The transformers aren't there to convert to DC. They are there to drop the voltage from 120v to more usable levels. In fact, it is much harder to regulate DC voltage, so my computer that wants 12v DC, my CD player that wants 3v DC, and my nintendo that wants 10c DC would be out of luck in a 20v DC house.
hmmm, you can easily damage LEDs by dropping them. Heat or voltage above spec will kill them very quickly. LEDs running at 4.5 volts are going to need transformers to convert down from 110 volts. These transformers generate a lot of heat!
But the biggest problem is the horrible color. Three-LED "white" bulbs aren't white at all. At best they are a three single line spectrum source that sort of appears white.
Incandescent bulbs aren't perfect vacuums. It is *very* expensive to make a good vacuum and the bulbs would have to be thicker than they are now.
Bulbs are already mostly filled with inert gases such as argon and helium.
You can make incandescent bulbs that last a lot longer - some of the special full spectrum neodyium bulbs last 10 times as long. But they also cost a lot more.
"One could argue that developers could write exact or very similar code, but the developers' comments in the code are basically your DNA, or fingerprints, for a particular piece of source code," said Laura DiDio, a senior analyst with the Yankee Group (Boston), who viewed the evidence.
Um, yeah, right ok. My comments are my "fingerprints", just like my "DNA", or a snowflake, no two are exactly alike.
This has got to be one of the most ridiculuous things I've ever heard.
you do realize you can telnet into your machine and kill the X processes remotely, right?
XP crashes all the time on me. but maybe thats because I tend to push it to its limits by doing more than playing MP3, downloading warez and surfing for pr0n on it.
no no no, its not application crashes at all. Applications crash all the time but don't take down windows and don't send out the error report. Many Microsoft applications DO send out error reports but that shouldn't be confused with windows crashing.
Yes, programs like Yahoo IM have caused windows to crash, but as every OS designer should know that is because of a problem in the Operating System (windows) and not in Yahoo - as it should fail gracefully without taking down the OS. A well-writtem operating system should NOT allow user programs to crash it. This isn't as hard as you think (see Linux). When the whole computer crashes - its almost always Microsofts fault. The rare exception is crashes due to device drivers - since they can be consider part of the OS, they can take the system pretty easily. Microsoft writes many of these though too.
ah, perhaps that is where I acquired my taste for agar.
*yum*
Not a very good idea - easily breakable
on
Inkblot Passwords
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
If you know anything about the Rorshach test (the original inkblot test), you'll know its all about statistical analyzing. The Rorshach inkblots were randomly chosen - it didn't matter at all what they looked like - as long as they were always the same.
After many decades of testing, psychiatrists were able to plot people on charts based on certain responses and then empirically decide whether someone might have a given mental illness based on whether their response should statistical similarity to others who had proven to have that illness. Most of the categories that the responses were judged on were extremely arbitrary.
The point is, the inkblot test relies on the fact that most people with "normal" brain function will look at an inkblot the same way. You'd be surprised at how many people who list "fly" as the one that looks like a "fly" etc. What you are going to end up with is only a handful of different words for each inkblot. People aren't going to pick phrases like "flying man with with green wings getting ready to lift-off" because those phrases are hard to remember. Most of them will be "fly" "flying man", "wing man" etc.
wrong. The point is the is the tech jobs ARE being significantly outsourced. Look at the developer jobs AOL is moving to India. Look at i2. Look at dozens and dozens of other companies.
Yes, you can outsource integration and consultation and they are doing just that. i2 has all its internal and external tech support in India. The call centers are there. The sysadmins are there. The programmers are there. Soon all the servers will be moved there. The local tech people were laid-off and more in Bangalore were hired. Companies are offering relocation packages at 1/4 the pay to move to Bangalore. Some Indians who have immigrated to the US are taking them and moving back gome.
Its exactly what you are saying WON'T happen that IS happening and that is why many are upset and think it is a bad idea. Read the articles and look at the data out there.
Let's be serious. I mean, we've had to bet the company many times on big technological advances. We bet on the 16-bit PC. We bet on graphical user interface. We bet on the NT technology base. Now we're in the process of betting on a combination of technologies called.Net; Longhorn Web services go along with that.
