Misssspelling killed a good joke! And you got modded as "Informative" instead of funny! So far, the funniest part of your joke was spelling "Boewing" in a chicken joke.
This submission is a good "english class" quiz. Can you find the 18 plus errors, including 9 misspelled words. Hint: missing pronunciation, mixed tense, missing words, grammatical mistakes.
I am going to put this one on the bulletin for the foreign graduate students to try and correct.
The UL approval process has two parts. One is the Component Recognition program (UR), and the other is the Product Certification program (UL). Components which cannot be used except as part of an assembly cannot get a UL label, only a UR (printed backwards) label. Only your coffee pot, TV and other final products can be "certified". By using only components that have the UR label, a small company can have almost instant approval, and at very low cost. Certain components that have not been submitted to the recognition program, and especially those that connect to voltages greater than 40.2 volts, require very extensive testing in order to get full product certification. By the way, that is why we have so many power cord "bricks". By having the 120 VAC circuit outside the final product, be it a printer or laptop power supply, the "low voltage" product meets most UL (and most european CE) requirements. I'm here today because that Underwriters approved fuse blew instead of me when, as a four old, I poked a wire in the socket. (Mommy said not to - so I did! I had to know how it worked! Now I'm a analog hardware design engineer)- surprised?
You were lucky to have black (and white). I remember back when the vibrator burned out in the old battery set and we had to drive the car up close to the house and open the door so we could hear the radio. (Never ran the battery down on that old 42 buick!)
This patent includes being able to look at Previews After Selection etc., The motels/hotels have had VOD systems which scrolled lists (but not a "scroll bar" for some 15 years. They also allow previews of selections although you could not select a subset of programs like the patent seems to call for. The patent looks like an attempt to control the on-screen setup for making VOD selections. It seems to me that that should have been "obvious to a person familiar with the industry" especially since scroll bars are already the norm for selecting nearly anything done with computers. Didn't Apple have scroll bars before MS reverse engineered the windows interface? Have they waited too long to patent them? Has anyone yet decided to patent those scroll arrows at the end of the scroll bars? Perhaps the use of scroll and VOD and a couple of other things make the application unique, but I don't see anything that seems to be "not obvious".
For those who have never typed this would probably be just as good as my 101 key. For those with carpal tunnel, this would be good because it is a change. Since wrist motion is not as fast as finger motion (there are 10) it can never be a 60 WPM device (I think), but for 1-finger typers, it may be a boon. For the event where you are holding one hand on a sheet of numbers to avoid losing your place, while you use the numeric pad to enter into a spread sheet - I would say forget it even if the price is only $5.00. This data entry machine has a bit to be desired, but does have some good points.
My RS "Color Computer" ran 0.9MHz, 8bits, and OS was BASIC. I had Telewriter-64 and some Spreadsheet. Just in clock speed alone, 3e6/0.9e6 = 3333. A 32 bit machine would make that 4X or 13,333 which is over 10,000. For the functions it had, it was more complex to use than MS Word or Open Office word. Only problem is that it still does not type any faster.
I fell out of a tree once. Same rush as a roller coaster. The ride was almost as long too! Best part was that I did not have to wait in a two hour line to get started
Out of about 80 comments, only three or so mention Dick Tracy, who pioneered the first wrist phone. He called it a "wrist radio". Those who refer to the others (007, Startrek etc) probably have never seen a vacuum tube either.
Next step in the series of wireless products is... (Well, what does Wonder Woman use to call that invisible airplane?)
Even if every slashdot reader bought a new processor to upgrade their motherboard, it would not put a dent in the decision of any large company to be compatible. More than 99.9 percent (estimate) of systems have never been upgraded to a faster processor, and never will be. With millions of systems sold every year, 30-60 thousand upgrades barely get attention. Motherboards made in "Intel" and "AMD" quantities are cheap. VIA needs a low cost place to put their chips. $1.00 cost reduction in a system will get the attention of any company making 50 thousand to a million systems per year. Four years ago I tried to buy a thousand motherboards from the largest motherboard company in the US at the time (Huntsville AL with offshore mfg - believe or not!)and the only spec they would send was a copy of a copy from a brochure they send to their "real" customers. [For your reading pleasure: At the time they said that if I live in the USA and have a computer, I have one of their motherboards! But just in case I didn't, then I had a plug-in card ISA or PCI made by them!]
