I don't know if you meant to include Gaeilge (or Erse, as the English so delightfully and confusingly dubbed it) in your statement....sometimes it's hard to tell, what with all these US English spelling gradually bringing us closer to the one word language of "Ugh!" - I know some people think 'Galic' means Celtic, but it really doesn't.
Anyway, just to let you know that Irish is dead, but isn't.
Delightfully, most Irish people can speak a cúpla focal na Gaeilge, interspersed with English...it lets you swear without swearing and confuses the hell out of people. But more importantly, you'd be surprised about how many 'English' words actually come from Irish and Scots words...even the word 'Tories' (the word used to describe the members of the conservative party of Britain) comes from an Irish word, but just say it to one of 'em and watch them foam at the mouth trying to denie it! 8)
You have to admit, the Spanish speaking world wreaked(sp-?) havoc on the globe there for a few centuries, assimilating and even destroying civilisations. They had their time in the sun but their power had faded by the 20th century. So, no longer in command of a huge empire and in posession of an outmoded caste system, the government of Spain - what would now be called 'Franco's government' as though he was the only one responsible - stepped up their predjudices and basic attacks on the Catalan cultures, among others. This is disgusting, but somehow not unexpected. So now what do you expect for the Spanish(re-Castilian) language? Immortality? Preservation in antiquity?
All I'm saying is that when you live by the sword.....
(I tend to shy away from controversial issues, so sorry if I've upset anyone...I'm probably unpracticed in diplomacy... 8)
DISC means the medium involves optics or lasers in some way, such as "optical disc", "Compact Disc" etc...
DISK means the medium is magnetic based, so you have "Hard Disk", "Floppy Disk" etc....
Technically speaking, you shouldn't interchange the spelling - in reality, non-techies and the vast majority of people do, so geeks tend to as well.
By-the-by, I'll never forgive the fact the world has to spell 'Sulphur' 'Sulfur' due to US English...but that's just me.
...at the moment I haven't been able to find a definitive or comprehensive list on the 'net.
You can find charts for specific products by doing a 'Webferret' search - but then you're only talking about street prices, which are beaten daily on the internet, and are really only 'guide prices' for most products on the high street.
If you're buying, your best bet is to cross reference a list of available components with sites like: Streetprices.com - perhaps one of the best sites cnet - does some price comparisons
If you're still doing research then why not go to some of the component-specific sites on the web, such as http://www.motherboards.org/ and the like. They often have articles that deal with price fluctuations. Your fav computer mag.'s web site no doubt also has a littany of articles on the subject with decent research in them.
But methinks the resource you're after would be valuable to marketing students more than anyone else - if that's your thrust then I suggest you go to the manufacturer's web pages ( should you be trying to get geeks to do your marketing project for you?:). Seriously, I think the reason such a site isn't about at the moment is that such information can be used to do exactly what you want to do - the large firms probably wouldn't want geeks and non-geeks to suss out how the whole 'product life-cycle' and 'price-cycle' works and disrupt the whole thing. For the moment your just going to have to use that power that lies somewhere between 'the force' and 'the knack' and kinda guesstimate when prices are about to fall.
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"...the backers decided that the name[HAL] sounded too like the word 'Hell' and that it wouldn't have much resonance with younger customers..."(from original article)
What?! Do marketing guys live on another planet or something?
Surely the name 'HAL' is still one of the most potent and widely recognised names in the first world? Geeks - and all sub-categories thereof - truly know the name but more than that, even people who wouldn't touch sci-fi with a barge poll know the name and the concepts therein concerned. It's called 'name recognition'.
Also, since when would the word 'hell' scare of kiddies from anything? I smell a weak cover story.
It seems to me this project may be falling foul of bad planning - or at the least, marketing that is failing to consider the target audience properly. The idea seems ill-concieved in some areas but well executed in others.
A ship called Titanic.
A car called Edsel.
A computer Omniputer
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Isn't there a big problem with even minor magnetic storms in areas with a high calcium content in the ground, i.e. the limestone areas of Canada? Doesn't it cause the power grid to discharge randomly or something?
I heard that Canadian authorities were working on a fix for this a few years back(geeze, almost ten now, I suppose)- did they ever put a solution in place? And what about other areas with similar geology?
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I'm sure someone else has said this already...
on
Golden Rice
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Just wanted to write a quick note that, contrary to industry statements there are definite, negative effects by certain GMO. That's a pretty broad statement, but I'm talking specifically about commerically available wheat in the USA. It has been proven that the pollen from this wheat actually kills a whole mess of insect and - directly because of this - can impact on other mammal and plant life.
Also, the Soviets(!) had done some preliminary research on this subject but I don't know what their conclusions about the then (I presume) mostly theoretical field. What I read at them time, there were a good few scientists warning about the problems we are starting to experience today.
