I saturated my cable modem pretty heavily during my 3-month emusic.com binge. I pulled about 35GB through, and ended up keeping about 10. Go for bulk. Filter later.:)
Who honestly expects robot vision systems and "computers with the power of the brain" to be less expensive than your average fast-food employee? Even by 2040?
To add to the raw cost of the machines themselves, your remaining employees would all have to be of the much more expensive "robot repairman" variety.
Not saying it couldn't happen-- it just seems like the good bet is against it.
You're absolutely right, and it's something I should have made clearer in my first post. I agree with you completely in that the networks should be publicly maintained, rather than privately owned. I'm also pragmatic enough to realize that things are entrenched enough that we're not getting out of this easily. We at least had a way for competition to build itself in prior to their "worst of all worlds" decision, but now all we have is a mess.
I think you missed the gist of the ruling from the FCC in the last big mess over DSL. It is an ugly, ugly mess. They did NOT back away from regulation as you suggest-- the ruling *requires* the telephone companies to share their networks for local phone service. However, they did end the requirement for linesharing of the "last mile" for alternative DSL companies.
If you had to regulate one or the other, which would you have picked? The one that requires the telcos to allow competitors to use their entire network to sell phone service? Or the one that allows companies with their own nationwide backbone infrastructure (like Covad) to use JUST the last-mile portion of the lines?
I REALLY don't understand why they picked what they did. It's not pro-consolidation OR anti-regulation. It's the worst possible combination of choices. It's no wonder there is widespread objection. Although most of the "nerd news" reporting painted the decision as one that was bad for nerds (no more DSL competition)-- mainstream press widely reported it as a terrible loss for the telcos (because they have to basically do all the infrastructure for their POTS competitors). Now, if a decision screws everybody (dsl users, dsl competitors, AND the telcos)-- it can't possibly be doing any of us any good. What the hell was the FCC thinking?
I think on the cover of my video card box there is a golden bull-man with a golden ring in its nose and horns on its face. And the whole thing is on fire. And there's blue sparks and lightning. And to top it all off, the card is clearly labelled "Golden Sample."
I just can't play an FPS with a controller to save my life. Give me a keyboard and mouse any day. That said-- this game was originally demo'd back in 1998 for the Mac, and it would have been cooler than anything back then. By the time it was bought by MS and retooled for the XBox, it was an average FPS at best, on a console limited to TV resolutions, with no option to play with anything but a controller.
Halo for the PC is apparently the same game, with a few extra multiplayer maps, and the ability to turn the resolution up-- AND it's a good two years older than its already-late XBox counterpart.
Call me crazy, but despite how great this game looked in 1998, it's just not all that great now, five years later. I'll buy it when it's in the $5 bin, but until then, I'll just have to console myself with the amazing Half-Life 2.
Because the fun in the Sims was being a control freak, and doing whatever you wanted with your Sims. In the online game, you can't really do that-- everybody else does what they want. And you have to work (do really boring repetitive tasks) to get money.
Sims: Make fake people do what you want.
Sims Online: The worst repetitive parts of an RPG, minus the plotline, plus all the fun of lamers yelling at eachother in a poorly-designed chatroom with no scrollback. And no control over anybody else, since they're all real too.
In short, it simply can't be the same game online. You have to wonder why nobody pointed this out.
I'm in indy, too. I rode my bike the 11 miles (35 minutes) to work for a number of years, before my company moved to the other end of town. The solution? I let my lease run out, and I'm moving closer so I can start riding my bike to work again.
I'll agree that PT in indy is nearly useless-- it just doesn't pick up much in the outlying residential areas. Still, you ought to be able to find a house or apartment close enough to your job to let you ride your bike. Don't let "I live too far away" be an excuse, when moving fixes that nicely.
Of course, if you've got kids in school, that adds a whole new dimension, and moving no longer makes sense. Not to mention that riding your bike in indy is something the drivers don't expect-- you have to ride like you expect to be hit. But don't let anybody tell you it can't be done!
I'm posting late, so this probably won't make it above all the noise.
Anyway-- we're not talking about completely ditching OTA TV. The guy just points out that there are 60+ analog channels. You get how many, 6? 10? 15? Why not use a block of those unused channels for something useful? Each channel is 6MHz of bandwidth. That's a lot of frequency just sitting idle.
Nobody seems to have actually heard the interview. I caught it-- the guy is not advocating shutting down all broadcast TV. He simply points out that we have 60+ analog TV broadcast channels, and that we're only using a handful. (honestly, how many channels do you get?)
