I'd recommend a Harman Kardon Signature 2.0 Amp, driving "Magneplan 21" (IIRC) speakers. Both are top-end equipment and a joy to listen to... Don't know much about their pricing in the States, but they're... quite good stuff!
It has the potential to be all that, AFAIR. I read the specification a while ago and it looked mighty interesting. Newly standardised and easy to code, especially if you are familiar with the concepts of XML.
"Hardly. Both France and Germany have very active and militant anti-immigrant political parties."
I'd think otherwise. I lived in Germany for one year (in Munich) and I felt that the Germans (esp. their authorities) were doing their best NOT to be racists and not to discriminate.
Then I came back to England (btw. I'm not British, I'm Greek) and I saw very heavy discrimination towards non-British people, both from the authorities and from the people. Even EU citizens (like me) are treated with wariness and discriminated upon in many cases.
As for the Austrians, I'll leave it to somebody with more knowledge on the matter.
"In this truly global economy, why aren't things globally launched, and if their aren't enough units then why aren't they launched right here in the sweet U.S. of A. more often?"
Isn't it soooo sweet to hear Americans, always at the forefront of technology, complaining about how they get all the cool stuff last...?
</troll>
Now, you have to complain to the FCC for that, IIRC. The US has a record of choosing its own standards for some reasons. I remember a similar dicussion fairly recently, and that was the general consensus among/.ers.
Hopefully, within a few years new standards like UMTS etc. will be globally accepted and affordable "to the rest of us" (the lot who doesn't want to spend a fortune for their phonecalls)...
How about you forget about patenting it and start doing some proper marketing instead. With a solid brand name (i.e. a bit of investment) and the right PR and promotion, you could sneak right behind them, big ones, and survive through.
Maybe try and make yourself known to some relevant circles (eg the hacker community equivalent).
Dunno, just some thoughts, but be careful. If, as you say, it's not something that takes an Einstein to think of, maybe you're not doing the best thing by patenting something like that.
From the article: "Harris ruled that if Rambus in the future ever filed a new synchronous patent infringement case against Hyundai, or even any other firm, such a petition must be assigned to his court if he is able to hear it."
Something tells me this didn't put a smile in Rambus lawyers' faces...
As many others have already pointed out, try to make yourself known that you are the ones who got this standard out.
However, you have to be careful that the standard you are pushing is a very good one. Once you're sure, go out and make yourselves heard. Coz if it turns out not-as-good-as-you-thought, get ready for some shit big time.
I've had a very similar experience last year in my old job. My project was to export an in-house VHDL compiler's internal data structures onto XML and then visualise them in HTML (as an application for the format).
What we did (after we'd finished it) was sit down and write a paper on it, submitted it to a conference, it got accepted and there we were getting ourselves some +ve publicity. So, that's definitely something to keep in mind.
Now, having gone through this research, here are a few hints for later down the road:
Last time I checked XSL (I studied the entire recommendation), it sucked big time and I believe it's very far far away from standardisation. And as long as it's not a standard, expect the quality of the tools to be crap. (hint) (alternatively...)
Don't bother with a formal specification (DTD) until you have got a final-ish format ready. It'll make your development a lot easier.
I wouldn't recommend charging for the use of your format, a la copyright (or even patenting it, just in case it's crossed your minds). The only thing it's gonna get you is bad PR.
Trian
(off to get some rest and a beer coz I've spent a few hours too many in front of this machine)
Re:Saw it on NSF a couple days ago...
on
Keyless Keyboard
·
· Score: 1
Now, it would be very interesting if you could isolate the two domes' output at will. So, you'd have, say, the right dome for the arrow keys + tricks and the left dome for the various actions...
...then it just struck me... it'd be neat if the dome had (has?) the three mouse keys incorporated on *each* dome (both for the extra functionality *and* for accommodating left-handers like me). Then, we could happily forget about the "Claw" (/.ed this week, if you remember).
As much as I like all the hi-tech stuff and space exploration stories myself, it did ring a bell to me while I was reading your post that there are far more important things to worry ourselves with than "what is out there".