(By-the-by, I believe in science and not popular opinion; I've come out against GMOs because there is proof of their 'flawed design' - I haven't come out totally against nuclear power or things like that.)
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My dream is to own a minidisc someday, but at £200 for a good one, they're out of my price range for the moment.
Go to minidisc.org to find out more, including : how to use it as a dictaphone and more geeky apps, such as mapping global weather patterns(!!!).
Also, I've seen reviews of MDs with built in mics, but I can't remember any details at the moment.
We would like to migrate the server to *nix, but the LIMS market seems to be dominated by Microsoft.
I know I'm in danger of committing/. heresy but I have a quick question: is there any reason you particularly want/need to change to a *nix server?
Is it aesthetic, or practical?(I guess I could understand either)
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Then you must really get pissed off at the internet, 'cos it usually says things were invented by an Englishman or an American. (I'm not saying that's wrong....if mother M$ wants it that way, I'll conform....for now)
Ireland - you all stood by while modified our constitution and defined our nation in terms of people, now you're OURS!.
(Damn, now the Dublin Secret Milita will probably break my legs). 8)
I don't have the right URL at the moment but a recent rash of stories have indicated that Switzerland has been invited to join the EU and is seriously considering it.
Any Swiss comments? I wonder how this would effect the whole Swiss image thang you've got going over there...
...but here in Ireland, in an unusal show of foresight, they introduced a dual system back in the seventies. Then when the EU decided to go fully metric, we could litterally do it overnight.
Maybe you should make it clear that it's not Americans en masse, or even the majority of American who oppose metric. It's the vocal, heavily armed and influential sections of American society. That includes the American media - my God! (Do you take CNN and those other tabloid trash tv stations seriously? They don't tell you just the facts, they draw conclusions and cram opinions down your throat at a mile a minute. The American media scares me just because it's so biased and able to influence the liberal sections of society).
Anywho, America could, can and will change - it just won't happen over night. Give 'em 50 years or so.
(I hope that they realise metric actually isn't a Communist plot...but part of me hopes they stay Imperial and crash n' burn - I'll never forgive Americans for making 'Sulfur' the accepted spelling for 'Sulphur' in science circles.)
Oh my God....
Companies are big bastards (excuse my language, kiddies!). I know some management types who hooked me up with some primo 386 servers their company had decided to throw out - my God, they are great for the old home network. The company was going to dump them, I gave my friend £20 and got them off him. He gained, I gained and the company(which is tiny) didn't lose out!
Why do companies just dump their equipment? Another friend got a stack of Simms, a handful of processors and three colour laptops with batteries when he had a Summer job with a removal company - IBM moved its Irish offices and had just earmarked thousands of pounds worth of great hardware for dumping!! (He didn't give me any though!)
I've also found lots of slightly damaged monitors and aging computers at the dump - with problems that are easily fixed...
If I EVER see someone dumping out a computer, they are going to get an earfull from me - there are plenty of extremely poor people who could use them and plenty of geeks (like me) who just want them...
I don't, by-in-large, give to charity, but I know one thing, if I ever saw equipment being dumped in a company (or university) that I worked in, I'd have the guts to ask for the stuff (or maybe come back when no one is around and take the stuff) and actually give it to a charity shop or someone who needed or wanted a computer.
Power sources (the electrical type, at least!) aren't quite my thang, so I've got a real basic question - what are we talking about cost wise?
Like, cost per KWH, cost of installation, etc. is it cheaper or more expensive than being on the grid or using an alternative/traditional generator?
Plus one more, slightly offtopic question:
You can convert a normal diesel engine to run on different types of oil pretty cheaply, about IR£2000 if you have to hire a mechanic to do it. That's doing it so it can automatically adjust to fuel type used(eg cooking oil, peanut oil etc..) - there are other, cheaper methods. You save money on fuel costs(depending where you live) and all that. Has anyone in/.land tried this with a generator - does it work and is it cheaper than running on diesel?
I won't waste to much time on you, but I'll just say that the British invented concentraition camps during the Boar War. I'll also say that many of the 'death camps' that Lenin inherited were left-overs from the Tsarist regieme...so could you please clarify what you mean by 'death-camp' mentality, because I'm not sure whether your blaming the wrong person, policy or belief system.
As some of the other posters already said, Cyrix was bought out, then passed around like a hot potato. Then, after VIA bought them, they started working on project Joshua. Nowwwww....
There is a new chip in town : The VIA Cyrix III!
Okay, let me clarify: I'm a student, not in anyway connected with Cyrix...heck, I didn't even have a PC in the glory-days of Cyrix(I had an ST and Amiga...). But I think the entry of a third party into the processor wars can only be a good thing. The Cyrix III comes in several flavours: from the 433 to 533 So, what's it got?
