Considering that 3/4 of the planet is covered with oceans, at some points kilometers deep, I fail to see a "water shortage". There may be a shortage on fresh water, yes, but salt water elctrolyzes just as well (even better, since it contains ions). To boot, you end up with sodium, chloride and some other chemical elements that can be sold as by-product.
The real problem with hydrogen is that it's an inefficient way to store energy. Plus, storage is difficult since it's a very tiny atom (one proton only...) so it tends to seep out of every container; it's highly flammable, and to store it effectively you need either very high pressure, or very cold temperatures (20K). Gasoline really isn't that bad for a fuel...
No, the real boon would be to either store electricity very efficiently, or somehow convert the CO2 in the atmosphere directly into fuel again, using some form of renewable energy like the sun.
Is it possible for Pluto and Neptune to one day (like within the next couple billion years) collide?
Nope. Their orbits are in 3:2 orbital resonance; basicly this means they constantly miss each other (a bit like your average commuter bus and train schedule:P). Also, due to the declination of the Pluto orbit it doesn't even touch the Neptune orbit. When seen straight from above, the orbits overlap, but if you go off-angle to just the right spot the Pluto orbit can be seen to be completely separated from Neptune.
Nine little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one was deemed too small, and then there were eight... Eight little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one was deemed too big, and then there were seven... Seven little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one had too many rings, and then there were six... Six little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one got too close and melted, and then there were five... Five little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one got too cold and froze, and then there were four... Four little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one had too many clouds, and then there were three... Three little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one had a clash with its neighbour, and then there were two... Two little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one got bored and left with its moons, and then there was one... One little planet, orbiting around the Sun, we nuked it ourselves, and then there were none!
Re:I just can't get the hang of vim
on
Vim 7 Released
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· Score: 1
These days, you can even use the arrow keys to navigate to make it even easier
This is exactly what put me off from vi years ago when I started using Unix. How many times I didn't have to clean up strings of [B
[B
[B
[B
[B
[B
all because I wanted to correct a typo a few lines above; it just didn't make sense. You can say all you want about its powerful commands, having to put the user in either command or edit mode is not my idea of fun. Or usability.
Who hasn't experienced that thing where you jerk alert and suddenly realize some part of your brain you're not even aware of has been driving for the last 45 minutes - on the freeway, at 75 mph - while the rest of your head has been somewhere else?
If that happens to you on a regular basis, I seriously suggest you hand in your driver's license. If you can't stop daydreaming on the road, you're a danger to everybody else there and you are not capable of safely driving a car.
That may sound harsh (some people seem to regard a driver's license as a right) but you are commanding a piece of machinery weighing several hundred kilograms at a speed of one hundred kilometers per hour or more. In the flick of an eye it can change from a comfortable way of transportation to a killing machine.
As for me, I won't take my chances with a robot. Human behavior, and nature, is too unpredictable, for any computer to deal with, now and in the near future. Sure, following a line is easy, or magnets embedded in the road, but what if the line has faded, or covered under sand or snow? What if somebody in the lane next to you dozes off and enters your lane? Robotic systems are (right now) only good for designed systems with clear boundaries, like a train, or a warehouse, or a hospital. Not there, out in the chaotic universe
Re:Getting Struck by Lightning while showering..
on
Ask The Mythbusters
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· Score: 1
...but I feel that the energy source that you guys used did not have the voltage or amperage that real lightning packs.
No shit. As stated in the episode, even the facility where they were testing this myth could not come close to Mother Nature when reproducing lightning. Nevertheless, with the 'limited' lightning available they quite confidently proved it is unsafe to use the phone or take a shower.
The gadget (Quarter Shrinker) pushes over 100K Amps @ 15K Volts @ 6,500 Joules, [...]IMHO, that is as close as you can get to the genuine article.
Impressive as the Quarter Shrinker is, it's puny compared to lightning. Lighting might easily do 100K amps at 15 million volts, so you're a factor 1,000 off... A quarter that gets the full brunt of a lightning strike will be vaporized. Consider this: you can hear thunder miles away; the Quarter Shrinker: maybe over a block?
Judging by your post, it looks like you really are offering two different kinds of services: accessing the library's catalog and Internet, and provide basic Office tools like Word and Excel. Considering your requirements of using floppies and Internet access, I think you're heading for a administrators' nightmare.
I therefor suggest you use two separate sets of machines: one set of Linux or Mac boxes to do the catalog searching and Internet browsing, just barebones machines with no floppies and very minimal software installed. I would recommend installing (buying) Opera and perhaps Mozilla; the former can render almost anything that IE can, so the user experience is just as good.
For the Office tools, use a seperate cluster of machines, with no Internet access, no floppies, and no CDROM. Period. If people want to edit something, they can bring you the floppy or CD, tell you which PC they are working on and you put the data on a share, specific for that PC. Then they can work on it, and afterwards you transfer their data back to floppy or CD (assuming it's a rewritable). This way, you can prevent 90% of all the messing people do with PCs, and prevent worms and other stuff. Use a physically separate network for these PCs too. If people complain they need Internet, point them to the Internet cluster; they should know how to use pencil and paper in order to write something down. BTW, I think you'll find you need CDROMs pretty soon.
You may think supporting two different clusters of machines may be more work, but considering that eventually you will have to deal with less computers that have a 'dangerous' environment, you will save time.
If you don't want to handle the floppies and CDs for people, then I think you have no option but to enable floppy and CD drives. However, be prepared for the system to fall apart a lot more often. Also, having to go to the desk and hand over a floppy/CD is a big mental barrier for people who want to mess with your systems (takes them out of anonimity), and having no Internet access on that cluster will deter all the l33t script kiddies.
