I read the article and you can tell the builder of this PVC-pipe antenna must have really read up on antenna design (ARRL antenna design handbook or something similar). This antenna will definitely way out-perform the food can antennas by a substantial margin.
What I find interesting about the shootout is the fact that while the antenna design is definitely not exactly what you call optimum, this is truly homebrew electronics design at its best.
I'm sure anyone who's read the ARRL handbooks on antenna design will come up with a slightly more expensive, but still home-built design that will substantially outperform the food can antennas. Indeed, one other poster mentioned a homebuilt antenna built in Australia that really worked well for 802.11b wireless networking using PVC tubing.
I think the problem with Moulin Rouge was the fact the first 20 or so minutes of the movie really turned off way too many viewers. Get past that and the movie does become quite good. Small wonder why there hasn't be much in the way of moderate views about this movie (shrug).
However, there has been a number of major exceptions to your rule of thumb.
Since 1990, these movies were released early to the middle of the year and won Best Picture Oscars: Silence of the Lambs, Unforgiven, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, and Gladiator. It was pretty amazing that Silence of the Lambs won Best Picture considering that the movie was released more than one year before the Oscar ceremony where the movie won. Mind you, I loved Silence of the Lambs because it was one of the most intelligent thrillers I've ever seen.:-)
The reason why E.T.: The Extraterrestrial didn't win the Best Movie Oscar was the fact late in 1982 a movie came out that did match the type of movie AMPAS members really like: Gandhi.
Gandhi was both an epic and socially-conscious movie (both of which AMPAS members really like), and Ben Kingsley's performance as Mahatma Gandhi was really good (he definitely looked the part).
Also, the total overkill of marketing for E.T. really turned off too many AMPAS members, too.
I mean, look at two roles in the last two decades that won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role: Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man and Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump. Both with truly superior performances, though I liked Forrest Gump way better because through Gump's simple-mindedness we see he's a man of more insightful wisdom than almost everyone else that is supposed more intelligent than him. It is truly one of the very best movies of the 1990's.
It is still (IMHO) Tom Hanks' finest performance as an actor.
I think someone should throw the gauntlet down: let's see Bill Joy come up with a truly secure code for Java. And I mean some that meets the C2 standards for security, too.
What is known is that you can write some pretty destructive programs in Java, too. Why do you think Network Associates and Symantec have spent a lot of time with their antivirus programs to protect against unsafe Java programs?
If some Linux company can provide that, then we have a chance.
Yes, that company goes by the initials I-B-M.:-)
Given IBM's heavy investment in Linux and their reputation for quick service for their biggest customers, if you have a roomful of IBM made server machines running Linux having problems an IBM technician should be on-call for service within a few hours to fix that problem.
After all, IBM wants to make Linux available on all their big iron platforms, so this could mean that IBM could end up being the larger supplier of Linux-based products and services in the world within a few years.
Re:Yes, but is Itanium going anywhere?
on
Intel's Big Chip
·
· Score: 2
You are correct, alas.
Technically, the Itanium architecture is a great idea, but with no real software available for the CPU (do we really have a native-register Linux distribution for this CPU?) the processor is not going to be very popular.
You are correct in your assessments. The movie had a plot that wasn't exactly acceptable to American audiences used to animation more in line of the old theatrical shorts done by Disney, Warner Brothers, MGM, etc. or the feature animation style that Disney pioneered.
It's this same resistance that was the reason why Atlantis: The Lost Empire didn't do so well, compared with with other recent Disney animated features like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King.
While DVD today is not yet capable of supporting the full 1080i resolution 16:9 aspect ratio HDTV, two technical improvements may make it possible:
1. Variable-depth pits. Instead of all the pits on an optical recording all being of the same depth, we can change the depth of the pits to dramatically increase storage capacity without having to use more exotic laser designs.
2. Blue laser readers. Because the blue-light spectrum of these new lasers are much shorter than those of current red lasers, this means we can pack in the pits on the disc surface much more densely.
In short, we may see by 2004 HD-DVD discs storing as much as 70 GB for a dual-sided dual-layer disc. That is far more than enough for HDTV movies using the USA standard.
Currently, the limit for DVD discs is around 17 GB, assuming dual-sided double-layed discs with single-depth pits.