Utter lack of education, poverty, famine, wars, the huge environmental problems we are inflicting to this planet for the sake of commercialisation etc. etc. are, IMHO, more important issues at the moment than noble causes like space exploration.
So, yes, I'd rather invest in some research that gives me a much "cleaner" energy source for the future, rather than spend those money to determine whatever up there.
I *do* understand the importance of space missions and their huge contributions to technology, but I hope you see my point too.
as for cleaning, it's quite easy. The ball sits inside a plastic dome sort-of-thing and there isn't that huge cavity you see inside some mice.
One neat thing it's useful for, is when you connect another mouse to the serial port. I connected my "corded" mouse to the serial port and took my cordless out of sight... (plugged to the PS2 port, tho)
Then came a friend of mine and asked me if he could use my PC.
I said "sure, sit down..." and I sat somewhere behind him, pretending I was reading some book...
I don't know how, but he soon left swearing that the mouse would jump every now and then and it'd move away from buttons and things...
I've got a wheelmouse myself for about 1 1/2 year now and it's a joy. It has consumed about 3-4 couples of AAA batteries so far, if you want power consumption statistics. (it has to have batteries to transmit data to the "base").
I've just bought myself the Logitech cordless keyboard too (not the Pro though, I hate split kbds) and I just *love* it. Fast keys, very good quality and finish, rather quiet and, most important, no wires cluttering my desk anymore!
Lower the resolution to 1154x? or 1024x768 (I have a 19" monitor), sit back at my couch and watch dvds w/o having to go all the way back there to press a couple of buttons whenever...:-)
In short: if you want to treat yourself, I do recommend the Logitech cordless wheelmouse & the cordless keyboard (split or not). I'm very happy with them.
I more than happy with their success, but I'm worried what their policy will shape into, now that they have big investors and big projects to worry about.
I know how any company is tempted to behave like when they hit the big time, and I'm just getting rather concerned on whether RH will follow that path. (Commercialisation VS making-things-the-way they-should sort of thing).
I'm NOT saying they are, I'm just saying that they better pay attention this doesn't happen (as I also said in my misunderstood initial post, thank you very much).
As for Mandrake, well, this time it was RH's turn. Don't worry. I don't spare anybody when I have something to say.
Trian
Re:the mind reels at the possibilities
on
Watch Camera
·
· Score: 1
Slight detail for you, though:
If you wear the watch on your organ, the camera will have to be pointing sideways...
...unless your organ has some very odd shape that renders it not very useful.
I'm not sure how you managed that. I had a Casio or two before and they worked for years on end and they were rather tough too. The one I loved most was the one that took your pulse. Great watch and lasted for years too...
As for this one, it's not a *very* useful thing (tho I can think of some evil uses), but (useless electronic) gadget collectors, like me admittedly, wouldn't mind such babies...:-)
(what was that telephone number from my uncle who's now in Singapore, again?)
Trian
Last year I was doing my industry placement (part of my CS degree) at a certain company in Munich.
Now, I had to work 35 hours a week and get the job done in a reasonable amount of time. I was encouraged to show up before 10:00am and I could go in and out however much I wanted, as long as I kept those 35 hrs each week.
Not bad for just a student, heh?
As time went by, I was allowed to take work at home and don't set foot in the office. I just had to let them know that this day and/or the next I'd be working at home and they'd have no problem with it. And this normally is a normal employee's privilege, not a student's.
To keep it short, as Cederic says, it's really up to the company. If you're interested in the mentioned company, then send your CV to Infineon Technologies AG in Munich and apply for their R&D department (where I was:-).
I'd also add that I'm not surprised that Americans make such complaints. The US has a notorious reputation in Europe for its excruciating hours and horrible work conditions.
Be as advanced as you like, if the price you have to pay is being slaves or feeling like them, then I'm fine in the not-so-advanced (or maybe that's what you want to believe) Europe.
Not only do what you say, but also remove the "Post Anonymously" Button at the posting form. Now, you'd see a hell of a lot less trolls and flamewars if everybody was forced to post eponymously.