EVDO and 1xEV-DO and "evolution data". New terms this week. What actually are we talking about that is different from last week's new pnemonics. Anybody ever thought that half the readers have no idea what you're talking about? Pnemonics are great, but remember your audience!
People expect to get "Windows" when they purchase a new computer at "Walmart" or other major outlet. Most people want to "buy it, plug it in and use it", ie., pre-installed OS. Only a few people know the value of Linux vs Windows. Do any of the statistics show the effect of advertising and pre-installed Os on market share and usage trends?
When I worked with NCR Computer division in South Carolina, we trademarked the TOWER and MINI-TOWER. Until then all desktop and most small computers were flat or cube-type units. When we tried to enforce the trademarks as small PC companies started selling "Towers", the industry media gave us a "black eye" for going after the "little" guys. (After all, why should someone be able to trademark a common word like TOWER? or SCOTCH?) At the time NCR was about 60,000 people and Dell was about 25 or less.
Now I did not read the full text of the patents, but I do know NCR was using databases in the '70s, but so was IBM and Ross Perot's EDS of Dallas.
If they can pull this one off, maybe their stock will not be at $16.75 much longer!
Don't get duped! The specs say 505 watts total power. The specs say an input impedance of 10,000 ohms and this means the power amplifier is built in. A built in power amplifier also means that there is an internal power supply which has, at best, 85% efficiency, requiring 594 watts from the wall plug.
Now look at the power rating on the unit, and you can bet it has a rating less than 500 watts.
Since most of the public (and probably most engineers)don't understand the ratings,we find manufacturers providing deceptive advertising.
More power SELLS better! Back in the 60's and early 70's the audio industry went through RMS power, Peak Power, Music Power, Instantaneous Peak Music Power, and perhaps one or two other meaningless terms. Why? Because RMS power doesn't describe the instaneous power needed for speakers to reproduce the sound of a sudden drumbeat or crashing cymbol without distortion and that requires a very large power for amout 1/4 second. Large power ratings impress the ignorant and opens up more wallets.
Then there is the frequency response of -3db (half power, +/- 3db, and -10db. Never mind that the power level is so low that you can't hear the bass or highest frequencies.
Next there's the distortion figure at each power level. If your car tag rattles with the bass sounds you probably don't care, but if you want to hear the brush on the drum, 3% distortion will bother you. More power generally means more distortion.
When the engineers and audophiles finally started asking questions and publishing reports about the misleading specs, they finally stopped. Now, with a new generation of listeners, they are back.
Moral: Pay attention to the specs. and listen to the speakers. There's more to audio than just sound.
I can induce about three large hiccups when I take the first few swallows of a heavily carbonated soft drink. The effect does not re-occur during the rest of the drink. Might be a basis for some further research since it starts a hiccup. Does this happen to anyone else?
My brother called me last week from his Gateway computer. The quality and speed were excellent from a 56k modem. What was Gateway putting on computers 2 years ago? The only thing that let me know it was through a PC was the 4 second wait to allow audio after I picked up the phone.
Is the "average SlashDot reader" really in IT? Have you done a poll? I am a hardware Design Engineer (35 years of it and love it still). We hardware engineers went through the layoffs in the late '80s and saw the idea of pensions get supplanted by the 401k. With the average engineer position lasting 3.5 years, pensions don't exist and I do not think the IT career is any different. If you like what you do and make enough to eat and buy a few things as you do it, any career is successful. Retirement planning should be done by everyone as soon as their career starts. I was unfortunate to get caught between the pensions that disappeared if you did not stay 5 years, and the 401k/IRAs that you were not allowed to have if you were on a pension plan. If you can't do a 401K, do the IRA's and do it young! Then you will be able to retire if you want to stop working.
I think I will have to give MS developers some slack on this one. Development machines are probably the most vulnerable. A few years ago, at NCR, we had nearly a hundred systems undergoing various hardware tests, including some life tests for months. These systems did not get any software updates during the hardware test phase, and would have been vulnerable if there had been viruses at the time (and if they had not been running UNIX). If you are using the OS as the test bed for a new program, you do not change it in mid-stream. I expect that just one computer somewhere allowed the worm to get onto the local net which developers thought was safe from the outside. Just a hypothesis!
