For all those aurora watchers out there, you may wish to look tonight. Both of my favorit sources are saying it's a go for likely observations tonight. I like to see a Pmap index of 8 or higher with the red zone covering some or all of Minnesota. A 7 should technically do it for my area, but I've never seen anything durring a 7. The Ace (MAG_SWEPAM) red line needs to be in the negatives, the more so the better. I also like to see the solar wind speed (yellow) high, but it isn't tonight. I'll be rechecking conditions about 9:30pm (Central/US) to see if a run out of town to observe is a good idea.
What happens when you spill your drink on your shirt? Or worse, what happens if you drop it on your pants? And you thought it was embarasing before if you had a big wet spot on your pants, now its embarassing and painful. ZAP!
As long as the voltages are kept low it shouldn't be a problem. You wouldn't notice a few volts shorting across your skin. 9 volts is barely at the detectable level. Place your toung across the terminals of a 9 volt battery. Most circutry is 5 volts or 3.3 volts. I expect it to lower to about 1 to 1.5 volts in the future.
TobGun SSH is my tool of choice. UI is odd, but then I only use it for emergencies. My main complaint about it is you can't maintain a connection and use another palm app. Connections are dropped on program switchs.
Do any of the units take CompactFlash cards for image storage?
I like the idea of the electronic picture frames, but all of them I've seen use smart media cards. I use CompactFlash in both my digital cameras. Maby I'll have to investigate making one using an embedded PC controller and flat pannel display. For awhile I was displaying pictures on my backup server's moniter (tube style), but I shut it off awhile back to keep heat generation down. It can go back on this winter.
One thing I'll note is that most laptops use back light sources that only have 2000 hour life expectancies. I wonder what they are using in their display.
Don't line with plastic unless your books have so little water in them the water won't condense out when it gets cold. In other words if you didn't pack them in the dead of winter inj a very dry cold environment, forget using plastic boxes. The best bet is to box them in paper type boxes so that one can easily lift and move them about.
Box storrage. First, climate controlled storage locker. Second, try to get a second or higher story stoarage unit or one in the high side of the storage area. Keep the boxes off the floor. I reccomend used pallets or similar. Shelving will also work, but will reduce density. Leave air gaps between the boxes. This will allow the humidity to equalize faster. This is important as when those boxes of books that were packed in high tempeture / high humidity times experience cold weather some of the humidity will condense out. Allow that water vapor to leave the books and box. Over the top of the stacks of boxes drape a plastic tarp, but don't run it all the way to the floor. Again you want air movement.
Also put a list of what is in each box on the outside. Use clear packing tape to tape it to the side of the box. For the stored portion of my book collection I track the titles in my computer. Each box is labeled with a sheet on it's outside, plus I keep a sheet in a binder in the locker as well as the list in my computer.
Why are you trying to be a dick about it? What kind of guy is going to drive around in a ditsy little car with a 55hp engine in it? I'd get my ass creamed on the freeway onramp just trying to get up to 60mph with the thing (a lot of short merges around here). I absolutely cannot even consider a car with less than 200hp! It's just ruled out of my book immediately. Why can't zero emmission vehicles be both roomy (full size please! Some of us out here are not skinny college kids and need the space of a full size car) with plenty of engine in it to back it up?
I don't know about you, but I'd take a Hybrid-Electric HMMWV. Both designs even perform much better than their diesel only powered originals.
"The Hybrid Electric Powered High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) developed by PEI Electronics, Inc. (PEI), Power Management Division is making the cross-country endurance trip as part of extensive testing of this vehicle?s new advanced hybrid-electric power train.
The utility model being used for the cross-country tour is a modified version of the more powerful tactical HMMWV developed for the military, which is also powered by a Unique Mobility hybrid electric propulsion system. The utility model utilizes a small 1.9-liter diesel-fueled engine and Unique Mobility?s permanent magnet generator to produce 55 kilowatts of electrical power to maintain the long-term operation of the vehicle. Two 100 kilowatt (125 horsepower) permanent magnet motors developed by Unique Mobility, one for each axle, power the vehicle. The vehicle with its 3,000-pound payload accelerates from 0 m.p.h. to 50 m.p.h. in only 10 seconds - nearly one-half that of a standard HMMWV. An operating range of up to 375 miles is possible with a smaller than normal tank of diesel fuel. The vehicle?s increased fuel economy of up to 16 miles per gallon is twice that of the standard HMMWV."
