I'd pay for TomTom if it were reasonable; they already have a Linux version, it probably would be very little effort on their part to provide a 770 port.
My wife and I are planning a length Europe excursion (1-2 months) and we plan to tour the major touristy spots, which means London, France, and Rome at the very least. A GPS with complete maps of those cities that I could carry with me/in a rental car would be a godsend.
I ordered a Nokia 770 last week because of the overwhelming feedback I've read concerning the device's beautiful display. I was a proud owner of a Sharp Zaurus 6000L, which is a 480x600 device very similar to the 770, also with a wonderful display.
After having the Zaurus for a year or so, I realized that most of what I used it for was ebook reading and occasional surfing while on the throne. The 770 has a smaller footprint, and a larger, higher resolution display.
The only drawback is, the 770 only has RS-MMC for expansion. No CF, no SD. Bummer. But, it does have built in Bluetooth and wifi, so connectivity to a filesystem shouldn't be an issue most of the time.
The only thing missing is a killer GPS application (some exist, but they're not "full solutions" with downloadable vector maps) like TomTom... but hopefully it will come. The 770's only been shipping for what, a little over a month?
Pardon my ignorance, but there's some basic media-center functionality they could add to the 360 to get my money instanteneously; mp3, dvd, and avi playback (with divx and xvid support).
I currently use a PC that gives me adequate 480p input to my 65" HDTV, but if I could get 1080i support on that sucker for playing avi files I've downloaded, I'd be ecstatic. And if it played mp3s with visualization at 1080i, it would be a great party machine.
Forgive me if the 360 is already supposed to do this stuff. From what I've seen, the games *look* nice so far, and the UI is pretty. With the ps3 so far off, I don't see how the 360 could really fail... If the ps3 were coming out within a few months, it would matter. Until then, every gamer that wants something new for Xmas is going to *have* to go with the 360.
Imagine your waiter coming up to you at a restaurant you've never been to and saying, "Welcome sir and madame. Your usual?"
Imagine they don't have to ask if you want sour cream or butter or cheese, or how you want your steak done, or if you want lemon in your tea. It's all recorded on their belt PC along with your order. With just a few strokes of a pen or voice recognition, the chefs in the restaurant see an order pop up on the screen, without the waiter having to return to the kitchen. Their belt PC tells them when the food is ready.
You approach a guest desktop PC in your hotel room and it automatically sets your preferred resolution, color scheme, and most commonly used apps, along with the latest news in the categories you prefer. With no effort involved.
Your television automatically displays a welcome message and displays upcoming shows that fit your viewing preferences, or suggests movies you can order.
Just the tip of the iceberg, really. Once computing and networking is truly ubiquitous, our lives really will change.
It's been a while, but I would estimate that there are a few more switches than just 2% of the network.
A switch problem, however, would just take stuff down completely, so you are very likely correct in saying that it was a router problem.
There have been times where a single customer announcing the entire internet through their connection, and those routes being re-announced (bad BGP filters) can cause this kind of havoc (not naming names to protect the guilty, *cough* AS4200 *cough*), but any tier 1 ISP worth its salt would be filtering those kinds of third-party route announcements.
I wrote this huge rant about how I think computers and the internet are going to revolutionize society, and eliminate a lot of the redundancy and waste in government and education, but I figured I'd just get nailed and flamed as a pie in the sky optimist.
So, instead of writing my vision of what society can be, I'll just say "I agree."
Agreed. It's unfortunate that there are so few HD channels, because I just don't watch low def anymore. Seriously.
Even with maybe a dozen HD channels, there are times I've had conflicts in my recordings.. with the ability to record two streams at once. That means there were three shows I would have potentially wanted to record at the same time.
"Fortunately," programs on cable networks usually get repeated ad nauseum, so I just scan forward a day or less to find another airing of the same show I couldn't record.
The Time Warner box isn't bad, if you just want to use the grid interface. For browsing by title, it's painfully slow because there's no virtual keyboard *and* half the stuff isn't indexed in the listings by title for some reason.
For someone with even half a life, having to scan through a paper TV Guide to choose my programs, and set them up to record manually... fugedaboutit. I'd rather not watch any TV than go through all that BS.
I do miss my "bloop" sound effects from the TiVo though.
I clicked on this article just so I could post something along the lines as you have. I agree that I don't want to totally overwhelm the EM spectrum with wireless garbage just because we can.
How much of this crap is bombarding our genes and causing mutations? Cancer?
Strangely enough, there was a study a few months back posted on Slashdot about the presence of wireless AP's actually being associated with increased intelligence. That's kind of bizarre; wish I had that link so I could read up on it.