Integrated 64Kb L1 cache and 256Kb L2 cache
133MHz FSB
dual issue FPU
full MMX and 3DNOW! instruction sets
Socket 370
and a whole other mess of groovy things!
The price, last time I checked, was about $80/Stg£50/IRL£60. Okay...it isn't 1GHz stuff, so why get excited? Well read on... When AMD started to compete for the home market, how often did it's processors get a positive review, how often did 'experts' refuse to even consider AMD credible as an alternative to Intel - and be honest, because a lot of people who are gushing about how great AMD are these days(and there is no question, they are great!) wouldn't give them a second glance a few years ago. Anyhow, Cyrix is only coming back into the fray now, but their chips look pretty good from where I'm sitting and, depending on your needs and budget, the chip could be a good choice. But wait...there's more...
VIA are the chipset people : this is a marketing department's dream! Without streching the imagination or the resources of VIA too much, it wouldn't be hard to put together a motherboard and processor package sold at a discount - I'm not talking halving prices here, or anything, but decent discount - I won't quote figures. And there's more!
Does anyone remember the 'old' Cyrix's project to have, and I quote, a "computer on a processor."? This means a one-chip computer...bios n' all. The time frame was to have the project finished by 2005...Anyone know how this project is going, if at all? Compaq is rumoured to be considering a *cheap* budget PC based on the new VIA Cyrix III, which would be good news for us "stick-the-screwdriver-in-there-and-I'll-turn-on-t he-power" techies who desperately want to try things out with modern PCs. Surf by VIACyrix's site for info on VIA/Cyrix or get the VIA Cyrix III info at: http://www.cyrix.com/products/cyr3brief.htm
Just out of a matter of interest...what happened to all the other chip makers that had decided to compete against Intel during its reign...Cyrix and AMD were perhaps the most well known, but I seem to remember about three more...
Listen, I believe many of us ordinary mortals, i.e. the majority of people, are spoon-fed the opinions/PR of organisations, like NASA, through the media and never hear the other side of the story. I, like many here, believe in and hope for the exsistence of extra-solar planets. But the only way we can ever be sure is by sending probes/humans to these planets. It occurs to me that, currently, we, the public, are being told this-and-this is the case about interpreted readings gained from equipment studing the stars - it may be the most likely scenario, but it is still not coberrated(sp-?) data. It is extrapolations...maths etc..Nothing more! But I also have a question, prompted by some of the other comments posted here. With all the debris, asteroids etc... within our own solar-system what is the proposed(or proven) mechanics that would allow spacecraft not to collide? Are we still relying upon the idea there isn't enough debris etc... to be worried about?
What planet do you live on? Your Madeline Albright rushes across the globe at the first sign of a nation with an internal problem, wearing cowboy hats or boots - I'm not making that up. Watch the news reports, browse the net. She obviously sees herself as a cowboy out to right the world. How many of your politicans have described America as the policeman of the world? How many have denied the role?(Sure proof of it's verasity) Policemen tend to enforce speed limits, while speeding themselves when they need to.
Listen, I'm only starting to learn the intricacies of all things computerised. Although in specific areas I'm fluent, due to my early start in computers at age 7(-ish) way back in 1988. My question is what are your ideas about what constitutes AI, a valuable part of robotics?. I've heard the reports, seen some of the sites, but for everyone that specifically states 'this is the way to go' an equally reputable source will always surface to say the exact opposite. For instance, can we give our AI programs specific instructions on how to control limbs, or more simply(and probably more in line with my own planned amature attempts) use sentence structure, or would that negate the idea of a 'self-learning' system. Or do we have to go alllllll the way back to the basics and define the basics to our AI : good, bad and indifferent reactions to stimuli...then take the active learning from there? How much can we initally program, in other words....and what's the best way to do that programming? High level, e.g. C, Low-level, e.g. assembly, or machine-code?
Okay, since you've managed to live life thus far without understanding the concept of linear time I'll have a go at giving you the basics. Time, according to some, is an abstract to define a sequence of events. Each event can only happen subsiquent to the previous event's completion and prior to the next event. So, for example, imagine yourself in a queue at the cinema. The person in front of you represents an event or instance that you haven't reached yet; the future. The person behind you represents the past; he/she is an instance or event that you have passed. You, always, remain firmly planted in the present, an instant between the past and present. As the queue moves one pace foreward, you get to move to where the person representing the future was standing. But he/she is no longer there...as they will have moved foreward as well. The past has also moved up to the familar place you have just been, one pace behind you. This is the simple progression of time. Study it well.
Pop-quiz, hotshots:
The future is in front of you, do you:
a)describe in perfect detail what the future is like
b)have a vague idea about what it's like, and able to make estimates what it's like, but can not say with absolute certainty what it is like
c)move forward faster than the future can get out of your way
d) eye the future longingly, but never move towards it
My God! It takes time to write articles, put up web pages and sort through what is news and what is momentary hysteria. Give these guys a break. It's not like they're putting up ancient news(although that could be interesting!).
