A lot of people are missing the point here. The light bulb, the plow, birth control, etc., are important advances, inventions, discoveries, whatever, but they're not necessarily gadgets. According to Merriam-Webster, a gadget is "an often small mechanical or electronic device with a practical use but often thought of as a novelty". In fact, by this definition, a lot of the stuff on this list shouldn't be there -- not the wheel or the transistor, for sure.
So what does count? The hand dryer, while not one of my top choices, is definitely gadgety. The television and computer and radio have moved out of gadget status, but certainly started that way.
What else? Digital watches. Palm Pilots. Viewmaster. Gyroscopes. Those little models of the solar system which have all the planets geared so they can all rotate and revolve at the proper relative speeds.
They gave a great show at the first LinuxWorld Conference/Expo. I know a lot of people wanted to talk and were annoyed to have such loud music, but the show was great anyway. Plus, they're a truly geeky band.
English needs a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun. Neuter is a different thing altogether, and we have one of those already -- "it". But, luckily, we also already have a gender-neutral singular pronoun: "they".
A lot of people seem opposed to this (apparently they don't like that it's also the plural pronoun, but consider that many other languages "reuse" pronouns freely) but it has a strong historical precedent both in commom and in formal speech. Shakespeare used it. So can you.
On a related note -- the folks at MIT who did the original devel work for the RCX (they didn't have much input on the final product) are still using Logo -- they've got their own replacement firmware and development environment. Unfortunately, it's got a very restrictive license and isn't available to anyone outside of education.
I'd feel better about it if the firearms-rights propaganda weren't attached to the bottom. Regardless of your (or my) personal feelings on this issue, it's one which is not a central issue of the community for which Eric is given spokesmanship -- in fact, it's something that a lot of us disagree about. It's not right for him to link his personal views on this onto Linux/Free Software issues.
I'm not saying that Eric doesn't have a right to free speech. He's certainly allowed to say this, when and whereever he feels like it. But it seems like it would be more responsible to seperate his personal agenda from that of the people he's taken as speaking for.
You're right in that robotics requires a lot more than just programming -- the things have to operate in the physical world, after all. I don't think that's a problem with Mindstorms but rather an issue with your expectations.
That said, you're right that the lack of IO is constraining. You can use multiple RCXs linked via an infrared network, but that of course doubles your cost. It'd be nice if Lego would release an "RCX Pro", with something like eight inputs and eight outputs.
(While I'm wishing, I'd also like to see a MiniRCX, about 1"x1"x2". It'd be supercool if that had a large number of IO ports, but I'd be happy as long as they were made to talk to each other easily -- you could fit quite a few in the space taken by a regular RCX, after all.)
I convinced the teacher of my brother's high school robotics class that they should use NQC instead of the default software or Robolab which they could barely afford. (Small private school.) So they did. The teacher was really glad to hear that such options exist -- she had no idea. So telling teachers about this is a concrete thing you can do to improve schools.
Why do you think it is illegal? The copyright laws aren't actually what the RIAA make them out to be. It's *very* possible that what you are doing actually falls under fair use.
This is not poor trademark law; this is good law. Trademarks are not universal, and apply only within certain classes of goods and services. (This is true in the US as well. And incidentally, one of the reasons trademark law shouldn't and can't be applied directly to domain names.) Microsoft's "Windows" products are computer software. And, for example, Andersen and Pella use "Windows" in a different sense, and that's none of Microsoft's business.
Probably a lot of people are thinking "what do you need color for? Isn't that just fluff?" Actually, on a 160x160 screen, color is incredibly useful. It adds a whole new way to fit more information in that tiny space. For example, entries on the calendar can be made different colors to indicate types of events or days. Sure, you can do this with icons, but there's only so many 8x8 2-bit icons that are distinguishable from each other. As it stands now, the month-view is basically useless. Color would change that.
Bright red in the todo or memo list is a quick visual cue that something is important. Or, toxic yellow could indicate work-related items, without wasting screen real-estate.
And of course there's things like maps, which barely work at all in black and white. The added information conveyed by color can fix that.