The development of variable-depth pits may allow 40 GB DVD discs, but more likely is the development of blue-spectrum laser reading, which may increase the maximum limit of disc storage on a double-sided dual-layer DVD disc to around 51 GB. That is more than enough for a full 1080i-resolution 16:9 aspect ratio HDTV movie. We may just see such HD-DVD discs by 2005.
Linux needs a "centralized clearinghouse"
on
Linus Does Not Scale
·
· Score: 3, Funny
I think this problem points out the biggest issue in regards to Linux--its almost anarchist style of code development.
I think the folks at IBM and Oracle ought to seriously have a LONG talk with Linux Torvalds himself and convince him to create a true clearinghouse where every improvement is approved by a committee. That way, Linux improvements happen in an organized fashion, which makes things way easier for developers and IT managers.
I think MGM and Dunjaq will in the end lose the case because of the precedent set by MAD magazine back in the 1950's, where the courts in the end ruled that parody is a protected First Amendment right.
Somehow, both MGM and Dunjaq seem to have forgotten that the entire Austin Powers concept is a parody on the whole idea of spy movies in the first place! (rolling eyes skyward)
I think the comparison is almost a wash, given the circumstances:
1. The Hubble image was done in one shot, but did not have to compensate for atmospheric interference.
2. The VLT image was done by compositing several images, digitally-processed to remove atmospheric interference.
I can't wait for the Hubble replacement now in early development.:-)
Americans recovered faster
on
Apollo 1
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I think what you forgot is that the Soviets had the chance to really take a step closer to a moon mission had the Soyuz 1 mission worked. Unfortunately, the Soyuz 1 capsule suffered all kinds of system failures during its flight, which resulted in a re-entry that resulted in a tangled parachute line. This caused the capsule to literally crash into the ground, killing the cosmonaut on the flight.
The Soviet moon program never really recovered from that tragedy, because the a derivative of the Soyuz spacecraft was to have flown to the moon. Realizing its limitations, the Soviets decided to use Soyuz as an Earth-orbiting spacecraft, which has worked well to this day.
Combustibles plus pure oxygen = disaster
on
Apollo 1
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I think there were two issues that led to the disaster of Apollo 1:
1. There was WAY too much exposed combustible material inside the capsule. Even if the atmosphere inside the capsule during the test sported a gas mix similar to regular air if a fire broke out it would have been extremely difficult to douse the fire.
2. The fact the atmosphere was close to pure oxygen meant that if a fire broke out it would have burned with extreme ferocity.
That was why by the time Apollo 7 flew in October 1968 the entire capsule owed almost nothing to the original capsule design--all the combustible material were replaced by fire-retardant equivalents and the gas mixture on the launch pad was equivalent to air, which slowly changed to pure oxygen by the time the Apollo CSM was in orbit.
What was not known to the Americans was in the early 1960's during a series of tests to develop Soviet manned space vehicles a fire broke out in a test space capsule design with a cosmonaut in it when it was filled with pure O2--the cosmonaut burned to death.
Re:WINE discourages native Linux apps
on
Wired Talks Wine
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I personally think Linux must stand on its own merits, not just having the ability to run emulation so you can run Windows apps.
By running everything as a Linux-native app, you get the stability of Linux almost all the way through.
The biggest issue holding up Linux is the lack of Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) support, which would give Linux the ability to do true automatic system configuration and updating, not to mention truly functional power saving ability. I do believe that one of goals of the eventual Linux 2.6.x kernel will include ACPI support.
Given that dragons do exist on Norrath, you really have to openly wonder how that would effect the economy of that place.
Their greed and the threat of extortion ("Give me all your town's treasury or you will all be eaten") could have some very interesting effects on the economy of any population center in that world. Dragonslayers will be paid handsomely, that's to be sure. ^_^ The closest Earth equivalent is a protection against what amounts to piracy.
If I remember correctly, there were some scientific experiments where they measured the amount of radiation received on a US cross-country flight in daytime by jet airplane flying at over 30,000 feet. The result was quite surprising: the amount of alpha, beta and gamma radiation recorded on just one flight was surprisingly high.
I'll have to look up the references to those experiments, which I believe were done in the early 1970's.
It's people like this that define the phrase junk science. (shaking head!)
Personally, if electricity were causing cancer and other dehabilitating conditions, they would have found out like by 1910, twenty years after electric power generation and power transmission by overhead wires became common in the northeastern USA.
Another good example is the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. The radioactive release on a per person basis near that plant is the equivalent of getting radiation at altitude from a New York City to Los Angeles jet flight of 5.5 hours.
