When I was at VT 20 years ago, we referred to our lesser performing peers (in Engineering school) as majoring in "pre-business". Precisely for the reason you state. I guess some things don't change...
Well, having a.gov addy doesn't protect you. I get spam at work (though not as much as at home) but still, offers for inkjet supplies and the occasional emails from crazy people (who are likely *only* hitting gov addys, based on the usual load of paranoid crap they send), as well as vacation property, and all the usual stuff with the notable exception of pr0n. I guess they figure they won't be too successful there, or maybe our network people filter that stuff at the firewall.
Uh, how about 600 *ohm* audio isolation/coupler. 600 ohms on both sides to give you 1:1 transfer.
for, say, interstage coupling between stages with different Vcc.
Not the same as 1:1 power isolation transformer rated at 600v. Certainly not the same size.:-)
Generally the ratio is independent of the rated voltage. I.e. you can have a 1:1 power transformer rated at any given voltage. Generally only power type transformers are spec'd in terms of input/output voltage, and the ratio is implied (240:120 volt is a 2:1 step down, but the voltage ratings are important and imply the ratio). Audio units are more appropriately spec'd in terms of impedance and are used for load matching.
Yep, Just saw the pic on CNET. It's him. Like I said, smart guy. This is probably cooler than it seems from the coverage. But I still don't like the whole deal about dragging my work home...
"...congratulations; you priced yourself back into dialup."
Hmm. So you're saying I should have contacted customer service and insisted that I should be charged more, because "no, really, you guys can't make money at $40/mo".
Not bloody likely.
These companies are supposed to be run by business-savvy individuals, who should be able to determine what price to charge based on the number of subscribers, forecasts of growth, infrastructure costs, etc.
I think the biggest problem was dumping money down the Excite-hole, trying to cash in on the "portal craze". At any rate, I doubt that any of the people at the top of the @home food chain are going to lose money. They could give a rat's sphincter about how many customers lose broadband as long as they can keep buying a new SUV every year.
The implication you make that this is somehow the fault of the subscribers is simply ludicrous.
Just spray catnip extract on Mr. Mousie, and let your feline friends into the computer room. It's quieter, and will keep the cats happy. Of course if you have dogs, this won't work, unless it is an Aibo, then you just get a red mouse...
Well, there was actually a fair amount in addition to the ones you mention. Also on the suits, I saw IBM, GM, and Nokia. All the displays on the ship were labled AMX, which is a company that makes controllers for AV gear, (for conference facilities, etc. see www.panja.com).
One function of the federal government that has yielded great benefits in the past has been basic scientific research. In general, I believe that most functions now being performed which are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution should be privatized. However, basic research (with no immediate "payoff" or commercialization) is typically not economically feasible for the corporate world, and like military defense, is an acceptable endeavor for public support. I am specifically interested in the roles of organizations such as NASA, Livermore, Sandia, and other federal laboratories.
My question then, is what your position is on the use of federal funds to support the efforts of these federal "big science" entities, and do you feel that the focus on commercialization (i.e. projects do not get funding unless the results may be readily sold to industry, a common occurance within NASA) should be re-evaluated, and the federally funded labs be allowed to return to the function of basic, long-term-payoff research?
Someone, (Immersion corp I think?) had a demonstration of this at E3 back in 1998. I got to play with a mouse that was tethered by an arm to the pad it was on. The tether apparently connected to encoders and some sort of actuators either in the mousepad header or the mouse (can't remember 'zactly now).
Anyway, they had it hooked to a PC with a stock windows desktop, and you could feel the window edges and control buttons, etc. as you dragged across them. It was definitely neat. They had some little demo program where you could drag across different textures and feel the "surface." They also had some lines that felt like rubber bands when you bumped the cursor into them.
If my memory serves, they had some games installed on it, and the device provided feedback similar to a joystick or steering wheel, though in a limited fashion.
I remember thinking at the time that it would be great for FPS games, since I like to play those with a mouse and keyboard; I always get fragged more when I try to use a joystick. I also imagined it might be cool for adventure type games where you could use texture as a clue, or for educational apps, like to feel what alligator skin was like without the risks inherent in petting a real one.
The downside of the unit I played with was its permanent attachment to the "mousepad" thingy, which took some getting used to if you were accustomed to a regular mouse. I suppose if your tastes were more toward tablets, the absolute pointing paradigm would not be quite so foreign.
