The original Pong coin-operated arcade game did not use a microprocessor of any kind; it was entirely made of 14- and 16-pin logic chips (mostly 7400 series TTL if I remember correctly). Note that this was not a "discrete processor", it was an entirely hardwired circuit. The circuit board was about 15 inches by about 24 inches (don't remember exactly) and drove a black-and-white CRT monitor. Later on, you could get Pong on a 28-pin DIP made by General Instruments. Most recently, I happened to be in Radio Shack picking up a 4-AA cell battery holder for a small project I was working on, and noticed that you could get Pong on an even smaller DIP-packaged chip than the General Instrument chip. I was amazed that anyone would care enough to produce and market a chip to do this anymore, in a day and age where you can get even the simplest cellphone to do this for you for probably $0.99.
No significant increase in revenues will result from this bullshit -- and they'll claim that this measure "wasn't effective enough", cite more bullshit made-up statistics about piracy, and try to leverage even more of the same sort of bullshit.
o Not just watched everywhere you go, but analyzed everywhere you go o Get thrown in jail in Ireland for saying "goddamnit" o 2012, still guilty until proven innocent
..yeah, you can fucking keep your screwed-up countries. The U.S. may be fucked up, but we're not fucked up quite like that.
This would be the ultimate in violating basic human rights and taking away freedom of choice from entire populations. It would dwarf the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, and every other dictator despot and warlord throughout history, and the ultimate irony of it is that it would ultimately fail, leaving humanity in a gigantic mess of completely botched genetic engineering that we'd probably never recover from; it would likely end up as an extinction-level event in our history, more effective than all the nuclear bombs currently in existence.
At my job I'm already working with Win8 a little, and I don't think it's so damned great. It holds your hand like you're a silly child and hides even more from you than any version of Windows I've ever seen. I suppose if you're looking for the OS for the most dumbed-down generation ever then it's great, but for those of us who want something functional and powerful, I think it's a huge flop.
Stop feeding the trolls. Period. Don't buy any more music. Listen to the radio, or borrow from friends. Buy used music. Trade music with friends. Don't buy any new music, for at least 10 years. The music industry will literally suck your genitals to get you to buy anything from them after that.
If you don't vote with your money in a capitalist world, you're wasting your time complaining.
According to an NPR report I heard on the way home from work yesterday, GM is temporarily suspending production of the Volt for 5 weeks, and thereafter will limit production to match sales figures.
I've collected a few hundred of these now-deactivated GPS tracking devices, and I'm coming here to Slashdot to ask: How can I repurpose them into something useful? Can I install some flavor of Linux on them? Perhaps turn them into nodes of a mobile mesh network? Mobile hotspots for on-the-road internet access? How about a location-specific personal music player, that based on where you're driving, will download appropriate music and feed it to your car stereo's built-in Bluetooth receiver?
Any and all ideas you might have will be appreciated!
I'd tell them that I have no interest in so-called "social networking" nonsense, and that I'm not going to waste my time with it -- which is the truth, and they can go search all those sites all they want, and they won't find any accounts of mine on any of them, and it's going to stay that way.
On the surface this sounds like a neat and potentially very useful idea, but once you sit and think it through for a few minutes you see the flaws. In order for this to work on a large scale you need to know position and velocity of cars at any given moment. That would require GPS in cars that transmits that information to the system(s) controlling the intersections. Ideally you'd also want to know what the ultimate destination of a given car is going to be. This tracking system would be in operation all the time you're in your car, even on the open highway. To improve overall performance they'd likely use a cellphone-like radio system, so it'd work pretty much everywhere -- even on the open highway, where you don't need it at all. Now we're tracking the movement of citizens in their cars everywhere they go, by default. The DOT would be the ultimate authority overseeing the implementation, operation, and maintenance of this system. Now we have a federal government agency in posession of realtime GPS data on the movements of all vehicles within the United States. Is anyone really so naive as to believe, especially in this day and age, that this is a good idea in any way, shape, or form? Sure, they'll candy-coat it, tell us it'll improve traffic flow, reduce accidents, get you to your destination quicker, maybe even save you money on fuel and insurance costs -- but you're still being tracked, all the time, everywhere you go, by your own government.
Ah, I see. So it's OK with you for poor people (read as: black people) to be denied access to telephone service of any kind, because they can't afford a cellphone and the phone company won't run lines out to them or have a basic wired service for an affordable price so they can at least make local calls? Asshole.
The vast majority of people could be told to do HIIT twice a week for 20 seconds, and they still wouldn't do it, except for maybe once or twice. They'd come up with some excuse why not: It hurts too much, I'm too tired, I forgot, I have too much else to do, etc etc etc. People won't exercise unless they have an open-ended reason to do so -- and "to be healthier" is too vague a reason to keep people motivated. The most common reason to "get in shape" is to attract the opposite sex -- and it's also the worst reason you can use, because it's not open-ended, and it is ultimately self-defeating: You either lose weight and get in decent shape, attract a mate, and then lose your motivation because you've reached your "goal", or you give up on the whole idea because you decide that you aren't going to succeed at attracting the opposite sex no matter what you do. The best reason to exercise regularly? Because there is a sport you're interested in training for, especially an endurance sport like running or cycling. If you're training properly for an endurance sport, you can't help but to lose excess weight through sheer calorie burning and through the proper diet that goes with it. But even if it's not an endurance sport, as I said above you'll do better if you have an ongoing, open-ended reason to exercise and eat healthier.
