Not just for hypochondriancs any more!
on
Cyberchondria
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· Score: 1
I had a tingling in my toes at one point; an online search had me convinced I had a brain tumour, degenerative nerve disease, or west nile, among other possibilities...
A trip to the Doctor did not help resolve the problem at all.
Finally, I did find something online that was a little more sane, after a lot of digging, that it might be a compressed nerve in my back; a quick trip to a chiropractor, and it was better.
The net can be bad for getting one's imagination going, as it did in my case. But it can also help find possibilities that Doctor's might miss at first glance; again, as in my case. It's a double-edge sword, requiring a lot of patience and judgment...
I don't think McNealy calling your company directly is a sign that Sun is on the ropes. McNealy really does put a big emphasis on the personal touch, and answers (or delegates) all email to him personally; I guess he spends a big portion of his day doing this.
I had some concerns when we were dealing with Sun, and emailed Scott directly, and he replied fairly promptly, copying the folks who could solve our problems, and the results were swift and effective. (But please don't Slashdot him!)
Couldn't this source code be used for constructive monopoly-busting purposes, such as figuring out some of the protocols/formats for things like SMB and NTFS?
No, none of the code should be used, and the people who glean the protocols and formats by looking at the source, shouldn't do any of the coding. But it could really help free up some of the holds that MS has tried to put on the market through their control of protocols and formats.
Maybe for the light weight user, Star/OpenOffice are quite complete (and always improving), but I've occasionally stumbled across stowstoppers that have sent me back to office, typically in the more advanced features.
(For example, summarizing bank statements, using PivotTable to create a item/monthly-total table from bank statements; DataPilot will create the summary table, but I can't find a way for it to easily group and sums things together into months, like PivotTable allows.)
I was a huge satellite fan, but found that once I had a PVR (MythTV), that all the shows I wanted to watch (in general) were on at some point in time, on cable. And a high quality PVR card and a good cable feed, is much better picture quality than a typical TV.
Plus, for the cost of a second PVR card, you can watch one live show while recording another, or, more importantly, record two shows simultaneously on two channels. I saw "more importantly," since with a quality PVR, I find that one tends not to watch live TV at all.
Personally, one PVR card seems to be enough for me, given the number of times that shows are repeated; there's only the odd time there are two shows on at the same time that wouldn't be repeated any time soon.
Definitely a better way to watch TV; I watch more of what I want to watch, spending less time doing so. When you have a library of your favorite shows automatically accumulating, you tend not to watch something because "nothing else is on." Your standards rise, and you watch more quality, less quantity, of TV.
While I have found other references to Cameron's involvement in this, why do none of the documents mention his name at all? Am I being dense in missing the link here?
Other than bragging rights, does the discovery of these newer elements (most of which only exist for a tiny moment in time) serve any real purpose? Could someone explain how this type of research has produced real benefit for science?
scoop up some soil, put it in a rocket not much bigger than a model rocket, launch it into Mars orbit, rendezevous with an orbitting satellite, launch it back to earth and finally be snapped up by a helicopter as it paracheutted down over the American desert (this parachutte technique happens to be how StarDust's sample will be retrieved)
Can someone explain, or point to a good reference, on this helicopter retrieval method? It just doesn't seem to make any sense to me.
If the thing is falling fast, the helicopter would have to place itself below the falling object, and that pesky rotor would be a bit of an obstruction to the catch.
If the helicopter were to be "swooping down" from above to catch the object, the object would have to be slowed with parachutes anyway, I assume, so why not just let it land?
It seems like a method that would be difficult, dangerous, and prone to failure. Can anyone point out why it is used at all?
On a slightly related note, one of the faster boots of Windows I have ever seen, was using Win4Lin, a program which lets you run Windows 98 on Linux. It doesn't attempt to emulate a whole PC a la VMWare, it just focuses upon tweaking Windows enough to be able to run on Linux, including native access to the file system (your Windows installation and files are simply in a "win" directory, not on a virtual disk or anything).
By using the native Linux file system, and an efficient set of appropriate drivers for mapping to X, etc., I found they made Windows run much faster than Windows could on bare hardware, including boot times.
It's so deliciously ironic, using Linux to make Windows boot or run faster than otherwise possible.
I've had excellent luck with MythTV. And being able to install the whole shooting match with one "apt-get" makes setting it up very straight forward. I've even (hesitantly) done two apt-get updates to newer versions, expecting things to break, without a single problem.