Let see: - IBM bet on the 16-bit PC. - Apple bet on the graphical user interface - Netscape bet on the web. - The NT technology base (thats "new technology" technology for those don't know) was forced down user's throats. - Sun bet on the internet and Java (MS calls this stuff.NET and C#)
I'm surprised at how many slashdotters are suspicious about this technology.
Methanol is *extremely* cheap to make. We are talking about buying a gallon or two for less than a dollar. Yes, it is flammable but not like gasoline. There isn't a risk of explosion. Do you ever worry about your lighter exploding in your pocket? Yes, its poisonous but only if you drink it. Ever drink glass cleaner or windshield wiper fluid? Didn't think so. Its sort of like that. Its much worse to drink gasoline (we use it all the time in cars and how many people are poisoned by that?) and opening a laptop Lithium-ion or Nicad battery and eating the contents is far worse.
I'm surprised at how happy people are with laptop batter performance these days. You are lucky to get 4 hours, especially if the battery is old. YOu can get more, but the batteries get very heavy! Methanol, on the other hand, is quite light.
The worst part in Boston is that you *must* use the initial 1 if you dial "long distance" and you *can not* use the 1 if you are dialing locally, or you'll get anyone of "that number can not be reached" errors. This is super confusing because there are instances where someone is across the street but has a different area code so you need the one, or there is someone who is far away, but has the same area code and you need the one, or someone is nearby with the same area code and you can not use the one.
So confusing, I remember that I was calling a local Boston number that for weeks I thought was incorrect because I was dialing a 1 first and eventually I learned that it was because I was dialing the one that it didn't work.
It clearly states that statistics show that it is, at best, the 5th biggest shopping day of the year for retailers. That is, it's behind the two weekends before Christmas. Really, this makes sense. A lot of people put off their shopping to the last minute.
This has NOTHING to do with cyberspace. Bill Wyman was simply WRITING ARTICLES using his own name. He didn't try to register the name on the internet -- at least not according to the article. I admit that the slashdot preview doesn't make this clear, but thats why you should RTFA.
Exactly how bad is the AOL CD problem? Have we actually filled up landfills with AOL CDs?
Two men in California are collecting 1 million CDs that they will send back to AOL. They have done all the math and calculated that that would weigh 17 tons - enough to fit in 17 F-350 pickups or not even 1 semi truck. That really isn't that much when you compare it to the amount of garbage americans produce in a year - no, even compared to a day?
Why do you hate AOL CDs? Its not because of the oh-so-large amount of garbage produced by a little tiny piece of plastic. Its the SPAM factor. Its the fact that people like to get pissed off by the inconvience of throwing away their junk mail. We've learned to ignore the numberous credit cards offers and paper junk we receive every day, but we suddenly can't deal with a little piece of plastic???
First of all, these days the American movie rental industry is dominated by Blockbuster. If you look around you'll notice that Blockbuster rental stores are often large stores in independant buildings. Yes, occasionally you'll find them in a mall, but usually they are by themselves. When you go to Blockbuster - you drive, and park, just to go to Blockbuster.
Secondly, realize that most people are not good about returning their movies on time. Most people I know leave it to the last minute. You can drop off the movie up to midnight, and the late evening is a very common time to return movies (some people do right after they watch them!). It is also not a time where you are likely to do more shopping. It's also not a time where you are going to be able to walk in most places, and public transportation is frequently closed.
Lastly, I would say that most people rent movies to watch on the weekends - maybe a Friday or Saturday night. When you go return the movie on Sunday afternoon, you aren't going to rent another one because you have work/school coming up the next day.
Frankly, the environment arguement is just silly. Too often people are arguing about tiny little things we throw away without looking at the big picture. I'm sure there are people who don't recycle every plastic bottle they use and each probably contains as much plastic as a DVD. How about candy bar wrappers - who recycles those? Did you know that everytime you get a take-out or delivery pizza those boxes are not recyclable?
Honestly, I'm shocked that nearly a dozen "think about the environment" posters have been modded up while not one has been modded as "redundant"
This is pretty digusting. I cannot believe that someone would actually do this *indoors*. Red worms are not really that palatable, and most of us like to keep vermin - cockroaches, flies, maggots, etc OUT of our garbage. Why would anyone want to willingly put this on their kitchen counter? This sounds just like a disease waiting to happen. Not only that but you have have 2000 worms for 1 pound of garbage! And move the bedding around each time you add garbage? And they mention the risk of the worms escaping?