From the look of the picture in the article, they now have the actuators contained inside the mouse, so it should be cooler.
Ok, so the ol' Sarge is into guitars this year, and he's got a couple of ideas. The first one is the coolest portable I've seen, and it is gadgety enough for any geek musician. Check out the Traveller Guitar. It runs $380, and has a full size fretboard but is only 28 inches long. Has both magnetic and piezo pickups with individual volume controls.
You can listen to it through the included stethescope headphones, but what you really need is this slick little amp from Danelectro (I have one, and it sounds pretty amazing for it's size), about $30.
Now if you wanna play, but have no patience, here is a cool thing I saw in the store the other day, called the Strumstick. It is essentially a 3 string dulcimer, designed to be so easy to play that anyone can pick it up and start playing. I tried one out, and it was pretty magical how you could get decent tunes out of it with no practice or lessons. Goes for around $100, a little more if you want fancy inlays around the soundhole.
So your friends are even less talented, you can always buy them pre-played music. But in light of the way the big labels are holding the money while the artists fight for every penny, why not check out the little guys? Rather than buy commercial CDs for your friends, how about checking out some of the fine talent on mp3.com or other online places. You can buy CDs for between $5 and $10 that have both CD audio and mp3 versions of the songs. Makes for good gifts, and is a good way to promote little known, but talented musicians (the artists get 50% of the purchase price, a pretty good deal).
Disclaimer: Sarge doesn't work for any of the companies pointed to in this post, they were just convenient URLs. Also, extraneous semicolons and spaces are slashdot errors, I don't know why it keeps inserting those things at random in my html
Well, yeah, but one thing stands out: they are only selling C.O.D. so at least you will get a package with something in it (air, rocks, cool russkie cruise-missile cum seti board). Of course this could be an elaborate scheme to harvest names/addresses. Personally, I run a couple S@H clients, but I'd rather spend $90-$500 on beer and motorcycle parts to enjoy while waiting for ET signals.
I wrote game and PC Hardware reviews for a couple years, before the site I worked for went bye-bye (allaboutgames.com). I tried to always write honest reviews, and I like to think I did.
It never seemed to matter if we trashed a title (or video card, etc.) or wrote glowing praise, the same companies would send us more to review. The difference was that good reviews would end up getting linked to from the product web site, where reviews that weren't complimentary were not.
At E3, I talked to one of the developers for a video card I had given a less than stellar report on (an original Riva card, incidentally) and he stated that although they would always rather read good things about products, if there are problems or shortcomings, they want to hear that as well. Game developers had similar feelings, and more than once, a patch has been created because several reviews listed the same problem.
I think it boils down to "there is no such thing as bad publicity". I think companies realize that every product has flaws, and moreover, no software pleases everyone.
Incidentally, there are very few games that just completely suck. I tended to go out of my way to find something about every bad title that was done well. Sometimes it was nothing more than the sound quality, but if some aspect is good, you need to say that, even if all the others (playability, graphics, storyline, documentation, and stability) suck. Likewise, I tried to be picky on titles that I loved. No game is perfect, either. So if one aspect sucked, I felt free to say so.
You have to be as honest as possible, or the readers of your work will just stop reading it. People aren't stupid, and if they get burned because they believe you and spend money on something that is not like you said it was, they spread the word.
Bottom line, I don't believe companies withold product from reviewers who are honest. I imagine most people who review software realize that.
Pick up a copy of Next Generation, (who do some of the best game journalism IMO), and see if they don't slam a few titles. If your supposition were true, they would soon run out of stuff to write about.
Yes, good point. But certainly it is a good thing that open source initiatives like Linux continue to get the respect, if not simple mindshare, of the corporate world. I say this because these companies have started to supply drivers in both binary and source, publish hardware specs, port software and games, and so on. Of course, they do this because they see future profits growing with the adoption and success of linux and other open source OS's. If they start to doubt that future market, they may decide that supporting it is not a good investment, and go back to the Mac/Win-only realm. This would not hurt us directly, but it would limit our choices of hardware and software.
... a failed revenue model for the open source software industry. From the sound of the article, the problems stemmed from personnel choices, but I can see the mainstream and M$-friendly press fueling the FUD machine with this.
