Dear slashdot editors, A yottabyte is not "a billion gigabytes." How about trying to confirm or understand the numbers your post, before you slap them on the front page?
The binary prefix giga = 10243 The binary prefix yotta = 10248
That means a yottabyte is 10245 gigabytes, or roughly one million billion gigabytes.
Now the "final solution" is about to be unleashed, which is the encryption being applied to the ink cartridges themselves. That has been coming for awhile AFAIK, and it will be interesting to see how third party manufacturers react when they have to break these new "DRM" like methods of protecting business revenue. This has already been around for several years... most of the DRM has been thoroughly broken by third-party cartridge makers.
For another example: most Epson inkjet cartridges keep track of how many pages they've printed, then refuse to print when they think they're empty, to prevent refilling the cartridges. But you can buy a "chip resetter" for under $10. They work nicely.
Yeah, this is the part that bugged me... in the summary page they explain that they divided the samples up into three groups:
We cut each print into three and stuck the left third of each image on boards which we then put in the lab window, where they would be exposed to typical daylight conditions.
The second third of each strip was stuck to a clip frame and covered with glass, before being hung from an internal wall with no direct sunlight falling on it.
The final third of each print was put in a darkened drawer in a sealed container. Then they go on to explain the very detailed results of fading on the prints exposed to direct sunlight for a year... and this whole time I'm wondering, "WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OTHER ONES???"
Finally, on the last page of the review, they mention that the prints stored in the dark or hung on interior walls haven't faded at all.
So... punchline: If you hang your prints in sunlight, this article will help you choose appropriate ink and paper to prevent fading. If not, don't worry about fading, at least not on the timescale of one year.
New York's new governor, David Patterson, is legally blind! This interesting article explains:
As one of his first acts as governor, he added instructions to his official state Web site on how to enlarge the type on the screen.
"It's just being more sensitive to people who feel that government and institutions ignore them," he said. A pretty small first step... but perhaps having a blind person in a prominent position like this will allow him to call attention to issues of web accessibility for blind people?
You'll start off with exciting missions like applying for visitor badges and credentials, and escorting your foreign colleagues to the bathroom every time.
If completed successfully, you'll gain entry to exciting office buildings and drab, windowless conference rooms where you can see powerpoint presentations and plot secret strategies to gain research funding and evade red tape.
There's nothing wrong with believing in Deism, but Deism itself does not constitute a scientific theory, since it is by definition untestable.
As you state it, Deism posits that "initial conditions" for the universe were set at a specific point in time, without any specific hypothesis about the nature of those initial conditions. This means it cannot be disproved, since absolutely any set of conditions at t=0 would be consistent with Deism.
So, Deism is philosophically interesting... and indeed I am sympathetic to it myself, largely based on my religious beliefs. But it isn't a scientific theory.
This is why the GIMP will never be popular. Despite its lack of popularity and the overwhelming number of complaints about the user interface, the developers, and the few existing supporters, continuously rely on the excuse that users are merely familiar and conditioned to the Photoshop user interface. I must respectfully disagree. I am not an expert with either program, but I use GIMP much more and generally prefer it. I agree that the interface had some rough edges prior to the 2.0 releases, but they've improved a ton since... I find the GIMP's interface more intuitive. If I use Photoshop, I get confused:-P
If you want the Photoshop interface, check out GIMPshop. It doesn't seem to be very popular though, I guess not EVERYONE is hankering for a Photoshop interface.
Of course, it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that the GIMP's user interface was haphazardly thrown together by programmers with absolutely no concern for HCI. Photoshop's interface couldn't possibly be better despite the thousands of hours of research and user interface testing that Adobe has put into it. Nope, absolutely none of that matters! Actually, I think the GIMP has put a *lot* of effort into adopting the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines. GNOME applications in general have improved immensely in usability as a result of these, in my opinion!
Keep blaming people's familiarity with Photoshop and you'll be sure to continue the GIMPs long standing tradition of complete and utter failure. Failure? Why?
I use it a lot and like it a lot. So do many other people. It keeps getting better and gaining more features.
No one's getting paid to write the GIMP... they don't *have to* judge their success based on commercial competition. That's the beauty of open source/free software: if it's useful to *someone*, it will continue to be developed.