Dunno. Whenever I see the term Mebibytes I read it as "maybe bytes", after which I'm always slightly confused as to exactly how much bytes I'm getting. "Oh, you mean I may get some bytes?? Gee, and how much is that then?". It may be bytes, it may be not:-P
MB, as in 2 based, has always worked in the computer field. The only culprits are harddisk manufacturers since they abused it to claim higher capacities, and network engineers, since they refer to signal speeds (which are expressed in Hz). The latter is an exception but understandable if you know the source of the term; the former is inexcusable.
The fact that they are trying to redefine MB to be the new 10 based value isn't helping matters; they should have made a new term for that as well. By looking at a document or webpage I cannot tell off-hand whether they mean 10^6 or 2^10 when I see "MB"; they should have called it "MdB" or something ('d' for decimal), not just "MB".
While the plasma may disappear when the antenna isn't in use, the housing containing the plasma doesn't. Not too stealthy...
The 'housing' is made of glass, or just plain air. Literally transparent. The equipment to generate the plasma may not be so stealthy, but that can be some distance underway (underground, inside a regular building).
Gee, I wonder if just possibly that arc might be generating RF on its own?
I think you're confusing a plasma with the pops and crackles generated by, for example, fluorescent tubes. And a lot of their noise is generated by the fact they are switched on and off 100/120 times a second, due to being fed with AC. These plasmas are generated using DC.
That arc is a very wideband RF source.
Exactly: very wideband, so noise (if any) is spread throughout the spectrum and thus very low on any specific frequency you want to receive.
You're telling me you're going to hook up a sensitive receiver to a gas arc, and it's going to work? Or you're going to hook up a transmitter to a gas arc, and the extra power from the transmitter isn't going to alter the characteristics of the plasma?
Unfortunately, this shows how little you know about RF in general.... The 'arcs' are not the the arcs you know from lightning and high-voltage experiments, which discharge in a random fashion. These plasmas are generated using a very steady flow of current, and if something flows very steadily, it is not generating random currents, which is wat noise actually is. Electrically, there's little difference between 0 current (as in a passive metal antenna), or a conducator where 100 amps runs through, but exactly 100 amps all the time.
In fact, most receiver noise is thermal noise, caused by the metal atoms in the antenna rods vibrating and knocking around electrons; that's why deep space transmitters are usually cooled down to a few Kelvin: no thermal noise. I am a bit sceptical myself about the claimed low noise properties, since the plasma ions and electrons will knock around each other too, but I could see it working since there are lot less atoms to knock around (remember, it's gas)
And yes, the induced RF power will affect the plasma; but since an RF wave is alternating current, the total effect will be nil.
> " when I want to listen in, I only hear half of the conversation " > Trust me, unless you are with a friend who's talking to another friend, you really don't.
Actually, what irks me is the insane blabber that sometimes goes on. I mean, some people throw their heart's content out on the street while in public on the train, bus, or just in a cafe. I am really not interested in the trouble your pet chuahua has with his food, or how the kidneys of your great-great aunt are doing (or not), or how your collegue's Freudian Oedipus complex affects her choice of shoes. Stick to the point, please, and keep the private things private. Talk about it when you're home. I have sometimes been tempted to tell that person to shut up.
About those ringtones... Actually, I find them annoying when the thing goes on bleeping for 30 seconds or more while its (invariably female) owner is busy digging it out from the bottom of a purse, at maximum volume no less, because the sound gets muffled by said purse (doh!). Get a belt-clip, for ***sake! I have one, and I can answer the phone in 3 seconds flat when I need to; you always know where it is, you can hear it ringing quite well and if you put it in the right place it's not in the way of your pocket or seat.
Okay, there's one worse category: people who don't realize their phone is ringing. Invariably, these owners don't have voicemail too so the sodden things keeps on playing "Mission Impossible" for 2 minutes, while its owner is wondering why everybody is giving them angry looks (come to think of it, that *is* the right song; impossible to reach:-P).
So far, most posts in here have been about binary only drivers provided directly by hardware vendors. My case is somewhat different, yet if I read everything correctly, I could still be affected by all this.
I am the author of the Linux Philips webcam driver, which supports a lot of Philips and Logitecht webcams, and a few others. This driver has been in development for nearly 4 years, has been formally introduced into kernel 2.4.5 and has been in continual support by yours truely ever since the first public release, some 3 years ago. Now here's the catch:
Part of the driver (PWC) is Open Source, even in the kernel under the GPL. With it, you have a functional webcam driver, but there are some limitations; you can't get the full resolution and not as high as framerate as is possible. For that, you need a binary only plugin, called PWCX. It contains decompression routines that allow you to use the cam at its full performance. These decompression routines fall under an NDA and are thus not public. Judging by the number of mails and webvisitors I think this driver has been quite a success. And now this may no longer be possible.
The point is, that by the strict interpretation held by Linus et al. I can no longer make this PWCX driver, thereby depriving a lot of users of a useful bit of hardware. Or at least make it quite a bit less enjoyable. I might as well remove the PWC driver altogether form the kernel then, hmm?
First off, I feel sorry for the thousands of Linux users that use my driver (PWC and/or PWCX) and may no longer be able to do so. Second, I'm getting pissed off beyond measure by this Open Source fundamentalism because it is my driver that may be turned into a worhtless piece of code.
It is my ass here that's on the line; I signed the NDA with Philips and if I goof up and accidently post the decompressor code or fail to protect it properly, I will be the one standing in court, not Linus. Second, I went through all the trouble of getting in contact with Philips, trying to convince them to help the Linux community and indeed they have, and I commend them on that. But they have their reasons to shield some parts from prying eyes (read: competition) and I can't blame them. So that's why there's and NDA and it's even fairly relaxed. Without the NDA there wouldn't even have been a driver.
