"I said something like: 'I can hardly wait for Bluetooth to become universal, because I really want a wireless keyboard and mouse with the "base station" built into my computer.' He said: 'Yes, but you really probably don't want to use Bluetooth for that, because then somebody could stuff keystrokes or mouse clicks into your system.' I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Talk about not getting it."
At least WiFi has "progressed" to the point that we all know it's insecure and those of us who are concerned about security can easily workaround it by using secure tools, just like we already do with email.
...interesting site that a happy owner has up, about how he's losing weight and saving money with his...
He's only got a 7-mile 1-way commute, and while he asserts he "cannot use a bike" for his commute, he provides no reason why. He'd lose more weight and save even more money if he biked.
If you're running some kind of filtering software, it behooves you to keep an eye on what it's blocking...
I agree; it is disturbing to get hit by a false positive, never know about it, and then later find out that you missed an email from someone that you would rather have read. So you'd like to review what gets rejected. Unfortunately, at some point that puts you right back to reading spam again!
Of course, at some point they're producing enough energy that you can go off the grid entirely...
Even if I could more than cover my average monthly household needs, and even the peak needs, I'd still want to stay grid-connected so I could sell my surplus.
Both your points (efficiency and cost) are really only one point, that the initial expense of setting up solar panels or tiles is too great. If they get more efficient, you won't have to buy as many to get the same amount of power, driving the total initial cost down.
Bjorn Lomborg argues in his much-maligned book that solar power prices are following a kind of inverse Moore's Law, effectively halving in price every N years (I forget what N is), which creates a further disincentive to buy solar now. If it'll cost you $20k for your household array and you'll get the money back in savings from reduced draw off the grid, in say 20 years, but the panels themselves will cost half as much in 5 years, you're better off waiting. And so on.
The improt routine of KeyNote is not even close to being perfect. Every time I import one of the PPt presentations from work to use on my Mac, I spent 20 minutes cleaning things up.
You say from "work" to your "Mac." Are you using Windows at work? I ask because I have noticed the same thing going Mac PowerPoint (any version from 98 to X) to/from Windows PowerPoint (any version from 97 to XP). Particularly with the way animations in the page were set up, and of course Windows Powerpoint doesn't have the sweet Quicktime transitions (that's right, Mac PowerPoint looks better).
Anyhow, for that reason it might not be Keynote's fault at all, since they probably tested to get it to work like Mac PowerPoint.
Your comparison would have been more fair if it compared the $1449 iBook/800/256MB/40GB HD to the 12" PB. Some tests have shown the 12" PB G4 to be about 20% faster than the 800 MHz iBook in gaming and the Finder.
One important difference you neglected to mention is the slot-loading drive. Laptop-style drives drive me nuts. If I were in the market for one, I'd get the 12" PowerBook over the iBook for primarily that reason, in addition to being faster and having 802.11g and Bluetooth.
Lots of people have bitched about the scaled back memory too. There probably isn't a technical reason why it was limited to 640Meg...
The 12" PowerBook has a single slot that can accept a single 512MB SO-DIMM. The remaining 128MB RAM is soldered to the motherboard, just like on the iBook. So why did they do that? I'm not sure... the 12" PowerBook is thicker than the other PowerBooks which have 2 SO-DIMM slots, but perhaps there were other space issues to deal with.
... shouldn't they rely on an inherently secure system, instead of security through obscurity?
The weakness of security through obscurity for public-use crypto is that your obscure cipher has not been reviewed and attacked by a large pool of talented cryptographers. Therefore you have no idea of how secure it really is, and hence it probably really isn't (as we've seen over and over again).
However, it is possible for the government to make both obscure and secure systems, because they have their own large pool of talented cryptographers: the NSA.
Give the People what they Want
on
Sim-Dud?
·
· Score: 1
From the Amazon reviews:
Parents - take my advise PLEASE do not buy this game for your children. Prostitution, runs rampid! It is NOT and I repeat NOT for anyone under the age of 18!
From the NYTimes article, quoting Riccitiello the president of EA:
We wanted this to grow into a `third arm,' " he said of the Sims Online
People complain about the tasks of the Sims Online being repetitive and dull. So make them repetitive and exciting. I think I can cum up with a solution.
I don't get why such a blatantly anti-technology movie is so popular with the technology crowd, other than appreciation for the work that went into the special effects.
Exploring the consequences of an increasing dependence upon technology is one of the classic themes of science fiction -- man builds computers or robots (take your pick), computers/robots become self-aware and decide to turn on their creator, man must fight for his freedom. It's right up there with time travel and means of transporting people/stuff faster than the speed of light.
These things are all MacGuffins. Don't let them distract you from the storytelling.
What makes science fiction interesting is not the idea of self-aware computers that want to kill us, or time travel, but the implications of those things for future societies... how people respond to them. Dan Simmons wrote one of the best S.F. stories I've ever read in "Hyperion" and its follow-ups and I'm pretty sure he used all three of those MacGuffins, maybe more. Alfred Bester wrote two incredible novels that, using your analysis, were "anti-telepathy" or "anti-teleportation," but in fact they were much more.
