I recently purchased the MZ-N707 and it is great. On a single $1.50 disk (which looks like a small floppy, and therefore you won't get fingerprints on it) i can store about 60 songs at pretty good quality for the gym.
I have not had it skip at all on the treadmill. The battery life is great (after 2 hrs at the gym it only lost 1/5th of its power). I purchased a pair of cheap Sony clip-on headphones and a few additional MD discs (5 = $7), and I don't see myself purchasing anything else for it. The N707 comes with a remote control (which is on your headphone cable), car adapter, and a small charging cradle.
I would not consider giving it up for an MP3 player. It is a nice piece of hardware! Now, if only the PC software were a little better (okay, a lot better!)
Another article, with pictures of the pyramid rover, and also some background on the Rudolf Gantenbrink controversy. He's the robotics engineer who (some argued) was left uncredited and uninvolved (not even invited to the opening?). I don't know the whole story.
I think that the MSN Messenger API is published. I haven't personally looked into it too much, but.. it's an API.
Yes, the servers are owned by the eeevyl Microsoft, but for those paranoid about that, they can always develop a client that transmits encrypted transmission over the MSN network.
Also, I am thinking MSN Messenger is setting itself up to win the war of the browsers, because AFAIK it is the only (major) one that can be hosted inside a private network (attached to an exchange server), for those companies paranoid of confidential data being transmitted to unsecured outside channels.
Not that it has anything to do with our current space porn topic.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin, If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gurgling from the froth-corrupted lungs Bitten as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
"Am I the only one who thinks this is just ass-backward from the way you'd expect things to be in an open market? "
I don't see a problem with it: You have one supplier, many consumers, for a product in demand. Therefore, it is a seller's market. HPQ needs the product at a good rate, and without too much fuss from MS.
Hmm.. new RIAA ploy. If we can't take them down, mail a "news story" to slashdot and have them slashdotted.:) Slashdot, the new RIAA weapon in the fight against piracy.
Maybe it will keep the cops from parking their butts for hours at the donut shop next to my freeway exit!
Come to think of it, Krispy Kreme could start their own network aimed at law enforcement. All you'd have to do is call them and ask for "Officer Jones" and in 30 seconds or less he'll be located at one of their branches. If he's not there, he can still get the message when he walks in within 15 minutes. Ah.. who needs this HK high tech thing.
As is said in the article, this is mainly aimed at big corporations who install their own stuff anyway, so they don't want to pay extra for a linux installation they probably won't use anyway.
Hmm.
Let's see. Anyone is going to argue that:
1. Most of the computers that Dell sell are desktop PCs and Notebooks?
2. Most of the corporate users will want to run Windows on their PCs?
No arguments? good. Now having said that, even if you blow away the preinstalled image and you install your own in-house image, you still need to purchase a license. Buying the license through the PC manufacturer or buying it directly from Microsoft is just the same.
Also, let me correct the original post -- this is aimed at small to medium buyers. Large buyers have enough pull to order a customized image that will come up exactly as they want it. Therefore these large buyers have less an incentive to muck with CDs and customize their own images.
Seriously, let's say the MIBs wanted a database of everyone who lives in the US.
I can safely assume that:
1. They have access to all FBI databases
2. They have access to all driver license databases
3. They have access to all voter reg databases
4. They probably can get access to all credit card and credit bureau databases, either whitehat or blackhat.
That right there should already cover a large chunk of american people. And, best of all, they wouldn't have to tell anyone.
Maybe it's better for this whole thing to be out in the open, where you can review it and there is accountability.
Finally, I may be missing the point, but why do people feel so upset about a national id? I mean, we already have a SSN which identifies us uniquely nationally. If I were to get the national ID and in the process give up my SS card and Driver License, that's one less piece of paper I need to worry about. I don't see myself as losing or gaining anything.
So here's my question... since everybody is calling this protocol NVP..
Most machines are not configured to handle NVP. Windows, I don't even know if it has such support. So why did the writer choose NVP? Who is listening to it?
Or is it more correct to say that the writer simply happened to tag his IP packets with #11 as the protocol, which just HAPPENS to be NVP? His implementation may really have nothing to do with NVP except that it uses the same protocol #.
Of course, the source has been DoSed (or slashdotted, however you want to put it) so I can't really look at it.
See rfc751 for information on NVP (or whatever RFC obsoleted that one, if any). You can probably block it.
To quote...