It is a very well put together package, with ability to play music, browse net headlines, watch/rip DVD's, browse weather, and such.
I installed both NetBSD and FreeBSD with all available packages, a year or so ago, and most people who came by couldn't tell the difference between it and a Linux desktop (most people thought they were Linux desktops).
I think with Linux's popularity, people often fail to understand that generally the same desktop environments, utilities, and such work exactly the same on the BSD's. Especially in the case of the ever-so-portable NetBSD, it allows one to have a Linux-like desktop on pretty any platform imaginable that's powerful enough.
Now, commercial/binary application support, and variety of device drivers available are the main areas were the BSD's are still playing catch-up.
While it's an interesting idea, the US attitude of "no one's gonna die on my watch," and the intense national pride of saving such heros, would never allow the US to accept such an idea.
Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" is a must see, to help understand the reasons for a lot of the violence and gun problems in the US.
Especially telling was the large amount of time he spent contrasting Canada with the US. We're exposed to the same games, same movies, and the same media, but shootings are murders are all but a fraction of that in the US (even comparing similiar sized towns, adjusting for population, and such).
Most of the of the coolest subnotebooks (such as at Dynamism) seem to use the low power, low heat Transmeta processors, and have been kind of stuck at a threshold of speeds for the longest time.
I welcome a new generation of Transmeta CPU's, to hopefully bring sub-notebook power forward a leap.
In the case of a high conflict divorce with children involved, IM'ing can be a relatively low conflict way, for the children to keep in touch with the parent they're not currently with at a given time. (In many cases, the children feel on the spot if they're on the phone with one parent while within earshot of the other.)
Due to my wonderful education from the "Frontiers of Construction" marathon on Christmas Eve, there seemed to be many examples in the marine industry where the generator/electric motor approach is used instead of the traditional approach is used.
I got the impression that one significant benefit is the flexibility of electric engines in terms of size and manoeuverability. Being able to have your thrusters turn 360 is critical for ocean going cranes, bow thrusters, and such, and is less complicated using an electric engine than would be required for a direct mechanical linkage.
In the cruise ship example, I kind of got the impression that so much electricity is required for the ship in general, that large generators were a given to start with, so powering the thrust of the ship from the same makes a lot of sense.
Very interesting to see this technology potentially cross over to the consumer. It will be interesting to see if the efficiency makes it feasible.
An odd thing about that HP-49G that you link to. It has enough features, that you actually have to *pay* for an *extra* manual if you want to get the documentation on all of it features.
This calculator was expensive enough, I was very unhappy to learn that the manual that came with it didn't discuss all of its features, and that I had to pay extra to get all the documentation.
Sony Playstation 2 * Hugues DirecTivo receiver (w/ two inputs, of course) * Sony STR-DE995 receiver * Numerous additional specialized components...including a VCR.
It's just not possible for any one company to take all of those functions and shove them into one box. What am I to do when my core receiver dies? Toss the whole thing? I think not...
Sure you will. Technology today should allow them to produce this uber-device for a cost where you can pick up a new one, or get the old one serviced, for a reasonable price. When My dad bought his first VCR, it was $1500. For that price, he thought he'd never replace it, if it broke; he went to get it serviced a few years back, and for the cost of even getting an estimate done on it, he could buy a new one (and a better one) at Wal-Mart ($50 or so).
More recently, DVD players have taken a similar plunge to sub-$100 levels. PC's are doing similar things (especially attempts like Wal-Mart's, at eliminating the MS tax).
There's no *technical* reason why they can't pack cross-media functions into one box. In my opinion, it's mainly a matter of cross-disciplince specialization not bridging the gap. The UI and expertise for a Tivo/MythTV/whatever box is different from what is required in a gaming box. (The technology, less different.)
But the companies that do well with each area, aren't experts in the other areas. We need some visionary company or person to champion this fusion.
Trying to jam a PS/2 and a Tivo and a cell phone together, isn't going to cut it. Someone needs to distill down the UI concepts of them all, and create a truly evoluationary combination of them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I botched the spelling of the subject line, undoubtedly leading to a barrage of "we have proof reading problems up here." Bring it on, you predictable buggers.