Some will argue that there will be occasions where somebody has something important to say but has to be anonymous to avoid repercussions, but I think that the feature is heavily misused by trolls and should be removed, if not limited to something like, say, 2 anonymous posts per month for any user.
Another idea is whenever someone checks the Post Anonymously button, we count it. Chances are that the people who use this feature a lot are just flamers / trolls. People who'll use it once or twice a month are the ones who probably really need it.
Then/. can either take action, or just create a Hall of Fame for anonymous posters, where we have a list of users and the times they've posted anonymously in the last few weeks. You can be sure that users on the top of that list will be the biggest flamers / trolls around here...
That WAS a good laugh. I mean, I've never read better piece of M$ FUD... I propose we vote this as FUD of the Year.
<flamebait>
As for having preinstalled software, c'mon! I've been around quite a few of them (from friends, I build my own systems) and the software installed was simply pathetic.
Lets see what you typically end up with:
Win9x
MS Word 97 or WordPerfect (bliaaaah) or some Lotus applications (I've been around many such installs)
Outlook (gee whiz)
AOL internet
and the following less-than-needed software:
$***loads of demo software and games
Some very stupid and annoying 'user friendly' programs, much like Creative's Prody parrot
Some other stupid little software for the granny and the kids to play with and say "Hey, isn't that sooooo cute?!?"
...which, personally, I think is rather annoying, if not offensive.
OK, maybe some of you will think I'm having a weird day by that last sentence, but I need to have the choice NOT to have my PC loaded with all that cr@p.
Finally, because many of my friends who happen to be less computer-literate also get annoyed by these gismos most of the times, they often call me to make a clean install of the OS anyway... So at least this way the manufacturers could spare me/us the time of formatting etc.
OT: How IANAL is becoming more of a thing to be proud of these days.....!
The only thing they are good for is to fight each other. That's why, as everybody else has been pointing out, it's a very good idea to get one yourself...
[FOOTNOTE: Biggest challenge to using Opera is getting over one's paradigms. When you're so used to the way Browser X works, it's very difficult to accept any
other UI. As a fellow who's used MSIE, NS and Opera all, I say Opera's GUI is rough around the edges, but its keyboard controls are the best, bar none... and the
keyboard is now where I spend my browsing time. It's worth getting over the hurdle...]
I'll disagree with you on that. I used the Opera once (version 3.something IIRC) and its UI was more than just unfriendly.
In my opinion, you can't justify bad UI design by saying it's just different from the mainstream browsers.
I do sincerely hope they have improved it in version 4, but it (the UI) is the one thing keeping me off Opera.
The UK has too strong a currency and it's strengthening even more. You may think that the pound is not as strong because the living standards are quite low there. However...
That the British standards of living are way too low (I've lived 2 years there and I've talked to loads of British people about that, I *know* that) compared to the rest of Europe is the *people's* fault, but let's not get into that now.
Anyway...
</OFFTOPIC>
As for the AOL+TW merger, well, it seems that they either failed to bribe the EU commission properly or the EU commission has more senses than the US equivalent (more likely, "knowing" both of them).
OK, you can browse the net and everything but that'll be on a hefty price and I'm not buying that. Until we get faster connections and cheaper access to the net, I'm staying waaaay away from WAP.
Yet what I really *love* about the new phones is the PDA capabilities. I have a Nokia 6150 that has some basic PDA features (calendar) and I'm just hooked (being a generally disorganised person).
I think that embedding a PDA on a cellphone is a much better sales-maker than adding all the web stuff that'll be expensive to use in the end.
Phone companies have begun to realise that and they are now making more of those phones (Ericsson R380 <-- me wants one!!!, Nokia 6210).
Oh, and the other thing is: of course sales will drop! Mobiles are actually quite expensive to just buy them every now and then. I've been to the UK recently and their prices were just ridiculous. I'm now in Germany and things are a bit more reasonable.
Yet, I somehow think the phone companies are now cutting for themselves some pretty spacey profit margins...