The Network Voice Protocol (NVP), implemented first in December 1973, and has been in use since then for local and transnet real-time voice communication over the ARPANET at the following sites:
o Information Sciences Institute, for LPC and CVSD, with a
PDP-11/45 and an SPS-41.
o Lincoln Laboratory, for LPC and CVSD, with a TX2 and the
Lincoln FDP, and with a PDP-11/45 and the LDVT.
o Culler-Harrison, Inc., for LPC, with the Culler-Harrison
MP32A and AP-90.
o Stanford Research Institute, for LPC, with a PDP-11/40 and an
SPS-41.
A step in the right direction
on
Microsoft Freon
·
· Score: 0, Troll
This would take the X-box one step closer to a place on my entertainment shelf.
What I would like to do ideally is to take my whole DVD collection and copy it to a hard drive. Then, I would like to have the X-box (Freon, whatever) come up with a menu and let me select one of the movies on its hard drive.
There are of course copyright issues with this (what keeps me from going to blockbuster, and conveniently backing up my rental to this box?).. but they can be worked around.
Anyone know if the X-box can be modified to do this yet?
p.s. Freon was not such a disaster. I'd have loved to have an exclusive patent to Freon for a few years.
Intrinsic problem with this... people are analog!
on
DRM Helmet
·
· Score: 1
and they are the ones who buy this stuff.
Unless of course.. hmm.. implantic people with microchips.. It has already started.. I wonder if anyone is pushing to put digital rights management in those chips.
One other thing I like commenting in C/C++: Where blocks end. For example:
...loop1.... { ...loop2...
{
}// loop2 ends here
}// loop1 ends here
This makes it so much easier to match brackets! I absolutely insist on this rule for my own benefit. When you have a loop, a switch statement, and a few ifs, it can be very helpful.
When you go in for an interview, know what the company does, know what the company needs from you, and don't volunteer stuff that may make them put you in a different bucket. If there is no need for Linux, don't bring up Linux unless you don't have anything else to bring up. You may also consider calling it Unix, depending on who you are talking to:)
Suggestion #2 - from my own experience, I don't always want to hear what you've done, I want to know what you can do in the future. Take an interest in what I'm doing now, don't keep talking about yourself unless specifically asked. If I tell you that I'm working on a big project, ask me about the architecture, the technology, etc. Show me that I'm not going to have to spoonfeed you.. in other words, show initiative and drive. The worst interviews are the ping-pong interviews.. I ask a question, you answer it.
Most techies are not aware of this, but look at it from a global business point of view:
The very same countries that are offering cheap labor and crying about poverty are putting enormous restrictions against american interests in their countries. Many countries (yes, including India) have laws that REQUIRE you to assemble certain products in their country in order to avoid astronomical taxes. Others REQUIRE you to buy local products even if you could get the same products cheaper outside the country. And strangely enough, some of these countries have Most Favored Nation status bestowed on them by our beloved congress.
And people here are whining that the US wants to protect the jobs of its people. It is funny how whenever the US intervenes in the affairs of another nation, they are asked to f*ck off, but whenever it comes to economic help, the whole world plays the victim.
For the record: I am not american; I live in america. I support any country's rights to put itself ahead of its neighbors. I can't blame India and other countries for looking after its interest, but to be fair, America should be allowed to look after its people to. It does not make sense to import talent when there is talent in the country. What will happen in the end is that the standard of living will go down, real estate prices will plummet, the market will fall, and consequently pull down the rest of the world markets. Rising unemployment in the US, especially in traditionally strong industries, means world wide recession. Foreign workers send revenue out of the country. I don't blame them, if I were a foreign worker, I'd do the same thing. In the end, Americans pay taxes and elect their public officials in order to prosper.
I have a Socket (same as the Symbol?) CF card in my IPAQ. I can easily go through a day of work with it. I stick it in the cradle out of habit when I get back to my office though.
Unlike the PCMCIA sleeve, the CF sleeve doesn't have a battery backup. So that's kindof a pitty. But the card has been okay sofar. It works with out Compaq access points very well.
The only thing I can complain about is that when I walk out of range, in some cases it refuses to reconnect once it gets back into range. It keeps telling me that the adapter is not found, so I have to reset the IPAQ.
Other than that, it works just as good as my collegues' PCMCIA cards, and the range is similar.
I bought it a while back for about $140. I looked at the DLink/SMC/etc ones which would have saved me about $40, but they were so obscenly big! The socket/symbol one is tiny in comparison.
Slashdot Mirror
I recently purchased the MZ-N707 and it is great. On a single $1.50 disk (which looks like a small floppy, and therefore you won't get fingerprints on it) i can store about 60 songs at pretty good quality for the gym.
