figures. took me a bit of googling to find the appropriate html tags. and no, i was not thinking about tits at all when i wrote that. i usually save that for after slashdot time.
Since when is discrimination justified by statistics? I thought it was illegal to, say, arrest a black man on the street just because "most criminals are black" (I didn't say it was uncommon, just illegal.) We're doing the same thing by singling out Muslims--even famous ones--and treating them as terrorists every time they step aboard a plane. I hope you realize just how many core American values we have violated in the so-called "war on terror" and what morons that made us look like to everyone else. Including the terrorists.
So you admit that your opinion is worth even less than a flawed survey of actual users? Thanks for sharing.
I have seen OpenOffice gaining plenty of market share--frequently installed alongside MS Office on campus computers and such. It's true that non-techie people are still clueless, but the ranks of the techies are getting larger with every generation. So there's some anecdotal evidence to counteract your anecdotal evidence, and we're back to square one.
Oh, and don't forget those markets in which Linux has a large market share (like China) where OpenOffice is one of the only viable options.
Or it could be that the same people using OpenOffice at home/work are influenced by their experience and go on to use it at work/home. I know I do--I installed OpenOffice on my work computer because I use it at home and needed to be compatible. Now I use both of them at the same time for their different strengths. (MS Excel is still much better at rendering plots of huge data sets, but OpenOffice Calc can be more convenient to format data from different sources.)
And what are the reasons young Muslims turn to terrorist groups? Because they feel alienated and harassed by the rest of the world (who treat them like terrorists for no reason at all) and are looking for somewhere to find friends and feel like they belong. They don't even want to kill anybody until they have been brainwashed (and frequently drugged) by their new "friends".
When are we going to realize that draconian security measures, racial profiling, and dropping bombs on civilians are part of the PROBLEM instead of the SOLUTION?
Kudos to that. If somebody threw NASA $100 billion *and cut some red tape* then we could totally get back on the moon in a reasonable length of time. It's true that the blueprints for the Saturn V have disappeared, but we still know how to design rockets. And it's still hard.
Ah, well Age of Empires II and Total Annihilation at least have the ability to use the higher resolution. It is pretty awesome being able to see 4x as much of the map as in the old days...But I agree with you for something like Xwing the LCD could present a challenge.
Forgot to mention, I upgraded the graphics card so it would display properly on my 20" 1680x1200 flat panel. Not everything has to be vintage--I will never miss my 15" CRT.
I have a way to play them. It's a vintage-2000 1.2Ghz Athlon box with XP Pirate Edition. Upgraded the RAM to 2GB (kinda pointless) and the graphics card to a vintage-2005 model and it runs Age of Empires, Total Annihilation, Worms Armageddon, you name it. Stuck it on a KVM switch with my main box. Best part is it was all free.
I would argue that most Apple fanboys (the real hardcore ones anyway) only THINK they're "free-thinking." They're original and free-thinking in the same way that hippies thought they were original and free-thinking in the 60's--by acting, dressing, and thinking like every other hippie. Real free-thinkers don't start out with an set ideology, and they certainly don't have a cult leader or product line that they worship.
They are more "West Side Story" than West Side. They are like the Dolce and Gabbana "Punk" t-shirt that costs 120.00 and says "Wash on gentle".
Was that a reference to a "Get Fuzzy" comic this month or was the comic referencing something else?
Fellow Thinkpad collector here. I own about six models including a 15-yo 600E and a 1-yo T400.
MagSafe power connectors
Whatever. Never had any problems with the connectors on any brand of laptop I've owned.
The last time I could have used a MagSafe power connector was when a younger sibling tripped on the cord of my T42 while it was powered on. The machine flew off the table and slammed onto the floor six feet away, the screen slammed parallel to the floor, but it was still running--the hard drive auto-protect engaged and it was all fine. It functions perfectly to this day, and said younger sibling now uses it for his main computer. So sure, MagSafe would have been nice, but the whole laptop was sturdy enough to make up for it.
I can also say that Thinkpad screen hinges keep their strength longer than any Dell I've ever seen, even after being thrown around every day.
