Yeah, my rant was more about not noting the difference in the article. (Hence the second part of my post.) I'm just not a fan of ambiguously misleading information on the front page. (Oh, wait, this is Slashdot, I should know better.)
Salmon and Trout are the same species, just different subspecies. Is this really surprising? (In fact, Steelhead Salmon is the exact same fish as Rainbow Trout. The only difference is that Steelhead swim to the ocean, Rainbow Trout stay in rivers. Really. http://www.aps.uoguelph.ca/~ontaqua/name.html
This is about as surprising as a Calico cat giving birth to a Siamese cat. Extremely unusual, but not a huge deal.
Oh, I see. The story talks about DIFFERENT species. Well, then call them by their full names. Just saying "salmon" and "trout" doesn't say much.
Sorry to be a poop-head, but the rest of your site isn't very non-IE-friendly. For example, your main menu is totally unusable in Safari 1.2.2 on Mac OS X 10.3.4. Conforming to HTML and CSS standards is a good thing. (It's a little easier to use, but still not 'correct' on FireFox on OS X. I had to boot up my Windows box for the first time in two months to see what I'm assuming it 'should' look like.)
Hermiston, Oregon (popultion about 13,000, a litte larger than Grand Haven,) has had this for over a year. Newsweek even proclaimed that town the most Unwired back in June.
Oh, I see. Because it's not done by the city of Hermiston, but rather covers the entire 600 square-mile county, it's just the first county, not the first city. After all, Grand Haven only covers *SIX* square miles, not six hundred.
The second phase is just finishing, which will add another 200 square miles, and another seven cities. So maybe being the first 'seven city area' doesn't qualify each of the seven to be the 'first city', as Grand Haven is claminig.
Psh. Just some grandstanding. Being the first to claim you're first does not mean you are first.
The first time I saw Elijah Wood in a movie, my first thought was "Wow. He's a hobbit." When I heard LotR was being made, my first thought was "Man, I hope they cast Elijah Wood as Frodo."
Likewise, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel is inspired casting. I have always thought of her as being an elf.
And John Rhys-Davies makes an excellent Dwarf. I never thought about it beforehand, but it is perfect.
Yeah, there are better (and funnier) possibilities for everyone, but nobody but Elijah Wood could play Frodo. (And I never even liked him as an actor. I just knew that he was born to play Frodo.)
Ah, okay. Yeah, I thought you meant using PearPC code to make a Sega emulator for the GameCube. Yeah, PearPC would be useful for a GC emulator on the PC. But with the whopping performance hit PearPC causes, I don't see GC emulation anytime soon. (Because of the differences between x86 and PowerPC, it's easy for PPC to emulate x86, but hard for x86 to emulate PPC. Even the Pentium 4 and Athlon64 don't make it easy.)
Unfortunately, PowerPC and 68000 are in no way compatible. Yes, Apple transitioned their Macintosh line from the 68000 to the PowerPC, but they cheated. They wrote a 68000 emulator (it specifically emulated the 68020 with MMU,) for the PowerPC, and ran all 68000 code through the emulator. They are not compatible at all. (Motorola designed the 88000 series as IBM was designing the 'Power' series. Apple wanted a RISC processor that had the best of both lines, so they convinced the two processor compaies to make a compromise line, the PowerPC.)
And PearPC emulates a PowerPC on an x86 system. That is completely unneeded, as this already has a PowerPC. But, there should be no problem emulating the Genesis, anyway. Since a PowerPC 601 at 100Mhz outperforms a 68040 at 80MHz (the fastest 68000-series processor used in a Mac,) and I'm assuming the GameCube has something better than a PPC601, it should be more than capable.
My wife drives it like it's a Porsche. I'm not into the whole 'import tuning' scene, but it really does need different wheels/tires. I swapped the stock 155/80R13 for 205/55R15 on some very basic 15" rims, then found that 205 is too wide (it rubs on both the inside and the outside of the wheel well.) So I 'downsized' to 195/60. Still rubbed a little. Plus, the 15"ers looked silly, so when those tires wore out, I replaced the wheels back with the stock 13s, and put on 185/60R13s. (I think that's it.) Still handles like a dream, with no more tire-rub! (That sucker can CORNER. Impressive in such a little car, with so llittle hp.)