I have not had it skip at all on the treadmill. The battery life is great (after 2 hrs at the gym it only lost 1/5th of its power). I purchased a pair of cheap Sony clip-on headphones and a few additional MD discs (5 = $7), and I don't see myself purchasing anything else for it. The N707 comes with a remote control (which is on your headphone cable), car adapter, and a small charging cradle.
I would not consider giving it up for an MP3 player. It is a nice piece of hardware! Now, if only the PC software were a little better (okay, a lot better!)
Or.. they will find a huge golden phallic symbol and be totally embarassed trying to work around it on live tv.
In a way, it would be the ancients' way of giving us the finger.
Another article, with pictures of the pyramid rover, and also some background on the Rudolf Gantenbrink controversy. He's the robotics engineer who (some argued) was left uncredited and uninvolved (not even invited to the opening?). I don't know the whole story.
CNN blurb on this special (with video clip)
The ananova take on the special.
The Times (UK) take. Pretty good.
A little on Zahi Hawass
Yeah yeah, and somehow it managed not to be dead, with all the dying it's been doing.
:)
Also, I guess I would qualify OS X as a *BSD, no? It doesn't seem to be dying.
Not exactly sure what you are getting at, but...
I think that the MSN Messenger API is published. I haven't personally looked into it too much, but.. it's an API.
Yes, the servers are owned by the eeevyl Microsoft, but for those paranoid about that, they can always develop a client that transmits encrypted transmission over the MSN network.
Also, I am thinking MSN Messenger is setting itself up to win the war of the browsers, because AFAIK it is the only (major) one that can be hosted inside a private network (attached to an exchange server), for those companies paranoid of confidential data being transmitted to unsecured outside channels.
"Is it sweet and fitting to die for the country"
Not that it has anything to do with our current space porn topic.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gurgling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitten as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
(Wilfred Owen)
"Am I the only one who thinks this is just ass-backward from the way you'd expect things to be in an open market? "
I don't see a problem with it: You have one supplier, many consumers, for a product in demand. Therefore, it is a seller's market. HPQ needs the product at a good rate, and without too much fuss from MS.
In the previous message, I meant to say "you can't stream to work" instead of "you can't take your CDs to work".
:)
Slashdot needs a "your post makes no f00kin sense" filter.
Problem is, most workplaces would rather have you bring your own CDs than waste bandwidth by streaming off the internet.
So.. in most places you can't take your CDs to work. The "anytime, anywhere" theory has just gone out the window.
Well, it is down now:
:) Slashdot, the new RIAA weapon in the fight against piracy.
"No web site is configured at this address."
Hmm.. new RIAA ploy. If we can't take them down, mail a "news story" to slashdot and have them slashdotted.
Maybe it will keep the cops from parking their butts for hours at the donut shop next to my freeway exit!
Come to think of it, Krispy Kreme could start their own network aimed at law enforcement. All you'd have to do is call them and ask for "Officer Jones" and in 30 seconds or less he'll be located at one of their branches. If he's not there, he can still get the message when he walks in within 15 minutes. Ah.. who needs this HK high tech thing.
Hmm.
Let's see. Anyone is going to argue that:
1. Most of the computers that Dell sell are desktop PCs and Notebooks?
2. Most of the corporate users will want to run Windows on their PCs?
No arguments? good. Now having said that, even if you blow away the preinstalled image and you install your own in-house image, you still need to purchase a license. Buying the license through the PC manufacturer or buying it directly from Microsoft is just the same.
Also, let me correct the original post -- this is aimed at small to medium buyers. Large buyers have enough pull to order a customized image that will come up exactly as they want it. Therefore these large buyers have less an incentive to muck with CDs and customize their own images.
Seriously, let's say the MIBs wanted a database of everyone who lives in the US.
I can safely assume that:
1. They have access to all FBI databases
2. They have access to all driver license databases
3. They have access to all voter reg databases
4. They probably can get access to all credit card and credit bureau databases, either whitehat or blackhat.
That right there should already cover a large chunk of american people. And, best of all, they wouldn't have to tell anyone.
Maybe it's better for this whole thing to be out in the open, where you can review it and there is accountability.
Finally, I may be missing the point, but why do people feel so upset about a national id? I mean, we already have a SSN which identifies us uniquely nationally. If I were to get the national ID and in the process give up my SS card and Driver License, that's one less piece of paper I need to worry about. I don't see myself as losing or gaining anything.
So here's my question... since everybody is calling this protocol NVP..
