a) Carry around a big CD/MP3 player b) Carry around those 8 CDs c) Swap between those 8 CDs d) Find the CD with the album I want listen to e) Whenever I get a new album, burn a new CD that includes it.
With my iPod, I drop it in my pants pocket and I'm done. No fishing for CDs, no carrying cases, no saying "oh shit" when my CDs get scratched.
If you want me to suspend my disbelief, give me a well crafted story with three dimensional characters that I can identify with and have some emotional investment in. Believe me, this makes it a lot easier to overlook bad effects, plot holes, you name it.
It is the filmmakers jobs to engage me as a viewer. It is not my job to lower my standards to the point where I can get caught up in a piece of crap.
This is so typical. Salon is not tring to extort anything from you. The were offering a service (decent web journalism) for free, and (surprise surprise) not making any money. In fact, if you check right now, they are floating at about 25 cents a share. So imagine you run salon. What do you do? You launch a pay service for some of your content. You try to convince people to sign up for it. Well, like I said, they're still trading under a dollar. What now? Try to figure out a way to get advertisers to give you more money by running larger, more annoying ads. Maybe you alienate some readers (like in the above post) but its not like they were paying you anyway.
I personally would rather not see salon go under. There is still a void in my life left by the absence of my weekly dose of Filler from suck.com. I'm willing to put up with some ads to get good content, the same way I'm willing to put up with ads to get decent tv. People act like its some kind of right to get free content without ads. Are the ads on salon annoying? Yes. Could they have sone a better job with this? Sure. Is this a good enough reason to let them slide into the dotcom deadpool? I don't think so.
Sign up for salon premium. Or at least give their ads some page views.
Hey, VA Linux is still trading at almost $3. That's not so bad. Salon.com has been trading at under $1 since for almost six months, and they're all still up...for now. Of course, salon doesn't have to sell hardware too.
Wow, if we lost suck, feed, slashdot and salon all in the course of a month...how would I ever waste time at work?
On the other hand, I'm sure slashdot would have no trouble finding a new home.
Except they are not using a single ball. They are using a lot of little balls. The half-black half-white thing is what the xerox spinoff gyrecon? is doing.
One of the most interesting things about the stats given was the efficiency in miles/btu. It looks like this puppy probably beats you everyday car (and certainly your SUV) by a fair bit and as a result you do win, environmentally.
On the other hand it is virtually identical to a hybrid, efficiency-wise. So, with a 90 mile range, which one would I buy?
1) Why linux is not (necessarily) overkill for embedded apps.
2) Why minix would probably be less than fun.
Ok, point (1). I've heard a lot of this "linux is overkill for embedded systems" talk, but I feel like its coming from people who haven't ever done anything but the enormous full install of their favorite distro on their honkin' big home box. When you strip it down to essentials, you can get a perfectly functional system running in very few Mb. Ok, linux is a bit beefy (kernel size wise) comparied to some of the RTOSs that get used out there, but we are talking differences here that are totally insignificant given todays embedded hardware. Remember what hardware was like when linux development began? What about UNIX? Linux can run on freakin' tiny platforms. Take it from me.
I get the sense from your post that most of your size worries come from using a full "windowing system" like X. Ok, X on a palmtop is probably a bad idea. But thats not the only solution out there. There are windowing systems (microwindows?) built for just this kind of thing.
2) Here's why you really want to use linux instead of minix: Other people have done almost all of the work for you. Pick a processor or a dev. board, and someone has probably ported linux to it. What happens if you want a PCMCIA slot on your Minix handheld? Uh, got to write the drivers yourself. Linux? No problem. And there are scads of other examples like this.
Linux on embedded systems is not necessarily the most elegant thing on earth, and isn't great is you have hard realtime needs, but really, just for the number of people out there working on the same stuff (and sharing it!) you just can't beat linux...
patent (ptnt)
1. a. A grant made by a government that confers upon the creator of an invention the sole right to make, use, and sell that invention for a set period of time.
Show me where the definition says it increses freedom.
Um, what the hell? Why does this need to be in the definition (that you provided without citation) to be true? How is this a valid argument?
The other thing here is that while it is clear that things have gotten way out of hand in the world of software patents, that's not a reason to ditch them otherwise.
they allow others to benefit from research and innovation done by people and companies, which would otherwise be held secret
>Name a software related patent that does this or could have done this
I agree that there are few, if any software examples, but there are *countless* other examples.
Submitted before I was done. Here is my whole comment:
Hunh.