Who am I to lecture you on this?
I'm a university student swamped with deadlines and use to my web page going out of date almost as soon as I update it.
By the way, the answer to the pop quiz is c...
Well, it's supposed to be, but people tend to opt for options a, c and d all too often.;^)
I don't want to get off the topic, but GEM (which I was surprised to learn wasn't exclusively owned by ATARI) has gone GPL thanks to Caldera. I'm not trying to kindle old Amiga vs. Atari rivalries, because at this stage they're irrelevant, all I'm saying is that there is real opertunity for a great core idea to be extended and developed for the PC, Linux and MAC. There are moves afoot by various programmers to bring the GEM GUI up-to-date on the PC, ports to Linux are in their early stages, I've heard rumours that there are still a few people having a go at improving GEM on CP/M machines and I'm following up on some leads that may get me the location of the Mac source. Goto " http://nav.webring.org/cgi-bin/navcgi?ring=freegem ;list " to learn more.
Okay, as you've probably gathered from my other posts, I am a geek. A proud one. I have tried to read as many of the above posts to see if anyone has made this point, but I'm quickly running up a huge phone bill, so I'll just make my point anyway... If my school had been privy to a system like WAVE when I was attending, I would have had no problem in using it. In fact I, and many more people I know, would have relished the idea of contributing to something "...bigger than any one of us are...", while also contributing to an idea of public safety and reaping material rewards too. I think this is what WAVEAmerica is counting on. I think, however, that they have left themselves too open with their criteria, and I can definitely see how I could have lapsed into vindictive reporting.(Yes! An admission that I'm not perfect. It'll hurt my fans, but it had to be said!). Now, whatever spin you want to put on it, it is probably paramount to WAVEAmerica that it turns a profit(be it their primary goal or whatever;^), and this could hinder them greatly with their criteria. But it can be used as an effective part of a good PR spin....look to sourcing local, talented recruits in important fields. For want of refining the point down too much for you(without getting paid the mega-bucks that your paying your own whizz-kids these days, that is), hire the trained and semi-trained 'experts' (define that as you will) as field agents of a sort... the people who check up on most, if not all, reports. Source the talent from local univeristies and the like, with whom a favourable contract could be negotiated. Arrange with the local school system to be allowed to sit in on classes where reports are recieved, again a contract could be negotiated, this time with a good PR spin. Look, basically wave should set itself up with a greater emphasis on drawing more of the loose threads of NC society together creatively, to create a positive, profit-making American sucess.
I'm not going to pretend to be what I'm not: I am not affiliated to any gene mapping project, I am not a biologist (in any real sense of the word) and I have never knowingly participated in any cloning project/experiment. I hope this is apparent from the start of this post, right through to the end. But let me say this, some of the follow-ups to the above message make statements about the impossibility of making a female clone from male cells. Let me say that that is wrong! Okay, there are plenty of interpretations of what you want...what's a clone as opposed to a man-made combination of genes? I also admit male-to-female is the easier of the two(if your willing to accept the following to a degree), so that's why I can explain so simply here. Basically what makes a male cell male is a Y chromosome. Female cells simply can't have them(as a general rule). Thus whereas a Female cell will have two X chromosomes, a male cell will have an X and a Y chromosome. By following text-book procedure, it would be technically possible to remove/disable the Y chromosome in a cell, then take the X chromosome from another cell(be from the original donor - ill advised - or a third party). The difficult part, and the part which I, of course, don't know anything about, is sticking the new X chromosome inside the cell nucleus and ensuring that the cells, with all its biased organelles and issues associated there-in, survive at however low a rate. This will produce a single, 'adult' cell. To extend the theme of a human clone, this would then lend itself to the 'Dolly the Sheep' model of producing a viable entity. Now, by manipulation of the gametes, going for reproductive cells rather than 'adult' cells, other issues are raised, but a more straight-forward path seems open. The male and female gametes could then be merged in the traditional way and placed in a suitable 'surrogate', i.e. artifical insemination. This could be referred to as the 'trad-invetro method' (a particularly clever name). The problem with changing a female cell to a male cell can be tackled on several levels, depending on your interpretation of 'clone'. Needless to say that without the introduction of third-party Y-chromosomes, the manipulation of genes in the nucleus becomes much more complex and, once again, something I'd have little idea about. Now, once again, the 'simple' procedures above would require little-or-none of the high-tech gene-alchemy we expect because of sci-fi movies. But such alchemy would be necessary in the majority of cases to overcome genetic flaws...pretty damned tricky stuff that gene mapping goes a long-way towards aiding. Public Domain gene-mapping...maybe have the processes a company secret, but data shouldn't be restricted. And that, my dear readers, is my post on the wonders of producing opposite sex clones.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know if you meant to include Gaeilge (or Erse, as the English so delightfully and confusingly dubbed it) in your statement....sometimes it's hard to tell, what with all these US English spelling gradually bringing us closer to the one word language of "Ugh!" - I know some people think 'Galic' means Celtic, but it really doesn't.