BTW, Philips spent exactly 2 webcams and a couple of manhours on getting the paperwork done in order to get their product supported in Linux for 3 years across 3 major kernel versions, including online helpdesk. I think that's damn cheap. I cannot count the hours I spent on programming and debugging and tracing intractable bugs, not to mention the time spent in helping users by e-mail. I've also spent many an hour to get this PWCX module crosscompiled to various hardware platforms in order to extend it's Linux usage as much as possible. Now that may appearantly all have been a big waste of time. Thank you very much!
No, it is time to realize for anybody who thinks that the GPL is the Holy Grail of computing that this is not going to work. You cannot force anyone to oblige by a volountary license (because that's what the GPL is: nothing more, nothing less). As I wroting in my piece
on tainting the kernel, if you make it any harder for (hardware) vendors to support their product in Linux, they'll drop it like a brick because they don't have to. This way Linux will never gain any real acceptance.
Finally, it's also not very wise to piss off people like me, who are doing their best, and made some small yet clearly apreciated contribution to Linux. I would also rather have a complete Open Source solution, but I'm realistic enough to know that is not possible in this Universe. So I think I've struck quite a good comprise. But if I am being told now: "well, that isn't good enough", I might just throw in the towel in the ring altogether.
For example, the
first season is due out on 22nd September. Region 2 (obviously), but shouldn't be a problem. I think I'll order mine, never got my VHS tape collection complete...:(
I asked a (native) British collegue about it, and this was his reply:
Ahh the wonders of pancacke day or as the French call it Mardi Gras
Fat tuesday.
This is the day before the start of Lent (crazy Christian starvation
festival, preparing mind
and body for the Easter celebrations etc). Typically people used to use
up all their fatty things on this day such as butter, eggs and lard etc,
coz it was not the done thing to be eating lard cakes when everybody
else was eating celery.
Thus the pancake tradition started. Of course, all the religous nonsense
has largely disappeared but the pancakes remain in British Culture.
As far as the tossing equation goes, thats just the work of a whacked
out English ale swilling academics, and is an essential part of British
inventiveness and ingenuity. (You can't make great discoveries all of
the time)
Hope that helps and thank you for your interest in Britain.
Improvements in safety gear have certainly been made in the past few decades, but in some ways those improvements have been balanced out by the tremendous speeds that modern bikes are capable of.
Capable of, indeed. However, there is hardly
ever any need to use this power and go 300kph. As a motorcyclist-in-creation (read: taking lessons right now) I don't always understand the need for these immense speeds. I apreciate the accelerating power of the bike (no car can keep up with you after a traffic light) and that you can often squeeze through a narrow gap where a car simply cannot goi. Going 120 kph (75 mph) on the highway is certainly thrilling, but I would rather drive at a speed I feel comfortable with than going to the edge of what is technically and humanly possible.
But to get back to my point: cars have become a lot 'safer' with ABS, airbags (unless you smoke), wrinkle zones (unless you have long legs), side bars (unless you do end up in an accident and rescue workers spend 30 minutes cutting through them; time you are trapped in your vehicle), and drivers seem to rely on these
gadgets, rather than actually paying attention to their driving style. Thus, they tend to drive more dangerously.
With this airbag, something similarly may happen to motorcylcists. However, when you go at 200 kph, no amount of airbag is going to save you if you hit something streaight on or glide under the 'egg-slicer' guidance rails at the side of the road. So folks, learn to control your right hand first (that's the gashandle, before you get any funny ideas:-)) and *watch out*. Rule number 1 while driving a motorcycle is to be smarter and more observant than the other users on the road and avoid dangerous situations.
Won't work. The article specifically mentions the use of PLD projectors, not LCD, because LCD
displays already uses polarized light to turn the pixels on and off. Put an extra polarization filter in front of it and you may not see a thing. It is not possible to generate two beams with a 90' polarization difference this way. Unless you rotate one of the LCD displays 90', but then you must rotate the image too, plus they are not square, etc...
It is an inconvenience at most. Is anyone complaining because their new Toyota doesn't have to be cranked before driving?
Well, even cars can come with manuals these days. But the fact is, cars have been the same for the last 50 years, and only the automatic gear is a big shift from the original 3 pedal setup. If these pedals were to change every 5 years, this would result in a lot of accidents, so they don't do it. A computer program always has the "Undo" button, which a car sorely lacks:)
Even so, I wouldn't place the emphasis so much on the user interface which, thanks to Microsoft and to a smaller extent KDE and Gnome, is largely standardized (a lot of programs now implement the same shortcuts to open a file; a right-mouse button click usually pops a submenu, etc). So you'll get the hang of that quickly.
I think there are other, more fundamental problems with versionitis nowadays:
First, with new versions of programs and devices, functions come and functions go. However, usually only things come, and none go, and that's what I think the author is complaing about. Each version of a product usually adds features and he's getting tired of having to wade through the manual to see what has been added or removed.
I can't blame him; most products (hard- en software) nowadays contains so many features that its user manual alone is able to bend light by its mass. Nobody wants to read through all that. Not unless you're an autistic anyway... So what you get is a conflict: you spent that much money on something advanced, and you would like to use it all, but you have to go through the manual to get acquinted with it.
Second, there's the continual upgrade cycle. Your VCR goes along 5-7 years; with care, a car can last 10 years easily; your furnace: 20 years; a hammer: your lifetime; average software product: 1 year.
