Now it seems Blu Ray has won it will be interesting to see if PS3 development starts to be more tightly focused on directly making money with the PS3.
Considering their announcement that the PS3 now costs under $400 to manufacture, you're probably right there. But that doesn't imply they're going to make the system less open. Their fancy graphics chip is still only accessible to licensees, and they seem to think that is sufficient for them to milk cash out of developers. It *is* sufficient.
The PS3 seems to me to be more born of learning the lessons of their failings with the PSP, and not of their focus on BluRay.
Imagine a stack of AV components with no wires interconnecting them. Buying a new DVD/BluRay player and adding it to the pile aand everything "just works", no cables or anything. Perhaps popping your MP3 player down on the stack and having it sync up (and probably charge too), still with no wires.
That's what this is for. It has nothing to do with PCs, and it isn't a competitor to W-USB. It's unrelated. This story was written so this guy could get ad revenue off of links from sites like Slashdot, and all the other places guaranteed to pick up an inflammatory anti-Sony story.
Most 5-in-one readers support memory stick, actually. I've got an Acer that supports it. Never used it because I don't have any Sony devices that take memory sticks, but the logo is there...
Since when is Bluetooth UWB and multi-hundred Mbps? This is 100+ times faster than Bluetooth. It is clearly *not* designed for the same uses. I doubt they will be competing at all.
I'd imagine this will be used more for something like connecting all your stereo components together (including video switching) without connecting any wires between them, etc...
Which is why they continue to add codecs that are generally used for non-commercial media, right? You can install Linux on it using a menu item which is specifically for that purpose, but the menu item ended up there because they were paying attention to other things. It was "easier" for them to support alternative operating systems, and to support customers that upgrade the hard drive themselves. They're not focused on the non-BluRay aspects, so they accidentally continue to add code that makes the system more open....
Clearly their openness with the PS3 would suggest otherwise. (Many formats, HID complant USB and Bluetooth peripherals, etc..)
This new technology doesn't actually seem to compete with W-USB, except for in the head of this analyst. It appears to be for device->device transfers, where W-USB (like regular USB) seems to be towards host->device and device->host transfers. W-USB doesn't seem suitable for low-power devices with minimal CPU (much like host-mode USB). The two seem to be serving different niches. It reminds me of the "war" between RapidIO and Infiniband. A war in the press, but not in the trenches.
But that doesn't make good copy. Better to start flamewars, thus generating ad impressions.
You should know what to do. And after you stop because you didn't know what to do, you should head straight home/to your local library/to your local traffic school and learn what to do.
You didn't hear that driver saying that simply stopping is the best thing to do. You said it yourself. It's the best thing to do when you don't know what to do. Ideally we'd have as few of those people on the road as possible, and licensing requirements to ensure that.
If you're a good programmer you won't be able to help but find trivial little ways to use it to make your life outside of work easier. And that doesn't preclude having a healthy work-life balance. It actually enhances it.
There are zillions of ways that a tiny bit of code can help in some of your daily life, and if they're not rediculously obvious to you in a way that calls out for you to do them, then you either aren't smart enough to be a really good programmer, or you're not passionate enough to be a really good programmer (or a really good worker at all, most likely).
Also, I don't see how listing "programming as a day job" means that he thinks you should be programming for fun. Normal people have personal work to do outside of their jobs. Using a few lines of code to help for those jobs counts too.
Released the most open commercial video game console ever, allowing custom OS installs, the playback of open media formats, using open network protocols, and supporting other vendor's physical media formats
And now... Started selling DRM free music downloads.
They've basically completely transformed from the closed company they were just a few years ago and had been for decades. So, what else do they need to do?
You'd like to think it was something nefarious, since that would make us seem less like fools for electing idiots. However the real reason for these is (was) to make voters think congress was doing something so incumbent representatives could get re-elected. Since the US Congress has no foresight beyond the current election cycle, it is now going to come back and bite them three elections later.
Theoretically, the state-run systems don't allow the individual site to store the data. It would be transmitted to some state system (which already has all your information anyway) before it is decided, and only a "yes" or "no" is sent back.
For corporations, or anybody for that matter, in civil trials, no. Additionally, stores like these can be held liable even if they are fooled by a high-quality fake ID.
That turned me off. I don't recall buying alcohol myself at that mart. What I think is stupid is swiping the ID of someone who obviously is well above 25 or 30, and doesn't appear to be wearing spy or makeup-artist appliances.