If they can make a Hummer perform better on less fuel, I bet they can also do it to the average car.
At this point I'm seeing the potential to take a 550 Spyder kit car and make it Hybrid-Electic while still having a great performer.
I'd also find an open source library cataloging system quite handy. I too have a huge collection of books at home.
As a general layout I can see each library having a central server that proivides the DB storage and web server interface. Larger libraries would have multiple web interface servers around a central DB server. All the client computers then need is a web browser. This would greatly simplify installation at a library. In really small poor libraries the computer at the checkin/checkout desk could serve dual purposes as the server and librarians computer. If there isn't enough memory on the beast one could forgo the GUI on it and use Lynx as the interface.
If one designed the web pages right one could easily view them from either text or GUI based browsers. Personally I would specifically design the web interface to work smoothly on text mode browsers as then cheep terminals (already in place in many libraries) could be used for access.
For security one can setup the library on a private 10 net or similar. An outside internet interface could be provided through an internet link using a NATed firewall of some sort.
For getting data into the system... Beyond the standard entry screens. I was thinking of a clever Library of Congress Number, ISBN Number or Barcode Number based retreival system. When a library gets a book in it enteres the number or scans the Barcode Number off of the book. The system then queries some central server or other libraries to see if the information is already on file. If it is then the fields are populated from it. If not then the librarian can enter the data then and there. After entry it is stored locally and pushed up to the central server to speed others data entry. The central repository could be primed with data from the Library of Congress and publishers.
Searching of collections at other libraries could be added in the second phase of implementation. It could be done via direct connection from library to library (over the internet). A library would setup a list of prefered sources for inter library loan. These would be queried first, then less prefered sources would be queried next and soforth till the book is found. This way once a library is setup and has it's books entered it is also fully capible of being on the inter library loan system too. No need for central servers here. As a matter of fact the initial information gathering system for a new book could also use this same querying system to gather it's data. All that is needed is an internet link.
Code for controling printers to produce spine lables and possibly card catalog cards for new books.
Inventory bar codes. If each book is given an unique ID number then it is possible to handle the checkin/checkout via barcodes and scanners greatly speeding up the process. The barcode label would be printed at the same time as the spine label.
Customer ID numbers could be just another one of the unique ID numbers used for books. This way the same entry software would work for both.
Where, TIGER Line Data, but first look at Bruce's free software page. The map data is 2.6GBytes at 90% compression. Download the manual first, then and only if you are really going to do mapping software get the data. Better yet only get the data for one state and work with it first. I've been working with a small subset and using a 30GByte scratch space that feels a bit tight. My goal is to reduce it to CD-ROM size but still have a useable data set. Unfortunately I stalled out awhile back on it. I do have a mostly correct set of DB file table and appendix data entered. The errors are easy to spot, I just forgot where they were so the files aren't corrected. Once my life becomes stable again I plan on working on the size reduction again. Disk space was one of the factors that stalled me out.
"LIQUID AIR CAR COMPANY 1903 This interesting car, while not electric, is unusual since it shows that early vehicle manufacturers were trying every possible technology. This one is powered by liquified air (rather cold!)."
All the bubble of nitogen exhaust around a city would produce is a lowering of the oxygen percentage. Maby not the best for us or the internal combustion engines in the area. Seeing that a good liquid nitrogen plant would use it's oxygen dense exhaust air a combustion input to the power plant fueling it one likely wouldn't be able to use it for getting a bit higher O2 supply upwind of cities.
The process to manufacture liquid nitrogen in large quantities can be environmentally very friendly, even if fossil fuels are used to generate the electric power required. The exhaust gases produced by burning fossil fuels in a power plant contain not only carbon dioxide and gaseous pollutants, but also all the nitrogen from the air used in the combustion. By feeding these exhaust gases to the nitrogen liquefaction plant, the carbon dioxide and other undesirable products of combustion can be condensed and separated in the process of chilling the nitrogen, and thus no pollutants need be released to the atmosphere by the power plant. The sequestered carbon dioxide and pollutants could be injected into depleted gas and oil wells, deep mine shafts, deep ocean subduction zones, and other repositories from which they will not diffuse back into the atmosphere, or they could be chemically processed into useful or inert substances. Consequently, the implementation of a large fleet of liquid nitrogen vehicles could have much greater environmental benefits than just reducing urban air pollution as desired by current zero-emission vehicle mandates.