The Wikipedia article on decibels states that it is fundamentally a unitless measure of comparison against some implied "reference level". That's why we can say an electrical amplifier has 10dB gain--the output is that much bigger than the input. According to the Wikipedia article on sound pressure levels, the 0dB reference point is the minimum threshold of human hearing. It also gives conversation as 40-60dB and the threshold of pain at 130dB. I agree that it is difficult to describe human perception of sound, not least because everyone is different, but I am starting to agree with you that 10dB could be a doubling of perceived volume, i.e., you could easily start a soft conversation at 40dB and "double" the volume to 50dB. I think we can agree that the descriptions of sound perception in general are of dubious objectivity.
This can be swept under the rug if the volume of freely given software is small.
It actually doesn't matter what the volume of free software is as long you have a revenue stream to support development. It's software; the number of copies made has nothing whatsoever to do with the effort required to create it. Even if everyone in the world downloaded Red Hat Linux right now, they would still have their customer base and still contribute to development at the same rate they do now. Why? Because their customers CHOOSE to pay them for their services, and do so on a regular basis regardless of development progress. They are not locked into a single vendor or coerced into untimely upgrades or anything--if they were going to put their money elsewhere they would have done so already.
Therefore, I rest my case. Paying for data, any data, is fundamentally flawed both in theory and in practice. Paying for support and service when you want it, from whom you want it, and using software that does not lock you into specific vendors is the only sustainable business model in the software industry. Microsoft et al need to pull their heads out of the sand and get with the picture.
.
P.S.
For some time OSS developers chose the time, thus dragging projects for years (while competing commercial jobs were done in months.)
And how many of those commercial jobs done in months were rush jobs that were released full of holes and bugs? Just saying, speed isn't always the best benchmark for comparison.
As a model helicopter pilot, I agree. Autorotation requires a high moment of inertia in the rotor assembly, and a prop 1/3 the width of a normal heli will have ~1/27 the inertia (1/3 the mass, 1/9 the moment). So you would get only ~7% of the autorotation lift as in a comparable single-rotor heli. (For the uninitiated, autorotation is a method of emergency landing where kinetic energy while falling is stored in the blades, then released as lift shortly before hitting the ground to stop the fall.)
Also, if you look closely at the transparent views in the video, you can see that each prop is actually powered by four smaller motors all driving a central gear, not unlike some miniature flying toys that use pager motors. So if one motor burned out the other three would still be able to drive the prop.
That said, you are quite right, those forward-swept wings will be impossible to glide with and there's basically no way to control orientation without the props. Maybe that's why they are talking about adding redundant prop assemblies and such--so that it will be safe enough for a human to actually pilot.
Okay, you are right about decibels not being linear, but that's because neither is human hearing. dB = 20*log(X) where X is the power in watts and the log is base 10.
If something is 6db louder then yes, it is putting out twice as much acoustic power (in watts), but it would have to be putting out 20 times as much power (twice the total decibels) for someone listening to say "gee, that's twice as loud". And since "quiet" in this context refers to human perception, not acoustic power output, they would still be correct to say a 12db source is "ten times as quiet" as a 120db source--but the use of the comparative word "quieter" does confuse things semantically.
But there will always be loads more government hackers to find them out, so they can be dragged into prison without trial and held indefinitely. So even if someone managed to figure out how to rebel in spite of the communist propaganda stream, they'd have to realize how little good it would do.
Bad China! BAD! Now give me more cheap, exploitable labor. AWWWE, how can we stay mad at you!
Wait, you won't give us an more lithium batteries until we apologize? Crap, and we have to comply with environmental regulations too. Ok you win, we're sorry we told everyone you were unfairly hacking us. Please don't hold it against us!
Slashdot Mirror
As always with a radical problem one needs a radical solution: to periodically take back power through whatever means necessary.
Hey wait a second, did you just advocate rebellion against the government? If you live in South Carolina, you better get your paperwork in order.
figures. took me a bit of googling to find the appropriate html tags. and no, i was not thinking about tits at all when i wrote that. i usually save that for after slashdot time.
begin
while (tits.size < "36c") find tits;
end
FTFY
You are also required to actually invent something, another requirement that many patent filers tend to ignore.