You wouldn't think it was stupid if you were the owner of the convenience store....
That store now has a nice record saying they carefully verified the age of ever customer purchasing alcohol or tobacco. So when some 13 year old gets caught smoking and some "I'm a perfect parent" mother decides to blame the corner store for selling cigarettes to her kid instead of her inability to do her job as a parent, the store doesn't lose its two primary profit centers for 90 days while its license is suspended. It also doesn't have to worry about being sued when some drunken 19 year old gets into an accident and one of the victims tries to go for a jackpot verdict against the store that "sold the alcohol". It probably gets a nice discount on its insurance premium for the trouble too.
The inability to shop for these products anonymously is the price we pay for the "luxury" of living in a litigious society.
Not only do you not have a reference to back that up, but it's also highly improbable.
I'm sure that humans would have discovered accidentally that sweet liquids contaminated with yeast produced alcoholic liquids far sooner than we had an understanding of what "alcohol" actually was. Well before we had language, much less than organized religion.
However I'm willing to admit that I'm speculating, as my post has a little in terms of references as yours...
I'm as much... Scratch that... I'm more of a hardware pack-rat than most people judging by the hundreds of pounds of obsolete rack-mount equipment in my basement, and I'm all for re-purposing obsolete hardware. However a home server is the wrong place to do it, especially if saving money is your primary goal. A well-selected modern machine, especially an underclocked machine, with a new energy efficient power supply will pay for itself in energy savings against an old Pentium [123] in less than a year. And as a bonus, it'll perform better too.
The SATA protocol has multiplexing bits so you can attach multiple drives through the same host port and software can understand which device it is talking to. There are a variety of SATA "hubs" on the market (usually built into JBOD or SCSI enclosures) that allow you to connect many devices to the same SATA or eSATA port. (Search for "SATA port multiplier") SATA also supports longer cable lengths than USB. However a big advantage of USB for non-storage peripherals is that USB can provide power, and SATA cannot.
Personally, I can't believe the PCjr won. In fact I think they probably put it in the #1 spot because most people are familiar with it. I've used most of the keyboards in the article, and the Sinclair is the hands down, by far, worst keyboard in the group. Not only was it difficult to locate keys without looking, but they were hard to press, and they wore out after several thousand keystrokes. My Sinclair has had a button on a wire hanging out the side for the "L" key for the vast majority of its life. "L" was the shortcut key for the "LOAD" keyword, which you used every time you loaded a program from tape. (Read: Every time you powered the system up, or rebooted because the 16k expansion RAM pack came loose, or restarted your loading because the audio coupler to your tape player produced loading errors) Within a couple weeks, it had gotten flaky, so you had to push it repeatedly and harder to get it to register. Within a couple of months of owning the machine, we had worn right through the L key down to the bare plastic membrane.
At least you could touch-type on the PCjr with some practice, and practically every one of those keyboards that hasn't found a landfill (and probably some that have) still work.
Believe it or not, some kids don't drink at parties. Many of these kids make use of concepts like "logic" and "reason" and decide that getting drunk just isn't worth the risk of getting caught by their parents or the police. Or in this case, the school administration. Some of them even decline alcohol because they don't want it!
I believe it, but generally those people don't regularly show up in multiple party photos holding beers or shots.
A picture of himself holding what appears to be an alcoholic beverage is not evidence that he broke the law, which is why colleges send the RAs and not the campus police to search dorm rooms when pictures like this get posted on Facebook. There could be anything in that container.
It is actionable. It happens all the time, and it has been happening since before the internet. It is perfectly reasonable for you to assume that the beverage you're drinking out of a labeled container in a picture contains the beverage that is advertised unless some sufficient motive is provided as to why it wouldn't be. If you've been in those situations before, you know as well as I that the chances it was not beer or rum in those pictures is basically insignificant. You are also probably well aware that this guy would be at the ass end of a liability suit if this kid dies in a drunk driving accident and his parents (or the other guy in the accident) find out he knew about these pictures and did nothing.
No, it's not because he's a kid. He's barely even a kid. He's 18.
What's the motive for faking drinking in photos? Could he have been faking it? Sure. Is it likely? No. Would I consider the slim possibility that there was water in the beer can, or that it was fake rum reasonable doubt? Absolutely not.
Can you imagine a bunch of highschool seniors having this conversation:
Hey guys! Let's empty out some beer cans, and a bottle of rum, and some 40's, fill them with colored water and pretend like we're having a kegger! It'll be fun!
