These little guys appear to be running Linux, and some are even hackable (I'm not affiliated with any of these companies/blogs): http://www.monoprice.com/Produ...
This is certainly true for some software (GUI/UX-heavy sort of applications, in my experience). Linux kernel, Apache (and the whole LAPP/LAMP stack), FireFox/Chromium, etc. are all OSS (to some extent). Yes, I think Open/LibreOffice is FAR from competitive with Word -- so I guess I'm agreeing with you, it varies a lot; but I take issue with "the quality of OSS is too bad."
I'm certainly not advocating abandoning proprietary software in one fell swoop. But there are cases where it can make loads of sense -- server OS, desktop browsers, etc.
But DVDs *do* have DRM -- it's just easy to circumvent. Is your issue with more advanced DRM that it's centralized (servers owned by some company), so your rights could be revoked at any time?
Just integrate DRM directly into the hardware -- more power efficient, and it Creates Jobs, Too! (But of course you shouldn't count the energy used for designing and fabricating those little ASICs -- that would be silly!)
I know it's huge overkill, but I've had times where it was honestly easier to drop the data into PostgreSQL (MySQL, if you prefer) than edit it in Excel / Gnumeric / Open/LibreOffice's spreadsheet tool.
There was one case where my friend needed to analyze a modest amount of data -- 70k rows, 30 columns or so -- and Excel would absolutely choke on her new laptop running Excel. Dropped it into Postgres on my anemic netbook and queries were lightning fast. No need to specify column types, either -- just load everything as text and do query-time typecasting.
Clearly, choose the right tool for the job; but if you like separating the data from the logic / are comfortable with SQL / etc., I find it much more efficient to write a few lines of SQL to get the data I want (export the queries to a CSV, load 'em up with gnuplot [or Octave as a gnuplot frontend], and you have pretty vector-graphics). To each his/her own, though.
Soft spot in my heart for Slack, too -- although I started off with an old RedHat CD I picked up at a garage sale (2.0 kernel series, I think), Slack was the first distro I really started using. Great stuff, though I've now moved on to Debian.
As to the "start off easy" sentiment, I would highly recommend Project Euler: http://projecteuler.net/proble... fun little programming exercises, and can really be done in any language.
It might be interesting if they introduced some user-selectable amounts of simulated decoherance, though -- perhaps to allow for simulation of quantum error correction, etc. Looking at this locally, it could be non-unitary (though I'm not sure the extent of the environment that one would model for such a computer simulator). Fun stuff, in any event.
McAfee did nothing different than what millions of people do every day via TPB.
I would argue there's a bit of a difference. If true, McAfee is using this illegal data for *profit*, as opposed to just using it for entertainment/personal use. I think a more analogous scenario would be grabbing a movie via TPB and then charging your friends to watch it with you.
I know very little about display tech, but is display refresh rate really dictated by transistor switching speed? In any event, solid-state amplifiers can extend well into the GHz range, and display refresh rate is sub-kHz. I think rise-times of existing transistors are measured in ns, not ms.
I understand that high framerates at many megapixels can be computationally expensive, but I wouldn't call that refresh rate. Are talking display tech or graphics card tech here?
Yeah, it's nice that -- in some perverse sense -- Google's interests are aligned with those of the customers. Google makes money off of you *because you use* the internet, whereas Comcast makes money because you pay your monthly bill.
Of course, advertising may not ultimately be in the best interest of the customer, but still...
I think that although an effective ban on death threats, etc., is in some way "abridging" freedom of speech (which the 1st Amendment seems to protect against), I don't find this at all offensive to my sensibilities, nor would I say that this alone constitutes an "attack" on the 1st Amendment. Whether or not there are other examples of 1st Amendment infringements is a different issue.
I certainly agree that free speech does not protect one from the consequences of said speech. However, if one sends a death threats to a prominent government figure, then wouldn't the "consequence" be, in effect, that you are "arrested for saying things"? I certainly think this is an appropriate consequence -- but I do perceive it to be a (perfectly acceptable) "infringement" on the right to free speech. To each his own, though.
Likewise, it matters how many adults can be comfortably seated. I suspect that I, as a pretty tall guy, could very comfortably sit in the back seat of a Model S, even with tall front-seat occupants with the seats back. (That said, the specs aren't that different, with the BMW having more headroom: http://www.teslamotors.com/mod... vs. http://buyersguide.caranddrive... ).
We even have restrictions on free speech, even though the 1st Amendment says, "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech...". It seems to me that my right to free speech is being "abridged" in that there's an effective ban on death threats, yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, etc. And yet, I don't really see people going on about the death of the Constitution with respect to this aspect. Of course, I happen to think that death threats should *not* be protected under free speech just as I think gun laws should, in some way, be reformed, but I suppose that's my opinion and all...