There are lots of bad S.F. books and films out there as well that explore (or try, or maybe don't even try) the same themes. "The Matrix" and the first two "Terminator" movies certainly were not bad. You might argue that one or more (or all) of those episodes of ST:TOS where Kirk blows up the evil computer controlling a society, or his ship, are better examples of how not to do it.
So, to sum up, it's not only Hollywood, it's not really Luddism, and if done right can be really interesting and enjoyable.
... the question of who invented the toaster seems like it might have a short answer, but the truth is that this pinnacle of culinary automation is the result of thousands of years of refinement.
Thousands?!? You'd think if this were true we'd be finding the bodies of dead electrocuted cavemen still clutching forks trying to get their burnt toast back from their early design attempts.
Hell, my toaster is so dangerous I'm surprised the human race survived at all. We should have been wiped out in some sort of primordial toaster cataclysm. Maybe that's what killed the dinosaurs?
Apple's other educational discounts (such as the educational Apple Store) don't impose the same cost on my privacy. I thought the info would be helpful to anyone who got as stoked as I did about the price but maybe didn't catch the little blurb. I was surprised to see it.
In response to your question, I haven't decided yet whether it's worth the price or not for iLife+Keynote, but I can tell you I haven't signed up for any supermarket discount cards or the like... in those cases I would prefer to pay full price.
Perhaps someone who has signed up for this program or the "X for Teachers" one (which I see has the same language) could let us know if they're able to later stop Apple from "contacting them."
From the sign up page for the iLife/Keynote discount bundle:
Enrollment in this program constitutes your consent to Apple contacting you by email or postal mail with news and other materials about products, promotions, and other developments that may be of interest to you. This program is not subject to certain aspects of Apple's Privacy Policy, such as opting out of follow-up communications.
Anyone else interpret that last sentence as a lifetime spam subscription that cannot be cancelled?
You can switch to the Apple X11 (after installing it, of course) by editing/Applications/MATLAB6p5/bin/LaunchMATLAB.app/Conte nts/launch_matlab.sh (watch out for spaces inserted by SlashCode in that path) to read as follows:
#!/bin/sh # $Revision: 1.1 $ # Copyright 1997-2002 The MathWorks, Inc.
if [ "`ps xc | grep X11`" ]; then # Bounce less if Apple X11 is already started sleeptime=10 else sleeptime=15 fi
# Bounce to let user know MATLAB is starting up. /bin/sleep $sleeptime
The changes are a reduction of "sleeptime" since Apple X11 is faster, a change to what we "grep" for, and of course the "open" call to X11.app.
Apple X11 is a lot faster and stabler for me than XDarwin/OroborOSX. If you prefer not to switch to Apple X11, at the very least you should update OroborOSX since the version distributed with MATLAB 6.5 is several releases old.
X has been available on OS X for about a year. With XDarwin and OroborOSX it's about as perfectly integrated as it can get.
Yes, it has been available for about a year, but I find that the X11 recently released by Apple (called Apple X11) is much faster and crashes less than the XDarwin / OroborOSX combo that I had on my system for the prior 6 months.
What I'd like to know is how noisy the new mirror-face Power Macs are.
The really bad noise in the (old) mirrored-drive-door PowerMac G4s is the same source as in the Quicksilver 2002s. It's the dual 60mm power supply fans manufactured by Delta. You can get good results by modding the case to get rid of them or replace them. Then you can get more aggressive with the rest of your setup.
Unfortunately those fans spin at constant RPM and don't respond to firmware fixes that others have remarked on -- the firmware fix is just for the mid-case variable-speed CPU fan.
For my next purchase, I am very interested in fuel efficiency. However, the higher prices of the HEVs far outweigh the apparent savings of being more fuel-efficient.
Yes. Because the full cost (including externalities like pollution, or the cost to society of having to bomb/invade something in the Middle East every 10 years) of burning gasoline in our engines are not borne by us when we pump it into our cars, the apparent savings of fuel efficiency are low.
Still, I had better luck with the numbers than you did... A feature-similar Civic EX (I wanted airbags, ABS, A/C) would cost about $2k less than the Insight (at the time there was no Civic Hybrid and I personally didn't like the Prius). I didn't need the extra seating or space that a Civic (hybrid or no) would provide. I get about 2x the mileage (73 mpg over 53k miles so far), saving me about 2 cents a mile (1.5 $/gal * 1/75 gal/mi), which I could get back in ($2000 * 50 mile/$) 100,000 miles. You can tweak the numbers this way and that... save $4k over 200k miles, or maybe gas gets more or less expensive, etc. It's not unreasonable to expect to drive a Honda for that far or long. For me, the numbers worked out close enough, plus I was thrilled enough with how the car drove that I was sold. I'm happier giving the money to Honda engineers than to oil pumpers, as well.