We could take 30 of those channels and use them for whatever crazy wireless things you can imagine. The rest would leave us with enough room for all the existing channels as well as some room for expansion.
Heck, even using ONE of the unused channels (these are big chunks of bandwidth) for something is better than letting them all sit there unused.
So don't worry-- your free OTA TV isn't going to disappear. But maybe we'll have something useful to do with the huge chunks of bandwidth we're currently just wasting.
I heard the interview on NPR the other day-- the guy wasn't talking about getting rid of all TV spectrum. The simple fact is that there are 60-odd TV channels reserved, but only a handful are being used even in the largest markets.
We can keep all the channels we've got, reserve some for future growth, and STILL reclaim 30 TV channels worth of bandwidth to use for anything from wireless internet to community radio, or whatever else you can think of.
Wouldn't it be better to do SOMETHING with all that bandwidth (and it *is* a ton) than just let dozens of TV channel-sized chunks of our airwaves sit unused? The guy's point is that we're just not using much of it, and that people who want more channels aren't clamoring for more OTA channels, they're getting cable. So why not use the unused chunk for something else?
I wouldn't expect all of the free over-the-air TV broadcasts to disappear. We're not talking about freeing up ALL of these airwaves-- but honestly, how many OTA TV channels do you receive? I get maybe 15 or so, including all of the religious channels and all of the ones that come in so faintly it's just barely more than static. (I'm in a large city, and have a 6' Helical antenna)
There are, however, a VERY LARGE number of unused-but-reserved TV broadcast channels carving up a huge chunk of our airwaves. Think about how far up your UHF/VHF OTA tuner will go. There are 60 or so channels, and I doubt that even half of them are being used in any given market.
So why not take 10 or 15 of these unused channels (this is a lot of bandwidth) and do *something* with them?
Is a handy, useful device if you need mobile connectivity. I've liked using mine-- the IM client is a very usable adless implementation of AIM. No group chats, but that's no big deal. The web browser is fairly capable, helped heavily by a recompressing/reformatting proxy on the server-side.
Where it loses out is as a PIM-- the calendar has a very limited number of entries, and sync for the calendar and address book is only one-way. You can import your records from Outlook, but there's no getting them back out. Sync was expected Q1 this year, but hasn't materialized yet, so I wouldn't bank on that feature.
The Java SDK is cool, but so far there is no way for developers to actually put code on users' devices. So, although lots of great apps have been written, they can only run in the emulator.
And finally, while I really like the way the device was designed as a whole, whoever is assembling the device is not doing them justice. I am on my 4th unit in 6 months. Some folks at hiptop.com are on their 8th unit. For a device that hasn't even been available for a year! I'm hoping that they have fixed their issues with the release of the color unit, but I would wait a few months before purchasing to see how they're holding up.
I like the unlimited data plan, and I'll be keeping mine. It's great as a wireless IM client and to check webpages (but their proxy doesn't like games.slashdot.org), just don't expect it to be everything they list in their features list. It's like a video game-- it got released before it was ready, and it's going to be a while before all the patches get put in place. And don't expect it to last more than 2 or 3 months. Fortunately, they've been good about shipping replacements.
I'm looking for some new adventure games, too. I do remember reading somewhere that sequels to Full Throttle and Sam & Max are in the works. Sorry I can't remember all the details-- I was too busy being distracted by pretty pictures of Half-Life 2: The Game That May Redeem the FPS.
What the heck causes that? That is the single most screwed-up glitch I get from windows. It's bizarre-- instead of just failing, the code actually exhibits the rather complex random behavior of making icons for some programs look like icons for other programs. Utterly baffling.
well, the rover does have a little laser-tag emitter on it for shooting other rovers. If you're handy with a soldering iron, pull the IR LED and stick an optocoupler or a relay on the leads, and you can hook that to whatever cat-torturing device you want! Small nerf gun? 80mm case fan? Tape recording of dog barking?
Plenty of great ideas to experiment with, but the obvious thing to replace the IR LED with is a laser pointer.
Of course, if you are truly ambitious in your cat-chasing expectations, you need to go homebuilt. I wonder if anybody makes an R/C controller that connects to a serial or USB port like the plantraco one does?
For cat-chasing from your desk at work, I suggest getting one of the little plantraco rovers, the internet control kit, and the wireless camera. Use webcam software and a cheap winTV vid cap card to stream video of what the rover "sees," and use the internet-connected controller to drive it around. They even have a demo of it where you can drive a rover at there office from your web browser here.