Ok, so maybe you can imagine it, but can you imagine it with out the "Just kidding, let's have a kegger" at the end?
Let me get this straight. Kids taking pictures of themselves demonstrating that they aren't mature enough to drink responsibly is evidence that the drinking age limits need to be repealed?
I tend to agree that 21 is too old when 18 is old enough to vote, but this is a really poor example to hold up to argue that point.
Danny O'Leary, a senior who plays lacrosse, said his dean displayed four Facebook photos of O'Leary holding drinks and told him he was in "a bit of trouble." One photo shows him holding a can of Coors beer, another a shot of rum, he said. In yet another, O'Leary is pictured holding his friend's 40-ounce container of beer.
"I wasn't drinking that night," O'Leary said.
First off, the kid is a liar.
Second of all, if he's freely distributing evidence of himself breaking the law, he's lucky it's just his school that is punishing him.
Third, he's lucky it's just him getting punished and not his parents.
Kid breaks law, gets in trouble. The internet was mildly involved. News at 10:00. Bitching on Slashdot at 9:30.
If you don't count specialist applications of the 80386, and you're limiting yourself to x86 architecture, you still missed the boat by 4 generations.
The original Pentium supported 8-way SMP.
As for Tyan, my previous two systems ran with Tyan boards. One was a Dual Pentium 200Mhz, and the other was a dual Athlon. The dual pentium still runs well today (and has been running well since 1997), and the Athlon probably works fine, but I don't power it up because I can't afford the electricity it sucks down. The board I replaced it with is a DFI that gets excellent reviews for reliability and features, but I find it severely lacking the stability and features the Tyan boards had.
They're not overclocker boards, but they are consistently reliable. I'm always bothered by people who will write off an entire brand of product because of one faulty model, especially when they don't even give the manufacturer a chance to correct the problem. It usually happens with hard drives (I'll never use "Brand X" drives. I had one crash! Those die for everybody!). Generally every manufacturer out there will put out a flawed product eventually when they're releasing dozens of newly designed products a year. That doesn't mean everything they make is trash...
Now if you give them an opportunity to fess up and fix the problem, and they don't step up.... Then you have a point.
Incidentally, after the huge batch of bad capacitors that entered the market in the late '90s/early 00's, I've had several machines that I'm responsible for either blow up (capacitor popped), or fry themselves; generally 4-5 years after they entered service. Sometimes they just turn off and never come back on, and sometimes the capacitor leaks in a way that yields more spectacular results. This is with both el-cheapo boards, and name brand boards from a variety of manufacturers. Products with thousands of components can fail in ways that send the blame in many directions...
Slashdot Mirror
Considering their announcement that the PS3 now costs under $400 to manufacture, you're probably right there. But that doesn't imply they're going to make the system less open. Their fancy graphics chip is still only accessible to licensees, and they seem to think that is sufficient for them to milk cash out of developers. It *is* sufficient.
The PS3 seems to me to be more born of learning the lessons of their failings with the PSP, and not of their focus on BluRay.
Imagine a stack of AV components with no wires interconnecting them. Buying a new DVD/BluRay player and adding it to the pile aand everything "just works", no cables or anything. Perhaps popping your MP3 player down on the stack and having it sync up (and probably charge too), still with no wires.
That's what this is for. It has nothing to do with PCs, and it isn't a competitor to W-USB. It's unrelated. This story was written so this guy could get ad revenue off of links from sites like Slashdot, and all the other places guaranteed to pick up an inflammatory anti-Sony story.
Most 5-in-one readers support memory stick, actually. I've got an Acer that supports it. Never used it because I don't have any Sony devices that take memory sticks, but the logo is there...
Since when is Bluetooth UWB and multi-hundred Mbps? This is 100+ times faster than Bluetooth. It is clearly *not* designed for the same uses. I doubt they will be competing at all.
I'd imagine this will be used more for something like connecting all your stereo components together (including video switching) without connecting any wires between them, etc...
Which is why they continue to add codecs that are generally used for non-commercial media, right? You can install Linux on it using a menu item which is specifically for that purpose, but the menu item ended up there because they were paying attention to other things. It was "easier" for them to support alternative operating systems, and to support customers that upgrade the hard drive themselves. They're not focused on the non-BluRay aspects, so they accidentally continue to add code that makes the system more open....
Right...
Clearly their openness with the PS3 would suggest otherwise. (Many formats, HID complant USB and Bluetooth peripherals, etc..)