On a side note, flourescent lights can be really nice if you get those "full-spectrum" bulbs instead of the traditional, cheap, crappy ones.
100% agreed. In my apartment I have 6 tubes of CRI 93 rated flourescent bulbs lit. I have an additional 6 I can turn on for even better lighting. Warm white and Cool white just don't cut it. Natural light bulbs are the only way to go. The closer I can get it to that natural color ballance and daylight bright the happier and more relaxed I am. I don't like the glare you normally get outside. A soft overall even illumination works best. For working on a computer I find it works best if the lights are on either side at celing height rather than above, infront or behind at any height.
i think that we still we're very far from establishing a self-sufficient base outside the earth...
Personally I think we are still along ways from generating a self sufficient base here on earth. We don't live in harmony with our environment. We don't replace the resources we use up. Untill we fully replace the resources we use up we are only living on stored up resources. We have a very long ways to go. I really support the idea of going to the Moon or Mars. I feel it will help up learn how to better take care of earth. For colonies to really work on either we will need to learn how to efficiently use and recycle the recources we use.
There is superficial evidence with the Piri Reis map (STFW - don't remember all the details exactly). Basically this map was allegedly drawn in the 14th century. The claim is that it used earlier works to depict Antartica as an ice free landmass. There's a lot of debate about it but if it is a valid document, it shows the Antartic continent pretty accurately though nobody at that time had been there. So some humans at some time have seen a pole ice free (possibly, maybe, who knows....)
I'd tend to doubt that anybody in the past 10,000 years has seen Antartica free of ice. The amount of water locked up in the antaric ice cap is so much that it would have left a visible impact easily detectable today. There are land features that show at times the Antartic continent has been free of ice, but those features are much older than anything in recorded history.
I'd run across the Digital Wallet yesterday and was goin to mention it. I haven't even seen a unit but it sounds like it would server as a temporary image store. Get a couple of huge PCMCIA cards so you don't have to swap them often, then dump them to a Digital Wallet or a Laptop PC.
I do alot of digital photography. (Kodak DC210+) I've setup a cheep 486 laptop so when you plug in a compactflash card it copies all the pictures off of it and deletes them from the card after a sucessfull copy. It then shuts down. All I have to do is stick the compact flash card in the adapter card, stick it into the laptop then boot the laptop. All the rest is automatic. I even have it beep when it's done so I know when it's safe to remove the compact flash card.
As for reliability of cards. ??? What's up? Them things are tough. I've stepped on them and not dammaged them. One rule of thumb, never force them into the socket. If it resists then flip and try again. You don't want to put them in backwards, seriously suboptimal.
For off camera storage you will need to look at the profesional SLR models. I know a couple of them are designed to dump over a SCSI bus to a HD array. Mainly designed for studio work.
Another thing to look at is camera capture software. I know some camers are able to be controled over their serial link. This includes taking a shot then immediatly downloading it. I don't know how prevalent this feature is, but if you had a USB hooked up camera you could easily do this and download 4M shots every couple seconds.
The PC area, however, has always had a kind of fly-by-wire approach. As long as you get some really cool new stuff out of the deal, Carmack explained, people are willing to accept the necessary patches and tweaking that are inherent in PCs. "The PC market is not about trying to make things perfect," he said, "but about trying to make things quickly and fast and trying new things." Consoles are often touted as the latest, greatest thing that's going to wipe away PCs, but for every great advancement in consoles, you have another half-step advancement in PC technology that will always keep PCs and consoles roughly equally powerful in terms of system specs.
It's that half step ahead that will keep PCs out there as gaming hardware. They will always have the advantage of being able to try out new hardware ideas sooner than the "standard" consoles will. They will also be able to support many alternate hardware options that the consoles can't.
Cool thought, jjr. If the thief was a pro he would soon learn of people installing Lojack in computers. Chopping a computer is simple to chopping a car, and he or she would find the device and dispose of it quickly..unless it was integrated into another componet like the powersource.