BT is ad- and spyware-free. It doesn't download any extras. It's simple and fast to set up. (run the installer, click the link) For popular stuff like this, it gives you massive DL speeds. All it asks in return is that while you are downloading, it can use your upload bandwidth to serve ONLY the file you are DL'ing to other users. Very effective use of bandwidth. User A pulls from server, user B pulls from A, user C pulls from B, etc...
If you're feeling kind, leave the download window up for a bit after you're done. It will continue to help other people get the file quicker. If not, close it, and it's COMPLETELY GONE. None of that Kontiki crap.
Actually, I seem to recall that the way that hypotheses operate is by being proven wrong. Empirical evidence can stack up for years in favor of a hypothesis, but a single test that shows it doesn't work under one of the given conditions disproves it.
I will refer you to this site, which has a handy breakdown of the scientific method for you. Note in particular the bit that says "Experiments are useful in disproving hypotheses. Hypotheses cannot be proved."
The God argument is a problem for scientists *precisely* because it's not disprovable. (Note that that does not mean it's true by default, it means that there is no way to test whether or not it is true.)
I would highly recommend an XP2500+ rather than the XP2000+. $125 gets you a Barton core with twice the cache, and a 333MHz FSB rather than the 266 the 2000+ has. It's the only Barton that's not up at the high-price end of the AMD scale.
Of course, that's the route I'd take. I'm a bit hesitant to overclock to the degree the parent poster has.
The *ware books are all back in print. As are many of his other books. He seems to have been "rediscovered," as I have been able to find new paperback copies of many of his other great books-- The Hacker and the Ants, Spacetime Donuts, Gnarl!, White Light, Spaceland, Saucer Wisdom and so forth. At chain bookstores, no less. Amazon has quite a few in stock.
I can't recommend him enough. Buy them all while you can!!
Slashdot Mirror
I saturated my cable modem pretty heavily during my 3-month emusic.com binge. I pulled about 35GB through, and ended up keeping about 10. Go for bulk. Filter later. :)
Who honestly expects robot vision systems and "computers with the power of the brain" to be less expensive than your average fast-food employee? Even by 2040?
To add to the raw cost of the machines themselves, your remaining employees would all have to be of the much more expensive "robot repairman" variety.
Not saying it couldn't happen-- it just seems like the good bet is against it.
You're absolutely right, and it's something I should have made clearer in my first post. I agree with you completely in that the networks should be publicly maintained, rather than privately owned. I'm also pragmatic enough to realize that things are entrenched enough that we're not getting out of this easily. We at least had a way for competition to build itself in prior to their "worst of all worlds" decision, but now all we have is a mess.
I think you missed the gist of the ruling from the FCC in the last big mess over DSL. It is an ugly, ugly mess. They did NOT back away from regulation as you suggest-- the ruling *requires* the telephone companies to share their networks for local phone service. However, they did end the requirement for linesharing of the "last mile" for alternative DSL companies.
If you had to regulate one or the other, which would you have picked? The one that requires the telcos to allow competitors to use their entire network to sell phone service? Or the one that allows companies with their own nationwide backbone infrastructure (like Covad) to use JUST the last-mile portion of the lines?
I REALLY don't understand why they picked what they did. It's not pro-consolidation OR anti-regulation. It's the worst possible combination of choices. It's no wonder there is widespread objection. Although most of the "nerd news" reporting painted the decision as one that was bad for nerds (no more DSL competition)-- mainstream press widely reported it as a terrible loss for the telcos (because they have to basically do all the infrastructure for their POTS competitors). Now, if a decision screws everybody (dsl users, dsl competitors, AND the telcos)-- it can't possibly be doing any of us any good. What the hell was the FCC thinking?
I think on the cover of my video card box there is a golden bull-man with a golden ring in its nose and horns on its face. And the whole thing is on fire. And there's blue sparks and lightning. And to top it all off, the card is clearly labelled "Golden Sample."
here is a bad shot of the box.
We need to compare mobo/vid card boxes as well as the hilariously bad game boxes.
I just can't play an FPS with a controller to save my life. Give me a keyboard and mouse any day. That said-- this game was originally demo'd back in 1998 for the Mac, and it would have been cooler than anything back then. By the time it was bought by MS and retooled for the XBox, it was an average FPS at best, on a console limited to TV resolutions, with no option to play with anything but a controller.