That seems to be a problem with the cell phones themselves. Ever been in an Army tank? They make headgear that lets you talk quite clearly on the radio while in a tank, which is bone-jarringly loud. That kind of tech could probably be in a cell phone, except everybody is always trying to angle for 'free cell phones' and so they're cheap and the ones you pay for are trying to compete with that. Bummers. Anybody know of good Bluetooth headgear? Cool! But don't those headsets require integration into a helmet for proper speaker/mic placement? And they probably cost several thousand $ too...
say inappropriate things, and have no awareness of the real world around them.
OK, technology can't actually solve those problems. Hehehehe...
How 'bout a device in your phone that will give you an electric shock... with Bluetooth integration? If you're annoying your neighbors, they can anonymously send you a mild shock. That'll train people out of it!!!
Is a bunch of people talking on phones any different than a bunch of people talking to each other? Yes. People talking on cell phones seem to lack a basic situational awareness and volume control. I don't mind real-life conversations all around me, not at all. But people on cell phones always seem to talk too loud, say inappropriate things, and have no awareness of the real world around them. I know I'm guilty of it myself...
It's the elephant in the room in this whole debate...
WE'LL ALL GO BATSHIT CRAZY IF EVERYONE IS TALKING ON THEIR PHONES!!!
How annoying is it to have people talking on their phones everyone in the subway or on the street or in restaurants? At least, in those places, there's usually room to get away from them. Not so on planes.
Last time I checked, there is no shortage of real, live humans willing to sit around and rate pictures of women all day long. Even on weekdays when they're supposed to be working:-P
After the system has been keeping track of who contacts you and who you respond to, the site lists your profile in other people's search results along with your criteria-specific response rate: "Lisa has responded to 56% of people who contacted her who meet her criteria." So.... basically this system advertises how *desperate* you are, right?
I mean, if it says "MoxFulder has responded to 100% of people who contacted him who meet his criteria", presumably MoxFulder is either (a) a slut, or (b) really desperate. Neither of which is something you want to advertise in general:-)
Thanks but no thanks. I don't think more statistics and numbers are going to help people get lucky. Last time I checked a little bit of mysteriousness went a long way...
From the summar:
There may also be hundreds of undiscovered worlds in outer parts of our Solar System, astronomers believe. Uh, I think that should be outer parts of our galaxy. I don't think there are likely to be hundreds of worlds just hanging out past Neptune and Pluto:-)
These defects are scattered among the surface of the CCD and are statistically unique from one camera to another, even among the same model. While the photos often aren't saved in raw formats, I'd wager if they find a picture of something illegal and wanted to prove your camera took the picture, it'd be trivial to take some pictures with it and match the output files' flaws even with the JPEG encoding by using a control camera of the same shot.
Like how they do ballistic analysis by finding a suspect's gun and fire off a few rounds and compare with rounds found at the scene of a crime. Hey Applekid, that's a really interesting point... the pattern of hot/cold pixels on an image sensor is almost certainly unique to that camera.
That, however, is not so troubling to me. Tying a "weapon" to a "crime" after the fact is a pretty standard and legitimate technique. What I'm more troubled by is the idea that camera makers would *pre-emptively* record a unique fingerprint of each camera, *in case* it ever gets used to do something illegal, or just to snoop and follow a trail of photographs on the web or elsewhere. I don't have any evidence of this being done, but since printer makers are doing this, and scanner makers are doing something similar (blocking scans of currency and official-looking documents), I wouldn't put it past camera/sensor manufacturers...
Are there any digital cameras that watermark photos with identifying information? So that if you take a photo and post it on the internet, the manufacturer/government could track it, even if you strip out the EXIF data?
I plug my flash drive right into the side of my keyboard. Doesn't work on my grandma's new iMac... the computer complains that the keyboard ports don't have enough power for a flash drive (which only needs 100 mA!!!).
I think you're right on. This is Apple pushing consumer computing into a new phase. It's just like when they went USB-only and everyone was like "wtf??". MacBook Air is EXACTLY what I've been looking for...a true notebook computer. No ugly ports all over it and no useless optical drive. My MacBook has never been "plugged in" and has only ever been wireless. It's time to do away with CAT5 once and for all. Going USB-only was stupid when they did it, as was eliminating the floppy when they did it. The marginal cost of parallel and serial ports, and a floppy drive, is $1 or $2 on a desktop computer.
