thus, no one will ever know that the terrible something happened.
Slashdot Mirror
With a good pair of gator clips (poor man's jumper cables) you could connect to an external system bus. Hook it to an Athlon MB and you've got a great memory bus too.
This would obviously be pretty expensive. It might be a good idea to get an old case (from the 80s or so, when they were made from plate steel and practically bulletproof) and use it to house your new-and-improved laptop. Technically, it's still portable, just remember to lift with your legs.
All this power would play a hell of a Quake, so they should come with big monitors...
With the same power consumption, and at comparable cost (maybe?), as a P3 laptop, they could make a multiprocessor Crusoe system that blows away anything else out there.
Or we could all go do things that aren't insane, but what fun would that be?
Amen, brother. Hope you stocked up on karma before posting though.
Somebody in Russia or China probably isn't a native English speaker, or able to read it fluently, but maybe they can do well enough to read a web page if it's interesting enough to justify the effort.
I doubt there will be one language for the net, but there will probably be more consensus eventually. The top two or three languages may dominate the rest disproportionately. Some dialect of Chinese may be the language of choice for the East, but Chinese is notoriously difficult to learn (but hey, X million Chinese can't be wrong).
Translation technology keeps getting better, but slowly...give it ten years or so...
(I focus on English because it's the most common language, spoken or webbed.)
Haha. The funny thing is that now Slashdot folk are flocking to my site to see what the fuss is. Thanks.
If someone buys something through one of my ads today, I'll cut you in for half...
You do bring up an interesting game idea. Virtual Sex. Just wave your flesh saber in front of the camera and try to bop the computer controlled chick. Lose points if she gets pregnant.
(I tried to make this post less exclusive of the female readers, but it would have turned out just plain indecent)
Two pissy things to avoid if you want C++ code to run really fast:
(IIRC) Yes and no. We can make damascus (basically, folding layered metal over and over) but we don't know how it was originally done. It's extremely difficult, and the technology/techniques seem too advance for the time period that damascus steel first appeared in.
I'm just not into conspicious consumption...
Given the recent crashing troubles, it's good that Nasa is letting the world know up front that this is supposed to happen. Maybe they should put some guys in lab coats around the crash site (yeah, I know, ocean) to wave their hands and shout "It's OK, this is supposed to happen! It's a good crash!"
Legally or not, MS is being punished. The lawyers would do well to realize that.
...I responded to the one that offended me least...
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
Of course there's good reason to put down some of the specifics of this proposal. But what do you expect? Is MS supposed to make suggestions that screw them even harder?
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
If MS wants to make suggestions that will be taken seriously, may the lawyers should base suggestions on negative effects to people outside MS. Arguing that losing the right to make pricing deals with OEMs will result in higher prices for consumers is more effective that just saying how unfair it is.
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
This device is not intended to produce oxygen for the entire planet. I like reading about wild-ass speculation for long term stuff as much as the next guy, but don't call this a pointless device just because it's doesn't do something it's not intended to do!
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
Maybe they will invent a machine to convert carbon monoxide to pure oxygen too, with carbon as the only byproduct. Then the astronauts will have even pencils.
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
I can see it now. Some schmoe gets in a wreck because he's playing with his phone.
"I swear officer, I had the high score!"
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
Is the data being pulled realtime from disk, or was it loaded into RAM before playing? What's the frame rate, and can it be sustained? Poly count? How much of the image is done realtime, how much is sprites or other pre-rendered stuff?
If this were a company I trusted, I might give them the benefit of the doubt and say "This is pretty much representative of what the X-Box does."
But coming from Microsoft, I see this as just an absolute best case example, probably better than we'll see for longer than however long a frame lasts. Without more information, these images are almost meaningless.
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
Those agreements pretty much give the service provider whatever they want. They often don't even have to provide a meaningful notification. Remember the trick Network Solutions pulled?
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
So how do we deal with bugs in open source software?
How do we deal with bugs in closed-source software?
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
Slashdotters asked some tough questions, and I doubt Metallica (or their lawyers) could think of a good way to answer without looking even worse. Slashdot has been in the convential media a bit lately, so they probably realized that anything they say to Slashdot could end up in the NY Times or some other "respected" news source.
I think they're just trying to avoid having to say things which would make them look even worse.
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
I have some serious reservation about this. Paying citizens to tattle on each other is serious business. In fact, it's been an early step in many totalitation regimes such as Hitler's (for turning in "disloyal" citizens, not sleazy marketing types though).
How would we react if citizens were rewarded for reporting other crimes? There's a $100 fine for littering, would it bother anybody if I got half if I turned litterers in?
(For once) I think that the lawmakers are genuinely trying to do a Good Thing, but the indirect consequences could be bad.
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
The article doesn't make any reference to DMCA. Maybe the judge considered DMCA and decided that Connectix didn't violate it. Maybe DMCA wasn't brought up at all. There's a whole lot the article doesn't say, so my comments are mostly speculation...
Baring that disclaimer in mind, I suspect that Sony didn't bring it up because they don't have any "security" for their technology. No encryption like DVDs, no licenses like MS Kerberos.
So apparently it's OK to reverse engineer (or just peek under the hood) only if the company who holds the copyrights doesn't try to prevent it. Under DMCA, the act of putting some (possibly flimsy) protection in place makes reverse engineering illegal.
One of these days, I'm going to get sued for bypassing the copyright protections on a paperback novel by opening the cover.
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
K6-2 and K6-3 were designed to compete with the P2 and P3, but fell short. However, they outdo the celerons at the same clockspeed, for more-or-less the same price.
I'm not sure how well the K6 series overclocks compared to the Celerons, but that isn't really a marketing point.
Of course, some strange people do want processors over 550mhz...
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
I load up a free ISP, for which I had to agree to a TOS agreement. The TOS had a clause stating that the terms of the agreement are subject to change at the ISP's whim, without notifying me in any real way.
I check a few free e-mail accounts, for which I had to sign TOS agreements with similar clauses.
In my .sig, I advertise my crappy website which is hosted for free by Tripod. To get it hosted, I clicked "accept" for yet another TOS agreement which binds me very tightly, but the service provider hardly at all.
There are now three organizations which could, more or less, claim my first born child if they wanted.
I'm hardly the only one. And these terrible practices (terrible for them when they abuse the agreements, and terrible for us to sign them) will keep on going until people just won't accept the agreements any more. Companies who make money by providing services will have to offer better terms if nobody will accept the crap that's standard now.
That includes NSI.
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
It's good to see the government working with such efficiency. If everything is nice and safe, as we all hope, then the press can relay the information very quickly.
On the other hand, if something terrible did happen, then this tactic will kill off the press. Thus, no one will ever know that the terrible something happened.
Nice and neat.
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!