Integrate a wireless networking interface and GPS directly on the motherboard along with their antennas. Integrate bootup password security into the control IC for the wireless networking/GPS. If it fails password check or receives a packet with it's security code, have it relay it's position and or other actions.
As an interesting side note, the most exspensive part of the laptop is the screen and this does nothing to prevent chopping for screens and HDs. It however would shut down theft for resale of the hole unit.
But, if someone stole a computer, wouldn't the first thing they did be to wipe the hard drive so it couldn't be traced?
You'd be surprised at how often stollen computers don't have their HDs wiped. Sold as is with all files and data intact is the general rule. You have to understand, wiping the HD will likely make the unit unuseable as the fence dosen't have the OS disks needed to reload it.
The ability to send an email to a computer, have it erase its hard drive, send out additional emails so you know it was successful, and then stop themachine from working.
Oh, wait! We already have that:-)
Its called M$ Outlook.
I understand Pitr is working on a linux port this week:-)
I'm having a hard time seeing how DeCSS is theft. It's true it can be used to perpetrate theft, but that dosen't make it theft. It's only a tool. Be carefull with your leaps of logic. They may be twisted around and used against you.
Faster CPUs are of little use to me. After a few tests I've determined that memory bandwidth alown is what is holding my image processing back. Yeh raw processor speed helps, but when you can't get the data to it fast enough then adding more is useless. I've gone to using prefetching and wavefront optimizations to get my processing speed up to a reasonable level. Even then a 2x speedup in main memory throughput will double my video frame rate.
Well, I could use processors faster than 1 Ghz, but what I really need is a much faster processor to memory interface. I'm processing video and am bumping up against the raw memory bus IO speed. To speed up my code I'm having to go to wavefront techniques else I can't get the job done in time. That is I'm folding the multiple processing passes into one pass with special sequencing to keep the data processing correct. Pass 1 is run till it's generated enough data that pass 2 can be run. Pass 2 runs till it dosen't have enough input data. Pass 1 is run for another row of data, and then pass 2 runs for another row. Pass 3 and 4 are each started and interleaved into the processing as they each have enough data to work on. By doing this the data for passes 2 through 4 are in the cache rather than needing to be fetched from memory. Wavefront processing techniques were developed when main memory wasn't large enough to hold the hole data set. I'm using them to do all the stages of processing I need before the block of memory gets pushed out of the L1 and L2 caches. Even doing this I only see a 4x speedup. I'm actually still waiting on main memory to cough up the data for a much longer time than I'm spending processing the data. Before you tell me to get a processor with a larger L1/L2 cache, my working set is just over 36Mbytes per frame set.
That case was in a different appeals court jurisdiction. No he dosen't have to follow it. If it was at the national level or in the same appeals court jursidiction the judge would have to follow it.
For those wondering about this, it is possible to have wildly differing prescidents between differing court jurisdictions. The prescidents only become national in scope when the supreme court makes a decision.
Slashdot Mirror
Conditions are still good today. I just wish these clouds overhead would go away. A large number of people around the globe have seen this latest display.
Yes, but can it deliver a cost per seat advantage over going with standard PCs? If it can't it will die quickly.
For all those aurora watchers out there, you may wish to look tonight. Both of my favorit sources are saying it's a go for likely observations tonight. I like to see a Pmap index of 8 or higher with the red zone covering some or all of Minnesota. A 7 should technically do it for my area, but I've never seen anything durring a 7. The Ace (MAG_SWEPAM) red line needs to be in the negatives, the more so the better. I also like to see the solar wind speed (yellow) high, but it isn't tonight. I'll be rechecking conditions about 9:30pm (Central/US) to see if a run out of town to observe is a good idea.
As long as the voltages are kept low it shouldn't be a problem. You wouldn't notice a few volts shorting across your skin. 9 volts is barely at the detectable level. Place your toung across the terminals of a 9 volt battery. Most circutry is 5 volts or 3.3 volts. I expect it to lower to about 1 to 1.5 volts in the future.
TobGun SSH is my tool of choice. UI is odd, but then I only use it for emergencies. My main complaint about it is you can't maintain a connection and use another palm app. Connections are dropped on program switchs.