Anyway, just to let you know that Irish is dead, but isn't.
Delightfully, most Irish people can speak a cúpla focal na Gaeilge, interspersed with English...it lets you swear without swearing and confuses the hell out of people. But more importantly, you'd be surprised about how many 'English' words actually come from Irish and Scots words...even the word 'Tories' (the word used to describe the members of the conservative party of Britain) comes from an Irish word, but just say it to one of 'em and watch them foam at the mouth trying to denie it! 8)
You have to admit, the Spanish speaking world wreaked(sp-?) havoc on the globe there for a few centuries, assimilating and even destroying civilisations. They had their time in the sun but their power had faded by the 20th century. So, no longer in command of a huge empire and in posession of an outmoded caste system, the government of Spain - what would now be called 'Franco's government' as though he was the only one responsible - stepped up their predjudices and basic attacks on the Catalan cultures, among others. This is disgusting, but somehow not unexpected. So now what do you expect for the Spanish(re-Castilian) language? Immortality? Preservation in antiquity?
All I'm saying is that when you live by the sword.....
(I tend to shy away from controversial issues, so sorry if I've upset anyone...I'm probably unpracticed in diplomacy... 8)
Just to clarify:
DISC means the medium involves optics or lasers in some way, such as "optical disc", "Compact Disc" etc...
DISK means the medium is magnetic based, so you have "Hard Disk", "Floppy Disk" etc....
Technically speaking, you shouldn't interchange the spelling - in reality, non-techies and the vast majority of people do, so geeks tend to as well.
By-the-by, I'll never forgive the fact the world has to spell 'Sulphur' 'Sulfur' due to US English...but that's just me.
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...at the moment I haven't been able to find a definitive or comprehensive list on the 'net.
:). Seriously, I think the reason such a site isn't about at the moment is that such information can be used to do exactly what you want to do - the large firms probably wouldn't want geeks and non-geeks to suss out how the whole 'product life-cycle' and 'price-cycle' works and disrupt the whole thing. For the moment your just going to have to use that power that lies somewhere between 'the force' and 'the knack' and kinda guesstimate when prices are about to fall.
You can find charts for specific products by doing a 'Webferret' search - but then you're only talking about street prices, which are beaten daily on the internet, and are really only 'guide prices' for most products on the high street.
If you're buying, your best bet is to cross reference a list of available components with sites like:
Streetprices.com - perhaps one of the best sites
cnet - does some price comparisons
If you're still doing research then why not go to some of the component-specific sites on the web, such as http://www.motherboards.org/ and the like. They often have articles that deal with price fluctuations. Your fav computer mag.'s web site no doubt also has a littany of articles on the subject with decent research in them.
But methinks the resource you're after would be valuable to marketing students more than anyone else - if that's your thrust then I suggest you go to the manufacturer's web pages ( should you be trying to get geeks to do your marketing project for you?
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"...the backers decided that the name[HAL] sounded too like the word 'Hell' and that it wouldn't have much resonance with younger customers..."(from original article)
What?! Do marketing guys live on another planet or something?
Surely the name 'HAL' is still one of the most potent and widely recognised names in the first world? Geeks - and all sub-categories thereof - truly know the name but more than that, even people who wouldn't touch sci-fi with a barge poll know the name and the concepts therein concerned. It's called 'name recognition'.
Also, since when would the word 'hell' scare of kiddies from anything? I smell a weak cover story.
It seems to me this project may be falling foul of bad planning - or at the least, marketing that is failing to consider the target audience properly. The idea seems ill-concieved in some areas but well executed in others.
A ship called Titanic.
A car called Edsel.
A computer Omniputer
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Isn't there a big problem with even minor magnetic storms in areas with a high calcium content in the ground, i.e. the limestone areas of Canada? Doesn't it cause the power grid to discharge randomly or something?
I heard that Canadian authorities were working on a fix for this a few years back(geeze, almost ten now, I suppose)- did they ever put a solution in place? And what about other areas with similar geology?
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Just wanted to write a quick note that, contrary to industry statements there are definite, negative effects by certain GMO. That's a pretty broad statement, but I'm talking specifically about commerically available wheat in the USA. It has been proven that the pollen from this wheat actually kills a whole mess of insect and - directly because of this - can impact on other mammal and plant life.
Also, the Soviets(!) had done some preliminary research on this subject but I don't know what their conclusions about the then (I presume) mostly theoretical field. What I read at them time, there were a good few scientists warning about the problems we are starting to experience today.