Today, the marginal cost of 3 extra USB ports and an Ethernet port is probably about 50 cents for the connectors. The chipset in the MacBook Air probably already includes an Ethernet NIC, or most components of one.
I love how inflexibility becomes a feature on Apple products...
Okay... but would it absolutely have KILLED them to fit in an extra 2-3 USB ports on the thing? Most of the ultra-light 13" laptops I've seen have no problem placing 3 or 4 USB ports conveniently, many have a mini-FireWire port as well.
Seems like, as always, Apple worried more about aesthetics than functionality.
And if he needs an "all-in-one" that's his sole computer/desktop replacement, then the Air isn't for him. Buy a 17" MBP.
I'll stick with Dell or HP, thanks. Half the price, and none of this one-button-mouse crap.
No ethernet port, only ONE usb2 port, no microphone jack? Honestly, how are you supposed to use this thing? What if you need to use Ethernet and a flash drive at the same time? Are you supposed to carry around a USB-to-ethernet dongle and a hub... possibly a POWERED hub?
I love how people rave about Apple's "all-in-one" designs, yet in practice every all-in-one computer is a mess of external devices and cables. My grandma, for example, has an all-in-one iMac... with an external modem, an external floppy disk drive, and a hub... since the stupid computer doesn't have any convenient front ports for a USB flash drive.
Oh, and no user-replaceable battery? Thanks but no thanks... there are lots of other ultra-portables that I'd choose over this one.
Slashdot Mirror
No, you're just wrong.
One trillion = 1000^4.
One million billion = 1000^5.
Dear slashdot editors,
A yottabyte is not "a billion gigabytes." How about trying to confirm or understand the numbers your post, before you slap them on the front page?
The binary prefix giga = 10243
The binary prefix yotta = 10248
That means a yottabyte is 10245 gigabytes, or roughly one million billion gigabytes.
For example, a US court case in 2003 found that the Lexmark could not use the DMCA to prevent a competitor from making DRM-breaking chips for use in compatible cartridges.
For another example: most Epson inkjet cartridges keep track of how many pages they've printed, then refuse to print when they think they're empty, to prevent refilling the cartridges. But you can buy a "chip resetter" for under $10. They work nicely.
The second third of each strip was stuck to a clip frame and covered with glass, before being hung from an internal wall with no direct sunlight falling on it.
The final third of each print was put in a darkened drawer in a sealed container. Then they go on to explain the very detailed results of fading on the prints exposed to direct sunlight for a year... and this whole time I'm wondering, "WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OTHER ONES???"
Finally, on the last page of the review, they mention that the prints stored in the dark or hung on interior walls haven't faded at all.
So... punchline: If you hang your prints in sunlight, this article will help you choose appropriate ink and paper to prevent fading. If not, don't worry about fading, at least not on the timescale of one year.
"It's just being more sensitive to people who feel that government and institutions ignore them," he said. A pretty small first step... but perhaps having a blind person in a prominent position like this will allow him to call attention to issues of web accessibility for blind people?
... it should be a super-awesome game!!!
You'll start off with exciting missions like applying for visitor badges and credentials, and escorting your foreign colleagues to the bathroom every time.
If completed successfully, you'll gain entry to exciting office buildings and drab, windowless conference rooms where you can see powerpoint presentations and plot secret strategies to gain research funding and evade red tape.
Woohoo! I can't wait to play this one!
There's nothing wrong with believing in Deism, but Deism itself does not constitute a scientific theory, since it is by definition untestable.
As you state it, Deism posits that "initial conditions" for the universe were set at a specific point in time, without any specific hypothesis about the nature of those initial conditions. This means it cannot be disproved, since absolutely any set of conditions at t=0 would be consistent with Deism.
So, Deism is philosophically interesting... and indeed I am sympathetic to it myself, largely based on my religious beliefs. But it isn't a scientific theory.
If you want the Photoshop interface, check out GIMPshop. It doesn't seem to be very popular though, I guess not EVERYONE is hankering for a Photoshop interface. Of course, it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that the GIMP's user interface was haphazardly thrown together by programmers with absolutely no concern for HCI. Photoshop's interface couldn't possibly be better despite the thousands of hours of research and user interface testing that Adobe has put into it. Nope, absolutely none of that matters! Actually, I think the GIMP has put a *lot* of effort into adopting the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines. GNOME applications in general have improved immensely in usability as a result of these, in my opinion! Keep blaming people's familiarity with Photoshop and you'll be sure to continue the GIMPs long standing tradition of complete and utter failure. Failure? Why?