This new technology doesn't actually seem to compete with W-USB, except for in the head of this analyst. It appears to be for device->device transfers, where W-USB (like regular USB) seems to be towards host->device and device->host transfers. W-USB doesn't seem suitable for low-power devices with minimal CPU (much like host-mode USB). The two seem to be serving different niches. It reminds me of the "war" between RapidIO and Infiniband. A war in the press, but not in the trenches.
But that doesn't make good copy. Better to start flamewars, thus generating ad impressions.
"If you don't know what to do" is the key point.
You should know what to do. And after you stop because you didn't know what to do, you should head straight home/to your local library/to your local traffic school and learn what to do.
You didn't hear that driver saying that simply stopping is the best thing to do. You said it yourself. It's the best thing to do when you don't know what to do. Ideally we'd have as few of those people on the road as possible, and licensing requirements to ensure that.
If you're a good programmer you won't be able to help but find trivial little ways to use it to make your life outside of work easier. And that doesn't preclude having a healthy work-life balance. It actually enhances it.
There are zillions of ways that a tiny bit of code can help in some of your daily life, and if they're not rediculously obvious to you in a way that calls out for you to do them, then you either aren't smart enough to be a really good programmer, or you're not passionate enough to be a really good programmer (or a really good worker at all, most likely).
Also, I don't see how listing "programming as a day job" means that he thinks you should be programming for fun. Normal people have personal work to do outside of their jobs. Using a few lines of code to help for those jobs counts too.
They've basically completely transformed from the closed company they were just a few years ago and had been for decades. So, what else do they need to do?
You'd like to think it was something nefarious, since that would make us seem less like fools for electing idiots. However the real reason for these is (was) to make voters think congress was doing something so incumbent representatives could get re-elected. Since the US Congress has no foresight beyond the current election cycle, it is now going to come back and bite them three elections later.
I'd hate to know you in real life. The word "forgivness" isn't in your vocabulary, huh? No matter what somebody does to make up for past mistakes?
Well you show them. One little fuckup, and you can put everybody right on your shit-list. Let me know how many people show up at your funeral.
decided -> decoded.
I should have used preview.
Theoretically, the state-run systems don't allow the individual site to store the data. It would be transmitted to some state system (which already has all your information anyway) before it is decided, and only a "yes" or "no" is sent back.
In practice, you're probably right.
For people, in criminal trials, yes.
For corporations, or anybody for that matter, in civil trials, no. Additionally, stores like these can be held liable even if they are fooled by a high-quality fake ID.
You wouldn't think it was stupid if you were the owner of the convenience store....
That store now has a nice record saying they carefully verified the age of ever customer purchasing alcohol or tobacco. So when some 13 year old gets caught smoking and some "I'm a perfect parent" mother decides to blame the corner store for selling cigarettes to her kid instead of her inability to do her job as a parent, the store doesn't lose its two primary profit centers for 90 days while its license is suspended. It also doesn't have to worry about being sued when some drunken 19 year old gets into an accident and one of the victims tries to go for a jackpot verdict against the store that "sold the alcohol". It probably gets a nice discount on its insurance premium for the trouble too.
The inability to shop for these products anonymously is the price we pay for the "luxury" of living in a litigious society.
Not only do you not have a reference to back that up, but it's also highly improbable.
I'm sure that humans would have discovered accidentally that sweet liquids contaminated with yeast produced alcoholic liquids far sooner than we had an understanding of what "alcohol" actually was. Well before we had language, much less than organized religion.
However I'm willing to admit that I'm speculating, as my post has a little in terms of references as yours...
I'm as much... Scratch that... I'm more of a hardware pack-rat than most people judging by the hundreds of pounds of obsolete rack-mount equipment in my basement, and I'm all for re-purposing obsolete hardware. However a home server is the wrong place to do it, especially if saving money is your primary goal. A well-selected modern machine, especially an underclocked machine, with a new energy efficient power supply will pay for itself in energy savings against an old Pentium [123] in less than a year. And as a bonus, it'll perform better too.
You're absolutely right. I just don't know whether I should be worried, or glad that I mis-remembered that.
That's not true.
The SATA protocol has multiplexing bits so you can attach multiple drives through the same host port and software can understand which device it is talking to. There are a variety of SATA "hubs" on the market (usually built into JBOD or SCSI enclosures) that allow you to connect many devices to the same SATA or eSATA port. (Search for "SATA port multiplier") SATA also supports longer cable lengths than USB. However a big advantage of USB for non-storage peripherals is that USB can provide power, and SATA cannot.