Repair-wise, the batteries in the Honda Insight are in a pack of 120 nickel metal hydride 1.2v D cells (yes, D cells). The car carries an extra factory warranty on all the IMA-related equipment (DC motor, batteries, controller) for 5 years or 80k miles. I think people estimated it would cost a couple grand to replace those batteries, but the estimate is rather old (last I talked with someone about this was nearly 2 years ago).
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Were they testing code from 7 years ago?
Ha. I'd like to see anyone at that company try to get around on a Segway after the snow we just got in New England.
Bjorn Lomborg argues in his much-maligned book that solar power prices are following a kind of inverse Moore's Law, effectively halving in price every N years (I forget what N is), which creates a further disincentive to buy solar now. If it'll cost you $20k for your household array and you'll get the money back in savings from reduced draw off the grid, in say 20 years, but the panels themselves will cost half as much in 5 years, you're better off waiting. And so on.
Anyhow, for that reason it might not be Keynote's fault at all, since they probably tested to get it to work like Mac PowerPoint.
One important difference you neglected to mention is the slot-loading drive. Laptop-style drives drive me nuts. If I were in the market for one, I'd get the 12" PowerBook over the iBook for primarily that reason, in addition to being faster and having 802.11g and Bluetooth.
However, it is possible for the government to make both obscure and secure systems, because they have their own large pool of talented cryptographers: the NSA.
From the NYTimes article, quoting Riccitiello the president of EA:
People complain about the tasks of the Sims Online being repetitive and dull. So make them repetitive and exciting. I think I can cum up with a solution.
These things are all MacGuffins. Don't let them distract you from the storytelling.
What makes science fiction interesting is not the idea of self-aware computers that want to kill us, or time travel, but the implications of those things for future societies... how people respond to them. Dan Simmons wrote one of the best S.F. stories I've ever read in "Hyperion" and its follow-ups and I'm pretty sure he used all three of those MacGuffins, maybe more. Alfred Bester wrote two incredible novels that, using your analysis, were "anti-telepathy" or "anti-teleportation," but in fact they were much more.
There are lots of bad S.F. books and films out there as well that explore (or try, or maybe don't even try) the same themes. "The Matrix" and the first two "Terminator" movies certainly were not bad. You might argue that one or more (or all) of those episodes of ST:TOS where Kirk blows up the evil computer controlling a society, or his ship, are better examples of how not to do it.
So, to sum up, it's not only Hollywood, it's not really Luddism, and if done right can be really interesting and enjoyable.
Ah yes, the old railroad track width due to deprecated specs from Roman times. Refuted by snopes.
Hell, my toaster is so dangerous I'm surprised the human race survived at all. We should have been wiped out in some sort of primordial toaster cataclysm. Maybe that's what killed the dinosaurs?
In response to your question, I haven't decided yet whether it's worth the price or not for iLife+Keynote, but I can tell you I haven't signed up for any supermarket discount cards or the like... in those cases I would prefer to pay full price.
Perhaps someone who has signed up for this program or the "X for Teachers" one (which I see has the same language) could let us know if they're able to later stop Apple from "contacting them."
The changes are a reduction of "sleeptime" since Apple X11 is faster, a change to what we "grep" for, and of course the "open" call to X11.app. Apple X11 is a lot faster and stabler for me than XDarwin/OroborOSX. If you prefer not to switch to Apple X11, at the very least you should update OroborOSX since the version distributed with MATLAB 6.5 is several releases old.
Unfortunately those fans spin at constant RPM and don't respond to firmware fixes that others have remarked on -- the firmware fix is just for the mid-case variable-speed CPU fan.
Still, I had better luck with the numbers than you did... A feature-similar Civic EX (I wanted airbags, ABS, A/C) would cost about $2k less than the Insight (at the time there was no Civic Hybrid and I personally didn't like the Prius). I didn't need the extra seating or space that a Civic (hybrid or no) would provide. I get about 2x the mileage (73 mpg over 53k miles so far), saving me about 2 cents a mile (1.5 $/gal * 1/75 gal/mi), which I could get back in ($2000 * 50 mile/$) 100,000 miles. You can tweak the numbers this way and that... save $4k over 200k miles, or maybe gas gets more or less expensive, etc. It's not unreasonable to expect to drive a Honda for that far or long. For me, the numbers worked out close enough, plus I was thrilled enough with how the car drove that I was sold. I'm happier giving the money to Honda engineers than to oil pumpers, as well.
Repair-wise, the batteries in the Honda Insight are in a pack of 120 nickel metal hydride 1.2v D cells (yes, D cells). The car carries an extra factory warranty on all the IMA-related equipment (DC motor, batteries, controller) for 5 years or 80k miles. I think people estimated it would cost a couple grand to replace those batteries, but the estimate is rather old (last I talked with someone about this was nearly 2 years ago).