Slashdot Mirror
I'd recommend a Harman Kardon Signature 2.0 Amp, driving "Magneplan 21" (IIRC) speakers. Both are top-end equipment and a joy to listen to... Don't know much about their pricing in the States, but they're... quite good stuff!
Trian
Ever heard of XHTML? (specification)
It has the potential to be all that, AFAIR. I read the specification a while ago and it looked mighty interesting. Newly standardised and easy to code, especially if you are familiar with the concepts of XML.
Trian
"Hardly. Both France and Germany have very active and militant anti-immigrant political parties."
I'd think otherwise. I lived in Germany for one year (in Munich) and I felt that the Germans (esp. their authorities) were doing their best NOT to be racists and not to discriminate.
Then I came back to England (btw. I'm not British, I'm Greek) and I saw very heavy discrimination towards non-British people, both from the authorities and from the people. Even EU citizens (like me) are treated with wariness and discriminated upon in many cases.
As for the Austrians, I'll leave it to somebody with more knowledge on the matter.
Trian
<troll>
"In this truly global economy, why aren't things globally launched, and if their aren't enough units then why aren't they launched right here in the sweet U.S. of A. more often?"
Isn't it soooo sweet to hear Americans, always at the forefront of technology, complaining about how they get all the cool stuff last...?
</troll>
Now, you have to complain to the FCC for that, IIRC. The US has a record of choosing its own standards for some reasons. I remember a similar dicussion fairly recently, and that was the general consensus among /.ers.
Hopefully, within a few years new standards like UMTS etc. will be globally accepted and affordable "to the rest of us" (the lot who doesn't want to spend a fortune for their phonecalls)...
Trian
How about you forget about patenting it and start doing some proper marketing instead. With a solid brand name (i.e. a bit of investment) and the right PR and promotion, you could sneak right behind them, big ones, and survive through.
Maybe try and make yourself known to some relevant circles (eg the hacker community equivalent).
Dunno, just some thoughts, but be careful. If, as you say, it's not something that takes an Einstein to think of, maybe you're not doing the best thing by patenting something like that.
Trian
Coming from one of those smaller countries, I'd particularly stress the "lean on" bit.
OT: if the US leans on them for such not-that-important (for the countries) matters, imagine what happens for more important ones...
Trian
From the article: "Harris ruled that if Rambus in the future ever filed a new synchronous patent infringement case against Hyundai, or even any other firm, such a petition must be assigned to his court if he is able to hear it."
Something tells me this didn't put a smile in Rambus lawyers' faces...
Trian
As many others have already pointed out, try to make yourself known that you are the ones who got this standard out.
However, you have to be careful that the standard you are pushing is a very good one. Once you're sure, go out and make yourselves heard. Coz if it turns out not-as-good-as-you-thought, get ready for some shit big time.
I've had a very similar experience last year in my old job. My project was to export an in-house VHDL compiler's internal data structures onto XML and then visualise them in HTML (as an application for the format).
What we did (after we'd finished it) was sit down and write a paper on it, submitted it to a conference, it got accepted and there we were getting ourselves some +ve publicity. So, that's definitely something to keep in mind.
Now, having gone through this research, here are a few hints for later down the road:
Trian
(off to get some rest and a beer coz I've spent a few hours too many in front of this machine)
Now, it would be very interesting if you could isolate the two domes' output at will. So, you'd have, say, the right dome for the arrow keys + tricks and the left dome for the various actions...
...then it just struck me... it'd be neat if the dome had (has?) the three mouse keys incorporated on *each* dome (both for the extra functionality *and* for accommodating left-handers like me). Then, we could happily forget about the "Claw" (/.ed this week, if you remember).
Now, that would be neat...!
Trian
As much as I like all the hi-tech stuff and space exploration stories myself, it did ring a bell to me while I was reading your post that there are far more important things to worry ourselves with than "what is out there".
Utter lack of education, poverty, famine, wars, the huge environmental problems we are inflicting to this planet for the sake of commercialisation etc. etc. are, IMHO, more important issues at the moment than noble causes like space exploration.
So, yes, I'd rather invest in some research that gives me a much "cleaner" energy source for the future, rather than spend those money to determine whatever up there.