I use it a lot and like it a lot. So do many other people. It keeps getting better and gaining more features.
No one's getting paid to write the GIMP... they don't *have to* judge their success based on commercial competition. That's the beauty of open source/free software: if it's useful to *someone*, it will continue to be developed.
OK, technology can't actually solve those problems. Hehehehe...
How 'bout a device in your phone that will give you an electric shock... with Bluetooth integration? If you're annoying your neighbors, they can anonymously send you a mild shock. That'll train people out of it!!!
It's the elephant in the room in this whole debate...
WE'LL ALL GO BATSHIT CRAZY IF EVERYONE IS TALKING ON THEIR PHONES!!!
How annoying is it to have people talking on their phones everyone in the subway or on the street or in restaurants? At least, in those places, there's usually room to get away from them. Not so on planes.
Last time I checked, there is no shortage of real, live humans willing to sit around and rate pictures of women all day long. Even on weekdays when they're supposed to be working :-P
Hotornot.com, anyone?
I mean, if it says "MoxFulder has responded to 100% of people who contacted him who meet his criteria", presumably MoxFulder is either (a) a slut, or (b) really desperate. Neither of which is something you want to advertise in general
Thanks but no thanks. I don't think more statistics and numbers are going to help people get lucky. Last time I checked a little bit of mysteriousness went a long way...
Like how they do ballistic analysis by finding a suspect's gun and fire off a few rounds and compare with rounds found at the scene of a crime. Hey Applekid, that's a really interesting point... the pattern of hot/cold pixels on an image sensor is almost certainly unique to that camera.
That, however, is not so troubling to me. Tying a "weapon" to a "crime" after the fact is a pretty standard and legitimate technique. What I'm more troubled by is the idea that camera makers would *pre-emptively* record a unique fingerprint of each camera, *in case* it ever gets used to do something illegal, or just to snoop and follow a trail of photographs on the web or elsewhere. I don't have any evidence of this being done, but since printer makers are doing this, and scanner makers are doing something similar (blocking scans of currency and official-looking documents), I wouldn't put it past camera/sensor manufacturers...
Are there any digital cameras that watermark photos with identifying information? So that if you take a photo and post it on the internet, the manufacturer/government could track it, even if you strip out the EXIF data?
I'm curious...
ERROR: OUT OF 3D MEMORY SPACE
Oh wait. I'm on slashdot. Who am I kidding? Damn.
No word in TFA if he plans to appeal... let's hope so!!!
How about the Dell XPS M1330: http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_m1330?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
Under 4 lbs, dual-core, 2 USB ports, RJ45, VGA, DVI, slot-loading optical drive, replaceable battery. For $999.
Or the 12" Latitude D430, which is only 3 lbs, similar to the above but no optical drive. $1200.
Or you can get this 13.3" Toshiba with 2gb RAM, C2D 1.66ghz, 160gb HD, optical drive, webcam, etc., weighing 4.5 lbs... for $750. Kind of amazing! http://edealinfo.com/dealsearch/Controller.php?bargain_search=13.3%22
Today, the marginal cost of 3 extra USB ports and an Ethernet port is probably about 50 cents for the connectors. The chipset in the MacBook Air probably already includes an Ethernet NIC, or most components of one.
I love how inflexibility becomes a feature on Apple products...
Seems like, as always, Apple worried more about aesthetics than functionality.
I'll stick with Dell or HP, thanks. Half the price, and none of this one-button-mouse crap.
Exactly, that's another reason my grandma needs the hub: no flash drive will get enough power from the keyboard USB ports... really pathetic!!
No ethernet port, only ONE usb2 port, no microphone jack? Honestly, how are you supposed to use this thing? What if you need to use Ethernet and a flash drive at the same time? Are you supposed to carry around a USB-to-ethernet dongle and a hub... possibly a POWERED hub?
I love how people rave about Apple's "all-in-one" designs, yet in practice every all-in-one computer is a mess of external devices and cables. My grandma, for example, has an all-in-one iMac... with an external modem, an external floppy disk drive, and a hub... since the stupid computer doesn't have any convenient front ports for a USB flash drive.
Oh, and no user-replaceable battery? Thanks but no thanks... there are lots of other ultra-portables that I'd choose over this one.