By the way, this is coming from someone who at one point weighed around 320 pounds and had very bad knees. I now weigh about 200 pounds and road race bicycles and get top-10 finishes. If I can do it, everyone should be able to do it -- if you have the proper motivation.
I'm not "strangled" or "limited" by TiVo. If there is video I would rather watch in my living room, I transcode it to mpeg-2 so TiVo can deal with it. I don't "subscribe" to anything, unless you mean free programs on free channels -- I do not have cable TV anymore, just internet. I buy DVDs. I rent things I want to see only once. If somehow the corps make things too much of a pain for me, I'll just refuse to play at all -- and therefore I win. I have better things to do than fret over TV or any entertainment.
..yeah, no thanks. All I want or need is something that displays a 1080p signal well, and isn't going to break down and need to be replaced in a couple years. You can keep your so-called "smart", your "3D", and all your other silly bells and whistles. I'll stick to something that is quality, and if I need some "smarts" beyond what TiVo can do for me, I'll add an HTPC.
I am angered, digusted, and offended in the utmost by this and all things like this I read. No one should ever be killed or maimed over mere words or ideas, and no alleged "god" deserves to be worshipped that would order it's followers to do such things! Come on, humans! Isn't it about time we gave up these barbaric ideas and just let people live their lives in peace!?
If the insurance company I use announced they'd start doing this, I'd cancel and switch to someone else immediately, and I'd recommend the same to everyone I know.
JUST SAY "NO" TO BEING TRACKED EVERYWHERE YOU DRIVE
As expected, you're now backing down, revealing yourself as nothing but a fucking blowhard -- or perhaps just another retarded troll -- and are now attacking MY character, and continuing to accuse ME of taking it up the ass instead of "fighting back". Of course you have no idea what I've been doing, all you can possibly know is I'm some completely anonymous person posting comments on an internet forum.
I feel no need to justify or defend myself to you or anyone else. Go to hell.
Slashdot Mirror
The original Pong coin-operated arcade game did not use a microprocessor of any kind; it was entirely made of 14- and 16-pin logic chips (mostly 7400 series TTL if I remember correctly). Note that this was not a "discrete processor", it was an entirely hardwired circuit. The circuit board was about 15 inches by about 24 inches (don't remember exactly) and drove a black-and-white CRT monitor. Later on, you could get Pong on a 28-pin DIP made by General Instruments. Most recently, I happened to be in Radio Shack picking up a 4-AA cell battery holder for a small project I was working on, and noticed that you could get Pong on an even smaller DIP-packaged chip than the General Instrument chip. I was amazed that anyone would care enough to produce and market a chip to do this anymore, in a day and age where you can get even the simplest cellphone to do this for you for probably $0.99.
"FUCK YOU, Microsoft". Any other response indicates a fatal lack of resolve against bullshit like this.
No significant increase in revenues will result from this bullshit -- and they'll claim that this measure "wasn't effective enough", cite more bullshit made-up statistics about piracy, and try to leverage even more of the same sort of bullshit.
o Not just watched everywhere you go, but analyzed everywhere you go
o Get thrown in jail in Ireland for saying "goddamnit"
o 2012, still guilty until proven innocent
..yeah, you can fucking keep your screwed-up countries. The U.S. may be fucked up, but we're not fucked up quite like that.
This would be the ultimate in violating basic human rights and taking away freedom of choice from entire populations. It would dwarf the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, and every other dictator despot and warlord throughout history, and the ultimate irony of it is that it would ultimately fail, leaving humanity in a gigantic mess of completely botched genetic engineering that we'd probably never recover from; it would likely end up as an extinction-level event in our history, more effective than all the nuclear bombs currently in existence.
..but most of the time I find them to be feceous.
..and absolutely great
At my job I'm already working with Win8 a little, and I don't think it's so damned great. It holds your hand like you're a silly child and hides even more from you than any version of Windows I've ever seen. I suppose if you're looking for the OS for the most dumbed-down generation ever then it's great, but for those of us who want something functional and powerful, I think it's a huge flop.
Stop feeding the trolls. Period. Don't buy any more music. Listen to the radio, or borrow from friends. Buy used music. Trade music with friends. Don't buy any new music, for at least 10 years. The music industry will literally suck your genitals to get you to buy anything from them after that.
If you don't vote with your money in a capitalist world, you're wasting your time complaining.
..and precisely how much of my hard-earned tax dollars went into this blindingly obvious conclusion?
According to an NPR report I heard on the way home from work yesterday, GM is temporarily suspending production of the Volt for 5 weeks, and thereafter will limit production to match sales figures.
4chan in 3D!
(You're welcome)
I've collected a few hundred of these now-deactivated GPS tracking devices, and I'm coming here to Slashdot to ask: How can I repurpose them into something useful? Can I install some flavor of Linux on them? Perhaps turn them into nodes of a mobile mesh network? Mobile hotspots for on-the-road internet access? How about a location-specific personal music player, that based on where you're driving, will download appropriate music and feed it to your car stereo's built-in Bluetooth receiver?