I *do* understand the importance of space missions and their huge contributions to technology, but I hope you see my point too.
Trian
Speaking of High Availability clusters, , check out this site
I'm also quite keen on clustering, so when I'm back at my PC I'll rummage through my bookmarks and post some more links...
Off the top of my head, I also remember Cplant...
Then, there is Plan 9... Do check out their "Related Links" section!
Trian
Sorry, I forgot:
as for cleaning, it's quite easy. The ball sits inside a plastic dome sort-of-thing and there isn't that huge cavity you see inside some mice.
One neat thing it's useful for, is when you connect another mouse to the serial port. I connected my "corded" mouse to the serial port and took my cordless out of sight... (plugged to the PS2 port, tho)
Then came a friend of mine and asked me if he could use my PC.
I said "sure, sit down..." and I sat somewhere behind him, pretending I was reading some book...
I don't know how, but he soon left swearing that the mouse would jump every now and then and it'd move away from buttons and things...
Terrible things, these computers... >:-)
Trian
I've got a wheelmouse myself for about 1 1/2 year now and it's a joy. It has consumed about 3-4 couples of AAA batteries so far, if you want power consumption statistics. (it has to have batteries to transmit data to the "base").
:-)
I've just bought myself the Logitech cordless keyboard too (not the Pro though, I hate split kbds) and I just *love* it. Fast keys, very good quality and finish, rather quiet and, most important, no wires cluttering my desk anymore!
Lower the resolution to 1154x? or 1024x768 (I have a 19" monitor), sit back at my couch and watch dvds w/o having to go all the way back there to press a couple of buttons whenever...
In short: if you want to treat yourself, I do recommend the Logitech cordless wheelmouse & the cordless keyboard (split or not). I'm very happy with them.
Trian
...I post as I expect to be modded again down to troll / flamebait.
But that won't keep me from saying things, unless people convince me I'm troll / wrong.
I'm not taking on RedHat.
I more than happy with their success, but I'm worried what their policy will shape into, now that they have big investors and big projects to worry about.
I know how any company is tempted to behave like when they hit the big time, and I'm just getting rather concerned on whether RH will follow that path. (Commercialisation VS making-things-the-way they-should sort of thing).
I'm NOT saying they are, I'm just saying that they better pay attention this doesn't happen (as I also said in my misunderstood initial post, thank you very much).
As for Mandrake, well, this time it was RH's turn. Don't worry. I don't spare anybody when I have something to say.
Trian
Slight detail for you, though:
If you wear the watch on your organ, the camera will have to be pointing sideways...
...unless your organ has some very odd shape that renders it not very useful.
Trian
I'm not sure how you managed that. I had a Casio or two before and they worked for years on end and they were rather tough too. The one I loved most was the one that took your pulse. Great watch and lasted for years too... As for this one, it's not a *very* useful thing (tho I can think of some evil uses), but (useless electronic) gadget collectors, like me admittedly, wouldn't mind such babies... :-)
(what was that telephone number from my uncle who's now in Singapore, again?)
Trian
I agree on this.
:-).
Last year I was doing my industry placement (part of my CS degree) at a certain company in Munich.
Now, I had to work 35 hours a week and get the job done in a reasonable amount of time. I was encouraged to show up before 10:00am and I could go in and out however much I wanted, as long as I kept those 35 hrs each week.
Not bad for just a student, heh?
As time went by, I was allowed to take work at home and don't set foot in the office. I just had to let them know that this day and/or the next I'd be working at home and they'd have no problem with it. And this normally is a normal employee's privilege, not a student's.
To keep it short, as Cederic says, it's really up to the company. If you're interested in the mentioned company, then send your CV to Infineon Technologies AG in Munich and apply for their R&D department (where I was
I'd also add that I'm not surprised that Americans make such complaints. The US has a notorious reputation in Europe for its excruciating hours and horrible work conditions.
Be as advanced as you like, if the price you have to pay is being slaves or feeling like them, then I'm fine in the not-so-advanced (or maybe that's what you want to believe) Europe.