Now you know why I dislike the majority of the environmental movement--they don't bother to test their theories before making their conclusions at times.
I think this action is going make it comedy fodder for Rush Limbaugh and other conservative hosts, sad to say.
It just proves that some Californians live up to the pejorative moniker of Land of Fruits and Nuts. They should be more concerned about things like low altitude air pollution.
I think the handwriting was literally on the wall once Microsoft released IE 5.0, which was the first version of IE that had very clean and fast rendering of web pages. It was in many ways far superior to Netscape 4.x versions; IE 5.5x and IE 6.0 built upon the foundation of IE 5.0.
Indeed, today's IE 6.0 is perhaps the best web browser out there in terms of a balance of speed and rendering accuracy, pending just how well Mozilla 1.0 code is like when that is finally released. IE 6.0 is well-designed enough that even the latest Sun Java VM integrates extremely well with IE 6.0.
Also, a nice thing about IE since 4.0 is that patching the browser to correct bugs and add features is very easily done; I'm not sure if Mozilla 1.0 will have that capability.
Microsoft and AOL-TW have one fundamental difference- AOLTW isn't afraid to play fair.
You have GOT to be seriously kidding saying that.
You're forgetting that when you look at AOL Time Warner's various assets, they have a HUGE presence on both the content creation and content distribution of mass media. The potential for conflict of interest and corporate-controlled censorship makes you wonder if the fictional Carver Media Group from the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies has already become frightening reality.
In short, the merger of AOL and Time Warner makes the Microsoft Corporation seem like a minor player in comparison.
Slashdot Mirror
I read the article and you can tell the builder of this PVC-pipe antenna must have really read up on antenna design (ARRL antenna design handbook or something similar). This antenna will definitely way out-perform the food can antennas by a substantial margin.
What I find interesting about the shootout is the fact that while the antenna design is definitely not exactly what you call optimum, this is truly homebrew electronics design at its best.
I'm sure anyone who's read the ARRL handbooks on antenna design will come up with a slightly more expensive, but still home-built design that will substantially outperform the food can antennas. Indeed, one other poster mentioned a homebuilt antenna built in Australia that really worked well for 802.11b wireless networking using PVC tubing.
I think the problem with Moulin Rouge was the fact the first 20 or so minutes of the movie really turned off way too many viewers. Get past that and the movie does become quite good. Small wonder why there hasn't be much in the way of moderate views about this movie (shrug).
However, there has been a number of major exceptions to your rule of thumb.
:-)
Since 1990, these movies were released early to the middle of the year and won Best Picture Oscars: Silence of the Lambs, Unforgiven, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, and Gladiator. It was pretty amazing that Silence of the Lambs won Best Picture considering that the movie was released more than one year before the Oscar ceremony where the movie won. Mind you, I loved Silence of the Lambs because it was one of the most intelligent thrillers I've ever seen.
The reason why E.T.: The Extraterrestrial didn't win the Best Movie Oscar was the fact late in 1982 a movie came out that did match the type of movie AMPAS members really like: Gandhi.
Gandhi was both an epic and socially-conscious movie (both of which AMPAS members really like), and Ben Kingsley's performance as Mahatma Gandhi was really good (he definitely looked the part).
Also, the total overkill of marketing for E.T. really turned off too many AMPAS members, too.
I agree 100%.
I mean, look at two roles in the last two decades that won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role: Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man and Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump. Both with truly superior performances, though I liked Forrest Gump way better because through Gump's simple-mindedness we see he's a man of more insightful wisdom than almost everyone else that is supposed more intelligent than him. It is truly one of the very best movies of the 1990's.
It is still (IMHO) Tom Hanks' finest performance as an actor.
I think someone should throw the gauntlet down: let's see Bill Joy come up with a truly secure code for Java. And I mean some that meets the C2 standards for security, too.
What is known is that you can write some pretty destructive programs in Java, too. Why do you think Network Associates and Symantec have spent a lot of time with their antivirus programs to protect against unsafe Java programs?
If some Linux company can provide that, then we have a chance.
:-)
Yes, that company goes by the initials I-B-M.
Given IBM's heavy investment in Linux and their reputation for quick service for their biggest customers, if you have a roomful of IBM made server machines running Linux having problems an IBM technician should be on-call for service within a few hours to fix that problem.
After all, IBM wants to make Linux available on all their big iron platforms, so this could mean that IBM could end up being the larger supplier of Linux-based products and services in the world within a few years.