My old Ford Escort GT could hit 165 (barely, it had a Mazda 185hp engine.) My friend's Ford Thunderbirds could hit it without flinching. (One had a 4 cylinder turbo, the other a 6 cylinder engine.) Most reasonably 'muscley' domestic cars can hit 165. Most import 'sporty' cars can hit 165. (Of the four cars I've owned, the only two that COULDN'T go that fast were the Subaru Justy (a 3-cylinder competitor to the Geo Metro, albiet much better built. It could do 120, and my current 'company car' a Hyundai Accent, which seems to have a limiter at 100. It has plenty of sprinting power accelerating between 90-100, but then it just refuses to go faster.)
A friend of mine owns a domain name that has certain geek value (it's a geek term for what happens when you delete data.) He has had it since 1995, long before spam was an issue. Sadly, in recent years, people have taken to using email addresses at his domain as fake addresses. He is the only person with a legitimate address at his domain, and he has all other addresses mail sent to a collection account.
His own address gets (before spam filtering,) 100-150 spams a day. The rest of his domain receives over 2000 spams a day. (With a legitimate message or two a week, for someone who either misspelled his real address, or tried to send to one of three other people (myself included,) who used to have addresses at his domain.)
He has even had individuals complain against him, because his admin@... account is disabled. (A spammer once faked messages coming from his domain, so he got complained against.)
So, PLEASE, only use an address that is a known-fake address. Either one at your own domain that you made up as a spam magnet (mine is 'spamme@<mydomain>') or when you have to submit an address for a website, try either cypherpunks@cypherpunks.com (password cypherpunks) or use something at the website's own domain. (Say, abuse@real.com when forced to enter something to download Real Player.)
(No, I am not going to announce my friend's domain. He gets enough spam as it is.)
Hrm.. I wonder what the lifespan of flash memory is? (I'll have to go look that up.)
With 2GB USB flash sticks available, I could plug four into a pocket hub, and have 8GB of data in a nice compact 'brick'! (RAIDed, of course.)
Okay, we need higher density flash now. (Let's see, the cheapest I can find is 2GB for $146, so a Petabyte would be (mmm... carry the three...) damn, only $3591. That's not bad, actually. Now, you'd have to add in a few hundred USB 2.0 hubs, though, so that would add to the cost.
That's pretty good. Heck, with that much automation, I'd even splurge and go for DVD-RW's. Takes a little more than twice as long, but great for backups that don't need to be permanent. (Say, use -Rs for weekly, -RWs for daily. or monthly/weekly, as circumstances dictate.)
I'm going to have to bookmark that and suggest that to customers. Great solution.
I've got 440GB of hard drive space on my primary PC, with about 250GB of it filled. Most of it is 'long-term' information that just won't fit on a DVD reasonably. (Lots of DV files, a few over 10GB in each single file.) I'd love to have a reasonably cheap, hands-off backup system that can handle that much data. I'd only need monthly 'full' backups of about 200GB. Then maybe weekly backups of the other 50GB. I'm sorry, but 10 DVD-RWs is a bit much. Even at 4x write speed, waiting 15 minutes, then swapping, then waiting 15 minutes more, then swapping again... It's not something I'd want to do even monthly. And forget about backing 200GB up to DVD, even once. (Yes, part of that 440GB is in the form of a 'backup' drive, but I'd like to have something with cheaper media that I can keep offsite, and preferably have more than one copy of. A 200GB external drive isn't cheap enough to buy 'a few' of to keep offsite.)
That is a rather frightening thought. Return of sneaker-net viruses! I've seen plenty of spyware/virus-laden computers, and the last thing I need is for people to spread them the old fashioned way.
It is 16-bit, 44.1kHz stereo. It's just compressed to (supposedly) remove the bits that humans can't hear anyway.
Don't confuse data compression techniques with changing the recording depth. A 1024x768, 24-bit JPEG is just as 'hi-fidelity' as a 1024x768, 24-bit TIFF. It's just compressed in such a way that (at low compression levels,) the distortions are 'hardly noticeable'.