Halo for the PC is apparently the same game, with a few extra multiplayer maps, and the ability to turn the resolution up-- AND it's a good two years older than its already-late XBox counterpart.
Call me crazy, but despite how great this game looked in 1998, it's just not all that great now, five years later. I'll buy it when it's in the $5 bin, but until then, I'll just have to console myself with the amazing Half-Life 2.
That is correct, sir.
Unless you are one of the lucky blessed developers.
There is also still no two-way sync.
Because the fun in the Sims was being a control freak, and doing whatever you wanted with your Sims. In the online game, you can't really do that-- everybody else does what they want. And you have to work (do really boring repetitive tasks) to get money.
Sims: Make fake people do what you want.
Sims Online: The worst repetitive parts of an RPG, minus the plotline, plus all the fun of lamers yelling at eachother in a poorly-designed chatroom with no scrollback. And no control over anybody else, since they're all real too.
In short, it simply can't be the same game online.
You have to wonder why nobody pointed this out.
Can be purchased from WalMart (and probably other places, but it's the first that came up on google) right here:
u ct _id=1953349&cat=90543&type=22&dept=2636&path=0%3A2 636%3A55359%3A77171%3A90543
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?prod
I loved that game on the Amiga. Enjoy!
I would LOVE to get that game for the GBA. Where did you hear this? Do you have links?
I'm in indy, too. I rode my bike the 11 miles (35 minutes) to work for a number of years, before my company moved to the other end of town. The solution? I let my lease run out, and I'm moving closer so I can start riding my bike to work again.
I'll agree that PT in indy is nearly useless-- it just doesn't pick up much in the outlying residential areas. Still, you ought to be able to find a house or apartment close enough to your job to let you ride your bike. Don't let "I live too far away" be an excuse, when moving fixes that nicely.
Of course, if you've got kids in school, that adds a whole new dimension, and moving no longer makes sense. Not to mention that riding your bike in indy is something the drivers don't expect-- you have to ride like you expect to be hit. But don't let anybody tell you it can't be done!
I'm posting late, so this probably won't make it above all the noise.
Anyway-- we're not talking about completely ditching OTA TV. The guy just points out that there are 60+ analog channels. You get how many, 6? 10? 15? Why not use a block of those unused channels for something useful? Each channel is 6MHz of bandwidth. That's a lot of frequency just sitting idle.
Nobody seems to have actually heard the interview. I caught it-- the guy is not advocating shutting down all broadcast TV. He simply points out that we have 60+ analog TV broadcast channels, and that we're only using a handful. (honestly, how many channels do you get?)
We could take 30 of those channels and use them for whatever crazy wireless things you can imagine. The rest would leave us with enough room for all the existing channels as well as some room for expansion.
Heck, even using ONE of the unused channels (these are big chunks of bandwidth) for something is better than letting them all sit there unused.
So don't worry-- your free OTA TV isn't going to disappear. But maybe we'll have something useful to do with the huge chunks of bandwidth we're currently just wasting.
I heard the interview on NPR the other day-- the guy wasn't talking about getting rid of all TV spectrum. The simple fact is that there are 60-odd TV channels reserved, but only a handful are being used even in the largest markets.
We can keep all the channels we've got, reserve some for future growth, and STILL reclaim 30 TV channels worth of bandwidth to use for anything from wireless internet to community radio, or whatever else you can think of.
Wouldn't it be better to do SOMETHING with all that bandwidth (and it *is* a ton) than just let dozens of TV channel-sized chunks of our airwaves sit unused? The guy's point is that we're just not using much of it, and that people who want more channels aren't clamoring for more OTA channels, they're getting cable. So why not use the unused chunk for something else?
I wouldn't expect all of the free over-the-air TV broadcasts to disappear. We're not talking about freeing up ALL of these airwaves-- but honestly, how many OTA TV channels do you receive? I get maybe 15 or so, including all of the religious channels and all of the ones that come in so faintly it's just barely more than static. (I'm in a large city, and have a 6' Helical antenna)
There are, however, a VERY LARGE number of unused-but-reserved TV broadcast channels carving up a huge chunk of our airwaves. Think about how far up your UHF/VHF OTA tuner will go. There are 60 or so channels, and I doubt that even half of them are being used in any given market.
So why not take 10 or 15 of these unused channels (this is a lot of bandwidth) and do *something* with them?
If you want a site that doesn't work, try games.slashdot.org. Weather.com had glitches, too.
It's far from perfect, but it does a decent job.