I feel like it wasn't that long ago that AltaVista was altavista.digital.com, and was the coolest thing out there. I mean really. Some guys at DEC put together the first search engine on a bunch of Alphas, and I remember being amazed as the web grew, and the number of hits it took increased, it didn't really get any slower.
Then DEC shat the bed, and Altavista got sold to CMGI. And I Google happened, and suddenly I could not only get a bunch of hits, but a bunch of *relevent* hits.
This sucks whole thing sucks, because those guys at DEC did do it first, and at the time it was way cool. Now I have to hate AltaVista because:
a) AltaVista sucks compared to, say Google.
b) Their new corperate overlords know this so they are trying to milk some overbroad patents for some cash.
I feel like it wasn't that long ago that AltaVista was altavista.digital.com, and was the coolest thing out there. I mean really. Some guys at DEC put together the first search engine on a bunch of Alphas, and I remember being amazed as the web grew, and the number of hits it took increased, it didn't really get any slower.
Then DEC shat the bed, amd Altavista got sold to CMGI. And I Google happened, and suddenly I could not only get a bunch of hits, but a bunch of *relevent* hits.
This sucks whole thing sucks, because those guys at DEC did do it first, and at the time it was way cool. Now I have to hate AltaVista because:
Re:Price-Performance of "iCubes" and other Macs
on
X On OSX Now Free
·
· Score: 1
Lets see. I just checked outpost.com, and they're selling a factory refurbished IBM 1024/768 monitor for $89.95.
Thats $112.38/ megapixel.
Thats 199 megapixles for $22,750. I guess I'm going to go buy 256 of these so I can make a 16x16 grid of them on my bedroom wall.
Now, wouldn't that be cooler?
spreer
(yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I don't have the hardware to drive 256 displays.)
Re: Is this problem NP complete?
on
Does P = NP?
·
· Score: 2
Ok, so I majored in CS not math (or "maths" as some of our friends across the pond like to call it.) but here is my $0.02.
Showing that a problem is NP complete is a pretty easy. IIRC, you just have to show that there is an isomorphism between your problem and another NP complete problem. This is the sort of problem they threw at us in the undergrad algorithms class I took. I don't know the details of this particular problem, but I'm guessing if more than one reputable mathmatician says its NP complete, then it probably is.
I personally (and with no real basis except for a general hunch) think that P!=NP. At least I hope that it isn't. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that it is much more likely that there is a problem with their algorithm than their proof that this problem is NP complete.
Ok, you can't use it yet, but I'm sure that X.com has a huge interest in making sure you can sometime in the future. If it is a good idea (which I think it is) then I suspect that it, like credit cards, will spread.
Your high speed provider doesn't want you to hook up your Tivo (or Kerbango or I-opener) to your LAN which you have connected to your line to the outside. In fact, if you have a firewall and hub set up, you are probably violating your terms of service. These guys want you to pay extra for every machine you have hooked up to their service. Of course, this is rediculous and impossible to police.
Check out the following labels. They are non-RIAA, big enough to be available on CDnow, and many band on them rock:
dischord(fugazi) touch&go(GVSB, Shellac, Man or Astroman) thrill jockey (tortoise, trans am) desoto (burning airlines) quarterstick (june of 44) alternative tenticles (dead kennedies)
For info on starting your own, check out the document written by the folks at Simple Machines, an influentual but now defunct indie label.
There's no monopoly on talent! Go out there and support indie rock. Hell, I can barely remember the last major label album I bought! (Ok, ok, it was the new Modest Mouse)
All I want is the goddamn IIIe I ordered from Outpost in mid-May. It's still backordered!!! When I bought it, they said "usually ships in 1-2 days" Try 1-2 months! If I wait long enough, I can cancel my order and get one of these new ones!
Slashdot Mirror
For within the US at least, Google does a pretty good job.
Try: FirstName LastName State
or
LastName City State
or
Just Phone Number
And, of course you have to love the link to the address on mapquest...
-spreer
Its science fiction. Many nerds enjoy science fiction.
With a CD/MP3 player I still have to:
a) Carry around a big CD/MP3 player
b) Carry around those 8 CDs
c) Swap between those 8 CDs
d) Find the CD with the album I want listen to
e) Whenever I get a new album, burn a new CD that includes it.
With my iPod, I drop it in my pants pocket and I'm done. No fishing for CDs, no carrying cases, no saying "oh shit" when my CDs get scratched.