Yes, at higher compression (lower bitrate, in the case of audio,) those differences become noticeable, but for *most* people, it isn't. It's perfectly fine if you don't want 128-kbps AAC, but don't claim it's because it isn't "16 bit 44k1 KHz stereo". (I don't have ultra-picky ears, so 128-kbps AAC sounds just fine to me, even with my fancy-schmancy $150 "studio monitor" headphones.)
I agree. I also used to have Konfabulator installed, and found it a bit unwieldy. (Admittedly, when I had it installed, it was on a 350Mhz G3, so it was slow.) Taking up space all the time just got in the way.
So when I heard about Dashboard, my first thought was "Another Konfabulator. Cool idea, but not that useful in the long run." It wasn't until I saw the Exposé-like disappearing act that I realized how much it was really needed.
I missed Desk Accessories. I use Stickies and Calculator alot. I used them alot in the Classic Mac OS. (Going all the way back to System 5, when Stickies were 'Note Pad'.) I liked the quick access, quick loading, and state-saving of them. Yeah, having Stickies and Calculator in the dock is what I'd ended up doing. (On my notebook. On my desktop, I use a Kensington mouse with a 'quick-launch' button map, so I have Stickies, Calc, and Terminal in the quick-launch menu.) But even though I use them often, it's a bit cluttering of the Dock. (Which I like to save for those programs that I really do load 'all the time', to keep a de-cluttered appearance.)
So the new Exposé-like effect of Dashboard just seems to be the perfect implementation. It combines the 'small widget' of Konfabulator with the ease of constant access of Desk Accessories, in a good way. I can't wait for Tiger. (When Panther came out, it took some convincing to see how good Exposé was. With this, it's obvious.)
Sony has a 5" display at 800x600 in their U50/U70 micro-notebook. And their slightly older U101 packs 1024x768 into a 7.1" display. (The U series used to have a 6.something" display at 1024x768, which was 200+ ppi.)
I agree. I think 200ppi is the next logical step. Then you just need to tell the OS to double all standard UI elements, and everything becomes readable, and crystal clear. (Windows already has this ability, which would be of great use in the story's ViewSonic/IBM monitor. The ViewSonic appears to be an OEM version of IBM's T220 display. Even the casing looks the same.)
While I do think that this whole story is a troll, I'll give some suggestions:
1. Firewall on. Yes. The Windows one. No matter what the directions say. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing. (ZoneAlarm or BlackIce are better. McAfee or Norton are barely acceptable.)
2. Hardware firewall. Amazon.com has a wireless router for $16 after rebates. Buy two.
3. Download the various updates (SP1 'net install' and the various Knowledge Base downloads to patch against specific virus holes,) and burn them on a CD. Install these before you turn on the internet connection.
Okay, so I've been subscribing to their POP/Forwarding access service. (I'd had my address for a long time, but got sick of using webmail, so for $20/year, it seemed worth it. Plus, I have my personal domain's email linked to it.)
So they've sent this email:
Notice: Your POP Access and Forwarding service has been improved
Dear Yahoo! Mail POP Access and Forwarding Subscriber,
Thanks for being a loyal Yahoo! Mail user. To show our appreciation, we've expanded your POP Access and Forwarding service to include all the benefits of the improved Yahoo! Mail Plus, at no additional cost. Yahoo! Mail Plus includes: Virus scanning and cleaning provided by Norton AntiVirus(TM)*
SpamGuard Plus, a personalized spam filtering system
No graphical ads
No promotional taglines in messages you send
Total message size of 10MB, including attachments
2GB of email storage
At the end of your current billing cycle, unless you cancel before that date, your Mail Plus service will auto-renew at $19.99/year**.
Thanks for using Yahoo! Mail, and we hope you enjoy the additional features now available to you at an even lower price. For more information, please click here.
Sincerely, The Yahoo! Mail Team
The only thing I dislike is the 10MB attachment limit. (Every once in a while, I'd like to send something larger. But my work lets me send unlimited size, so I just use that when I need to.)
2GB is so ridiculously much space that now I'll leave all of my messages on the server, instead of having them delete after a week.
Exactly. Since iTunes isn't on Linux, why would you need to support the new iTunes features?
Likewise, if you *DO* need the new iTunes features, then you must have a platform that can run iTunes (Mac or Win,) in which case, you have a method to install the firmware legitimately.
I was going to post a first-level comment about this, but your ending remark just sums it all up perfectly.