Is a handy, useful device if you need mobile connectivity. I've liked using mine-- the IM client is a very usable adless implementation of AIM. No group chats, but that's no big deal. The web browser is fairly capable, helped heavily by a recompressing/reformatting proxy on the server-side.
Where it loses out is as a PIM-- the calendar has a very limited number of entries, and sync for the calendar and address book is only one-way. You can import your records from Outlook, but there's no getting them back out. Sync was expected Q1 this year, but hasn't materialized yet, so I wouldn't bank on that feature.
The Java SDK is cool, but so far there is no way for developers to actually put code on users' devices. So, although lots of great apps have been written, they can only run in the emulator.
And finally, while I really like the way the device was designed as a whole, whoever is assembling the device is not doing them justice. I am on my 4th unit in 6 months. Some folks at hiptop.com are on their 8th unit. For a device that hasn't even been available for a year! I'm hoping that they have fixed their issues with the release of the color unit, but I would wait a few months before purchasing to see how they're holding up.
I like the unlimited data plan, and I'll be keeping mine. It's great as a wireless IM client and to check webpages (but their proxy doesn't like games.slashdot.org), just don't expect it to be everything they list in their features list. It's like a video game-- it got released before it was ready, and it's going to be a while before all the patches get put in place. And don't expect it to last more than 2 or 3 months. Fortunately, they've been good about shipping replacements.
I'm looking for some new adventure games, too. I do remember reading somewhere that sequels to Full Throttle and Sam & Max are in the works. Sorry I can't remember all the details-- I was too busy being distracted by pretty pictures of Half-Life 2: The Game That May Redeem the FPS.
What the heck causes that? That is the single most screwed-up glitch I get from windows. It's bizarre-- instead of just failing, the code actually exhibits the rather complex random behavior of making icons for some programs look like icons for other programs. Utterly baffling.
well, the rover does have a little laser-tag emitter on it for shooting other rovers. If you're handy with a soldering iron, pull the IR LED and stick an optocoupler or a relay on the leads, and you can hook that to whatever cat-torturing device you want! Small nerf gun? 80mm case fan? Tape recording of dog barking?
Plenty of great ideas to experiment with, but the obvious thing to replace the IR LED with is a laser pointer.
Of course, if you are truly ambitious in your cat-chasing expectations, you need to go homebuilt. I wonder if anybody makes an R/C controller that connects to a serial or USB port like the plantraco one does?
For cat-chasing from your desk at work, I suggest getting one of the little plantraco rovers, the internet control kit, and the wireless camera. Use webcam software and a cheap winTV vid cap card to stream video of what the rover "sees," and use the internet-connected controller to drive it around. They even have a demo of it where you can drive a rover at there office from your web browser here.
BT is ad- and spyware-free. It doesn't download any extras. It's simple and fast to set up. (run the installer, click the link) For popular stuff like this, it gives you massive DL speeds. All it asks in return is that while you are downloading, it can use your upload bandwidth to serve ONLY the file you are DL'ing to other users. Very effective use of bandwidth. User A pulls from server, user B pulls from A, user C pulls from B, etc...
If you're feeling kind, leave the download window up for a bit after you're done. It will continue to help other people get the file quicker. If not, close it, and it's COMPLETELY GONE. None of that Kontiki crap.
Actually, I seem to recall that the way that hypotheses operate is by being proven wrong. Empirical evidence can stack up for years in favor of a hypothesis, but a single test that shows it doesn't work under one of the given conditions disproves it.
I will refer you to this site, which has a handy breakdown of the scientific method for you. Note in particular the bit that says "Experiments are useful in disproving hypotheses. Hypotheses cannot be proved."
The God argument is a problem for scientists *precisely* because it's not disprovable. (Note that that does not mean it's true by default, it means that there is no way to test whether or not it is true.)
I would highly recommend an XP2500+ rather than the XP2000+. $125 gets you a Barton core with twice the cache, and a 333MHz FSB rather than the 266 the 2000+ has. It's the only Barton that's not up at the high-price end of the AMD scale.
Of course, that's the route I'd take. I'm a bit hesitant to overclock to the degree the parent poster has.
The *ware books are all back in print. As are many of his other books. He seems to have been "rediscovered," as I have been able to find new paperback copies of many of his other great books-- The Hacker and the Ants, Spacetime Donuts, Gnarl!, White Light, Spaceland, Saucer Wisdom and so forth. At chain bookstores, no less. Amazon has quite a few in stock.
I can't recommend him enough. Buy them all while you can!!