That's right; there's usually a new (major) version of your software every year. And often minor updates 2-3 times as many. So it's no wonder people get tired of getting through this cycle again every year. And unfortunately software developers do have the habit of changing something fundamental, like changing the order and place of menu-items, shortcuts and dialogs (especially dialogs). Which is quite an irritation factor.
This is also often the reason why users don't want to upgrade. What you see a lot is that users are satisfied with their current version of the software because it works fine for them; it may have a few bugs and quircks, but they know how to work around that.
Unfortunately users are being pushed harder and harder by software vendors to upgrade. What you often see is this: when a vendor brings out a new version X of a program, after a while they stop supporting version (X-2). If you have a problem, or want drivers, or anything else related to that 'old' version, you'll get no help. They'll say: "we can help you if you upgrade to version X (or perhaps X-1)". At a price, of course.
In all, I think his term version fatique is well-coined. It describes exactly the feeling of a lot of customers when they hear the announcement of a new version (Open Source supporters excluded:)): "Oh no, not again." or "Now already?"
(Note: my English legal vocabulary is limited... but you'll get the gist)
Court: exchange service KaZaA is legal
Thursday, March 28 2002The music exchange server KaZaA is not
responsible for the copyright violations of the users of the
program.
This is the decision of the court in Amsterdam. The Court nullified the
decision of Judge R. Oribio de Castro in the case that Buma/Stemra [the
Dutch copyright and royalties collector organisation] had set up against
KaZaA.
According to Buma/Stemra KaZaA encourages with its program copyright violations
The software is mainly being used to exchange music, without
paying any royalty fees.
Oribio de Castro therefor declared that KaZaA should take
countermeasures to end these violations of copyright. If KaZaA failed to
comply, it would face severe fines. The founders of KaZaA then decided to
sell the software to the Australian based Sharman company.
A bitter pill
Eventually, that hadn't been necessary. The Amsterdam Court ruled in the
appeals case that KaZaA had set up against the sentence of Oribio de Casta,
that KaZaA can not be held responsible for the copyright violations of the
users of the program. "As far as there are any copyright relevant actions,
these actions are performed by the users of the program and not by
KaZaA"
Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm is very satisfied with the ruling, but still
finds the complete proceedings 'a bitter pill'. CEO Niklas
Zennström also says he received the ruling 'with mixed feelings'. "It's
too late for KaZaA. I hope that music organisations like Buma/Stemra will,
in the future, be prepared to make a deal instead of going to court",
says Zennström.
Alberdingk Thijm thinks the Court has seen the differences between
Napster and KaZaA very well. "Napster has a central server, which is
not the case for KaZaA. Plus you could exchange more than just music."
The practice
"It remains to be seen what the practical implications of this
ruling are for KaZaA", says KaZaA in a press statement. The exchange
service claims that by the previous ruling they had to cease their activities
worldwide, after which she sold her most important company assets.
This is, by the way, recognized by the Court: "It is reasonable to
assume that she would not have taken these measures if she would have been
able to comply in any other way with the president's ruling."
This means that Buma has enforced a sentece that is not valid, explains
Alberdingk Thijm. "In theory, Buma is responsible for the sale against
a lower price than would otherwise have been the case". It is still
unclear if they are going to countersue the copyright organisation.
Okay, time for a slightly different point of view...
I live in Europe; consequently, we often have to wait months or even years before we get series or movies I'd like to see, like 'Star Trek Enterprise' (fortunately, sometimes they get it right, like with Lord of the Rings).
So you can imagine that I'm quite happy with the current distribution of these series through the Internet. Not because I'm a pirate who doesn't give zit about the actors being paid, etc., but because I do not live in the US and that is only reason I have to wait so long. Ridiculous.
Occasionally I listen to MP3 radio streams from across the globe, simply because I like the music. And that's how it should be, what IMO is one of the futures of Internet: being able to tune in to any radio or televion station that I like, and not being restricted to 32 crappy TV stations on a crappy cable, half of which is spoken in languages I don't speak, or filled with uninteresting content.
Considering the recent surge (and downfall) in Content Control Systems (yes, that's control, not rights, as in Digitial Rights Management, as if you had any rights.... hah!) I doubt a legal, pay-per-episode system is out of the question anyway... So its either TV-napster, or waiting for a long time... It doesn't make me less of fan.
This point is practically moot, since even if A sends a multicast to B, once it arrives at B it only needs to be redistributed on B's local network, which doesn't cost them a single penny more in their peering contract.
In fact, if A and B support proper multicast it will save them bits, because if A has an interesting broadcast and 10 listeners from B want to hear it, they have to transmit it only once from A to B, not 10 times.
Well, I hope they put in 'embarrasment' in their pack of emotions as well, because I would certainly feel embarassed driving this thing... What an ugly design! There's no real front or back, and it looks like it can ride forward or backward at the same speed, just like a train or those blind, underground molerats...
*hehe* You might find this link interesting: http://www.knmi.nl/onderzk/seismo/home_n/educati on/nederland/pinkpop/1999/band_2/band_2.html.
It a graph made by the seismological depertment of the Dutch meteorological institute during a concert at Pinkpop (also in the Netherlands). It is the result of a few hundred thousand people jumping to the beat of Faithless. As the frequency graph shows, the energy is concentratad in a very narrow band. So all it takes is a pop-concert and a few specific tunes to bring down the object of your choice:)
Slashdot Mirror
We may not have (much) water on the moon, but what we bring with us we can be recycled, and we do have gravity.