Personally, I can't believe the PCjr won. In fact I think they probably put it in the #1 spot because most people are familiar with it. I've used most of the keyboards in the article, and the Sinclair is the hands down, by far, worst keyboard in the group. Not only was it difficult to locate keys without looking, but they were hard to press, and they wore out after several thousand keystrokes. My Sinclair has had a button on a wire hanging out the side for the "L" key for the vast majority of its life. "L" was the shortcut key for the "LOAD" keyword, which you used every time you loaded a program from tape. (Read: Every time you powered the system up, or rebooted because the 16k expansion RAM pack came loose, or restarted your loading because the audio coupler to your tape player produced loading errors) Within a couple weeks, it had gotten flaky, so you had to push it repeatedly and harder to get it to register. Within a couple of months of owning the machine, we had worn right through the L key down to the bare plastic membrane.
At least you could touch-type on the PCjr with some practice, and practically every one of those keyboards that hasn't found a landfill (and probably some that have) still work.
I believe it, but generally those people don't regularly show up in multiple party photos holding beers or shots.
It is actionable. It happens all the time, and it has been happening since before the internet. It is perfectly reasonable for you to assume that the beverage you're drinking out of a labeled container in a picture contains the beverage that is advertised unless some sufficient motive is provided as to why it wouldn't be. If you've been in those situations before, you know as well as I that the chances it was not beer or rum in those pictures is basically insignificant. You are also probably well aware that this guy would be at the ass end of a liability suit if this kid dies in a drunk driving accident and his parents (or the other guy in the accident) find out he knew about these pictures and did nothing.
No, it's not because he's a kid. He's barely even a kid. He's 18.
What's the motive for faking drinking in photos? Could he have been faking it? Sure. Is it likely? No. Would I consider the slim possibility that there was water in the beer can, or that it was fake rum reasonable doubt? Absolutely not.
Can you imagine a bunch of highschool seniors having this conversation:
Hey guys! Let's empty out some beer cans, and a bottle of rum, and some 40's, fill them with colored water and pretend like we're having a kegger! It'll be fun!
Ok, so maybe you can imagine it, but can you imagine it with out the "Just kidding, let's have a kegger" at the end?
Let me get this straight. Kids taking pictures of themselves demonstrating that they aren't mature enough to drink responsibly is evidence that the drinking age limits need to be repealed?
I tend to agree that 21 is too old when 18 is old enough to vote, but this is a really poor example to hold up to argue that point.
First off, the kid is a liar.
Second of all, if he's freely distributing evidence of himself breaking the law, he's lucky it's just his school that is punishing him.
Third, he's lucky it's just him getting punished and not his parents.
Kid breaks law, gets in trouble. The internet was mildly involved. News at 10:00. Bitching on Slashdot at 9:30.
If you don't count specialist applications of the 80386, and you're limiting yourself to x86 architecture, you still missed the boat by 4 generations.
The original Pentium supported 8-way SMP.
As for Tyan, my previous two systems ran with Tyan boards. One was a Dual Pentium 200Mhz, and the other was a dual Athlon. The dual pentium still runs well today (and has been running well since 1997), and the Athlon probably works fine, but I don't power it up because I can't afford the electricity it sucks down. The board I replaced it with is a DFI that gets excellent reviews for reliability and features, but I find it severely lacking the stability and features the Tyan boards had.
They're not overclocker boards, but they are consistently reliable. I'm always bothered by people who will write off an entire brand of product because of one faulty model, especially when they don't even give the manufacturer a chance to correct the problem. It usually happens with hard drives (I'll never use "Brand X" drives. I had one crash! Those die for everybody!). Generally every manufacturer out there will put out a flawed product eventually when they're releasing dozens of newly designed products a year. That doesn't mean everything they make is trash...
Now if you give them an opportunity to fess up and fix the problem, and they don't step up.... Then you have a point.
Incidentally, after the huge batch of bad capacitors that entered the market in the late '90s/early 00's, I've had several machines that I'm responsible for either blow up (capacitor popped), or fry themselves; generally 4-5 years after they entered service. Sometimes they just turn off and never come back on, and sometimes the capacitor leaks in a way that yields more spectacular results. This is with both el-cheapo boards, and name brand boards from a variety of manufacturers. Products with thousands of components can fail in ways that send the blame in many directions...