Actually, some states already have what they call a "use tax" which is supposed to be paid on any item bought out of state and brought in. Virginia is one; I believe there are others (based on a/. discussion of this a few months ago).
In VA, there is an extra form in the income tax packet where you are supposed to declare 4.5% (the state sales tax rate) of the value of any goods bought and brought in-state upon which VA state sales tax were not collected. This applies equally for mail, telephone, internet, smoke signal or any other transaction method.
Now as you might imagine, compliance is pretty low, but one day, the ability for the state to monitor credit card transactions will likely be implemented and then the piper will get paid by all.
It seems to me to be unconstitutional, violating the clause preventing tarriffs on interstate commerce, but the government (at every level) seems to increasingly view the constitution as a hindrance to be routed around, and somehow they justify this sort of thing.
Unfortunately, this "use tax" is one of those things (like draconian speed law enforcement) that the majority probably find quite aggravating and repressive, but are afraid to speak out against, because they will either be labled "politically incorrect" (depriving "the children" of safety or good schools, or whatever), or targeted by the powers to be set-up and harrassed.
Sure, bitch about the state police, get pulled over every week and get shaken down, or bitch about taxes and get audited every year.
The systematic criminalization of the citizenry is a fundamental tactic for the lawyers that *really* make up the government to use to wield more and more power.
{/rant} Sorry, but somehow my hot button got nudged.
if space exploration and improved safety/economy for commercial aviation don't excite you, then maybe the direct transfer of technology to more dirtside pursuits will -
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinoff1999/index.ht m
Yeah, my mom bought us one when she worked at jc penney. Counting her 15% employee discount and the $50 rebate, she got the ti-99, the speech thingy, a memory add-on, and some games for a grand total of about $15. The real problem was that the speech and memory add-ons plugged in to the side, daisy-chain style. If you weren't careful, you would jiggle loose the stack of boxes and waste the high score you were trying to get. It was a cool box, I coded a few basic programs and played a lot of games on the old thing.
Parsec was one of the better ones, I wasted hours of time playing it instead of doing my high-school homework.
Slashdot Mirror
When I was at VT 20 years ago, we referred to our lesser performing peers (in Engineering school) as majoring in "pre-business". Precisely for the reason you state. I guess some things don't change...
Well, having a .gov addy doesn't protect you. I get spam at work (though not as much as at home) but still, offers for inkjet supplies and the occasional emails from crazy people (who are likely *only* hitting gov addys, based on the usual load of paranoid crap they send), as well as vacation property, and all the usual stuff with the notable exception of pr0n. I guess they figure they won't be too successful there, or maybe our network people filter that stuff at the firewall.
You saw "2600" on the stands and you *didn't* steal it? You some kinda rabble-rouser?
Uh, how about 600 *ohm* audio isolation/coupler. 600 ohms on both sides to give you 1:1 transfer.
:-)
for, say, interstage coupling between stages with different Vcc.
Not the same as 1:1 power isolation transformer rated at 600v. Certainly not the same size.
Generally the ratio is independent of the rated voltage. I.e. you can have a 1:1 power transformer rated at any given voltage. Generally only power type transformers are spec'd in terms of input/output voltage, and the ratio is implied (240:120 volt is a 2:1 step down, but the voltage ratings are important and imply the ratio). Audio units are more appropriately spec'd in terms of impedance and are used for load matching.
Yep, Just saw the pic on CNET. It's him. Like I said, smart guy. This is probably cooler than it seems from the coverage. But I still don't like the whole deal about dragging my work home...
Won't it scramble the drive when they shoot your shoes with SuperXRays at the airport?
While I'm burning Karma, I think I went to school with this Ocheltree cat. If it is the guy, he's pretty smart, but he don't have any Elvis in him.
finally a story where my sig is on topic
Wow, I wish I hadn't used my mod points earlier today. Here's a virtual "+1 - Damn Straight" for ya.
"...congratulations; you priced yourself back into dialup."
Hmm. So you're saying I should have contacted customer service and insisted that I should be charged more, because "no, really, you guys can't make money at $40/mo".
Not bloody likely.
These companies are supposed to be run by business-savvy individuals, who should be able to determine what price to charge based on the number of subscribers, forecasts of growth, infrastructure costs, etc.