Besides, it's early, and my fingers are cold because my whale oil lamp hasn't heated up the Igloo yet. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Oh yeah, well we winter coat problemse up here!
on
Saddam Hussein Arrested
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· Score: 2, Funny
The front page of Canada.com showed an interesting contrast this morning. The top international story (with no picture):
Saddam Hussein captured alive U.S. troops captured Saddam Hussein in a raid near the ousted Iraqi leader's hometown of Tikrit, the head of the U.S. administration in Iraq said Sunday. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we got him,' Paul Bremer told a news conference.
Followed by the lead National story, with picture!
Minister flaunts sealskin coat OTTAWA - Natural Resources Minister John Efford attended his first cabinet meeting Saturday wearing a sealskin coat and was promptly clubbed down by animal rights activists.
I seriously think a small tag-team (2 or 3 people) should be responsible for projects, and they should take in all of the input and recommendations, and produce a solid spec by themselves.. rather than the typical '10 departments sit around a table for 20 meetings and produce a piece of shit' method.
I very much agree with this statement. Most successful software projects I've seen always had one visionary behind them (or a very small core of 2 to 3 that work well together), and a great supporting cast. The core had the vision, the design talent, and the autonomy to make the final decision, hopefully with good input and proper execution from the team. (Where things fall apart is where you don't have the leader(s) with the vision, or who generally know what they're doing, or if you try to run the whole shop by committee. Accepting and valuing feedback from talented employees, does not require you run things like a democracy.
I think the same is true of other areas of society, too. Armies are not led by committees, but by a strict hierarchy of responsibility, with one person responsible for the group below them, as you go up the chain. Not complete democracy, but it's the structure you need when you have to get things done. A good commander will listen to the feedback of his troops, but ultimately make the decision and be responsible for it. I find it a bit ironic that Western culture embraces democracy and distribution of control (in theory), but tends to use an autocratic structure when things are critical.
Bad OS platforms make for good press, lots of business opportunities, and lots of PR. Programmers feel proud when they have mastered a bad platform and managed to create the tiniest app for a bad platform. That's why PalmOS and Windows XP keep winning in the market. What to do about it, I don't know.
No, I think you're missing an important point here. Those "Bad OS's" generally have to run on weaker hardware. Linux can't run on hardware as weak as the Palm's, and can barely run on Windows CE grade handhelds (I've tried it, it's painful).
These smaller OS's are specialized for a reason, to achieve modern functionality that people expect in a PDA, while keeping the memory and CPU footprint down.
Slashdot Mirror
A trip to the Doctor did not help resolve the problem at all.
Finally, I did find something online that was a little more sane, after a lot of digging, that it might be a compressed nerve in my back; a quick trip to a chiropractor, and it was better.
The net can be bad for getting one's imagination going, as it did in my case. But it can also help find possibilities that Doctor's might miss at first glance; again, as in my case. It's a double-edge sword, requiring a lot of patience and judgment...
I understand why the last two are valid Perl, but can someone explain to me how that first line parses up properly??
I had some concerns when we were dealing with Sun, and emailed Scott directly, and he replied fairly promptly, copying the folks who could solve our problems, and the results were swift and effective. (But please don't Slashdot him!)
No, none of the code should be used, and the people who glean the protocols and formats by looking at the source, shouldn't do any of the coding. But it could really help free up some of the holds that MS has tried to put on the market through their control of protocols and formats.
Thoughts?
(For example, summarizing bank statements, using PivotTable to create a item/monthly-total table from bank statements; DataPilot will create the summary table, but I can't find a way for it to easily group and sums things together into months, like PivotTable allows.)
Plus, for the cost of a second PVR card, you can watch one live show while recording another, or, more importantly, record two shows simultaneously on two channels. I saw "more importantly," since with a quality PVR, I find that one tends not to watch live TV at all.
Personally, one PVR card seems to be enough for me, given the number of times that shows are repeated; there's only the odd time there are two shows on at the same time that wouldn't be repeated any time soon.
Definitely a better way to watch TV; I watch more of what I want to watch, spending less time doing so. When you have a library of your favorite shows automatically accumulating, you tend not to watch something because "nothing else is on." Your standards rise, and you watch more quality, less quantity, of TV.
While I have found other references to Cameron's involvement in this, why do none of the documents mention his name at all? Am I being dense in missing the link here?
Other than bragging rights, does the discovery of these newer elements (most of which only exist for a tiny moment in time) serve any real purpose? Could someone explain how this type of research has produced real benefit for science?
Can someone explain, or point to a good reference, on this helicopter retrieval method? It just doesn't seem to make any sense to me.