(By-the-by, I believe in science and not popular opinion; I've come out against GMOs because there is proof of their 'flawed design' - I haven't come out totally against nuclear power or things like that.)
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My dream is to own a minidisc someday, but at £200 for a good one, they're out of my price range for the moment.
Go to minidisc.org to find out more, including : how to use it as a dictaphone and more geeky apps, such as mapping global weather patterns(!!!).
Also, I've seen reviews of MDs with built in mics, but I can't remember any details at the moment.
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We would like to migrate the server to *nix, but the LIMS market seems to be dominated by Microsoft.
/. heresy but I have a quick question: is there any reason you particularly want/need to change to a *nix server?
I know I'm in danger of committing
Is it aesthetic, or practical?(I guess I could understand either)
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Then you must really get pissed off at the internet, 'cos it usually says things were invented by an Englishman or an American. (I'm not saying that's wrong....if mother M$ wants it that way, I'll conform....for now)
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... we just didn't tell you yet!
Ireland - you all stood by while modified our constitution and defined our nation in terms of people, now you're OURS!.
(Damn, now the Dublin Secret Milita will probably break my legs). 8)
I don't have the right URL at the moment but a recent rash of stories have indicated that Switzerland has been invited to join the EU and is seriously considering it.
Any Swiss comments? I wonder how this would effect the whole Swiss image thang you've got going over there...
...but here in Ireland, in an unusal show of foresight, they introduced a dual system back in the seventies. Then when the EU decided to go fully metric, we could litterally do it overnight.
Maybe you should make it clear that it's not Americans en masse, or even the majority of American who oppose metric. It's the vocal, heavily armed and influential sections of American society. That includes the American media - my God! (Do you take CNN and those other tabloid trash tv stations seriously? They don't tell you just the facts, they draw conclusions and cram opinions down your throat at a mile a minute. The American media scares me just because it's so biased and able to influence the liberal sections of society).
Anywho, America could, can and will change - it just won't happen over night. Give 'em 50 years or so. (I hope that they realise metric actually isn't a Communist plot...but part of me hopes they stay Imperial and crash n' burn - I'll never forgive Americans for making 'Sulfur' the accepted spelling for 'Sulphur' in science circles.)
Oh my God....
Companies are big bastards (excuse my language, kiddies!). I know some management types who hooked me up with some primo 386 servers their company had decided to throw out - my God, they are great for the old home network. The company was going to dump them, I gave my friend £20 and got them off him. He gained, I gained and the company(which is tiny) didn't lose out!
Why do companies just dump their equipment? Another friend got a stack of Simms, a handful of processors and three colour laptops with batteries when he had a Summer job with a removal company - IBM moved its Irish offices and had just earmarked thousands of pounds worth of great hardware for dumping!! (He didn't give me any though!)
I've also found lots of slightly damaged monitors and aging computers at the dump - with problems that are easily fixed...
If I EVER see someone dumping out a computer, they are going to get an earfull from me - there are plenty of extremely poor people who could use them and plenty of geeks (like me) who just want them...
I don't, by-in-large, give to charity, but I know one thing, if I ever saw equipment being dumped in a company (or university) that I worked in, I'd have the guts to ask for the stuff (or maybe come back when no one is around and take the stuff) and actually give it to a charity shop or someone who needed or wanted a computer.
Power sources (the electrical type, at least!) aren't quite my thang, so I've got a real basic question - what are we talking about cost wise? /.land tried this with a generator - does it work and is it cheaper than running on diesel?
Like, cost per KWH, cost of installation, etc. is it cheaper or more expensive than being on the grid or using an alternative/traditional generator?
Plus one more, slightly offtopic question:
You can convert a normal diesel engine to run on different types of oil pretty cheaply, about IR£2000 if you have to hire a mechanic to do it. That's doing it so it can automatically adjust to fuel type used(eg cooking oil, peanut oil etc..) - there are other, cheaper methods. You save money on fuel costs(depending where you live) and all that. Has anyone in
Then maybe Intel's next chip should be called "Dire Straits" .)
By the way, yeah, you're right - when I gets a-typing fast, I gets to making mistooks...:) (huh, Boar instaed of Boer, how pig-headed of me!)
"I apologise to anyone, especially Boers, offended by my lame pun"
I won't waste to much time on you, but I'll just say that the British invented concentraition camps during the Boar War.
I'll also say that many of the 'death camps' that Lenin inherited were left-overs from the Tsarist regieme...so could you please clarify what you mean by 'death-camp' mentality, because I'm not sure whether your blaming the wrong person, policy or belief system.
There is a new chip in town : The VIA Cyrix III!
Okay, let me clarify: I'm a student, not in anyway connected with Cyrix...heck, I didn't even have a PC in the glory-days of Cyrix(I had an ST and Amiga...). But I think the entry of a third party into the processor wars can only be a good thing.