Well, you've given me something to think about. I'll check out what the WDB folder does and maybe I'll set it up to be cleaned out every time I play as well.
I'm also usually running an mp3 player on my machine at the same time. Sometimes it's streaming, sometimes it's local. The fact that it never pauses in playing the mp3s also was an indicator that it wasn't my machine, or my network. But it's possible that if WoW is reindexing some stupid text file or something, I would never notice.
I hardly believe it's my machine lagging when I do a search in the auction house and it takes roughly 30 seconds to get a listing.
I also hardly think it's my machine when I'm fighting out in the wilderness and I go to loot something and I sit there locked on a corpse for 30 seconds.
I know the difference between a busy computer and network lag...
Well, to be honest, I've had problems in the past, with a different PC -- I ascribe it to hardware incompatibility or my inexpert handling of parts. I built the other PC (and this one) from parts, and I didn't do due diligence for compatibility on the other one. It always ran hot, IRQ conflicts, etc.
>>Ooh, I don't like XP's activation requirement either.
My copies of XP don't require activation... But yeah, that's very distasteful to me. Big Brother and all that.
I only reboot once every several weeks, after I play with a lot of weird software (beta stuff, crap from Sourceforge, etc.) On a day-to-day basis, using many applications (Firefox, Office, ABC, AV software, WoW and other games), installing and uninstalling professionally-written software, I do not ever need to reboot. My system was installed months and months ago, and it hasn't gotten sluggish like 98/98se/95 used to get.
I had problems with my P4 and XP, but it was the hardware. This machine seems bulletproof. I don't think I've *ever* gotten a blue screen.
When I first heard that x86 was going to be able to run OSX, I thought, "Wow, finally!" And then I thought, "Well, why bother?"
Pros: - Pretty, shiny - Some cool dashboard bar thing - *nix
Cons: - I'd have to get all new copies of my software to run on it, 95% of which isn't available for Mac.
If the software I want to run isn't available, migration is never going to happen for me. I might play around with it on a secondary machine, but that's what it would be -- playing.
It's not AI. The coolest part of the game sounds like the adaptive technology for animation, which is really an amazing, but logical, result of the requirement for faster development and more and richer content. The rest of the game is, the designer admits, based on pre-existing favorites such as Pac Man, Populous, and Civilization.
I was a left-handed child in a school of right-handed children. The teacher didn't bother showing me how to write properly; I was left to figure out how to imitate block printing and cursive on my own.
Nowadays, I *could* be writing better, but I rarely need to write anything but my signature to use my debit card.
One point; your children will need to know how to write while they are in school, up until they leave college. Many college exams are bluebook -- handwritten essays.
When I was in high school (late 80's) and in college (early 90's) I had to write quite a bit. English essays *in class* in AP English. Quizzes. There's no "class computer" where kids put answers to quizzes and tests and in-class exercises.
Has that changed? There should be a lot of material that students still need to write longhand, until some kind of standard in-class "terminal" that's hackproof is installed in classrooms.
My neighborhood is quiet most of the time. There was one weekend where people were out mowing at 7am and I was like, what the fuck are these people thinking?
It's idiotic (read: inconsiderate as hell) to mow your lawn when the vast majority of people are sleeping.
Unfortunately, some people do not work day shifts and so must sleep during the day or evening, and I really feel for them. They either have to fully insulate their bedrooms for noise and light, or suffer a lot of rude awakenings.
The answer, of course, is to build homes with bedrooms that are perfectly insulated from noise and light.
"You say Lord I say Christ I don't believe in Peter Pan Frankenstein or Superman..."
Gods are all myth and superstition, fellas. There's nothing wrong with wanting a security blanket, but if you want to be a big boy you gotta grow out of it someday.
I like the Thor reference, though. I'm a Celt by descent, and I think it's a rich heritage that doesn't get the notice it deserves.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd pay for TomTom if it were reasonable; they already have a Linux version, it probably would be very little effort on their part to provide a 770 port.
My wife and I are planning a length Europe excursion (1-2 months) and we plan to tour the major touristy spots, which means London, France, and Rome at the very least. A GPS with complete maps of those cities that I could carry with me/in a rental car would be a godsend.
I ordered a Nokia 770 last week because of the overwhelming feedback I've read concerning the device's beautiful display. I was a proud owner of a Sharp Zaurus 6000L, which is a 480x600 device very similar to the 770, also with a wonderful display.
After having the Zaurus for a year or so, I realized that most of what I used it for was ebook reading and occasional surfing while on the throne. The 770 has a smaller footprint, and a larger, higher resolution display.
The only drawback is, the 770 only has RS-MMC for expansion. No CF, no SD. Bummer. But, it does have built in Bluetooth and wifi, so connectivity to a filesystem shouldn't be an issue most of the time.