Slashdot Mirror
Cool, thanks. Works great now. :-)
Yeah, I know how painful writing your own code can be. I gave up hand coding a while ago.
Yeah, my rant was more about not noting the difference in the article. (Hence the second part of my post.) I'm just not a fan of ambiguously misleading information on the front page. (Oh, wait, this is Slashdot, I should know better.)
Salmon and Trout are the same species, just different subspecies. Is this really surprising? (In fact, Steelhead Salmon is the exact same fish as Rainbow Trout. The only difference is that Steelhead swim to the ocean, Rainbow Trout stay in rivers. Really. http://www.aps.uoguelph.ca/~ontaqua/name.html
:-p
This is about as surprising as a Calico cat giving birth to a Siamese cat. Extremely unusual, but not a huge deal.
Oh, I see. The story talks about DIFFERENT species. Well, then call them by their full names. Just saying "salmon" and "trout" doesn't say much.
News Flash: Retriever gives birth to Terrier!
Sorry to be a poop-head, but the rest of your site isn't very non-IE-friendly. For example, your main menu is totally unusable in Safari 1.2.2 on Mac OS X 10.3.4. Conforming to HTML and CSS standards is a good thing. (It's a little easier to use, but still not 'correct' on FireFox on OS X. I had to boot up my Windows box for the first time in two months to see what I'm assuming it 'should' look like.)
Lots of small cities/town have done this.
Hermiston, Oregon (popultion about 13,000, a litte larger than Grand Haven,) has had this for over a year. Newsweek even proclaimed that town the most Unwired back in June.
Oh, I see. Because it's not done by the city of Hermiston, but rather covers the entire 600 square-mile county, it's just the first county, not the first city. After all, Grand Haven only covers *SIX* square miles, not six hundred.
The second phase is just finishing, which will add another 200 square miles, and another seven cities. So maybe being the first 'seven city area' doesn't qualify each of the seven to be the 'first city', as Grand Haven is claminig.
Psh. Just some grandstanding. Being the first to claim you're first does not mean you are first.
The first time I saw Elijah Wood in a movie, my first thought was "Wow. He's a hobbit." When I heard LotR was being made, my first thought was "Man, I hope they cast Elijah Wood as Frodo."
Likewise, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel is inspired casting. I have always thought of her as being an elf.
And John Rhys-Davies makes an excellent Dwarf. I never thought about it beforehand, but it is perfect.
Yeah, there are better (and funnier) possibilities for everyone, but nobody but Elijah Wood could play Frodo. (And I never even liked him as an actor. I just knew that he was born to play Frodo.)
Ah, okay. Yeah, I thought you meant using PearPC code to make a Sega emulator for the GameCube. Yeah, PearPC would be useful for a GC emulator on the PC. But with the whopping performance hit PearPC causes, I don't see GC emulation anytime soon. (Because of the differences between x86 and PowerPC, it's easy for PPC to emulate x86, but hard for x86 to emulate PPC. Even the Pentium 4 and Athlon64 don't make it easy.)
Unfortunately, PowerPC and 68000 are in no way compatible. Yes, Apple transitioned their Macintosh line from the 68000 to the PowerPC, but they cheated. They wrote a 68000 emulator (it specifically emulated the 68020 with MMU,) for the PowerPC, and ran all 68000 code through the emulator. They are not compatible at all. (Motorola designed the 88000 series as IBM was designing the 'Power' series. Apple wanted a RISC processor that had the best of both lines, so they convinced the two processor compaies to make a compromise line, the PowerPC.)
And PearPC emulates a PowerPC on an x86 system. That is completely unneeded, as this already has a PowerPC. But, there should be no problem emulating the Genesis, anyway. Since a PowerPC 601 at 100Mhz outperforms a 68040 at 80MHz (the fastest 68000-series processor used in a Mac,) and I'm assuming the GameCube has something better than a PPC601, it should be more than capable.
It's a '99. (The last of the style before yours.)