And don't even mention the horrible smell that they say is the most common complaint.
Kernel patch submissions from Alan Cox should no longer be accepted. It's apparent that he is not just doing this because he hates the DMCA, but that he is trying to give Americans a hard time in general.
Any idiot will understand that the DMCA has nothing to do with circumstances like this kernel patch. Any lawyer can explain to you exactly why. I'm not going to quote from the law, because frankly, no one on Slashdot is capable of interpreting the legal terminology. That is what lawyers (unfortunately) are for. If you really want to understand the DMCA, consult a LAWYER (they are a necessary evil in the US). Words such as "effective", "reasonable", "primary" all have special meanings when it comes to legal documents.
Basically, there are no copyrighted works involved here. And the kernel patch is not primarily written to circumvent some type of digital rights management. The point is, yes, occasionally crazy issues end up in the courts - you can sue pretty much anybody for *anything*. (Hey, my C compile lets me write code to circumvent CCS, my hammer allows me access to the local library to steal books, etc. Thats not the DMCA though) Fortunately for us, the crazy cases don't usually go very far in the court system. Yes, it was surprising about what happened with Adobe and the Russian guy (what was his name?), but that was a much different issue - where the notions of copyright and copy protection where VERY clear there.
Do you think Alan Cox consulted his lawyer before submitting his kernel patch under such an absurd copyright? I doubt it.
So, the end result simply becomes that Alan Cox is beign stubborn. We don't like the DMCA, but he really isn't at risk from it because of a kernel patch. Let's not support this kind of insanity anymore. Sure, continue to fight the DMCA, but let's also make our voices in the Linux community heard, and make it clear that we don't want to deal with whiny, stubborn idealists who are always trying to push a political agenda. It distracts from what we (and Linus) are trying to do with Linux and OSS (for some at least)
Mod chips are, protests to the contrary, legal. The only ground MS might have to contest them on would be through the DMCA, as a chip could be used to run a pirated copy of a game. However, the DMCA also makes allowances for circumvention with "significant non-infringing uses", which a mod chip certainly has (seeing as how many people here want to run Linux on it). Of course, the law only supports consumers as far as they're willing to pay their lawyers.
Remember DeCCS? That utility that would crack DVDs. Remember how 2600 lost a case because they posted it on their site?
Well, there was a very legitimate use of DeCSS. That was to play DVD's under Linux. This really should have been allowed under the DMCA but the courts have basically decided that that clause about "significant noninfringing uses" doesn't really mean very much.
A precedent has been set, so don't be surprised that just like the DeCCS case, mod-chips or even mod-chip instructions are found to be illegal because of the DMCA. And microsoft has the money and lawyers to make this happen.
They waste time to download and thus eat up our ISP time and therefore money.
Maybe we should make them illegal?
Have you ever thought about all the things that cost us money?
The junk postal mail receive takes us time to throw away -- and time is money. If we recycle it, it costs our local recycling center money to transport it. We pay taxes for that. That is money.
Heck, pretty much anything that anybody does that we aren't *in favor* of will somehow inconvenience us and cost us money. The kid next door downloaded pr0n slows down my cable modem -- is he *stealing* from me?
Get real people. It doesn't cost you much money to download less that 1k messages. Especially if you have a *free* email account like yahoo, excite or hotmail. If you are careful about who you distribute your email too you can reduce a lot of your spam.
Spam is just another annoyance of civilization. Sure most of us hate it, but it is really worth the almost certainly futile effort to find it with ineffective laws -- especially when much spam comes from other countries.
A final note - the one that will probably make this post be labelled as "flamebait" - how can we advocate stealing from the RIAA in the form of trading copyrighted music but have *zero* tolerance of spammers who are little more than a tiny annoyance in our lives?
Slashdot Mirror
The transformers aren't there to convert to DC. They are there to drop the voltage from 120v to more usable levels. In fact, it is much harder to regulate DC voltage, so my computer that wants 12v DC, my CD player that wants 3v DC, and my nintendo that wants 10c DC would be out of luck in a 20v DC house.
hmmm, you can easily damage LEDs by dropping them. Heat or voltage above spec will kill them very quickly. LEDs running at 4.5 volts are going to need transformers to convert down from 110 volts. These transformers generate a lot of heat!