I've just spent 3 years with Auburn University designing an experiment for the ISS which could allow certain heavy industries to cut losses from $10 billion PER YEAR to less than $5 billion per year, saving on waste material and energy costs and provide better alloys for everyone's use. This would pay for the ISS $40B in 8 years alone. Other Universities are doing experiments in other areas to benefit us all. Is it worth it? You be the judge!
This a.m. on public radio, he said he encourages hackers to find bugs and report them, but he qualified further by saying that only those whose business is "Computer Security" should be able to reverse engineer products to find bugs without being subjected to prosecution. Since very few hackers are specifically in the security business, I suggest that there has been no real policy change yet. Bottom line? Be careful of what you publish!
Please Hold, Your call is important to us. (But not your time!!) After dealing with Gateway, Sprint, Mindspring, I don't use customer service unless I have no other choice. CS at sprint (bless their heart!) did not have computers to view your problem! They could not solve the problem, but they sympathized! Purchasing? -- If the price is extremely low, I might buy from a company a second time.
Scenario: The modem was not shipped with my order. 1. Called (waited 30) and was told it would be taken care of. 2. Next week, called again, (waited 45), was told it would be taken care of. 3. Next week, call again, (waited 30)asked for a manager, she corrected and said she was re-starting the order and that I would not be charged shipping (got her direct ph. no!) 4. Four days later I received a memory stick and was charged shipping. (memory was same price as modem.) 5. Called back, told her, If you remove the shipping charge from Master Card, I will keep the memory, and forget the modem. 6. Total time, 3.5 weeks. Over hours on phone -- and still no modem.
I ordered a modem later. ($20.00) Service like this stinks, but is was the first time in 5 years. They got a second chance due to price only.
If you think you have prior art, and you don't notify either the patent office or IBM (who might buy your interest) you have done nothing. If you do have prior art and are sure of it, you can sue IBM later and it might help you retire.
I already work on one of those projects. It is being coodinated with a number of industrial companies by a Professor/Scientist at Auburn University in Alabama. THe University of Alabama is working on a similar project.
The object is to provide research which will enhance the profits of some 600 to 1000 medium sized manufacturing companies located throughout the United States.
Slashdot Mirror
Sustained use does drain batteries faster.
(Just a battery fact!)
What is a 65,000 screen? How do you interpret that? Maybe I just don't get around as much as I used to.
Anybody else in this boat?
Misssspelling killed a good joke! And you got modded as "Informative" instead of funny! So far, the funniest part of your joke was spelling "Boewing" in a chicken joke.
This submission is a good "english class" quiz.
Can you find the 18 plus errors, including 9 misspelled words. Hint: missing pronunciation, mixed tense, missing words, grammatical mistakes.
I am going to put this one on the bulletin for the foreign graduate students to try and correct.
The UL approval process has two parts. One is the Component Recognition program (UR), and the other is the Product Certification program (UL). Components which cannot be used except as part of an assembly cannot get a UL label, only a UR (printed backwards) label. Only your coffee pot, TV and other final products can be "certified". By using only components that have the UR label, a small company can have almost instant approval, and at very low cost. Certain components that have not been submitted to the recognition program, and especially those that connect to voltages greater than 40.2 volts, require very extensive testing in order to get full product certification. By the way, that is why we have so many power cord "bricks". By having the 120 VAC circuit outside the final product, be it a printer or laptop power supply, the "low voltage" product meets most UL (and most european CE) requirements.
I'm here today because that Underwriters approved fuse blew instead of me when, as a four old, I poked a wire in the socket. (Mommy said not to - so I did! I had to know how it worked! Now I'm a analog hardware design engineer)- surprised?
You were lucky to have black (and white). I remember back when the vibrator burned out in the old battery set and we had to drive the car up close to the house and open the door so we could hear the radio. (Never ran the battery down on that old 42 buick!)
This patent includes being able to look at Previews After Selection etc., The motels/hotels have had VOD systems which scrolled lists (but not a "scroll bar" for some 15 years. They also allow previews of selections although you could not select a subset of programs like the patent seems to call for. The patent looks like an attempt to control the on-screen setup for making VOD selections. It seems to me that that should have been "obvious to a person familiar with the industry" especially since scroll bars are already the norm for selecting nearly anything done with computers.
Didn't Apple have scroll bars before MS reverse engineered the windows interface? Have they waited too long to patent them? Has anyone yet decided to patent those scroll arrows at the end of the scroll bars?