Most machines are not configured to handle NVP. Windows, I don't even know if it has such support. So why did the writer choose NVP? Who is listening to it?
Or is it more correct to say that the writer simply happened to tag his IP packets with #11 as the protocol, which just HAPPENS to be NVP? His implementation may really have nothing to do with NVP except that it uses the same protocol #.
Of course, the source has been DoSed (or slashdotted, however you want to put it) so I can't really look at it.
sorry.. meant to say rfc 741, not 751.
To quote...
I would assume it's NVP (Network Voice Protocol)
See rfc741
This would take the X-box one step closer to a place on my entertainment shelf.
What I would like to do ideally is to take my whole DVD collection and copy it to a hard drive. Then, I would like to have the X-box (Freon, whatever) come up with a menu and let me select one of the movies on its hard drive.
There are of course copyright issues with this (what keeps me from going to blockbuster, and conveniently backing up my rental to this box?).. but they can be worked around.
Anyone know if the X-box can be modified to do this yet?
p.s. Freon was not such a disaster. I'd have loved to have an exclusive patent to Freon for a few years.
and they are the ones who buy this stuff.
Unless of course.. hmm.. implantic people with microchips.. It has already started.. I wonder if anyone is pushing to put digital rights management in those chips.
What is the point of having a laptop if you are going to anchor yourself to a certain spot using a network cable?
I use wireless at home exclusively for my laptop. I can use it by the pool, I can use it in my bedroom, I can use it in my living room...
Come on...
I don't want to have to compile my cpu too.
---
One other thing I like commenting in C/C++: Where blocks end. For example:
...loop2...
// loop2 ends here
// loop1 ends here
...loop1....
{
{
}
}
This makes it so much easier to match brackets! I absolutely insist on this rule for my own benefit. When you have a loop, a switch statement, and a few ifs, it can be very helpful.
Suggestion #1 -
:)
When you go in for an interview, know what the company does, know what the company needs from you, and don't volunteer stuff that may make them put you in a different bucket. If there is no need for Linux, don't bring up Linux unless you don't have anything else to bring up. You may also consider calling it Unix, depending on who you are talking to
Suggestion #2 - from my own experience, I don't always want to hear what you've done, I want to know what you can do in the future. Take an interest in what I'm doing now, don't keep talking about yourself unless specifically asked.
If I tell you that I'm working on a big project, ask me about the architecture, the technology, etc. Show me that I'm not going to have to spoonfeed you.. in other words, show initiative and drive. The worst interviews are the ping-pong interviews.. I ask a question, you answer it.
Those are just a couple of suggestions from me.
Most techies are not aware of this, but look at it from a global business point of view:
The very same countries that are offering cheap labor and crying about poverty are putting enormous restrictions against american interests in their countries. Many countries (yes, including India) have laws that REQUIRE you to assemble certain products in their country in order to avoid astronomical taxes. Others REQUIRE you to buy local products even if you could get the same products cheaper outside the country. And strangely enough, some of these countries have Most Favored Nation status bestowed on them by our beloved congress.
And people here are whining that the US wants to protect the jobs of its people. It is funny how whenever the US intervenes in the affairs of another nation, they are asked to f*ck off, but whenever it comes to economic help, the whole world plays the victim.
For the record: I am not american; I live in america. I support any country's rights to put itself ahead of its neighbors. I can't blame India and other countries for looking after its interest, but to be fair, America should be allowed to look after its people to. It does not make sense to import talent when there is talent in the country. What will happen in the end is that the standard of living will go down, real estate prices will plummet, the market will fall, and consequently pull down the rest of the world markets. Rising unemployment in the US, especially in traditionally strong industries, means world wide recession. Foreign workers send revenue out of the country. I don't blame them, if I were a foreign worker, I'd do the same thing. In the end, Americans pay taxes and elect their public officials in order to prosper.
I have a Socket (same as the Symbol?) CF card in my IPAQ. I can easily go through a day of work with it. I stick it in the cradle out of habit when I get back to my office though.
Unlike the PCMCIA sleeve, the CF sleeve doesn't have a battery backup. So that's kindof a pitty. But the card has been okay sofar. It works with out Compaq access points very well.
The only thing I can complain about is that when I walk out of range, in some cases it refuses to reconnect once it gets back into range. It keeps telling me that the adapter is not found, so I have to reset the IPAQ.
Other than that, it works just as good as my collegues' PCMCIA cards, and the range is similar.
I bought it a while back for about $140. I looked at the DLink/SMC/etc ones which would have saved me about $40, but they were so obscenly big! The socket/symbol one is tiny in comparison.