I think the biggest problem was dumping money down the Excite-hole, trying to cash in on the "portal craze". At any rate, I doubt that any of the people at the top of the @home food chain are going to lose money. They could give a rat's sphincter about how many customers lose broadband as long as they can keep buying a new SUV every year.
The implication you make that this is somehow the fault of the subscribers is simply ludicrous.
It might look pretty cool if you sprayed it with black crinkle paint.
Just spray catnip extract on Mr. Mousie, and let your feline friends into the computer room. It's quieter, and will keep the cats happy. Of course if you have dogs, this won't work, unless it is an Aibo, then you just get a red mouse...
Well, there was actually a fair amount in addition to the ones you mention. Also on the suits, I saw IBM, GM, and Nokia. All the displays on the ship were labled AMX, which is a company that makes controllers for AV gear, (for conference facilities, etc. see www.panja.com).
http://www.quackwatch.com/11Ind/bates .ht ml
Though it is a service of Gun Owners of America, it provides contact info that may be used for any communication with your representatives.
One function of the federal government that has yielded great benefits in the past has been basic scientific research. In general, I believe that most functions now being performed which are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution should be privatized. However, basic research (with no immediate "payoff" or commercialization) is typically not economically feasible for the corporate world, and like military defense, is an acceptable endeavor for public support. I am specifically interested in the roles of organizations such as NASA, Livermore, Sandia, and other federal laboratories.
My question then, is what your position is on the use of federal funds to support the efforts of these federal "big science" entities, and do you feel that the focus on commercialization (i.e. projects do not get funding unless the results may be readily sold to industry, a common occurance within NASA) should be re-evaluated, and the federally funded labs be allowed to return to the function of basic, long-term-payoff research?
Anyway, they had it hooked to a PC with a stock windows desktop, and you could feel the window edges and control buttons, etc. as you dragged across them. It was definitely neat. They had some little demo program where you could drag across different textures and feel the "surface." They also had some lines that felt like rubber bands when you bumped the cursor into them.
If my memory serves, they had some games installed on it, and the device provided feedback similar to a joystick or steering wheel, though in a limited fashion.
I remember thinking at the time that it would be great for FPS games, since I like to play those with a mouse and keyboard; I always get fragged more when I try to use a joystick. I also imagined it might be cool for adventure type games where you could use texture as a clue, or for educational apps, like to feel what alligator skin was like without the risks inherent in petting a real one.
The downside of the unit I played with was its permanent attachment to the "mousepad" thingy, which took some getting used to if you were accustomed to a regular mouse. I suppose if your tastes were more toward tablets, the absolute pointing paradigm would not be quite so foreign. From the look of the picture in the article, they now have the actuators contained inside the mouse, so it should be cooler.
You can listen to it through the included stethescope headphones, but what you really need is this slick little amp from Danelectro (I have one, and it sounds pretty amazing for it's size), about $30.
Now if you wanna play, but have no patience, here is a cool thing I saw in the store the other day, called the Strumstick. It is essentially a 3 string dulcimer, designed to be so easy to play that anyone can pick it up and start playing. I tried one out, and it was pretty magical how you could get decent tunes out of it with no practice or lessons. Goes for around $100, a little more if you want fancy inlays around the soundhole.
So your friends are even less talented, you can always buy them pre-played music. But in light of the way the big labels are holding the money while the artists fight for every penny, why not check out the little guys? Rather than buy commercial CDs for your friends, how about checking out some of the fine talent on mp3.com or other online places. You can buy CDs for between $5 and $10 that have both CD audio and mp3 versions of the songs. Makes for good gifts, and is a good way to promote little known, but talented musicians (the artists get 50% of the purchase price, a pretty good deal).
Disclaimer: Sarge doesn't work for any of the companies pointed to in this post, they were just convenient URLs. Also, extraneous semicolons and spaces are slashdot errors, I don't know why it keeps inserting those things at random in my html
Well, yeah, but one thing stands out: they are only selling C.O.D. so at least you will get a package with something in it (air, rocks, cool russkie cruise-missile cum seti board). Of course this could be an elaborate scheme to harvest names/addresses. Personally, I run a couple S@H clients, but I'd rather spend $90-$500 on beer and motorcycle parts to enjoy while waiting for ET signals.
...and while you are at it, proofread your work before posting it world wide. Sheesh!