Do you have a nice culture of cancer cells so you can notice when they die? ;)
Sorry about that, so was mine, I didn't mean to come off quite so serious.
Cheers!
Since when is discrimination justified by statistics? I thought it was illegal to, say, arrest a black man on the street just because "most criminals are black" (I didn't say it was uncommon, just illegal.) We're doing the same thing by singling out Muslims--even famous ones--and treating them as terrorists every time they step aboard a plane. I hope you realize just how many core American values we have violated in the so-called "war on terror" and what morons that made us look like to everyone else. Including the terrorists.
So you admit that your opinion is worth even less than a flawed survey of actual users? Thanks for sharing.
I have seen OpenOffice gaining plenty of market share--frequently installed alongside MS Office on campus computers and such. It's true that non-techie people are still clueless, but the ranks of the techies are getting larger with every generation. So there's some anecdotal evidence to counteract your anecdotal evidence, and we're back to square one.
Oh, and don't forget those markets in which Linux has a large market share (like China) where OpenOffice is one of the only viable options.
Or it could be that the same people using OpenOffice at home/work are influenced by their experience and go on to use it at work/home. I know I do--I installed OpenOffice on my work computer because I use it at home and needed to be compatible. Now I use both of them at the same time for their different strengths. (MS Excel is still much better at rendering plots of huge data sets, but OpenOffice Calc can be more convenient to format data from different sources.)
And what are the reasons young Muslims turn to terrorist groups? Because they feel alienated and harassed by the rest of the world (who treat them like terrorists for no reason at all) and are looking for somewhere to find friends and feel like they belong. They don't even want to kill anybody until they have been brainwashed (and frequently drugged) by their new "friends".
When are we going to realize that draconian security measures, racial profiling, and dropping bombs on civilians are part of the PROBLEM instead of the SOLUTION?
Kudos to that. If somebody threw NASA $100 billion *and cut some red tape* then we could totally get back on the moon in a reasonable length of time. It's true that the blueprints for the Saturn V have disappeared, but we still know how to design rockets. And it's still hard.
Then I guess they better pirate a professionally designed rocket too.
Ah, well Age of Empires II and Total Annihilation at least have the ability to use the higher resolution. It is pretty awesome being able to see 4x as much of the map as in the old days...But I agree with you for something like Xwing the LCD could present a challenge.
Forgot to mention, I upgraded the graphics card so it would display properly on my 20" 1680x1200 flat panel. Not everything has to be vintage--I will never miss my 15" CRT.
I have a way to play them. It's a vintage-2000 1.2Ghz Athlon box with XP Pirate Edition. Upgraded the RAM to 2GB (kinda pointless) and the graphics card to a vintage-2005 model and it runs Age of Empires, Total Annihilation, Worms Armageddon, you name it. Stuck it on a KVM switch with my main box. Best part is it was all free.
I would argue that most Apple fanboys (the real hardcore ones anyway) only THINK they're "free-thinking." They're original and free-thinking in the same way that hippies thought they were original and free-thinking in the 60's--by acting, dressing, and thinking like every other hippie. Real free-thinkers don't start out with an set ideology, and they certainly don't have a cult leader or product line that they worship.
They are more "West Side Story" than West Side. They are like the Dolce and Gabbana "Punk" t-shirt that costs 120.00 and says "Wash on gentle".
Was that a reference to a "Get Fuzzy" comic this month or was the comic referencing something else?
Fellow Thinkpad collector here. I own about six models including a 15-yo 600E and a 1-yo T400.
MagSafe power connectors
Whatever. Never had any problems with the connectors on any brand of laptop I've owned.
The last time I could have used a MagSafe power connector was when a younger sibling tripped on the cord of my T42 while it was powered on. The machine flew off the table and slammed onto the floor six feet away, the screen slammed parallel to the floor, but it was still running--the hard drive auto-protect engaged and it was all fine. It functions perfectly to this day, and said younger sibling now uses it for his main computer. So sure, MagSafe would have been nice, but the whole laptop was sturdy enough to make up for it.