(Note that UI elements shouldn't _depend_ on color, since a lot of people are color blind to one extent or another. But that doesn't mean it can't be useful to others.)
Guess what? This isn't journalism. It might be way new media metajournalism, but no one even knows what that is. Slashdot is a site run by some guys who post stuff they find interesting. Then a bunch of people comment on it. It's different than journalism in that there are no reporters or editors -- no one with any particular commitment to a set of journalistic ethics.
Surprisingly, thanks partly to the moderation system, it ends up that (if you read a few of the high-rated comments at least) you get a level of accuracy that often exceeds what you get with the traditional media.
As for credibility and influence -- who said anyone is looking for those?
You're right; I don't have access to a Debian system right now. (It's on my laptop, but the screen is having issues.) I can look tomorrow. Sorry, there's nothing I can do about that.
But I did look at the source tree on the ftp site, and XFree86 just has the three files referenced in the documentation. One.orig.tar.gz, one.diff.gz, and one.dsc. If there are other patches, where are they? In the.orig.tar.gz file? Like I said, that's even worse -- preserving pristine sources is important. But actually, they don't seem to be there either. I'll look at this tomorrow and see if they are created somewhere along the way if you use dpkg-source.
This isn't FUD, by the way -- FUD the original comment may have been, because it made an unsubstantiated derogatory comment. I'm not saying that debian's packaging system is bad in any way -- it certainly handles dependencies better than RPM. But it's not fair to say that RPM is bad without having a particular reason why, especially when there are things that RPM does do very nicely that dpkg apparently doesn't.
You're also using the word "troll" in a weird way. There's nothing in my message that's a troll in any way. And I didn't say that you didn't have to open the SRPM to get at the patches -- just that when you do, they're clearly differentiated and in seperate files, which is nice when you're making local changes. How would you go about doing this on Debian?
(It's possible that you're right, although I can't find any information to correlate what you're saying. Even though there _is_ good documentation on making debian packages, it doesn't really seem to talk about this issue.)
I looked at those packages, and they certainly all seem to have one big patch file that contains all patches. You care to explain what you mean further?
If the patches you're talking about are in the.orig.tar.gz, that's an even more severe problem -- no pristine source.
From the Debian Packaging manual:
As it exists on the FTP site, a Debian source package consists of three related files. You must have the right versions of all three to be able to use them.
Those three files are: the source, the dsc (control) file, and the patch file, if any.
Urg, that'll teach me to not use the preview button. Try this:
I don't want to start a war here, but this comment seems unfounded: Its packaging system is just so far and away superior to Redhat's at the moment, that it borders on ridiculous. Debian's packaging system has some nice advantages (and more so as the apt front-end tools get more developed), but there are some things RPM does better too. For example, it allows multiple patches per package, which is crucial for organizing a derivative (either for public or local use) distribution.
It's not fair -- or responsible -- to make blanket statements like yours without justification.
I don't want to start a war here, but this comment seems unfounded: Its packaging system is just so far and away superior to Redhat's at the moment, that it borders on ridiculous. Debian's packaging system has some nice advantages (and more so as the apt front-end tools get more developed), but there are some things RPM does better too. For example, it allows multiple patches per package, which is crucial for organizing a derivative (either for public or local use) distribution. It's not fair -- or responsible -- to make blanket statements like yours without justification.
Why in the world would you get penalized for having something that increases your vision? If anything, I can see NOT having this kind of device as being grounds for liabilty.
Actually, we all see everything upside down. Our brain just flips it back around when it goes to form a mental, um, picture of what you're seeing. The brain is amazing in its ability to cope with things like this. I remember reading about an experiment in which the subjects wore glasses that flipped the world upside down; after a while, their brains had corrected and the world appeared rightside-up.
My Toshiba Libretto, only slightly bigger has the following features:
Dual-boots Win95 and Debian Linux
850 MB HD, upgradable to several GB
640x480 24-bit color active matrix screen
stereo sound if you've got headphones
small but totally usable qwerty keyboard
Well, you get the point. It fits in my coat pocket, and is great at doing mobile computer tasks. It's not so great at being a PDA -- so I've got a Palm Pilot too, which is a lot better at those functions than either the libretto or a wince machine.