I wrote game and PC Hardware reviews for a couple years, before the site I worked for went bye-bye (allaboutgames.com). I tried to always write honest reviews, and I like to think I did.
It never seemed to matter if we trashed a title (or video card, etc.) or wrote glowing praise, the same companies would send us more to review. The difference was that good reviews would end up getting linked to from the product web site, where reviews that weren't complimentary were not.
At E3, I talked to one of the developers for a video card I had given a less than stellar report on (an original Riva card, incidentally) and he stated that although they would always rather read good things about products, if there are problems or shortcomings, they want to hear that as well. Game developers had similar feelings, and more than once, a patch has been created because several reviews listed the same problem.
I think it boils down to "there is no such thing as bad publicity". I think companies realize that every product has flaws, and moreover, no software pleases everyone.
Incidentally, there are very few games that just completely suck. I tended to go out of my way to find something about every bad title that was done well. Sometimes it was nothing more than the sound quality, but if some aspect is good, you need to say that, even if all the others (playability, graphics, storyline, documentation, and stability) suck. Likewise, I tried to be picky on titles that I loved. No game is perfect, either. So if one aspect sucked, I felt free to say so.
You have to be as honest as possible, or the readers of your work will just stop reading it. People aren't stupid, and if they get burned because they believe you and spend money on something that is not like you said it was, they spread the word.
Bottom line, I don't believe companies withold product from reviewers who are honest. I imagine most people who review software realize that.
Pick up a copy of Next Generation, (who do some of the best game journalism IMO), and see if they don't slam a few titles. If your supposition were true, they would soon run out of stuff to write about.
Yes, good point. But certainly it is a good thing that open source initiatives like Linux continue to get the respect, if not simple mindshare, of the corporate world. I say this because these companies have started to supply drivers in both binary and source, publish hardware specs, port software and games, and so on. Of course, they do this because they see future profits growing with the adoption and success of linux and other open source OS's. If they start to doubt that future market, they may decide that supporting it is not a good investment, and go back to the Mac/Win-only realm. This would not hurt us directly, but it would limit our choices of hardware and software.
... a failed revenue model for the open source software industry. From the sound of the article, the problems stemmed from personnel choices, but I can see the mainstream and M$-friendly press fueling the FUD machine with this.
Actually, some states already have what they call a "use tax" which is supposed to be paid on any item bought out of state and brought in. Virginia is one; I believe there are others (based on a /. discussion of this a few months ago).
In VA, there is an extra form in the income tax packet where you are supposed to declare 4.5% (the state sales tax rate) of the value of any goods bought and brought in-state upon which VA state sales tax were not collected. This applies equally for mail, telephone, internet, smoke signal or any other transaction method.
Now as you might imagine, compliance is pretty low, but one day, the ability for the state to monitor credit card transactions will likely be implemented and then the piper will get paid by all.
It seems to me to be unconstitutional, violating the clause preventing tarriffs on interstate commerce, but the government (at every level) seems to increasingly view the constitution as a hindrance to be routed around, and somehow they justify this sort of thing.
Unfortunately, this "use tax" is one of those things (like draconian speed law enforcement) that the majority probably find quite aggravating and repressive, but are afraid to speak out against, because they will either be labled "politically incorrect" (depriving "the children" of safety or good schools, or whatever), or targeted by the powers to be set-up and harrassed.
Sure, bitch about the state police, get pulled over every week and get shaken down, or bitch about taxes and get audited every year.
The systematic criminalization of the citizenry is a fundamental tactic for the lawyers that *really* make up the government to use to wield more and more power.
{/rant} Sorry, but somehow my hot button got nudged.
Sarge
if space exploration and improved safety/economy for commercial aviation don't excite you, then maybe the direct transfer of technology to more dirtside pursuits will -
t m
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinoff1999/index.h
Yeah, my mom bought us one when she worked at jc penney. Counting her 15% employee discount and the $50 rebate, she got the ti-99, the speech thingy, a memory add-on, and some games for a grand total of about $15. The real problem was that the speech and memory add-ons plugged in to the side, daisy-chain style. If you weren't careful, you would jiggle loose the stack of boxes and waste the high score you were trying to get. It was a cool box, I coded a few basic programs and played a lot of games on the old thing.
Parsec was one of the better ones, I wasted hours of time playing it instead of doing my high-school homework.