My principle: work to live, not live to work!
Trian
What with people talking out of their asses all the time...
Then a good alternative would be to offer an option for a microphone that can be fitted elsewhere... *firmly*!
Hmmm,
/. can either take action, or just create a Hall of Fame for anonymous posters, where we have a list of users and the times they've posted anonymously in the last few weeks. You can be sure that users on the top of that list will be the biggest flamers / trolls around here...
may I add something to this?
Not only do what you say, but also remove the "Post Anonymously" Button at the posting form. Now, you'd see a hell of a lot less trolls and flamewars if everybody was forced to post eponymously.
Some will argue that there will be occasions where somebody has something important to say but has to be anonymous to avoid repercussions, but I think that the feature is heavily misused by trolls and should be removed, if not limited to something like, say, 2 anonymous posts per month for any user.
Another idea is whenever someone checks the Post Anonymously button, we count it. Chances are that the people who use this feature a lot are just flamers / trolls. People who'll use it once or twice a month are the ones who probably really need it.
Then
Don't know, just an idea...
Trian
That WAS a good laugh. I mean, I've never read better piece of M$ FUD... I propose we vote this as FUD of the Year.
<flamebait>
As for having preinstalled software, c'mon! I've been around quite a few of them (from friends, I build my own systems) and the software installed was simply pathetic.
Lets see what you typically end up with:
- Win9x
- MS Word 97 or WordPerfect (bliaaaah) or some Lotus applications (I've been around many such installs)
- Outlook (gee whiz)
- AOL internet
and the following less-than-needed software:...which, personally, I think is rather annoying, if not offensive.
OK, maybe some of you will think I'm having a weird day by that last sentence, but I need to have the choice NOT to have my PC loaded with all that cr@p.
Finally, because many of my friends who happen to be less computer-literate also get annoyed by these gismos most of the times, they often call me to make a clean install of the OS anyway... So at least this way the manufacturers could spare me/us the time of formatting etc.
</flamebait>
off for another beer... @%-)
Trian
OT: How IANAL is becoming more of a thing to be proud of these days.....!
The only thing they are good for is to fight each other. That's why, as everybody else has been pointing out, it's a very good idea to get one yourself...
Trian
oh, and yes, IANAL, thank God!
I'll disagree with you on that. I used the Opera once (version 3.something IIRC) and its UI was more than just unfriendly.
In my opinion, you can't justify bad UI design by saying it's just different from the mainstream browsers.
I do sincerely hope they have improved it in version 4, but it (the UI) is the one thing keeping me off Opera.
Trian
Let me assume you're British...
Allow me to disagree with you on this one.
The UK has too strong a currency and it's strengthening even more. You may think that the pound is not as strong because the living standards are quite low there. However...
That the British standards of living are way too low (I've lived 2 years there and I've talked to loads of British people about that, I *know* that) compared to the rest of Europe is the *people's* fault, but let's not get into that now.
Anyway...
</OFFTOPIC>
As for the AOL+TW merger, well, it seems that they either failed to bribe the EU commission properly or the EU commission has more senses than the US equivalent (more likely, "knowing" both of them).
Trian
Agreed, but he has a point at least...
OK, you can browse the net and everything but that'll be on a hefty price and I'm not buying that. Until we get faster connections and cheaper access to the net, I'm staying waaaay away from WAP.
Yet what I really *love* about the new phones is the PDA capabilities. I have a Nokia 6150 that has some basic PDA features (calendar) and I'm just hooked (being a generally disorganised person).
I think that embedding a PDA on a cellphone is a much better sales-maker than adding all the web stuff that'll be expensive to use in the end.
Phone companies have begun to realise that and they are now making more of those phones (Ericsson R380 <-- me wants one!!!, Nokia 6210).
Oh, and the other thing is: of course sales will drop! Mobiles are actually quite expensive to just buy them every now and then. I've been to the UK recently and their prices were just ridiculous. I'm now in Germany and things are a bit more reasonable.
Yet, I somehow think the phone companies are now cutting for themselves some pretty spacey profit margins...
Trian