Absolutely worth it.
spreer
If you want me to suspend my disbelief, give me a well crafted story with three dimensional characters that I can identify with and have some emotional investment in. Believe me, this makes it a lot easier to overlook bad effects, plot holes, you name it.
It is the filmmakers jobs to engage me as a viewer. It is not my job to lower my standards to the point where I can get caught up in a piece of crap.
spreer
This is so typical. Salon is not tring to extort anything from you. The were offering a service (decent web journalism) for free, and (surprise surprise) not making any money. In fact, if you check right now, they are floating at about 25 cents a share. So imagine you run salon. What do you do? You launch a pay service for some of your content. You try to convince people to sign up for it. Well, like I said, they're still trading under a dollar. What now? Try to figure out a way to get advertisers to give you more money by running larger, more annoying ads. Maybe you alienate some readers (like in the above post) but its not like they were paying you anyway.
I personally would rather not see salon go under. There is still a void in my life left by the absence of my weekly dose of Filler from suck.com. I'm willing to put up with some ads to get good content, the same way I'm willing to put up with ads to get decent tv. People act like its some kind of right to get free content without ads. Are the ads on salon annoying? Yes. Could they have sone a better job with this? Sure. Is this a good enough reason to let them slide into the dotcom deadpool? I don't think so.
Sign up for salon premium. Or at least give their ads some page views.
spreer
Hey, VA Linux is still trading at almost $3. That's not so bad. Salon.com has been trading at under $1 since for almost six months, and they're all still up...for now. Of course, salon doesn't have to sell hardware too.
Wow, if we lost suck, feed, slashdot and salon all in the course of a month...how would I ever waste time at work?
On the other hand, I'm sure slashdot would have no trouble finding a new home.
Except they are not using a single ball. They are using a lot of little balls. The half-black half-white thing is what the xerox spinoff gyrecon? is doing.
One of the most interesting things about the stats given was the efficiency in miles/btu. It looks like this puppy probably beats you everyday car (and certainly your SUV) by a fair bit and as a result you do win, environmentally.
On the other hand it is virtually identical to a hybrid, efficiency-wise. So, with a 90 mile range, which one would I buy?
Notice one of your links is dated 1995, another 1997. Yes you could once get MD data drives but:
a) They were really expensive
b) The media was not interchangable with music MDs.
As a result, you can't get these drives anymore, short of ebay.
If anyone has a pointer to a currently manufactured data MD drive that takes normal music MDs, I'd love to see it.
There are (however) still and video cameras that use MDs.
spreer
Two parts here:
1) Why linux is not (necessarily) overkill for embedded apps.
2) Why minix would probably be less than fun.
Ok, point (1). I've heard a lot of this "linux is overkill for embedded systems" talk, but I feel like its coming from people who haven't ever done anything but the enormous full install of their favorite distro on their honkin' big home box. When you strip it down to essentials, you can get a perfectly functional system running in very few Mb. Ok, linux is a bit beefy (kernel size wise) comparied to some of the RTOSs that get used out there, but we are talking differences here that are totally insignificant given todays embedded hardware. Remember what hardware was like when linux development began? What about UNIX? Linux can run on freakin' tiny platforms. Take it from me.
I get the sense from your post that most of your size worries come from using a full "windowing system" like X. Ok, X on a palmtop is probably a bad idea. But thats not the only solution out there. There are windowing systems (microwindows?) built for just this kind of thing.
2) Here's why you really want to use linux instead of minix: Other people have done almost all of the work for you. Pick a processor or a dev. board, and someone has probably ported linux to it. What happens if you want a PCMCIA slot on your Minix handheld? Uh, got to write the drivers yourself. Linux? No problem. And there are scads of other examples like this.
Linux on embedded systems is not necessarily the most elegant thing on earth, and isn't great is you have hard realtime needs, but really, just for the number of people out there working on the same stuff (and sharing it!) you just can't beat linux...
spreer
patent (ptnt)
1. a. A grant made by a government that confers upon the creator of an invention the sole right to make, use, and sell that invention for a set period of time.
Show me where the definition says it increses freedom.
Um, what the hell? Why does this need to be in the definition (that you provided without citation) to be true? How is this a valid argument?
The other thing here is that while it is clear that things have gotten way out of hand in the world of software patents, that's not a reason to ditch them otherwise.
they allow others to benefit from research and innovation done by people and companies, which would otherwise be held secret
>Name a software related patent that does this or could have done this
I agree that there are few, if any software examples, but there are *countless* other examples.