Considering that 3/4 of the planet is covered with oceans, at some points kilometers deep, I fail to see a "water shortage". There may be a shortage on fresh water, yes, but salt water elctrolyzes just as well (even better, since it contains ions). To boot, you end up with sodium, chloride and some other chemical elements that can be sold as by-product.
The real problem with hydrogen is that it's an inefficient way to store energy. Plus, storage is difficult since it's a very tiny atom (one proton only...) so it tends to seep out of every container; it's highly flammable, and to store it effectively you need either very high pressure, or very cold temperatures (20K). Gasoline really isn't that bad for a fuel...
No, the real boon would be to either store electricity very efficiently, or somehow convert the CO2 in the atmosphere directly into fuel again, using some form of renewable energy like the sun.
Is it possible for Pluto and Neptune to one day (like within the next couple billion years) collide?
Nope. Their orbits are in 3:2 orbital resonance; basicly this means they constantly miss each other (a bit like your average commuter bus and train schedule :P). Also, due to the declination of the Pluto orbit it doesn't even touch the Neptune orbit. When seen straight from above, the orbits overlap, but if you go off-angle to just the right spot the Pluto orbit can be seen to be completely separated from Neptune.
Nine little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one was deemed too small, and then there were eight...
Eight little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one was deemed too big, and then there were seven...
Seven little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one had too many rings, and then there were six...
Six little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one got too close and melted, and then there were five...
Five little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one got too cold and froze, and then there were four...
Four little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one had too many clouds, and then there were three...
Three little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one had a clash with its neighbour, and then there were two...
Two little planets, orbiting around the Sun, one got bored and left with its moons, and then there was one...
One little planet, orbiting around the Sun, we nuked it ourselves, and then there were none!
These days, you can even use the arrow keys to navigate to make it even easier
This is exactly what put me off from vi years ago when I started using Unix. How many times I didn't have to clean up strings of [B
[B
[B
[B
[B
[B
all because I wanted to correct a typo a few lines above; it just didn't make sense. You can say all you want about its powerful commands, having to put the user in either command or edit mode is not my idea of fun. Or usability.
Sorry, but I'll stick with joe. Or kate.
Is there a way to get to the actual article without the extremely annoying shenanigans they insist on putting me through?
Enable cookies for wsj.com. When disabled, I couldn't get through the Flash intro at all.
Who hasn't experienced that thing where you jerk alert and suddenly realize some part of your brain you're not even aware of has been driving for the last 45 minutes - on the freeway, at 75 mph - while the rest of your head has been somewhere else?
If that happens to you on a regular basis, I seriously suggest you hand in your driver's license. If you can't stop daydreaming on the road, you're a danger to everybody else there and you are not capable of safely driving a car.
That may sound harsh (some people seem to regard a driver's license as a right) but you are commanding a piece of machinery weighing several hundred kilograms at a speed of one hundred kilometers per hour or more. In the flick of an eye it can change from a comfortable way of transportation to a killing machine.
As for me, I won't take my chances with a robot. Human behavior, and nature, is too unpredictable, for any computer to deal with, now and in the near future. Sure, following a line is easy, or magnets embedded in the road, but what if the line has faded, or covered under sand or snow? What if somebody in the lane next to you dozes off and enters your lane? Robotic systems are (right now) only good for designed systems with clear boundaries, like a train, or a warehouse, or a hospital. Not there, out in the chaotic universe
No shit. As stated in the episode, even the facility where they were testing this myth could not come close to Mother Nature when reproducing lightning. Nevertheless, with the 'limited' lightning available they quite confidently proved it is unsafe to use the phone or take a shower.
The gadget (Quarter Shrinker) pushes over 100K Amps @ 15K Volts @ 6,500 Joules, [...]IMHO, that is as close as you can get to the genuine article.
Impressive as the Quarter Shrinker is, it's puny compared to lightning. Lighting might easily do 100K amps at 15 million volts, so you're a factor 1,000 off... A quarter that gets the full brunt of a lightning strike will be vaporized. Consider this: you can hear thunder miles away; the Quarter Shrinker: maybe over a block?
Judging by your post, it looks like you really are offering two different kinds of services: accessing the library's catalog and Internet, and provide basic Office tools like Word and Excel. Considering your requirements of using floppies and Internet access, I think you're heading for a administrators' nightmare.
I therefor suggest you use two separate sets of machines: one set of Linux or Mac boxes to do the catalog searching and Internet browsing, just barebones machines with no floppies and very minimal software installed. I would recommend installing (buying) Opera and perhaps Mozilla; the former can render almost anything that IE can, so the user experience is just as good.
For the Office tools, use a seperate cluster of machines, with no Internet access, no floppies, and no CDROM. Period. If people want to edit something, they can bring you the floppy or CD, tell you which PC they are working on and you put the data on a share, specific for that PC. Then they can work on it, and afterwards you transfer their data back to floppy or CD (assuming it's a rewritable). This way, you can prevent 90% of all the messing people do with PCs, and prevent worms and other stuff. Use a physically separate network for these PCs too. If people complain they need Internet, point them to the Internet cluster; they should know how to use pencil and paper in order to write something down. BTW, I think you'll find you need CDROMs pretty soon.
You may think supporting two different clusters of machines may be more work, but considering that eventually you will have to deal with less computers that have a 'dangerous' environment, you will save time.
If you don't want to handle the floppies and CDs for people, then I think you have no option but to enable floppy and CD drives. However, be prepared for the system to fall apart a lot more often. Also, having to go to the desk and hand over a floppy/CD is a big mental barrier for people who want to mess with your systems (takes them out of anonimity), and having no Internet access on that cluster will deter all the l33t script kiddies.
Good luck.
I got mad, unscrewed the backing of our TV, and pissed all on the inside..