600 kilotons TNT is about 2.5e15 J. In comparison, the sunlight incident on the Earth is around 174 petawatts, meaning it takes roughly 20 milliseconds for that much solar energy to be absorbed (clouds, oceans and land masses) by the Earth (taking into account the ~30% reflected power). In comparison, the total world annual energy consumption is around 5e20 J. So, I wouldn't be too worried about added heat due to asteroids.
I have an old stereo tube amp (Dynakit ST-70) -- I'm not at all an audiophile, I just think it's an awesome old piece of gear.
When I asked a Nobel-laureate professor of mine what he thought of the difference between tubes and transistors vis–à–vis audiophile claims, he said, "Vacuum tubes are exactly the same as transistors...except they f****** glow!"
As a theory, AGW is in many respects similar to evolution: they're both lousy theories, but they happen to be right. By "lousy theory," I mean that they fail to make quantitative predictions. Evolutionary theory cannot say exactly how many centimeters longer the teeth of some species living on island X relates to its kin on mainland Y. However, it can say, "the teeth will be better suited to the environment."
I'm certainly no expert on either evolution or AGW, but a similar claim for AGW might be something along the lines of, "if you do something to a chaotic system, stuff will happen." Clearly there are published papers that try to make more quantitative models -- some successfully, some not so much. But I would be interested in reading a paper -- published in a legitimate journal -- with the phrase, "we are all gonna die!!!!!" I'm just not so sure the editors of Nature or Science would let that many consecutive exclamation marks get by...
In pre-Newton/Galileo/etc. times, as far as I know the theory of gravity was basically, "things tend to fall." It's a terrible theory, sure, but it happens to be right.
...we're still fascinated with tribalism and the Kardashians.
I think our fascination with them is healthy. They help to illustrate our desire to explore, while at the same time serving as a gentle caution against the more dark, violent aspects of our own humanity.
Slashdot Mirror
These little guys appear to be running Linux, and some are even hackable (I'm not affiliated with any of these companies/blogs): http://www.monoprice.com/Produ...
http://haxit.blogspot.com/2013...
http://hackaday.com/2013/08/12...
If the BBC released their nature documentary series (Life, Planet Earth, Africa, Frozen Planet, etc.) in 4k, that would really be tempting...
;)
I'm sure David Attenborough's voice would sound even better in 4k
http://www.google.com/get/vide...
This is certainly true for some software (GUI/UX-heavy sort of applications, in my experience). Linux kernel, Apache (and the whole LAPP/LAMP stack), FireFox/Chromium, etc. are all OSS (to some extent). Yes, I think Open/LibreOffice is FAR from competitive with Word -- so I guess I'm agreeing with you, it varies a lot; but I take issue with "the quality of OSS is too bad."
I'm certainly not advocating abandoning proprietary software in one fell swoop. But there are cases where it can make loads of sense -- server OS, desktop browsers, etc.
But DVDs *do* have DRM -- it's just easy to circumvent. Is your issue with more advanced DRM that it's centralized (servers owned by some company), so your rights could be revoked at any time?
Just integrate DRM directly into the hardware -- more power efficient, and it Creates Jobs, Too! (But of course you shouldn't count the energy used for designing and fabricating those little ASICs -- that would be silly!)
I know it's huge overkill, but I've had times where it was honestly easier to drop the data into PostgreSQL (MySQL, if you prefer) than edit it in Excel / Gnumeric / Open/LibreOffice's spreadsheet tool.
There was one case where my friend needed to analyze a modest amount of data -- 70k rows, 30 columns or so -- and Excel would absolutely choke on her new laptop running Excel. Dropped it into Postgres on my anemic netbook and queries were lightning fast. No need to specify column types, either -- just load everything as text and do query-time typecasting.
Clearly, choose the right tool for the job; but if you like separating the data from the logic / are comfortable with SQL / etc., I find it much more efficient to write a few lines of SQL to get the data I want (export the queries to a CSV, load 'em up with gnuplot [or Octave as a gnuplot frontend], and you have pretty vector-graphics). To each his/her own, though.
Soft spot in my heart for Slack, too -- although I started off with an old RedHat CD I picked up at a garage sale (2.0 kernel series, I think), Slack was the first distro I really started using. Great stuff, though I've now moved on to Debian.
As to the "start off easy" sentiment, I would highly recommend Project Euler: http://projecteuler.net/proble... fun little programming exercises, and can really be done in any language.
Have you implemented a T9-style predictor (I'm not being glib)?
If so, I suspect there are optimal groupings of letters which minimize ambiguity, etc. (I'm guessing there is published work on this.)
Not to mention the fact that it is, to my way of thinking, stunningly gorgeous: http://www.oocities.org/capeca... http://www.oocities.org/capeca...
Something about the way the jet intakes are integrated into the wing. Very pretty!
It might be interesting if they introduced some user-selectable amounts of simulated decoherance, though -- perhaps to allow for simulation of quantum error correction, etc. Looking at this locally, it could be non-unitary (though I'm not sure the extent of the environment that one would model for such a computer simulator). Fun stuff, in any event.