Any and all ideas you might have will be appreciated!
Hardware dongle.
If your software is really worth that much, then I think it's justified.
I'd tell them that I have no interest in so-called "social networking" nonsense, and that I'm not going to waste my time with it -- which is the truth, and they can go search all those sites all they want, and they won't find any accounts of mine on any of them, and it's going to stay that way.
On the surface this sounds like a neat and potentially very useful idea, but once you sit and think it through for a few minutes you see the flaws. In order for this to work on a large scale you need to know position and velocity of cars at any given moment. That would require GPS in cars that transmits that information to the system(s) controlling the intersections. Ideally you'd also want to know what the ultimate destination of a given car is going to be. This tracking system would be in operation all the time you're in your car, even on the open highway. To improve overall performance they'd likely use a cellphone-like radio system, so it'd work pretty much everywhere -- even on the open highway, where you don't need it at all. Now we're tracking the movement of citizens in their cars everywhere they go, by default. The DOT would be the ultimate authority overseeing the implementation, operation, and maintenance of this system. Now we have a federal government agency in posession of realtime GPS data on the movements of all vehicles within the United States. Is anyone really so naive as to believe, especially in this day and age, that this is a good idea in any way, shape, or form? Sure, they'll candy-coat it, tell us it'll improve traffic flow, reduce accidents, get you to your destination quicker, maybe even save you money on fuel and insurance costs -- but you're still being tracked, all the time, everywhere you go, by your own government.
"Land of the free", my ass.
Ah, I see. So it's OK with you for poor people (read as: black people) to be denied access to telephone service of any kind, because they can't afford a cellphone and the phone company won't run lines out to them or have a basic wired service for an affordable price so they can at least make local calls? Asshole.
The motivation was the desire to try bicycle racing because after being a spectator at a couple crits, I thought it was cool and wanted to try it.
The vast majority of people could be told to do HIIT twice a week for 20 seconds, and they still wouldn't do it, except for maybe once or twice. They'd come up with some excuse why not: It hurts too much, I'm too tired, I forgot, I have too much else to do, etc etc etc. People won't exercise unless they have an open-ended reason to do so -- and "to be healthier" is too vague a reason to keep people motivated. The most common reason to "get in shape" is to attract the opposite sex -- and it's also the worst reason you can use, because it's not open-ended, and it is ultimately self-defeating: You either lose weight and get in decent shape, attract a mate, and then lose your motivation because you've reached your "goal", or you give up on the whole idea because you decide that you aren't going to succeed at attracting the opposite sex no matter what you do. The best reason to exercise regularly? Because there is a sport you're interested in training for, especially an endurance sport like running or cycling. If you're training properly for an endurance sport, you can't help but to lose excess weight through sheer calorie burning and through the proper diet that goes with it. But even if it's not an endurance sport, as I said above you'll do better if you have an ongoing, open-ended reason to exercise and eat healthier.
By the way, this is coming from someone who at one point weighed around 320 pounds and had very bad knees. I now weigh about 200 pounds and road race bicycles and get top-10 finishes. If I can do it, everyone should be able to do it -- if you have the proper motivation.
I'm not "strangled" or "limited" by TiVo. If there is video I would rather watch in my living room, I transcode it to mpeg-2 so TiVo can deal with it. I don't "subscribe" to anything, unless you mean free programs on free channels -- I do not have cable TV anymore, just internet. I buy DVDs. I rent things I want to see only once. If somehow the corps make things too much of a pain for me, I'll just refuse to play at all -- and therefore I win. I have better things to do than fret over TV or any entertainment.
*shrug* having said what I said in the original post, I've never had need for an HTPC, either, TiVo does the majority of what I need.
..yeah, no thanks. All I want or need is something that displays a 1080p signal well, and isn't going to break down and need to be replaced in a couple years. You can keep your so-called "smart", your "3D", and all your other silly bells and whistles. I'll stick to something that is quality, and if I need some "smarts" beyond what TiVo can do for me, I'll add an HTPC.
Go back to 4chan and LURK MOAR.
I am angered, digusted, and offended in the utmost by this and all things like this I read. No one should ever be killed or maimed over mere words or ideas, and no alleged "god" deserves to be worshipped that would order it's followers to do such things! Come on, humans! Isn't it about time we gave up these barbaric ideas and just let people live their lives in peace!?
If the insurance company I use announced they'd start doing this, I'd cancel and switch to someone else immediately, and I'd recommend the same to everyone I know.
JUST SAY "NO" TO BEING TRACKED EVERYWHERE YOU DRIVE
As expected, you're now backing down, revealing yourself as nothing but a fucking blowhard -- or perhaps just another retarded troll -- and are now attacking MY character, and continuing to accuse ME of taking it up the ass instead of "fighting back". Of course you have no idea what I've been doing, all you can possibly know is I'm some completely anonymous person posting comments on an internet forum.
I feel no need to justify or defend myself to you or anyone else. Go to hell.