The only thing missing is a killer GPS application (some exist, but they're not "full solutions" with downloadable vector maps) like TomTom... but hopefully it will come. The 770's only been shipping for what, a little over a month?
Pardon my ignorance, but there's some basic media-center functionality they could add to the 360 to get my money instanteneously; mp3, dvd, and avi playback (with divx and xvid support).
I currently use a PC that gives me adequate 480p input to my 65" HDTV, but if I could get 1080i support on that sucker for playing avi files I've downloaded, I'd be ecstatic. And if it played mp3s with visualization at 1080i, it would be a great party machine.
Forgive me if the 360 is already supposed to do this stuff. From what I've seen, the games *look* nice so far, and the UI is pretty. With the ps3 so far off, I don't see how the 360 could really fail... If the ps3 were coming out within a few months, it would matter. Until then, every gamer that wants something new for Xmas is going to *have* to go with the 360.
That's exactly what I envisioned when I first thought about it.
It would be very easy to have a tiny filesystem readable via Bluetooth or whatever, with something like
HOTEL_PREFS.CFG
TV_PREFS.CFG
DESKTOP_PREFS.CFG
LAPTOP_PREFS.CFG
BEVERAGE_PREFS.CFG
DINNER_PREFS.CFG
MEDICALERT.CFG
PUBLIC_KEY.CFG
Imagine your waiter coming up to you at a restaurant you've never been to and saying, "Welcome sir and madame. Your usual?"
Imagine they don't have to ask if you want sour cream or butter or cheese, or how you want your steak done, or if you want lemon in your tea. It's all recorded on their belt PC along with your order. With just a few strokes of a pen or voice recognition, the chefs in the restaurant see an order pop up on the screen, without the waiter having to return to the kitchen. Their belt PC tells them when the food is ready.
You approach a guest desktop PC in your hotel room and it automatically sets your preferred resolution, color scheme, and most commonly used apps, along with the latest news in the categories you prefer. With no effort involved.
Your television automatically displays a welcome message and displays upcoming shows that fit your viewing preferences, or suggests movies you can order.
Just the tip of the iceberg, really. Once computing and networking is truly ubiquitous, our lives really will change.
It's been a while, but I would estimate that there are a few more switches than just 2% of the network.
A switch problem, however, would just take stuff down completely, so you are very likely correct in saying that it was a router problem.
There have been times where a single customer announcing the entire internet through their connection, and those routes being re-announced (bad BGP filters) can cause this kind of havoc (not naming names to protect the guilty, *cough* AS4200 *cough*), but any tier 1 ISP worth its salt would be filtering those kinds of third-party route announcements.
Heh. Poster is +Funny.
Thanks for the tip. I found the site chock full of nerdy time-wasting links, and spent a lovely hour or two browsing the recent "articles."
Mod the parent insightful, informative, interesting, whatever...
SciFi HD is the holy grail. They don't know the opportunity they're missing out on. Just like TiVo standalone HD.
As much as I like to criticize Slashdot, that mech was posted months ago. Please mod "wrong".
I wrote this huge rant about how I think computers and the internet are going to revolutionize society, and eliminate a lot of the redundancy and waste in government and education, but I figured I'd just get nailed and flamed as a pie in the sky optimist.
So, instead of writing my vision of what society can be, I'll just say "I agree."
Things never quite work out as you think anyway.
Agreed. It's unfortunate that there are so few HD channels, because I just don't watch low def anymore. Seriously.
Even with maybe a dozen HD channels, there are times I've had conflicts in my recordings.. with the ability to record two streams at once. That means there were three shows I would have potentially wanted to record at the same time.
"Fortunately," programs on cable networks usually get repeated ad nauseum, so I just scan forward a day or less to find another airing of the same show I couldn't record.
The Time Warner box isn't bad, if you just want to use the grid interface. For browsing by title, it's painfully slow because there's no virtual keyboard *and* half the stuff isn't indexed in the listings by title for some reason.
For someone with even half a life, having to scan through a paper TV Guide to choose my programs, and set them up to record manually... fugedaboutit. I'd rather not watch any TV than go through all that BS.
I do miss my "bloop" sound effects from the TiVo though.
*Is* there another decent site like Slashdot used to be?
Frequent articles, interesting stuff?
Inquiring minds want to know...
If you compare it thusly to tubgirl, there is no freaking way I'm going to go out of my way to see it.
I try, but people keep BRINGING IT UP.
I clicked on this article just so I could post something along the lines as you have. I agree that I don't want to totally overwhelm the EM spectrum with wireless garbage just because we can.