Perhaps the use of scroll and VOD and a couple of other things make the application unique, but I don't see anything that seems to be "not obvious".
For those who have never typed this would probably be just as good as my 101 key. For those with carpal tunnel, this would be good because it is a change. Since wrist motion is not as fast as finger motion (there are 10) it can never be a 60 WPM device (I think), but for 1-finger typers, it may be a boon. For the event where you are holding one hand on a sheet of numbers to avoid losing your place, while you use the numeric pad to enter into a spread sheet - I would say forget it even if the price is only $5.00.
This data entry machine has a bit to be desired, but does have some good points.
My RS "Color Computer" ran 0.9MHz, 8bits, and OS was BASIC. I had Telewriter-64 and some Spreadsheet.
Just in clock speed alone, 3e6/0.9e6 = 3333. A 32 bit machine would make that 4X or 13,333 which is over 10,000. For the functions it had, it was more complex to use than MS Word or Open Office word. Only problem is that it still does not type any faster.
I fell out of a tree once. Same rush as a roller coaster. The ride was almost as long too! Best part was that I did not have to wait in a two hour line to get started
Out of about 80 comments, only three or so mention Dick Tracy, who pioneered the first wrist phone. He called it a "wrist radio". Those who refer to the others (007, Startrek etc) probably have never seen a vacuum tube either.
Next step in the series of wireless products is... (Well, what does Wonder Woman use to call that invisible airplane?)
Even if every slashdot reader bought a new processor to upgrade their motherboard, it would not put a dent in the decision of any large company to be compatible. More than 99.9 percent (estimate) of systems have never been upgraded to a faster processor, and never will be. With millions of systems sold every year, 30-60 thousand upgrades barely get attention. Motherboards made in "Intel" and "AMD" quantities are cheap. VIA needs a low cost place to put their chips. $1.00 cost reduction in a system will get the attention of any company making 50 thousand to a million systems per year. Four years ago I tried to buy a thousand motherboards from the largest motherboard company in the US at the time (Huntsville AL with offshore mfg - believe or not!)and the only spec they would send was a copy of a copy from a brochure they send to their "real" customers. [For your reading pleasure: At the time they said that if I live in the USA and have a computer, I have one of their motherboards! But just in case I didn't, then I had a plug-in card ISA or PCI made by them!]
EVDO and 1xEV-DO and "evolution data". New terms this week. What actually are we talking about that is different from last week's new pnemonics. Anybody ever thought that half the readers have no idea what you're talking about? Pnemonics are great, but remember your audience!
People expect to get "Windows" when they purchase a new computer at "Walmart" or other major outlet. Most people want to "buy it, plug it in and use it", ie., pre-installed OS. Only a few people know the value of Linux vs Windows. Do any of the statistics show the effect of advertising and pre-installed Os on market share and usage trends?
The website has other links that were updated just this week.
When I worked with NCR Computer division in South Carolina, we trademarked the TOWER and MINI-TOWER. Until then all desktop and most small computers were flat or cube-type units. When we tried to enforce the trademarks as small PC companies started selling "Towers", the industry media gave us a "black eye" for going after the "little" guys. (After all, why should someone be able to trademark a common word like TOWER? or SCOTCH?) At the time NCR was about 60,000 people and Dell was about 25 or less.
Now I did not read the full text of the patents, but I do know NCR was using databases in the '70s, but so was IBM and Ross Perot's EDS of Dallas.
If they can pull this one off, maybe their stock will not be at $16.75 much longer!
Don't get duped!
The specs say 505 watts total power.
The specs say an input impedance of 10,000 ohms and this means the power amplifier is built in.
A built in power amplifier also means that there is an internal power supply which has, at best, 85% efficiency, requiring 594 watts from the wall plug.
Now look at the power rating on the unit, and you can bet it has a rating less than 500 watts.
Since most of the public (and probably most engineers)don't understand the ratings,we find manufacturers providing deceptive advertising.
More power SELLS better!
Back in the 60's and early 70's the audio industry went through RMS power, Peak Power, Music Power, Instantaneous Peak Music Power, and perhaps one or two other meaningless terms. Why? Because RMS power doesn't describe the instaneous power needed for speakers to reproduce the sound of a sudden drumbeat or crashing cymbol without distortion and that requires a very large power for amout 1/4 second. Large power ratings impress the ignorant and opens up more wallets.