I suppose that explains why your nick is MrP-.... :-)
Dunno. Whenever I see the term Mebibytes I read it as "maybe bytes", after which I'm always slightly confused as to exactly how much bytes I'm getting. "Oh, you mean I may get some bytes?? Gee, and how much is that then?". It may be bytes, it may be not :-P
MB, as in 2 based, has always worked in the computer field. The only culprits are harddisk manufacturers since they abused it to claim higher capacities, and network engineers, since they refer to signal speeds (which are expressed in Hz). The latter is an exception but understandable if you know the source of the term; the former is inexcusable.
The fact that they are trying to redefine MB to be the new 10 based value isn't helping matters; they should have made a new term for that as well. By looking at a document or webpage I cannot tell off-hand whether they mean 10^6 or 2^10 when I see "MB"; they should have called it "MdB" or something ('d' for decimal), not just "MB".
While the plasma may disappear when the antenna isn't in use, the housing containing the plasma doesn't. Not too stealthy...
The 'housing' is made of glass, or just plain air. Literally transparent. The equipment to generate the plasma may not be so stealthy, but that can be some distance underway (underground, inside a regular building).
Gee, I wonder if just possibly that arc might be generating RF on its own?
I think you're confusing a plasma with the pops and crackles generated by, for example, fluorescent tubes. And a lot of their noise is generated by the fact they are switched on and off 100/120 times a second, due to being fed with AC. These plasmas are generated using DC.
That arc is a very wideband RF source.
Exactly: very wideband, so noise (if any) is spread throughout the spectrum and thus very low on any specific frequency you want to receive.
You're telling me you're going to hook up a sensitive receiver to a gas arc, and it's going to work? Or you're going to hook up a transmitter to a gas arc, and the extra power from the transmitter isn't going to alter the characteristics of the plasma?Unfortunately, this shows how little you know about RF in general.... The 'arcs' are not the the arcs you know from lightning and high-voltage experiments, which discharge in a random fashion. These plasmas are generated using a very steady flow of current, and if something flows very steadily, it is not generating random currents, which is wat noise actually is. Electrically, there's little difference between 0 current (as in a passive metal antenna), or a conducator where 100 amps runs through, but exactly 100 amps all the time.
In fact, most receiver noise is thermal noise, caused by the metal atoms in the antenna rods vibrating and knocking around electrons; that's why deep space transmitters are usually cooled down to a few Kelvin: no thermal noise. I am a bit sceptical myself about the claimed low noise properties, since the plasma ions and electrons will knock around each other too, but I could see it working since there are lot less atoms to knock around (remember, it's gas)
And yes, the induced RF power will affect the plasma; but since an RF wave is alternating current, the total effect will be nil.
> " when I want to listen in, I only hear half of the conversation "
:-P).
> Trust me, unless you are with a friend who's talking to another friend, you really don't.
Actually, what irks me is the insane blabber that sometimes goes on. I mean, some people throw their heart's content out on the street while in public on the train, bus, or just in a cafe. I am really not interested in the trouble your pet chuahua has with his food, or how the kidneys of your great-great aunt are doing (or not), or how your collegue's Freudian Oedipus complex affects her choice of shoes. Stick to the point, please, and keep the private things private. Talk about it when you're home. I have sometimes been tempted to tell that person to shut up.
About those ringtones... Actually, I find them annoying when the thing goes on bleeping for 30 seconds or more while its (invariably female) owner is busy digging it out from the bottom of a purse, at maximum volume no less, because the sound gets muffled by said purse (doh!). Get a belt-clip, for ***sake! I have one, and I can answer the phone in 3 seconds flat when I need to; you always know where it is, you can hear it ringing quite well and if you put it in the right place it's not in the way of your pocket or seat.
Okay, there's one worse category: people who don't realize their phone is ringing. Invariably, these owners don't have voicemail too so the sodden things keeps on playing "Mission Impossible" for 2 minutes, while its owner is wondering why everybody is giving them angry looks (come to think of it, that *is* the right song; impossible to reach
So far, most posts in here have been about binary only drivers provided directly by hardware vendors. My case is somewhat different, yet if I read everything correctly, I could still be affected by all this.
I am the author of the Linux Philips webcam driver, which supports a lot of Philips and Logitecht webcams, and a few others. This driver has been in development for nearly 4 years, has been formally introduced into kernel 2.4.5 and has been in continual support by yours truely ever since the first public release, some 3 years ago. Now here's the catch:
Part of the driver (PWC) is Open Source, even in the kernel under the GPL. With it, you have a functional webcam driver, but there are some limitations; you can't get the full resolution and not as high as framerate as is possible. For that, you need a binary only plugin, called PWCX. It contains decompression routines that allow you to use the cam at its full performance. These decompression routines fall under an NDA and are thus not public. Judging by the number of mails and webvisitors I think this driver has been quite a success. And now this may no longer be possible.
The point is, that by the strict interpretation held by Linus et al. I can no longer make this PWCX driver, thereby depriving a lot of users of a useful bit of hardware. Or at least make it quite a bit less enjoyable. I might as well remove the PWC driver altogether form the kernel then, hmm?
First off, I feel sorry for the thousands of Linux users that use my driver (PWC and/or PWCX) and may no longer be able to do so. Second, I'm getting pissed off beyond measure by this Open Source fundamentalism because it is my driver that may be turned into a worhtless piece of code.