The Cyrix III comes in several flavours: from the 433 to 533
So, what's it got?
The price, last time I checked, was about $80/Stg£50/IRL£60.
Okay...it isn't 1GHz stuff, so why get excited? Well read on...
When AMD started to compete for the home market, how often did it's processors get a positive review, how often did 'experts' refuse to even consider AMD credible as an alternative to Intel - and be honest, because a lot of people who are gushing about how great AMD are these days(and there is no question, they are great!) wouldn't give them a second glance a few years ago. Anyhow, Cyrix is only coming back into the fray now, but their chips look pretty good from where I'm sitting and, depending on your needs and budget, the chip could be a good choice. But wait...there's more...
VIA are the chipset people : this is a marketing department's dream! Without streching the imagination or the resources of VIA too much, it wouldn't be hard to put together a motherboard and processor package sold at a discount - I'm not talking halving prices here, or anything, but decent discount - I won't quote figures. And there's more!
Does anyone remember the 'old' Cyrix's project to have, and I quote, a "computer on a processor."? This means a one-chip computer...bios n' all. The time frame was to have the project finished by 2005...Anyone know how this project is going, if at all?
Compaq is rumoured to be considering a *cheap* budget PC based on the new VIA Cyrix III, which would be good news for us "stick-the-screwdriver-in-there-and-I'll-turn-on-
Surf by VIACyrix's site for info on VIA/Cyrix
or get the VIA Cyrix III info at: http://www.cyrix.com/products/cyr3brief
Just out of a matter of interest...what happened to all the other chip makers that had decided to compete against Intel during its reign...Cyrix and AMD were perhaps the most well known, but I seem to remember about three more...
Listen, I believe many of us ordinary mortals, i.e. the majority of people, are spoon-fed the opinions/PR of organisations, like NASA, through the media and never hear the other side of the story.
I, like many here, believe in and hope for the exsistence of extra-solar planets. But the only way we can ever be sure is by sending probes/humans to these planets. It occurs to me that, currently, we, the public, are being told this-and-this is the case about interpreted readings gained from equipment studing the stars - it may be the most likely scenario, but it is still not coberrated(sp-?) data. It is extrapolations...maths etc..Nothing more!
But I also have a question, prompted by some of the other comments posted here. With all the debris, asteroids etc... within our own solar-system what is the proposed(or proven) mechanics that would allow spacecraft not to collide? Are we still relying upon the idea there isn't enough debris etc... to be worried about?
What planet do you live on?
Your Madeline Albright rushes across the globe at the first sign of a nation with an internal problem, wearing cowboy hats or boots - I'm not making that up. Watch the news reports, browse the net. She obviously sees herself as a cowboy out to right the world.
How many of your politicans have described America as the policeman of the world?
How many have denied the role?(Sure proof of it's verasity)
Policemen tend to enforce speed limits, while speeding themselves when they need to.
Listen, I'm only starting to learn the intricacies of all things computerised. Although in specific areas I'm fluent, due to my early start in computers at age 7(-ish) way back in 1988.
My question is what are your ideas about what constitutes AI, a valuable part of robotics?. I've heard the reports, seen some of the sites, but for everyone that specifically states 'this is the way to go' an equally reputable source will always surface to say the exact opposite.
For instance, can we give our AI programs specific instructions on how to control limbs, or more simply(and probably more in line with my own planned amature attempts) use sentence structure, or would that negate the idea of a 'self-learning' system.
Or do we have to go alllllll the way back to the basics and define the basics to our AI : good, bad and indifferent reactions to stimuli...then take the active learning from there? How much can we initally program, in other words....and what's the best way to do that programming? High level, e.g. C, Low-level, e.g. assembly, or machine-code?
Okay, since you've managed to live life thus far without understanding the concept of linear time I'll have a go at giving you the basics.
;^)
Time, according to some, is an abstract to define a sequence of events. Each event can only happen subsiquent to the previous event's completion and prior to the next event. So, for example, imagine yourself in a queue at the cinema. The person in front of you represents an event or instance that you haven't reached yet; the future. The person behind you represents the past; he/she is an instance or event that you have passed. You, always, remain firmly planted in the present, an instant between the past and present. As the queue moves one pace foreward, you get to move to where the person representing the future was standing. But he/she is no longer there...as they will have moved foreward as well. The past has also moved up to the familar place you have just been, one pace behind you.
This is the simple progression of time. Study it well.
Pop-quiz, hotshots:
The future is in front of you, do you:
a)describe in perfect detail what the future is like
b)have a vague idea about what it's like, and able to make estimates what it's like, but can not say with absolute certainty what it is like
c)move forward faster than the future can get out of your way
d) eye the future longingly, but never move towards it
My God! It takes time to write articles, put up web pages and sort through what is news and what is momentary hysteria. Give these guys a break. It's not like they're putting up ancient news(although that could be interesting!).