If the thing is falling fast, the helicopter would have to place itself below the falling object, and that pesky rotor would be a bit of an obstruction to the catch.
If the helicopter were to be "swooping down" from above to catch the object, the object would have to be slowed with parachutes anyway, I assume, so why not just let it land?
It seems like a method that would be difficult, dangerous, and prone to failure. Can anyone point out why it is used at all?
By using the native Linux file system, and an efficient set of appropriate drivers for mapping to X, etc., I found they made Windows run much faster than Windows could on bare hardware, including boot times.
It's so deliciously ironic, using Linux to make Windows boot or run faster than otherwise possible.
It is a very well put together package, with ability to play music, browse net headlines, watch/rip DVD's, browse weather, and such.
I think with Linux's popularity, people often fail to understand that generally the same desktop environments, utilities, and such work exactly the same on the BSD's. Especially in the case of the ever-so-portable NetBSD, it allows one to have a Linux-like desktop on pretty any platform imaginable that's powerful enough.
Now, commercial/binary application support, and variety of device drivers available are the main areas were the BSD's are still playing catch-up.
While it's an interesting idea, the US attitude of "no one's gonna die on my watch," and the intense national pride of saving such heros, would never allow the US to accept such an idea.
Especially telling was the large amount of time he spent contrasting Canada with the US. We're exposed to the same games, same movies, and the same media, but shootings are murders are all but a fraction of that in the US (even comparing similiar sized towns, adjusting for population, and such).
I welcome a new generation of Transmeta CPU's, to hopefully bring sub-notebook power forward a leap.
In the case of a high conflict divorce with children involved, IM'ing can be a relatively low conflict way, for the children to keep in touch with the parent they're not currently with at a given time. (In many cases, the children feel on the spot if they're on the phone with one parent while within earshot of the other.)
I got the impression that one significant benefit is the flexibility of electric engines in terms of size and manoeuverability. Being able to have your thrusters turn 360 is critical for ocean going cranes, bow thrusters, and such, and is less complicated using an electric engine than would be required for a direct mechanical linkage.
In the cruise ship example, I kind of got the impression that so much electricity is required for the ship in general, that large generators were a given to start with, so powering the thrust of the ship from the same makes a lot of sense.
Very interesting to see this technology potentially cross over to the consumer. It will be interesting to see if the efficiency makes it feasible.
Until I did the un-slashdot-like thing and RTFA, and realized they didn't mean "at once". D'oh.
This calculator was expensive enough, I was very unhappy to learn that the manual that came with it didn't discuss all of its features, and that I had to pay extra to get all the documentation.
More recently, DVD players have taken a similar plunge to sub-$100 levels. PC's are doing similar things (especially attempts like Wal-Mart's, at eliminating the MS tax).
There's no *technical* reason why they can't pack cross-media functions into one box. In my opinion, it's mainly a matter of cross-disciplince specialization not bridging the gap. The UI and expertise for a Tivo/MythTV/whatever box is different from what is required in a gaming box. (The technology, less different.)
But the companies that do well with each area, aren't experts in the other areas. We need some visionary company or person to champion this fusion.
Trying to jam a PS/2 and a Tivo and a cell phone together, isn't going to cut it. Someone needs to distill down the UI concepts of them all, and create a truly evoluationary combination of them.
Besides, it's early, and my fingers are cold because my whale oil lamp hasn't heated up the Igloo yet. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Followed by the lead National story, with picture!
I really like living in Canada.
I think the same is true of other areas of society, too. Armies are not led by committees, but by a strict hierarchy of responsibility, with one person responsible for the group below them, as you go up the chain. Not complete democracy, but it's the structure you need when you have to get things done. A good commander will listen to the feedback of his troops, but ultimately make the decision and be responsible for it. I find it a bit ironic that Western culture embraces democracy and distribution of control (in theory), but tends to use an autocratic structure when things are critical.
When I was a kid, our trains got eighty furlongs to the hogshead, and that's the way we likes it.
Now, to make a long story short, is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling...
No, I think you're missing an important point here. Those "Bad OS's" generally have to run on weaker hardware. Linux can't run on hardware as weak as the Palm's, and can barely run on Windows CE grade handhelds (I've tried it, it's painful).
These smaller OS's are specialized for a reason, to achieve modern functionality that people expect in a PDA, while keeping the memory and CPU footprint down.