Do any of the units take CompactFlash cards for image storage?
I like the idea of the electronic picture frames, but all of them I've seen use smart media cards. I use CompactFlash in both my digital cameras. Maby I'll have to investigate making one using an embedded PC controller and flat pannel display. For awhile I was displaying pictures on my backup server's moniter (tube style), but I shut it off awhile back to keep heat generation down. It can go back on this winter.
One thing I'll note is that most laptops use back light sources that only have 2000 hour life expectancies. I wonder what they are using in their display.
Don't line with plastic unless your books have so little water in them the water won't condense out when it gets cold. In other words if you didn't pack them in the dead of winter inj a very dry cold environment, forget using plastic boxes. The best bet is to box them in paper type boxes so that one can easily lift and move them about.
Box storrage. First, climate controlled storage locker. Second, try to get a second or higher story stoarage unit or one in the high side of the storage area. Keep the boxes off the floor. I reccomend used pallets or similar. Shelving will also work, but will reduce density. Leave air gaps between the boxes. This will allow the humidity to equalize faster. This is important as when those boxes of books that were packed in high tempeture / high humidity times experience cold weather some of the humidity will condense out. Allow that water vapor to leave the books and box. Over the top of the stacks of boxes drape a plastic tarp, but don't run it all the way to the floor. Again you want air movement.
Also put a list of what is in each box on the outside. Use clear packing tape to tape it to the side of the box. For the stored portion of my book collection I track the titles in my computer. Each box is labeled with a sheet on it's outside, plus I keep a sheet in a binder in the locker as well as the list in my computer.
I don't know about you, but I'd take a Hybrid-Electric HMMWV. Both designs even perform much better than their diesel only powered originals.
"The Hybrid Electric Powered High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) developed by PEI Electronics, Inc. (PEI), Power Management Division is making the cross-country endurance trip as part of extensive testing of this vehicle?s new advanced hybrid-electric power train.
The utility model being used for the cross-country tour is a modified version of the more powerful tactical HMMWV developed for the military, which is also powered by a Unique Mobility hybrid electric propulsion system. The utility model utilizes a small 1.9-liter diesel-fueled engine and Unique Mobility?s permanent magnet generator to produce 55 kilowatts of electrical power to maintain the long-term operation of the vehicle. Two 100 kilowatt (125 horsepower) permanent magnet motors developed by Unique Mobility, one for each axle, power the vehicle. The vehicle with its 3,000-pound payload accelerates from 0 m.p.h. to 50 m.p.h. in only 10 seconds - nearly one-half that of a standard HMMWV. An operating range of up to 375 miles is possible with a smaller than normal tank of diesel fuel. The vehicle?s increased fuel economy of up to 16 miles per gallon is twice that of the standard HMMWV."
If they can make a Hummer perform better on less fuel, I bet they can also do it to the average car.
At this point I'm seeing the potential to take a 550 Spyder kit car and make it Hybrid-Electic while still having a great performer.
I'd also find an open source library cataloging system quite handy. I too have a huge collection of books at home.
As a general layout I can see each library having a central server that proivides the DB storage and web server interface. Larger libraries would have multiple web interface servers around a central DB server. All the client computers then need is a web browser. This would greatly simplify installation at a library. In really small poor libraries the computer at the checkin/checkout desk could serve dual purposes as the server and librarians computer. If there isn't enough memory on the beast one could forgo the GUI on it and use Lynx as the interface.
If one designed the web pages right one could easily view them from either text or GUI based browsers. Personally I would specifically design the web interface to work smoothly on text mode browsers as then cheep terminals (already in place in many libraries) could be used for access.
For security one can setup the library on a private 10 net or similar. An outside internet interface could be provided through an internet link using a NATed firewall of some sort.
For getting data into the system... Beyond the standard entry screens. I was thinking of a clever Library of Congress Number, ISBN Number or Barcode Number based retreival system. When a library gets a book in it enteres the number or scans the Barcode Number off of the book. The system then queries some central server or other libraries to see if the information is already on file. If it is then the fields are populated from it. If not then the librarian can enter the data then and there. After entry it is stored locally and pushed up to the central server to speed others data entry. The central repository could be primed with data from the Library of Congress and publishers.