But the biggest problem is the horrible color. Three-LED "white" bulbs aren't white at all. At best they are a three single line spectrum source that sort of appears white.
Incandescent bulbs aren't perfect vacuums. It is *very* expensive to make a good vacuum and the bulbs would have to be thicker than they are now.
Bulbs are already mostly filled with inert gases such as argon and helium.
You can make incandescent bulbs that last a lot longer - some of the special full spectrum neodyium bulbs last 10 times as long. But they also cost a lot more.
Incandescent light bulbs are not evacuated. They are filled with non-reactive gases such as argon and helium.
This was in a link from the main article:
"One could argue that developers could write exact or very similar code, but the developers' comments in the code are basically your DNA, or fingerprints, for a particular piece of source code," said Laura DiDio, a senior analyst with the Yankee Group (Boston), who viewed the evidence.
Um, yeah, right ok. My comments are my "fingerprints", just like my "DNA", or a snowflake, no two are exactly alike.
This has got to be one of the most ridiculuous things I've ever heard.
you do realize you can telnet into your machine and kill the X processes remotely, right?
XP crashes all the time on me. but maybe thats because I tend to push it to its limits by doing more than playing MP3, downloading warez and surfing for pr0n on it.
no no no, its not application crashes at all.
Applications crash all the time but don't take down windows and don't send out the error report. Many Microsoft applications DO send out error reports but that shouldn't be confused with windows crashing.
Yes, programs like Yahoo IM have caused windows to crash, but as every OS designer should know that is because of a problem in the Operating System (windows) and not in Yahoo - as it should fail gracefully without taking down the OS. A well-writtem operating system should NOT allow user programs to crash it. This isn't as hard as you think (see Linux). When the whole computer crashes - its almost always Microsofts fault. The rare exception is crashes due to device drivers - since they can be consider part of the OS, they can take the system pretty easily. Microsoft writes many of these though too.
um Big Brother was 1984, not Brave New World
the books were opposites in very many ways.
ah, perhaps that is where I acquired my taste for agar.
*yum*
If you know anything about the Rorshach test (the original inkblot test), you'll know its all about
statistical analyzing. The Rorshach inkblots were randomly chosen - it didn't matter at all what they looked like - as long as they were always the same.
After many decades of testing, psychiatrists were able to plot people on charts based on certain responses and then empirically decide whether someone might have a given mental illness based on whether their response should statistical similarity to others who had proven to have that illness. Most of the categories that the responses were judged on were extremely arbitrary.
The point is, the inkblot test relies on the fact that most people with "normal" brain function will look at an inkblot the same way. You'd be surprised at how many people who list "fly" as the one that looks like a "fly" etc. What you are going to end up with is only a handful of different words for each inkblot. People aren't going to pick phrases like "flying man with with green wings getting ready to lift-off" because those phrases are hard to remember. Most of them will be "fly" "flying man", "wing man" etc.
This is not a secure password.
wrong. The point is the is the tech jobs ARE being significantly outsourced. Look at the developer jobs AOL is moving to India. Look at i2. Look at dozens and dozens of other companies.
Yes, you can outsource integration and consultation and they are doing just that. i2 has all its internal and external tech support in India. The call centers are there. The sysadmins are there. The programmers are there. Soon all the servers will be moved there. The local tech people were laid-off and more in Bangalore were hired. Companies are offering relocation packages at 1/4 the pay to move to Bangalore. Some Indians who have immigrated to the US are taking them and moving back gome.
Its exactly what you are saying WON'T happen that IS happening and that is why many are upset and think it is a bad idea. Read the articles and look at the data out there.
Let's be serious. I mean, we've had to bet the company many times on big technological advances. We bet on the 16-bit PC. We bet on graphical user interface. We bet on the NT technology base. Now we're in the process of betting on a combination of technologies called .Net; Longhorn Web services go along with that.
.NET and C#)
Let see:
- IBM bet on the 16-bit PC.
- Apple bet on the graphical user interface
- Netscape bet on the web.
- The NT technology base (thats "new technology" technology for those don't know) was forced down user's throats.
- Sun bet on the internet and Java (MS calls this stuff
Yeah, MS took some big risks there
I'm surprised at how many slashdotters are suspicious about this technology.