I can also say that Thinkpad screen hinges keep their strength longer than any Dell I've ever seen, even after being thrown around every day.
Only on secure data links to NASA HQ with very limited uptime. See this previous /. on ISS email access
The Wikipedia article on decibels states that it is fundamentally a unitless measure of comparison against some implied "reference level". That's why we can say an electrical amplifier has 10dB gain--the output is that much bigger than the input. According to the Wikipedia article on sound pressure levels, the 0dB reference point is the minimum threshold of human hearing. It also gives conversation as 40-60dB and the threshold of pain at 130dB. I agree that it is difficult to describe human perception of sound, not least because everyone is different, but I am starting to agree with you that 10dB could be a doubling of perceived volume, i.e., you could easily start a soft conversation at 40dB and "double" the volume to 50dB. I think we can agree that the descriptions of sound perception in general are of dubious objectivity.
This can be swept under the rug if the volume of freely given software is small.
It actually doesn't matter what the volume of free software is as long you have a revenue stream to support development. It's software; the number of copies made has nothing whatsoever to do with the effort required to create it. Even if everyone in the world downloaded Red Hat Linux right now, they would still have their customer base and still contribute to development at the same rate they do now. Why? Because their customers CHOOSE to pay them for their services, and do so on a regular basis regardless of development progress. They are not locked into a single vendor or coerced into untimely upgrades or anything--if they were going to put their money elsewhere they would have done so already.
Therefore, I rest my case. Paying for data, any data, is fundamentally flawed both in theory and in practice. Paying for support and service when you want it, from whom you want it, and using software that does not lock you into specific vendors is the only sustainable business model in the software industry. Microsoft et al need to pull their heads out of the sand and get with the picture.
.
P.S.
For some time OSS developers chose the time, thus dragging projects for years (while competing commercial jobs were done in months.)
And how many of those commercial jobs done in months were rush jobs that were released full of holes and bugs? Just saying, speed isn't always the best benchmark for comparison.
As a model helicopter pilot, I agree. Autorotation requires a high moment of inertia in the rotor assembly, and a prop 1/3 the width of a normal heli will have ~1/27 the inertia (1/3 the mass, 1/9 the moment). So you would get only ~7% of the autorotation lift as in a comparable single-rotor heli. (For the uninitiated, autorotation is a method of emergency landing where kinetic energy while falling is stored in the blades, then released as lift shortly before hitting the ground to stop the fall.)
Also, if you look closely at the transparent views in the video, you can see that each prop is actually powered by four smaller motors all driving a central gear, not unlike some miniature flying toys that use pager motors. So if one motor burned out the other three would still be able to drive the prop.
That said, you are quite right, those forward-swept wings will be impossible to glide with and there's basically no way to control orientation without the props. Maybe that's why they are talking about adding redundant prop assemblies and such--so that it will be safe enough for a human to actually pilot.
Okay, you are right about decibels not being linear, but that's because neither is human hearing. dB = 20*log(X) where X is the power in watts and the log is base 10.
If something is 6db louder then yes, it is putting out twice as much acoustic power (in watts), but it would have to be putting out 20 times as much power (twice the total decibels) for someone listening to say "gee, that's twice as loud". And since "quiet" in this context refers to human perception, not acoustic power output, they would still be correct to say a 12db source is "ten times as quiet" as a 120db source--but the use of the comparative word "quieter" does confuse things semantically.
...the German and French governments advise their citizens against using Windows altogether, not just Internet Explorer.
But there will always be loads more government hackers to find them out, so they can be dragged into prison without trial and held indefinitely. So even if someone managed to figure out how to rebel in spite of the communist propaganda stream, they'd have to realize how little good it would do.
Bad China! BAD! Now give me more cheap, exploitable labor. AWWWE, how can we stay mad at you!
Wait, you won't give us an more lithium batteries until we apologize? Crap, and we have to comply with environmental regulations too. Ok you win, we're sorry we told everyone you were unfairly hacking us. Please don't hold it against us!