It is my ass here that's on the line; I signed the NDA with Philips and if I goof up and accidently post the decompressor code or fail to protect it properly, I will be the one standing in court, not Linus. Second, I went through all the trouble of getting in contact with Philips, trying to convince them to help the Linux community and indeed they have, and I commend them on that. But they have their reasons to shield some parts from prying eyes (read: competition) and I can't blame them. So that's why there's and NDA and it's even fairly relaxed. Without the NDA there wouldn't even have been a driver.
BTW, Philips spent exactly 2 webcams and a couple of manhours on getting the paperwork done in order to get their product supported in Linux for 3 years across 3 major kernel versions, including online helpdesk. I think that's damn cheap. I cannot count the hours I spent on programming and debugging and tracing intractable bugs, not to mention the time spent in helping users by e-mail. I've also spent many an hour to get this PWCX module crosscompiled to various hardware platforms in order to extend it's Linux usage as much as possible. Now that may appearantly all have been a big waste of time. Thank you very much!
No, it is time to realize for anybody who thinks that the GPL is the Holy Grail of computing that this is not going to work. You cannot force anyone to oblige by a volountary license (because that's what the GPL is: nothing more, nothing less). As I wroting in my piece on tainting the kernel, if you make it any harder for (hardware) vendors to support their product in Linux, they'll drop it like a brick because they don't have to. This way Linux will never gain any real acceptance.
Finally, it's also not very wise to piss off people like me, who are doing their best, and made some small yet clearly apreciated contribution to Linux. I would also rather have a complete Open Source solution, but I'm realistic enough to know that is not possible in this Universe. So I think I've struck quite a good comprise. But if I am being told now: "well, that isn't good enough", I might just throw in the towel in the ring altogether.
- Nemosoft
For example, the first season is due out on 22nd September. Region 2 (obviously), but shouldn't be a problem. I think I'll order mine, never got my VHS tape collection complete... :(
I asked a (native) British collegue about it, and this was his reply:
Ahh the wonders of pancacke day or as the French call it Mardi Gras Fat tuesday. This is the day before the start of Lent (crazy Christian starvation festival, preparing mind and body for the Easter celebrations etc). Typically people used to use up all their fatty things on this day such as butter, eggs and lard etc, coz it was not the done thing to be eating lard cakes when everybody else was eating celery.
Thus the pancake tradition started. Of course, all the religous nonsense has largely disappeared but the pancakes remain in British Culture.
As far as the tossing equation goes, thats just the work of a whacked out English ale swilling academics, and is an essential part of British inventiveness and ingenuity. (You can't make great discoveries all of the time)
Hope that helps and thank you for your interest in Britain.
:-)
Improvements in safety gear have certainly been made in the past few decades, but in some ways those improvements have been balanced out by the tremendous speeds that modern bikes are capable of.
Capable of, indeed. However, there is hardly ever any need to use this power and go 300kph. As a motorcyclist-in-creation (read: taking lessons right now) I don't always understand the need for these immense speeds. I apreciate the accelerating power of the bike (no car can keep up with you after a traffic light) and that you can often squeeze through a narrow gap where a car simply cannot goi. Going 120 kph (75 mph) on the highway is certainly thrilling, but I would rather drive at a speed I feel comfortable with than going to the edge of what is technically and humanly possible.
But to get back to my point: cars have become a lot 'safer' with ABS, airbags (unless you smoke), wrinkle zones (unless you have long legs), side bars (unless you do end up in an accident and rescue workers spend 30 minutes cutting through them; time you are trapped in your vehicle), and drivers seem to rely on these gadgets, rather than actually paying attention to their driving style. Thus, they tend to drive more dangerously.
With this airbag, something similarly may happen to motorcylcists. However, when you go at 200 kph, no amount of airbag is going to save you if you hit something streaight on or glide under the 'egg-slicer' guidance rails at the side of the road. So folks, learn to control your right hand first (that's the gashandle, before you get any funny ideas :-)) and *watch out*. Rule number 1 while driving a motorcycle is to be smarter and more observant than the other users on the road and avoid dangerous situations.
Won't work. The article specifically mentions the use of PLD projectors, not LCD, because LCD displays already uses polarized light to turn the pixels on and off. Put an extra polarization filter in front of it and you may not see a thing. It is not possible to generate two beams with a 90' polarization difference this way. Unless you rotate one of the LCD displays 90', but then you must rotate the image too, plus they are not square, etc...
Sorry, but this ain't going to be this cheap :-)
It is an inconvenience at most. Is anyone complaining because their new Toyota doesn't have to be cranked before driving?
Well, even cars can come with manuals these days. But the fact is, cars have been the same for the last 50 years, and only the automatic gear is a big shift from the original 3 pedal setup. If these pedals were to change every 5 years, this would result in a lot of accidents, so they don't do it. A computer program always has the "Undo" button, which a car sorely lacks :)
Even so, I wouldn't place the emphasis so much on the user interface which, thanks to Microsoft and to a smaller extent KDE and Gnome, is largely standardized (a lot of programs now implement the same shortcuts to open a file; a right-mouse button click usually pops a submenu, etc). So you'll get the hang of that quickly. I think there are other, more fundamental problems with versionitis nowadays:
First, with new versions of programs and devices, functions come and functions go. However, usually only things come, and none go, and that's what I think the author is complaing about. Each version of a product usually adds features and he's getting tired of having to wade through the manual to see what has been added or removed.
I can't blame him; most products (hard- en software) nowadays contains so many features that its user manual alone is able to bend light by its mass. Nobody wants to read through all that. Not unless you're an autistic anyway... So what you get is a conflict: you spent that much money on something advanced, and you would like to use it all, but you have to go through the manual to get acquinted with it.
Second, there's the continual upgrade cycle. Your VCR goes along 5-7 years; with care, a car can last 10 years easily; your furnace: 20 years; a hammer: your lifetime; average software product: 1 year.