Methanol is *extremely* cheap to make. We are talking about buying a gallon or two for less than a dollar. Yes, it is flammable but not like gasoline. There isn't a risk of explosion. Do you ever worry about your lighter exploding in your pocket? Yes, its poisonous but only if you drink it. Ever drink glass cleaner or windshield wiper fluid? Didn't think so. Its sort of like that. Its much worse to drink gasoline (we use it all the time in cars and how many people are poisoned by that?) and opening a laptop Lithium-ion or Nicad battery and eating the contents is far worse.
I'm surprised at how happy people are with laptop batter performance these days. You are lucky to get 4 hours, especially if the battery is old. YOu can get more, but the batteries get very heavy! Methanol, on the other hand, is quite light.
The worst part in Boston is that you *must* use the initial 1 if you dial "long distance" and you *can not* use the 1 if you are dialing locally, or you'll get anyone of "that number can not be reached" errors. This is super confusing because there are instances where someone is across the street but has a different area code so you need the one, or there is someone who is far away, but has the same area code and you need the one, or someone is nearby with the same area code and you can not use the one.
So confusing, I remember that I was calling a local Boston number that for weeks I thought was incorrect because I was dialing a 1 first and eventually I learned that it was because I was dialing the one that it didn't work.
What is with this term PVR?
It stands for "Personal Video Recorder" right?
How is a VCR, a "Video Cassette Recorder" any less personal?
I like the term "DVR", "Digital Video Recorder" because thats what it is. It's a video recorder that records in digital. A VCR doesn't do that.
Check out this at snopes.com.
It clearly states that statistics show that it is, at best, the 5th biggest shopping day of the year for retailers. That is, it's behind the two weekends before Christmas. Really, this makes sense. A lot of people put off their shopping to the last minute.
This has NOTHING to do with the internet.
It is only about the use of his name when he publishes articles.
Please, RTFA before you post...
This has NOTHING to do with cyberspace. Bill Wyman was simply WRITING ARTICLES using his own name. He didn't try to register the name on the internet -- at least not according to the article.
I admit that the slashdot preview doesn't make this clear, but thats why you should RTFA.
Exactly how bad is the AOL CD problem?
Have we actually filled up landfills with AOL CDs?
Two men in California are collecting 1 million CDs that they will send back to AOL.
They have done all the math and calculated that that would weigh 17 tons - enough to fit in 17 F-350 pickups or not even 1 semi truck. That really isn't that much when you compare it to the amount of garbage americans produce in a year - no, even compared to a day?
Why do you hate AOL CDs? Its not because of the oh-so-large amount of garbage produced by a little tiny piece of plastic. Its the SPAM factor. Its the fact that people like to get pissed off by the inconvience of throwing away their junk mail. We've learned to ignore the numberous credit cards offers and paper junk we receive every day, but we suddenly can't deal with a little piece of plastic???
First of all, these days the American movie rental industry is dominated by Blockbuster.
If you look around you'll notice that Blockbuster rental stores are often large stores in independant buildings. Yes, occasionally you'll find them in a mall, but usually they are by themselves. When you go to Blockbuster - you drive, and park, just to go to Blockbuster.
Secondly, realize that most people are not good about returning their movies on time. Most people I know leave it to the last minute. You can drop off the movie up to midnight, and the late evening is a very common time to return movies (some people do right after they watch them!). It is also not a time where you are likely to do more shopping. It's also not a time where you are going to be able to walk in most places, and public transportation is frequently closed.
Lastly, I would say that most people rent movies to watch on the weekends - maybe a Friday or Saturday night. When you go return the movie on Sunday afternoon, you aren't going to rent another one because you have work/school coming up the next day.
Frankly, the environment arguement is just silly. Too often people are arguing about tiny little things we throw away without looking at the big picture. I'm sure there are people who don't recycle every plastic bottle they use and each probably contains as much plastic as a DVD. How about candy bar wrappers - who recycles those? Did you know that everytime you get a take-out or delivery pizza those boxes are not recyclable?