How much of this crap is bombarding our genes and causing mutations? Cancer?
Strangely enough, there was a study a few months back posted on Slashdot about the presence of wireless AP's actually being associated with increased intelligence. That's kind of bizarre; wish I had that link so I could read up on it.
Well, you've given me something to think about. I'll check out what the WDB folder does and maybe I'll set it up to be cleaned out every time I play as well.
I'm also usually running an mp3 player on my machine at the same time. Sometimes it's streaming, sometimes it's local. The fact that it never pauses in playing the mp3s also was an indicator that it wasn't my machine, or my network. But it's possible that if WoW is reindexing some stupid text file or something, I would never notice.
I hardly believe it's my machine lagging when I do a search in the auction house and it takes roughly 30 seconds to get a listing.
I also hardly think it's my machine when I'm fighting out in the wilderness and I go to loot something and I sit there locked on a corpse for 30 seconds.
I know the difference between a busy computer and network lag...
An MMORPG is a very difficult thing to manage. It's like riding a horse with 1000 heads which requires a different food for each mouth.
That said, WoW has had some very disappointing server stability issues that have yet to be corrected (instances, lag), nine months after release.
People have a right to be upset, but sometimes they can go a bit overboard with their expectations of service when dealing with an MMORPG.
Well, to be honest, I've had problems in the past, with a different PC -- I ascribe it to hardware incompatibility or my inexpert handling of parts. I built the other PC (and this one) from parts, and I didn't do due diligence for compatibility on the other one. It always ran hot, IRQ conflicts, etc.
>>Ooh, I don't like XP's activation requirement either.
My copies of XP don't require activation... But yeah, that's very distasteful to me. Big Brother and all that.
Funny, except I've already done that, and I've never had an "automatic restart" either with this hardware.
Scoff if you must, but XP is pretty damn solid.
I only reboot once every several weeks, after I play with a lot of weird software (beta stuff, crap from Sourceforge, etc.) On a day-to-day basis, using many applications (Firefox, Office, ABC, AV software, WoW and other games), installing and uninstalling professionally-written software, I do not ever need to reboot. My system was installed months and months ago, and it hasn't gotten sluggish like 98/98se/95 used to get.
I had problems with my P4 and XP, but it was the hardware. This machine seems bulletproof. I don't think I've *ever* gotten a blue screen.
When I first heard that x86 was going to be able to run OSX, I thought, "Wow, finally!" And then I thought, "Well, why bother?"
Pros:
- Pretty, shiny
- Some cool dashboard bar thing
- *nix
Cons:
- I'd have to get all new copies of my software to run on it, 95% of which isn't available for Mac.
If the software I want to run isn't available, migration is never going to happen for me. I might play around with it on a secondary machine, but that's what it would be -- playing.
It's not AI. The coolest part of the game sounds like the adaptive technology for animation, which is really an amazing, but logical, result of the requirement for faster development and more and richer content. The rest of the game is, the designer admits, based on pre-existing favorites such as Pac Man, Populous, and Civilization.
I was a left-handed child in a school of right-handed children. The teacher didn't bother showing me how to write properly; I was left to figure out how to imitate block printing and cursive on my own.
Nowadays, I *could* be writing better, but I rarely need to write anything but my signature to use my debit card.
One point; your children will need to know how to write while they are in school, up until they leave college. Many college exams are bluebook -- handwritten essays.
When I was in high school (late 80's) and in college (early 90's) I had to write quite a bit. English essays *in class* in AP English. Quizzes. There's no "class computer" where kids put answers to quizzes and tests and in-class exercises.
Has that changed? There should be a lot of material that students still need to write longhand, until some kind of standard in-class "terminal" that's hackproof is installed in classrooms.
My neighborhood is quiet most of the time. There was one weekend where people were out mowing at 7am and I was like, what the fuck are these people thinking?
It's idiotic (read: inconsiderate as hell) to mow your lawn when the vast majority of people are sleeping.
Unfortunately, some people do not work day shifts and so must sleep during the day or evening, and I really feel for them. They either have to fully insulate their bedrooms for noise and light, or suffer a lot of rude awakenings.
The answer, of course, is to build homes with bedrooms that are perfectly insulated from noise and light.
Arthur Clarke reference for the funny:
"My god, it's full of stars..."
Queen reference for the atheism:
"You say Lord I say Christ
I don't believe in Peter Pan
Frankenstein or Superman..."
Gods are all myth and superstition, fellas. There's nothing wrong with wanting a security blanket, but if you want to be a big boy you gotta grow out of it someday.
I like the Thor reference, though. I'm a Celt by descent, and I think it's a rich heritage that doesn't get the notice it deserves.