Reform, please. Don't ditch.
spreer
Submitted before I was done. Here is my whole comment:
Hunh.
I feel like it wasn't that long ago that AltaVista was altavista.digital.com, and was the coolest thing out there. I mean really. Some guys at DEC put together the first search engine on a bunch of Alphas, and I remember being amazed as the web grew, and the number of hits it took increased, it didn't really get any slower.
Then DEC shat the bed, and Altavista got sold to CMGI. And I Google happened, and suddenly I could not only get a bunch of hits, but a bunch of *relevent* hits.
This sucks whole thing sucks, because those guys at DEC did do it first, and at the time it was way cool. Now I have to hate AltaVista because:
a) AltaVista sucks compared to, say Google.
b) Their new corperate overlords know this so they are trying to milk some overbroad patents for some cash.
I don't want to hate them. But I do.
spreer
Hunh.
I feel like it wasn't that long ago that AltaVista was altavista.digital.com, and was the coolest thing out there. I mean really. Some guys at DEC put together the first search engine on a bunch of Alphas, and I remember being amazed as the web grew, and the number of hits it took increased, it didn't really get any slower.
Then DEC shat the bed, amd Altavista got sold to CMGI. And I Google happened, and suddenly I could not only get a bunch of hits, but a bunch of *relevent* hits.
This sucks whole thing sucks, because those guys at DEC did do it first, and at the time it was way cool. Now I have to hate AltaVista because:
you heard about the $300 rebate?
Probably not the most cost effective way to heat the house...
Lets see. I just checked outpost.com, and they're selling a factory refurbished IBM 1024/768 monitor for $89.95.
Thats $112.38/ megapixel.
Thats 199 megapixles for $22,750. I guess I'm going to go buy 256 of these so I can make a 16x16 grid of them on my bedroom wall.
Now, wouldn't that be cooler?
spreer
(yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I don't have the hardware to drive 256 displays.)
Ok, so I majored in CS not math (or "maths" as some of our friends across the pond like to call it.) but here is my $0.02.
Showing that a problem is NP complete is a pretty easy. IIRC, you just have to show that there is an isomorphism between your problem and another NP complete problem. This is the sort of problem they threw at us in the undergrad algorithms class I took. I don't know the details of this particular problem, but I'm guessing if more than one reputable mathmatician says its NP complete, then it probably is.
I personally (and with no real basis except for a general hunch) think that P!=NP. At least I hope that it isn't. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that it is much more likely that there is a problem with their algorithm than their proof that this problem is NP complete.
spreer
Ok, you can't use it yet, but I'm sure that X.com has a huge interest in making sure you can sometime in the future. If it is a good idea (which I think it is) then I suspect that it, like credit cards, will spread.
Your high speed provider doesn't want you to hook up your Tivo (or Kerbango or I-opener) to your LAN which you have connected to your line to the outside. In fact, if you have a firewall and hub set up, you are probably violating your terms of service. These guys want you to pay extra for every machine you have hooked up to their service. Of course, this is rediculous and impossible to police.
They may be cool...
They may have indie cred...
They may have Yo la Tengo...
But they are now owned by CAPITOL!
spreer
Check out the following labels. They are non-RIAA, big enough to be available on CDnow, and many band on them rock:
dischord(fugazi)
touch&go(GVSB, Shellac, Man or Astroman)
thrill jockey (tortoise, trans am)
desoto (burning airlines)
quarterstick (june of 44)
alternative tenticles (dead kennedies)
That's just scratching the surface.
Also check out:
Insound
Indypopradio
Pitchfork
For indie new, reviews and audio streams.
For info on starting your own, check out the document written by the folks at Simple Machines, an influentual but now defunct indie label.
There's no monopoly on talent! Go out there and support indie rock. Hell, I can barely remember the last major label album I bought! (Ok, ok, it was the new Modest Mouse)
spreer
Did no one see this for the sarcastic (and funny) post it is? Are you guys all seriously humor impaired?
Yup. Has been for quite some time.
Check out LinuxPPC for one distro.
spreer
All I want is the goddamn IIIe I ordered from Outpost in mid-May. It's still backordered!!!
When I bought it, they said "usually ships in 1-2 days" Try 1-2 months! If I wait long enough, I can cancel my order and get one of these new ones!
spreer
This should be obvious to any Twin Peaks Fan:
Kyle MacLachlan.
Come on, think about it.
In Twin Peaks he played an FBI agent who was into aliens and the paranormal, and was deeply weird.
Plus, since David D. was also on the show, they've worked together before.