McAfee did nothing different than what millions of people do every day via TPB.
I would argue there's a bit of a difference. If true, McAfee is using this illegal data for *profit*, as opposed to just using it for entertainment/personal use. I think a more analogous scenario would be grabbing a movie via TPB and then charging your friends to watch it with you.
Gotcha, thanks. Apparently I don't read good ;)
I know very little about display tech, but is display refresh rate really dictated by transistor switching speed? In any event, solid-state amplifiers can extend well into the GHz range, and display refresh rate is sub-kHz. I think rise-times of existing transistors are measured in ns, not ms.
I understand that high framerates at many megapixels can be computationally expensive, but I wouldn't call that refresh rate. Are talking display tech or graphics card tech here?
Yeah, it's nice that -- in some perverse sense -- Google's interests are aligned with those of the customers. Google makes money off of you *because you use* the internet, whereas Comcast makes money because you pay your monthly bill.
Of course, advertising may not ultimately be in the best interest of the customer, but still...
Good point, I should have clarified.
I think that although an effective ban on death threats, etc., is in some way "abridging" freedom of speech (which the 1st Amendment seems to protect against), I don't find this at all offensive to my sensibilities, nor would I say that this alone constitutes an "attack" on the 1st Amendment. Whether or not there are other examples of 1st Amendment infringements is a different issue.
I certainly agree that free speech does not protect one from the consequences of said speech. However, if one sends a death threats to a prominent government figure, then wouldn't the "consequence" be, in effect, that you are "arrested for saying things"? I certainly think this is an appropriate consequence -- but I do perceive it to be a (perfectly acceptable) "infringement" on the right to free speech. To each his own, though.
Likewise, it matters how many adults can be comfortably seated. I suspect that I, as a pretty tall guy, could very comfortably sit in the back seat of a Model S, even with tall front-seat occupants with the seats back. (That said, the specs aren't that different, with the BMW having more headroom: http://www.teslamotors.com/mod... vs. http://buyersguide.caranddrive... ).
As usual, though, apples and oranges!
Well said.
...abridging the freedom of speech...". It seems to me that my right to free speech is being "abridged" in that there's an effective ban on death threats, yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, etc. And yet, I don't really see people going on about the death of the Constitution with respect to this aspect. Of course, I happen to think that death threats should *not* be protected under free speech just as I think gun laws should, in some way, be reformed, but I suppose that's my opinion and all...
We even have restrictions on free speech, even though the 1st Amendment says, "Congress shall make no law
600 kilotons TNT is about 2.5e15 J. In comparison, the sunlight incident on the Earth is around 174 petawatts, meaning it takes roughly 20 milliseconds for that much solar energy to be absorbed (clouds, oceans and land masses) by the Earth (taking into account the ~30% reflected power). In comparison, the total world annual energy consumption is around 5e20 J. So, I wouldn't be too worried about added heat due to asteroids.
Sources:
https://www.google.com/search?...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
Accidents happen, yes, but nuclear is still arguably the safest (deaths/TWh) form of energy on the planet: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...
Even wind, hydro and solar are more dangerous.
I have an old stereo tube amp (Dynakit ST-70) -- I'm not at all an audiophile, I just think it's an awesome old piece of gear.
When I asked a Nobel-laureate professor of mine what he thought of the difference between tubes and transistors vis–à–vis audiophile claims, he said, "Vacuum tubes are exactly the same as transistors...except they f****** glow!"
As a theory, AGW is in many respects similar to evolution: they're both lousy theories, but they happen to be right. By "lousy theory," I mean that they fail to make quantitative predictions. Evolutionary theory cannot say exactly how many centimeters longer the teeth of some species living on island X relates to its kin on mainland Y. However, it can say, "the teeth will be better suited to the environment."
I'm certainly no expert on either evolution or AGW, but a similar claim for AGW might be something along the lines of, "if you do something to a chaotic system, stuff will happen." Clearly there are published papers that try to make more quantitative models -- some successfully, some not so much. But I would be interested in reading a paper -- published in a legitimate journal -- with the phrase, "we are all gonna die!!!!!" I'm just not so sure the editors of Nature or Science would let that many consecutive exclamation marks get by...
In pre-Newton/Galileo/etc. times, as far as I know the theory of gravity was basically, "things tend to fall." It's a terrible theory, sure, but it happens to be right.
What's the max theoretical speed improvement?
Here's a good article on (I believe) the relevant speed increase: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
That said, I've never taken any signal processing classes so I could be pointing you in the wrong direction.
...we're still fascinated with tribalism and the Kardashians.
I think our fascination with them is healthy. They help to illustrate our desire to explore, while at the same time serving as a gentle caution against the more dark, violent aspects of our own humanity.
And it's spelled, "Cardassians."