Not a rumor, more of a suggestion -- Red Hat should buy SGI, not Corel. It'd fit better with the operating-system-technology thing. SGI has a lot of cool stuff (even if they haven't been doing so well as a company lately) and they're already putting a lot into Linux. Red Hat buying them would complete the transformation.
Slashdot Mirror
So what does count? The hand dryer, while not one of my top choices, is definitely gadgety. The television and computer and radio have moved out of gadget status, but certainly started that way.
What else? Digital watches. Palm Pilots. Viewmaster. Gyroscopes. Those little models of the solar system which have all the planets geared so they can all rotate and revolve at the proper relative speeds.
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A lot of people seem opposed to this (apparently they don't like that it's also the plural pronoun, but consider that many other languages "reuse" pronouns freely) but it has a strong historical precedent both in commom and in formal speech. Shakespeare used it. So can you.
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I'm not saying that Eric doesn't have a right to free speech. He's certainly allowed to say this, when and whereever he feels like it. But it seems like it would be more responsible to seperate his personal agenda from that of the people he's taken as speaking for.
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That said, you're right that the lack of IO is constraining. You can use multiple RCXs linked via an infrared network, but that of course doubles your cost. It'd be nice if Lego would release an "RCX Pro", with something like eight inputs and eight outputs.
(While I'm wishing, I'd also like to see a MiniRCX, about 1"x1"x2". It'd be supercool if that had a large number of IO ports, but I'd be happy as long as they were made to talk to each other easily -- you could fit quite a few in the space taken by a regular RCX, after all.)
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As it stands now, the month-view is basically useless. Color would change that.
Bright red in the todo or memo list is a quick visual cue that something is important. Or, toxic yellow could indicate work-related items, without wasting screen real-estate.
And of course there's things like maps, which barely work at all in black and white. The added information conveyed by color can fix that.
(Note that UI elements shouldn't _depend_ on color, since a lot of people are color blind to one extent or another. But that doesn't mean it can't be useful to others.)
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Surprisingly, thanks partly to the moderation system, it ends up that (if you read a few of the high-rated comments at least) you get a level of accuracy that often exceeds what you get with the traditional media.
As for credibility and influence -- who said anyone is looking for those?
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But I did look at the source tree on the ftp site, and XFree86 just has the three files referenced in the documentation. One
This isn't FUD, by the way -- FUD the original comment may have been, because it made an unsubstantiated derogatory comment. I'm not saying that debian's packaging system is bad in any way -- it certainly handles dependencies better than RPM. But it's not fair to say that RPM is bad without having a particular reason why, especially when there are things that RPM does do very nicely that dpkg apparently doesn't.
You're also using the word "troll" in a weird way. There's nothing in my message that's a troll in any way. And I didn't say that you didn't have to open the SRPM to get at the patches -- just that when you do, they're clearly differentiated and in seperate files, which is nice when you're making local changes. How would you go about doing this on Debian?
(It's possible that you're right, although I can't find any information to correlate what you're saying. Even though there _is_ good documentation on making debian packages, it doesn't really seem to talk about this issue.)
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If the patches you're talking about are in the
From the Debian Packaging manual:
Those three files are: the source, the dsc (control) file, and the patch file, if any.
Note that there's only ONE patch file.
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Urg, that'll teach me to not use the preview button. Try this:
I don't want to start a war here, but this comment seems unfounded: Its packaging system is just so far and away superior to Redhat's at the moment, that it borders on ridiculous. Debian's packaging system has some nice advantages (and more so as the apt front-end tools get more developed), but there are some things RPM does better too. For example, it allows multiple patches per package, which is crucial for organizing a derivative (either for public or local use) distribution.
It's not fair -- or responsible -- to make blanket statements like yours without justification.
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http://www.cadillac.com/t ech/nightmoves/see/notshocked.html
for the plugin-free.
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My Toshiba Libretto, only slightly bigger has the following features:
Well, you get the point. It fits in my coat pocket, and is great at doing mobile computer tasks. It's not so great at being a PDA -- so I've got a Palm Pilot too, which is a lot better at those functions than either the libretto or a wince machine.
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