Searching of collections at other libraries could be added in the second phase of implementation. It could be done via direct connection from library to library (over the internet). A library would setup a list of prefered sources for inter library loan. These would be queried first, then less prefered sources would be queried next and soforth till the book is found. This way once a library is setup and has it's books entered it is also fully capible of being on the inter library loan system too. No need for central servers here. As a matter of fact the initial information gathering system for a new book could also use this same querying system to gather it's data. All that is needed is an internet link.
Code for controling printers to produce spine lables and possibly card catalog cards for new books.
Inventory bar codes. If each book is given an unique ID number then it is possible to handle the checkin/checkout via barcodes and scanners greatly speeding up the process. The barcode label would be printed at the same time as the spine label. Customer ID numbers could be just another one of the unique ID numbers used for books. This way the same entry software would work for both.
Overdue book lists by customer and book.
I think I've rattled on long enough.
Where, TIGER Line Data, but first look at Bruce's free software page. The map data is 2.6GBytes at 90% compression. Download the manual first, then and only if you are really going to do mapping software get the data. Better yet only get the data for one state and work with it first. I've been working with a small subset and using a 30GByte scratch space that feels a bit tight. My goal is to reduce it to CD-ROM size but still have a useable data set. Unfortunately I stalled out awhile back on it. I do have a mostly correct set of DB file table and appendix data entered. The errors are easy to spot, I just forgot where they were so the files aren't corrected. Once my life becomes stable again I plan on working on the size reduction again. Disk space was one of the factors that stalled me out.
While researching electric cars on the web I came across this interesting refference on a history of electric vehicles at the Electric Car Owners Club site.
"LIQUID AIR CAR COMPANY 1903 This interesting car, while not electric, is unusual since it shows that early vehicle manufacturers were trying every possible technology. This one is powered by liquified air (rather cold!)."
All the bubble of nitogen exhaust around a city would produce is a lowering of the oxygen percentage. Maby not the best for us or the internal combustion engines in the area. Seeing that a good liquid nitrogen plant would use it's oxygen dense exhaust air a combustion input to the power plant fueling it one likely wouldn't be able to use it for getting a bit higher O2 supply upwind of cities.
From the LN 2000 car page.
The process to manufacture liquid nitrogen in large quantities can be environmentally very friendly, even if fossil fuels are used to generate the electric power required. The exhaust gases produced by burning fossil fuels in a power plant contain not only carbon dioxide and gaseous pollutants, but also all the nitrogen from the air used in the combustion. By feeding these exhaust gases to the nitrogen liquefaction plant, the carbon dioxide and other undesirable products of combustion can be condensed and separated in the process of chilling the nitrogen, and thus no pollutants need be released to the atmosphere by the power plant. The sequestered carbon dioxide and pollutants could be injected into depleted gas and oil wells, deep mine shafts, deep ocean subduction zones, and other repositories from which they will not diffuse back into the atmosphere, or they could be chemically processed into useful or inert substances. Consequently, the implementation of a large fleet of liquid nitrogen vehicles could have much greater environmental benefits than just reducing urban air pollution as desired by current zero-emission vehicle mandates.
When can we start?
100% agreed. In my apartment I have 6 tubes of CRI 93 rated flourescent bulbs lit. I have an additional 6 I can turn on for even better lighting. Warm white and Cool white just don't cut it. Natural light bulbs are the only way to go. The closer I can get it to that natural color ballance and daylight bright the happier and more relaxed I am. I don't like the glare you normally get outside. A soft overall even illumination works best. For working on a computer I find it works best if the lights are on either side at celing height rather than above, infront or behind at any height.
Personally I think we are still along ways from generating a self sufficient base here on earth. We don't live in harmony with our environment. We don't replace the resources we use up. Untill we fully replace the resources we use up we are only living on stored up resources. We have a very long ways to go. I really support the idea of going to the Moon or Mars. I feel it will help up learn how to better take care of earth. For colonies to really work on either we will need to learn how to efficiently use and recycle the recources we use.
I'd tend to doubt that anybody in the past 10,000 years has seen Antartica free of ice. The amount of water locked up in the antaric ice cap is so much that it would have left a visible impact easily detectable today. There are land features that show at times the Antartic continent has been free of ice, but those features are much older than anything in recorded history.