My wife drives it like it's a Porsche. I'm not into the whole 'import tuning' scene, but it really does need different wheels/tires. I swapped the stock 155/80R13 for 205/55R15 on some very basic 15" rims, then found that 205 is too wide (it rubs on both the inside and the outside of the wheel well.) So I 'downsized' to 195/60. Still rubbed a little. Plus, the 15"ers looked silly, so when those tires wore out, I replaced the wheels back with the stock 13s, and put on 185/60R13s. (I think that's it.) Still handles like a dream, with no more tire-rub! (That sucker can CORNER. Impressive in such a little car, with so llittle hp.)
It doesn't take much.
My old Ford Escort GT could hit 165 (barely, it had a Mazda 185hp engine.) My friend's Ford Thunderbirds could hit it without flinching. (One had a 4 cylinder turbo, the other a 6 cylinder engine.) Most reasonably 'muscley' domestic cars can hit 165. Most import 'sporty' cars can hit 165. (Of the four cars I've owned, the only two that COULDN'T go that fast were the Subaru Justy (a 3-cylinder competitor to the Geo Metro, albiet much better built. It could do 120, and my current 'company car' a Hyundai Accent, which seems to have a limiter at 100. It has plenty of sprinting power accelerating between 90-100, but then it just refuses to go faster.)
I'm sorry, but if any company has the power to "stand up to the music industry," yes, it's Wal-Mart. Does that make it right?
I trust Wal-Mart even less than the RIAA. Sorry, but Ultra-Right-Wing Conservatives are worse than Right-Wing Capitalists.
Yes, I had the math bad on purpose. It's funnier when it's cheaper than tape. I guess I should have put a disclaimer with the 'real' price on the end.
A friend of mine owns a domain name that has certain geek value (it's a geek term for what happens when you delete data.) He has had it since 1995, long before spam was an issue. Sadly, in recent years, people have taken to using email addresses at his domain as fake addresses. He is the only person with a legitimate address at his domain, and he has all other addresses mail sent to a collection account.
His own address gets (before spam filtering,) 100-150 spams a day. The rest of his domain receives over 2000 spams a day. (With a legitimate message or two a week, for someone who either misspelled his real address, or tried to send to one of three other people (myself included,) who used to have addresses at his domain.)
He has even had individuals complain against him, because his admin@... account is disabled. (A spammer once faked messages coming from his domain, so he got complained against.)
So, PLEASE, only use an address that is a known-fake address. Either one at your own domain that you made up as a spam magnet (mine is 'spamme@<mydomain>') or when you have to submit an address for a website, try either cypherpunks@cypherpunks.com (password cypherpunks) or use something at the website's own domain. (Say, abuse@real.com when forced to enter something to download Real Player.)
(No, I am not going to announce my friend's domain. He gets enough spam as it is.)
Hrm.. I wonder what the lifespan of flash memory is? (I'll have to go look that up.)
With 2GB USB flash sticks available, I could plug four into a pocket hub, and have 8GB of data in a nice compact 'brick'! (RAIDed, of course.)
Okay, we need higher density flash now. (Let's see, the cheapest I can find is 2GB for $146, so a Petabyte would be (mmm... carry the three...) damn, only $3591. That's not bad, actually. Now, you'd have to add in a few hundred USB 2.0 hubs, though, so that would add to the cost.
That's pretty good. Heck, with that much automation, I'd even splurge and go for DVD-RW's. Takes a little more than twice as long, but great for backups that don't need to be permanent. (Say, use -Rs for weekly, -RWs for daily. or monthly/weekly, as circumstances dictate.)
I'm going to have to bookmark that and suggest that to customers. Great solution.
I've got 440GB of hard drive space on my primary PC, with about 250GB of it filled. Most of it is 'long-term' information that just won't fit on a DVD reasonably. (Lots of DV files, a few over 10GB in each single file.) I'd love to have a reasonably cheap, hands-off backup system that can handle that much data. I'd only need monthly 'full' backups of about 200GB. Then maybe weekly backups of the other 50GB. I'm sorry, but 10 DVD-RWs is a bit much. Even at 4x write speed, waiting 15 minutes, then swapping, then waiting 15 minutes more, then swapping again... It's not something I'd want to do even monthly. And forget about backing 200GB up to DVD, even once. (Yes, part of that 440GB is in the form of a 'backup' drive, but I'd like to have something with cheaper media that I can keep offsite, and preferably have more than one copy of. A 200GB external drive isn't cheap enough to buy 'a few' of to keep offsite.)