That's right; there's usually a new (major) version of your software every year. And often minor updates 2-3 times as many. So it's no wonder people get tired of getting through this cycle again every year. And unfortunately software developers do have the habit of changing something fundamental, like changing the order and place of menu-items, shortcuts and dialogs (especially dialogs). Which is quite an irritation factor.
This is also often the reason why users don't want to upgrade. What you see a lot is that users are satisfied with their current version of the software because it works fine for them; it may have a few bugs and quircks, but they know how to work around that. Unfortunately users are being pushed harder and harder by software vendors to upgrade. What you often see is this: when a vendor brings out a new version X of a program, after a while they stop supporting version (X-2). If you have a problem, or want drivers, or anything else related to that 'old' version, you'll get no help. They'll say: "we can help you if you upgrade to version X (or perhaps X-1)". At a price, of course.
In all, I think his term version fatique is well-coined. It describes exactly the feeling of a lot of customers when they hear the announcement of a new version (Open Source supporters excluded :)): "Oh no, not again." or "Now already?"
(Note: my English legal vocabulary is limited... but you'll get the gist)
Court: exchange service KaZaA is legal
Thursday, March 28 2002 The music exchange server KaZaA is not responsible for the copyright violations of the users of the program.
This is the decision of the court in Amsterdam. The Court nullified the decision of Judge R. Oribio de Castro in the case that Buma/Stemra [the Dutch copyright and royalties collector organisation] had set up against KaZaA.
According to Buma/Stemra KaZaA encourages with its program copyright violations The software is mainly being used to exchange music, without paying any royalty fees.
Oribio de Castro therefor declared that KaZaA should take countermeasures to end these violations of copyright. If KaZaA failed to comply, it would face severe fines. The founders of KaZaA then decided to sell the software to the Australian based Sharman company.
A bitter pill
Eventually, that hadn't been necessary. The Amsterdam Court ruled in the appeals case that KaZaA had set up against the sentence of Oribio de Casta, that KaZaA can not be held responsible for the copyright violations of the users of the program. "As far as there are any copyright relevant actions, these actions are performed by the users of the program and not by KaZaA"
Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm is very satisfied with the ruling, but still finds the complete proceedings 'a bitter pill'. CEO Niklas Zennström also says he received the ruling 'with mixed feelings'. "It's too late for KaZaA. I hope that music organisations like Buma/Stemra will, in the future, be prepared to make a deal instead of going to court", says Zennström.
Alberdingk Thijm thinks the Court has seen the differences between Napster and KaZaA very well. "Napster has a central server, which is not the case for KaZaA. Plus you could exchange more than just music."
The practice
"It remains to be seen what the practical implications of this ruling are for KaZaA", says KaZaA in a press statement. The exchange service claims that by the previous ruling they had to cease their activities worldwide, after which she sold her most important company assets.
This is, by the way, recognized by the Court: "It is reasonable to assume that she would not have taken these measures if she would have been able to comply in any other way with the president's ruling."
This means that Buma has enforced a sentece that is not valid, explains Alberdingk Thijm. "In theory, Buma is responsible for the sale against a lower price than would otherwise have been the case". It is still unclear if they are going to countersue the copyright organisation.
Buma/Stemra was unavailable for comment.
Okay, time for a slightly different point of view...
I live in Europe; consequently, we often have to wait months or even years before we get series or movies I'd like to see, like 'Star Trek Enterprise' (fortunately, sometimes they get it right, like with Lord of the Rings).
So you can imagine that I'm quite happy with the current distribution of these series through the Internet. Not because I'm a pirate who doesn't give zit about the actors being paid, etc., but because I do not live in the US and that is only reason I have to wait so long. Ridiculous.
Occasionally I listen to MP3 radio streams from across the globe, simply because I like the music. And that's how it should be, what IMO is one of the futures of Internet: being able to tune in to any radio or televion station that I like, and not being restricted to 32 crappy TV stations on a crappy cable, half of which is spoken in languages I don't speak, or filled with uninteresting content.
Considering the recent surge (and downfall) in Content Control Systems (yes, that's control, not rights, as in Digitial Rights Management, as if you had any rights.... hah!) I doubt a legal, pay-per-episode system is out of the question anyway... So its either TV-napster, or waiting for a long time... It doesn't make me less of fan.
This point is practically moot, since even if A sends a multicast to B, once it arrives at B it only needs to be redistributed on B's local network, which doesn't cost them a single penny more in their peering contract.
In fact, if A and B support proper multicast it will save them bits, because if A has an interesting broadcast and 10 listeners from B want to hear it, they have to transmit it only once from A to B, not 10 times.
Well, I hope they put in 'embarrasment' in their pack of emotions as well, because I would certainly feel embarassed driving this thing... What an ugly design! There's no real front or back, and it looks like it can ride forward or backward at the same speed, just like a train or those blind, underground molerats...
It crashes consistently on www.visa.info; (KDE 2.2); I guess the shock of a four letter TLD was too much for it :-)
[Actually, it's just crappy HTML code with frames. Too bad people still can't code.]
I wonder how long it will take for the 7 'forbidden' words to make it to TLD; now that would be news.
http://www.knmi.nl/onderzk/seismo/home_n/educat
It a graph made by the seismological depertment of the Dutch meteorological institute during a concert at Pinkpop (also in the Netherlands). It is the result of a few hundred thousand people jumping to the beat of Faithless. As the frequency graph shows, the energy is concentratad in a very narrow band. So all it takes is a pop-concert and a few specific tunes to bring down the object of your choice :)
- Nemosoft