Honestly, I'm shocked that nearly a dozen "think about the environment" posters have been modded up while not one has been modded as "redundant"
This is pretty digusting. I cannot believe that someone would actually do this *indoors*. Red worms are not really that palatable, and most of us like to keep vermin - cockroaches, flies, maggots, etc OUT of our garbage. Why would anyone want to willingly put this on their kitchen counter? This sounds just like a disease waiting to happen. Not only that but you have have 2000 worms for 1 pound of garbage! And move the bedding around each time you add garbage? And they mention the risk of the worms escaping?
And don't even mention the horrible smell that they say is the most common complaint.
I'm sorry, I can't even imagine ever doing this.
Yes, it's right here.
I don't know why they are complaining so much, I thought Episode 1 TPM was much worse.
Kernel patch submissions from Alan Cox should no
longer be accepted. It's apparent that he is not
just doing this because he hates the DMCA, but that he is trying to give Americans a hard time in general.
Any idiot will understand that the DMCA has nothing to do with circumstances like this kernel patch. Any lawyer can explain to you exactly why. I'm not going to quote from the law, because frankly, no one on
Slashdot is capable of interpreting the legal terminology.
That is what lawyers (unfortunately) are for. If you really want to understand the DMCA, consult a LAWYER (they are a necessary evil in the US).
Words such as "effective", "reasonable", "primary" all have special meanings when it comes to legal documents.
Basically, there are no copyrighted works involved here. And the kernel patch is not primarily written to circumvent some type of digital rights management. The point is, yes, occasionally crazy issues end up in the courts - you can sue pretty much anybody for *anything*. (Hey, my C compile lets me write code to circumvent CCS, my hammer allows me access to the local library to steal books, etc. Thats not the DMCA though) Fortunately for us, the crazy cases don't usually go very far in the court system. Yes, it was surprising about what happened with Adobe and the Russian guy (what was his name?), but that was a much different issue - where the notions of copyright and copy protection where VERY clear there.
Do you think Alan Cox consulted his lawyer before submitting his kernel patch under such an absurd copyright? I doubt it.
So, the end result simply becomes that Alan Cox is beign stubborn. We don't like the DMCA, but he really isn't at risk from it because of a kernel patch. Let's not support this kind of insanity anymore. Sure, continue to fight the DMCA, but let's also make our voices in the Linux community heard, and make it clear that we don't want to deal with whiny, stubborn idealists who are always trying to push a political agenda. It distracts from what we (and Linus) are trying to do with Linux and OSS (for some at least)
Mod chips are, protests to the contrary, legal. The only ground MS might have to contest them on would be through the DMCA, as a chip could be used to run a pirated copy of a game. However, the DMCA also makes allowances for circumvention with "significant non-infringing uses", which a mod chip certainly has (seeing as how many people here want to run Linux on it). Of course, the law only supports consumers as far as they're willing to pay their lawyers.
Remember DeCCS? That utility that would crack DVDs. Remember how 2600 lost a case because they posted it on their site?
Well, there was a very legitimate use of DeCSS. That was to play DVD's under Linux. This really should have been allowed under the DMCA but the courts have basically decided that that clause about "significant noninfringing uses" doesn't really mean very much.
A precedent has been set, so don't be surprised that just like the DeCCS case, mod-chips or even mod-chip instructions are found to be illegal because of the DMCA. And microsoft has the money and lawyers to make this happen.
They waste time to download and thus eat up our ISP time and therefore money.
Maybe we should make them illegal?
Have you ever thought about all the things that cost us money?
The junk postal mail receive takes us time to throw away -- and time is money. If we recycle it, it costs our local recycling center money to transport it. We pay taxes for that. That is money.
Heck, pretty much anything that anybody does that we aren't *in favor* of will somehow inconvenience us and cost us money. The kid next door downloaded pr0n slows down my cable modem -- is he *stealing* from me?
Get real people. It doesn't cost you much money to download less that 1k messages. Especially if you have a *free* email account like yahoo, excite or hotmail. If you are careful about who you distribute your email too you can reduce a lot of your spam.
Spam is just another annoyance of civilization. Sure most of us hate it, but it is really worth the almost certainly futile effort to find it with ineffective laws -- especially when much spam comes from other countries.
A final note - the one that will probably make this post be labelled as "flamebait" - how can we advocate stealing from the RIAA in the form of trading copyrighted music but have *zero* tolerance of spammers who are little more than a tiny annoyance in our lives?