I've seen 2GB USB keys. Do you have a >2GB ACT! database? (I have a 1GB USB 2.0 one of these. Yes, it's tiny. And it looks cool. :-) )
That is a rather frightening thought. Return of sneaker-net viruses! I've seen plenty of spyware/virus-laden computers, and the last thing I need is for people to spread them the old fashioned way.
It is 16-bit, 44.1kHz stereo. It's just compressed to (supposedly) remove the bits that humans can't hear anyway.
Don't confuse data compression techniques with changing the recording depth. A 1024x768, 24-bit JPEG is just as 'hi-fidelity' as a 1024x768, 24-bit TIFF. It's just compressed in such a way that (at low compression levels,) the distortions are 'hardly noticeable'.
Yes, at higher compression (lower bitrate, in the case of audio,) those differences become noticeable, but for *most* people, it isn't. It's perfectly fine if you don't want 128-kbps AAC, but don't claim it's because it isn't "16 bit 44k1 KHz stereo". (I don't have ultra-picky ears, so 128-kbps AAC sounds just fine to me, even with my fancy-schmancy $150 "studio monitor" headphones.)
I agree. I also used to have Konfabulator installed, and found it a bit unwieldy. (Admittedly, when I had it installed, it was on a 350Mhz G3, so it was slow.) Taking up space all the time just got in the way.
So when I heard about Dashboard, my first thought was "Another Konfabulator. Cool idea, but not that useful in the long run." It wasn't until I saw the Exposé-like disappearing act that I realized how much it was really needed.
I missed Desk Accessories. I use Stickies and Calculator alot. I used them alot in the Classic Mac OS. (Going all the way back to System 5, when Stickies were 'Note Pad'.) I liked the quick access, quick loading, and state-saving of them. Yeah, having Stickies and Calculator in the dock is what I'd ended up doing. (On my notebook. On my desktop, I use a Kensington mouse with a 'quick-launch' button map, so I have Stickies, Calc, and Terminal in the quick-launch menu.) But even though I use them often, it's a bit cluttering of the Dock. (Which I like to save for those programs that I really do load 'all the time', to keep a de-cluttered appearance.)
So the new Exposé-like effect of Dashboard just seems to be the perfect implementation. It combines the 'small widget' of Konfabulator with the ease of constant access of Desk Accessories, in a good way. I can't wait for Tiger. (When Panther came out, it took some convincing to see how good Exposé was. With this, it's obvious.)
Sony has a 5" display at 800x600 in their U50/U70 micro-notebook. And their slightly older U101 packs 1024x768 into a 7.1" display. (The U series used to have a 6.something" display at 1024x768, which was 200+ ppi.)
I agree. I think 200ppi is the next logical step. Then you just need to tell the OS to double all standard UI elements, and everything becomes readable, and crystal clear. (Windows already has this ability, which would be of great use in the story's ViewSonic/IBM monitor. The ViewSonic appears to be an OEM version of IBM's T220 display. Even the casing looks the same.)
While I do think that this whole story is a troll, I'll give some suggestions:
1. Firewall on. Yes. The Windows one. No matter what the directions say. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing. (ZoneAlarm or BlackIce are better. McAfee or Norton are barely acceptable.)
2. Hardware firewall. Amazon.com has a wireless router for $16 after rebates. Buy two.
3. Download the various updates (SP1 'net install' and the various Knowledge Base downloads to patch against specific virus holes,) and burn them on a CD. Install these before you turn on the internet connection.
So they've sent this email:
The only thing I dislike is the 10MB attachment limit. (Every once in a while, I'd like to send something larger. But my work lets me send unlimited size, so I just use that when I need to.)
2GB is so ridiculously much space that now I'll leave all of my messages on the server, instead of having them delete after a week.
Poor Argentines will miss it both times. (Argentines and Antarcticans both.)
Exactly. Since iTunes isn't on Linux, why would you need to support the new iTunes features?
Likewise, if you *DO* need the new iTunes features, then you must have a platform that can run iTunes (Mac or Win,) in which case, you have a method to install the firmware legitimately.
I was going to post a first-level comment about this, but your ending remark just sums it all up perfectly.
(For the record, yes, I *AM* a rocket scientist.)