Who am I to lecture you on this?
I'm a university student swamped with deadlines and use to my web page going out of date almost as soon as I update it.
By the way, the answer to the pop quiz is c...
Well, it's supposed to be, but people tend to opt for options a, c and d all too often.
I don't want to get off the topic, but GEM (which I was surprised to learn wasn't exclusively owned by ATARI) has gone GPL thanks to Caldera. I'm not trying to kindle old Amiga vs. Atari rivalries, because at this stage they're irrelevant, all I'm saying is that there is real opertunity for a great core idea to be extended and developed for the PC, Linux and MAC.m ;list " to learn more.
There are moves afoot by various programmers to bring the GEM GUI up-to-date on the PC, ports to Linux are in their early stages, I've heard rumours that there are still a few people having a go at improving GEM on CP/M machines and I'm following up on some leads that may get me the location of the Mac source. Goto " http://nav.webring.org/cgi-bin/navcgi?ring=freege
Okay, as you've probably gathered from my other posts, I am a geek.
A proud one.
I have tried to read as many of the above posts to see if anyone has made this point, but I'm quickly running up a huge phone bill, so I'll just make my point anyway...
If my school had been privy to a system like WAVE when I was attending, I would have had no problem in using it. In fact I, and many more people I know, would have relished the idea of contributing to something "...bigger than any one of us are...", while also contributing to an idea of public safety and reaping material rewards too.
I think this is what WAVEAmerica is counting on. I think, however, that they have left themselves too open with their criteria, and I can definitely see how I could have lapsed into vindictive reporting.(Yes! An admission that I'm not perfect. It'll hurt my fans, but it had to be said!).
Now, whatever spin you want to put on it, it is probably paramount to WAVEAmerica that it turns a profit(be it their primary goal or whatever;^), and this could hinder them greatly with their criteria. But it can be used as an effective part of a good PR spin....look to sourcing local, talented recruits in important fields. For want of refining the point down too much for you(without getting paid the mega-bucks that your paying your own whizz-kids these days, that is), hire the trained and semi-trained 'experts' (define that as you will) as field agents of a sort... the people who check up on most, if not all, reports.
Source the talent from local univeristies and the like, with whom a favourable contract could be negotiated. Arrange with the local school system to be allowed to sit in on classes where reports are recieved, again a contract could be negotiated, this time with a good PR spin.
Look, basically wave should set itself up with a greater emphasis on drawing more of the loose threads of NC society together creatively, to create a positive, profit-making American sucess.
I'm not going to pretend to be what I'm not: I am not affiliated to any gene mapping project, I am not a biologist (in any real sense of the word) and I have never knowingly participated in any cloning project/experiment. I hope this is apparent from the start of this post, right through to the end.
But let me say this, some of the follow-ups to the above message make statements about the impossibility of making a female clone from male cells. Let me say that that is wrong!
Okay, there are plenty of interpretations of what you want...what's a clone as opposed to a man-made combination of genes? I also admit male-to-female is the easier of the two(if your willing to accept the following to a degree), so that's why I can explain so simply here. Basically what makes a male cell male is a Y chromosome. Female cells simply can't have them(as a general rule). Thus whereas a Female cell will have two X chromosomes, a male cell will have an X and a Y chromosome.
By following text-book procedure, it would be technically possible to remove/disable the Y chromosome in a cell, then take the X chromosome from another cell(be from the original donor - ill advised - or a third party). The difficult part, and the part which I, of course, don't know anything about, is sticking the new X chromosome inside the cell nucleus and ensuring that the cells, with all its biased organelles and issues associated there-in, survive at however low a rate. This will produce a single, 'adult' cell. To extend the theme of a human clone, this would then lend itself to the 'Dolly the Sheep' model of producing a viable entity.
Now, by manipulation of the gametes, going for reproductive cells rather than 'adult' cells, other issues are raised, but a more straight-forward path seems open. The male and female gametes could then be merged in the traditional way and placed in a suitable 'surrogate', i.e. artifical insemination. This could be referred to as the 'trad-invetro method' (a particularly clever name).
The problem with changing a female cell to a male cell can be tackled on several levels, depending on your interpretation of 'clone'. Needless to say that without the introduction of third-party Y-chromosomes, the manipulation of genes in the nucleus becomes much more complex and, once again, something I'd have little idea about.
Now, once again, the 'simple' procedures above would require little-or-none of the high-tech gene-alchemy we expect because of sci-fi movies. But such alchemy would be necessary in the majority of cases to overcome genetic flaws...pretty damned tricky stuff that gene mapping goes a long-way towards aiding. Public Domain gene-mapping...maybe have the processes a company secret, but data shouldn't be restricted.
And that, my dear readers, is my post on the wonders of producing opposite sex clones.