I'd run across the Digital Wallet yesterday and was goin to mention it. I haven't even seen a unit but it sounds like it would server as a temporary image store. Get a couple of huge PCMCIA cards so you don't have to swap them often, then dump them to a Digital Wallet or a Laptop PC.
I do alot of digital photography. (Kodak DC210+) I've setup a cheep 486 laptop so when you plug in a compactflash card it copies all the pictures off of it and deletes them from the card after a sucessfull copy. It then shuts down. All I have to do is stick the compact flash card in the adapter card, stick it into the laptop then boot the laptop. All the rest is automatic. I even have it beep when it's done so I know when it's safe to remove the compact flash card.
As for reliability of cards. ??? What's up? Them things are tough. I've stepped on them and not dammaged them. One rule of thumb, never force them into the socket. If it resists then flip and try again. You don't want to put them in backwards, seriously suboptimal.
For off camera storage you will need to look at the profesional SLR models. I know a couple of them are designed to dump over a SCSI bus to a HD array. Mainly designed for studio work.
Another thing to look at is camera capture software. I know some camers are able to be controled over their serial link. This includes taking a shot then immediatly downloading it. I don't know how prevalent this feature is, but if you had a USB hooked up camera you could easily do this and download 4M shots every couple seconds.
It's that half step ahead that will keep PCs out there as gaming hardware. They will always have the advantage of being able to try out new hardware ideas sooner than the "standard" consoles will. They will also be able to support many alternate hardware options that the consoles can't.
Integrate a wireless networking interface and GPS directly on the motherboard along with their antennas. Integrate bootup password security into the control IC for the wireless networking/GPS. If it fails password check or receives a packet with it's security code, have it relay it's position and or other actions.
As an interesting side note, the most exspensive part of the laptop is the screen and this does nothing to prevent chopping for screens and HDs. It however would shut down theft for resale of the hole unit.
You'd be surprised at how often stollen computers don't have their HDs wiped. Sold as is with all files and data intact is the general rule. You have to understand, wiping the HD will likely make the unit unuseable as the fence dosen't have the OS disks needed to reload it.
Oh, wait! We already have that :-)
Its called M$ Outlook.
I understand Pitr is working on a linux port this week :-)
Actually he finished and released it. Poor trusting movie watchers. :-}
I'm having a hard time seeing how DeCSS is theft. It's true it can be used to perpetrate theft, but that dosen't make it theft. It's only a tool. Be carefull with your leaps of logic. They may be twisted around and used against you.
Faster CPUs are of little use to me. After a few tests I've determined that memory bandwidth alown is what is holding my image processing back. Yeh raw processor speed helps, but when you can't get the data to it fast enough then adding more is useless. I've gone to using prefetching and wavefront optimizations to get my processing speed up to a reasonable level. Even then a 2x speedup in main memory throughput will double my video frame rate.
Well, I could use processors faster than 1 Ghz, but what I really need is a much faster processor to memory interface. I'm processing video and am bumping up against the raw memory bus IO speed. To speed up my code I'm having to go to wavefront techniques else I can't get the job done in time. That is I'm folding the multiple processing passes into one pass with special sequencing to keep the data processing correct. Pass 1 is run till it's generated enough data that pass 2 can be run. Pass 2 runs till it dosen't have enough input data. Pass 1 is run for another row of data, and then pass 2 runs for another row. Pass 3 and 4 are each started and interleaved into the processing as they each have enough data to work on. By doing this the data for passes 2 through 4 are in the cache rather than needing to be fetched from memory. Wavefront processing techniques were developed when main memory wasn't large enough to hold the hole data set. I'm using them to do all the stages of processing I need before the block of memory gets pushed out of the L1 and L2 caches. Even doing this I only see a 4x speedup. I'm actually still waiting on main memory to cough up the data for a much longer time than I'm spending processing the data. Before you tell me to get a processor with a larger L1/L2 cache, my working set is just over 36Mbytes per frame set.
That case was in a different appeals court jurisdiction. No he dosen't have to follow it. If it was at the national level or in the same appeals court jursidiction the judge would have to follow it.
For those wondering about this, it is possible to have wildly differing prescidents between differing court jurisdictions. The prescidents only become national in scope when the supreme court makes a decision.