Then there is the frequency response of -3db (half power, +/- 3db, and -10db. Never mind that the power level is so low that you can't hear the bass or highest frequencies.
Next there's the distortion figure at each power level. If your car tag rattles with the bass sounds you probably don't care, but if you want to hear the brush on the drum, 3% distortion will bother you. More power generally means more distortion.
When the engineers and audophiles finally started asking questions and publishing reports about the misleading specs, they finally stopped. Now, with a new generation of listeners, they are back.
Moral: Pay attention to the specs. and listen to the speakers. There's more to audio than just sound.
I can induce about three large hiccups when I take the first few swallows of a heavily carbonated soft drink. The effect does not re-occur during the rest of the drink.
Might be a basis for some further research since it starts a hiccup. Does this happen to anyone else?
My brother called me last week from his Gateway computer. The quality and speed were excellent from a 56k modem. What was Gateway putting on computers 2 years ago?
The only thing that let me know it was through a PC was the 4 second wait to allow audio after I picked up the phone.
Is the "average SlashDot reader" really in IT? Have you done a poll? I am a hardware Design Engineer (35 years of it and love it still). We hardware engineers went through the layoffs in the late '80s and saw the idea of pensions get supplanted by the 401k.
With the average engineer position lasting 3.5 years, pensions don't exist and I do not think the IT career is any different.
If you like what you do and make enough to eat and buy a few things as you do it, any career is successful.
Retirement planning should be done by everyone as soon as their career starts. I was unfortunate to get caught between the pensions that disappeared if you did not stay 5 years, and the 401k/IRAs that you were not allowed to have if you were on a pension plan.
If you can't do a 401K, do the IRA's and do it young! Then you will be able to retire if you want to stop working.
I think I will have to give MS developers some slack on this one. Development machines are probably the most vulnerable.
A few years ago, at NCR, we had nearly a hundred systems undergoing various hardware tests, including some life tests for months. These systems did not get any software updates during the hardware test phase, and would have been vulnerable if there had been viruses at the time (and if they had not been running UNIX).
If you are using the OS as the test bed for a new program, you do not change it in mid-stream. I expect that just one computer somewhere allowed the worm to get onto the local net which developers thought was safe from the outside. Just a hypothesis!
I've just spent 3 years with Auburn University designing an experiment for the ISS which could allow certain heavy industries to cut losses from $10 billion PER YEAR to less than $5 billion per year, saving on waste material and energy costs and provide better alloys for everyone's use. This would pay for the ISS $40B in 8 years alone. Other Universities are doing experiments in other areas to benefit us all. Is it worth it? You be the judge!
This a.m. on public radio, he said he encourages hackers to find bugs and report them, but he qualified further by saying that only those whose business is "Computer Security" should be able to reverse engineer products to find bugs without being subjected to prosecution. Since very few hackers are specifically in the security business, I suggest that there has been no real policy change yet. Bottom line? Be careful of what you publish!
Please Hold, Your call is important to us. (But not your time!!) After dealing with Gateway, Sprint, Mindspring, I don't use customer service unless I have no other choice.
CS at sprint (bless their heart!) did not have computers to view your problem! They could not solve the problem, but they sympathized!
Purchasing? -- If the price is extremely low, I might buy from a company a second time.
Scenario:
The modem was not shipped with my order.
1. Called (waited 30) and was told it would be taken care of.
2. Next week, called again, (waited 45), was told it would be taken care of.
3. Next week, call again, (waited 30)asked for a manager, she corrected and said she was re-starting the order and that I would not be charged shipping (got her direct ph. no!)
4. Four days later I received a memory stick and was charged shipping. (memory was same price as modem.)
5. Called back, told her, If you remove the shipping charge from Master Card, I will keep the memory, and forget the modem.
6. Total time, 3.5 weeks. Over hours on phone -- and still no modem.
I ordered a modem later. ($20.00)
Service like this stinks, but is was the first time in 5 years. They got a second chance due to price only.
If you think you have prior art, and you don't notify either the patent office or IBM (who might buy your interest) you have done nothing. If you do have prior art and are sure of it, you can sue IBM later and it might help you retire.
I already work on one of those projects. It is being coodinated with a number of industrial companies by a Professor/Scientist at Auburn University in Alabama. THe University of Alabama is working on a similar project.
The object is to provide research which will enhance the profits of some 600 to 1000 medium sized manufacturing companies located throughout the United States.