You are correct, alas.
Technically, the Itanium architecture is a great idea, but with no real software available for the CPU (do we really have a native-register Linux distribution for this CPU?) the processor is not going to be very popular.
You are correct in your assessments. The movie had a plot that wasn't exactly acceptable to American audiences used to animation more in line of the old theatrical shorts done by Disney, Warner Brothers, MGM, etc. or the feature animation style that Disney pioneered.
It's this same resistance that was the reason why Atlantis: The Lost Empire didn't do so well, compared with with other recent Disney animated features like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King.
While DVD today is not yet capable of supporting the full 1080i resolution 16:9 aspect ratio HDTV, two technical improvements may make it possible:
1. Variable-depth pits. Instead of all the pits on an optical recording all being of the same depth, we can change the depth of the pits to dramatically increase storage capacity without having to use more exotic laser designs.
2. Blue laser readers. Because the blue-light spectrum of these new lasers are much shorter than those of current red lasers, this means we can pack in the pits on the disc surface much more densely.
In short, we may see by 2004 HD-DVD discs storing as much as 70 GB for a dual-sided dual-layer disc. That is far more than enough for HDTV movies using the USA standard.
Currently, the limit for DVD discs is around 17 GB, assuming dual-sided double-layed discs with single-depth pits.
The development of variable-depth pits may allow 40 GB DVD discs, but more likely is the development of blue-spectrum laser reading, which may increase the maximum limit of disc storage on a double-sided dual-layer DVD disc to around 51 GB. That is more than enough for a full 1080i-resolution 16:9 aspect ratio HDTV movie. We may just see such HD-DVD discs by 2005.
I think this problem points out the biggest issue in regards to Linux--its almost anarchist style of code development.
I think the folks at IBM and Oracle ought to seriously have a LONG talk with Linux Torvalds himself and convince him to create a true clearinghouse where every improvement is approved by a committee. That way, Linux improvements happen in an organized fashion, which makes things way easier for developers and IT managers.
I think MGM and Dunjaq will in the end lose the case because of the precedent set by MAD magazine back in the 1950's, where the courts in the end ruled that parody is a protected First Amendment right.
Somehow, both MGM and Dunjaq seem to have forgotten that the entire Austin Powers concept is a parody on the whole idea of spy movies in the first place! (rolling eyes skyward)
I think the comparison is almost a wash, given the circumstances:
:-)
1. The Hubble image was done in one shot, but did not have to compensate for atmospheric interference.
2. The VLT image was done by compositing several images, digitally-processed to remove atmospheric interference.
I can't wait for the Hubble replacement now in early development.
I think what you forgot is that the Soviets had the chance to really take a step closer to a moon mission had the Soyuz 1 mission worked. Unfortunately, the Soyuz 1 capsule suffered all kinds of system failures during its flight, which resulted in a re-entry that resulted in a tangled parachute line. This caused the capsule to literally crash into the ground, killing the cosmonaut on the flight.
The Soviet moon program never really recovered from that tragedy, because the a derivative of the Soyuz spacecraft was to have flown to the moon. Realizing its limitations, the Soviets decided to use Soyuz as an Earth-orbiting spacecraft, which has worked well to this day.
I think there were two issues that led to the disaster of Apollo 1:
1. There was WAY too much exposed combustible material inside the capsule. Even if the atmosphere inside the capsule during the test sported a gas mix similar to regular air if a fire broke out it would have been extremely difficult to douse the fire.
2. The fact the atmosphere was close to pure oxygen meant that if a fire broke out it would have burned with extreme ferocity.
That was why by the time Apollo 7 flew in October 1968 the entire capsule owed almost nothing to the original capsule design--all the combustible material were replaced by fire-retardant equivalents and the gas mixture on the launch pad was equivalent to air, which slowly changed to pure oxygen by the time the Apollo CSM was in orbit.
What was not known to the Americans was in the early 1960's during a series of tests to develop Soviet manned space vehicles a fire broke out in a test space capsule design with a cosmonaut in it when it was filled with pure O2--the cosmonaut burned to death.
I personally think Linux must stand on its own merits, not just having the ability to run emulation so you can run Windows apps.
By running everything as a Linux-native app, you get the stability of Linux almost all the way through.
The biggest issue holding up Linux is the lack of Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) support, which would give Linux the ability to do true automatic system configuration and updating, not to mention truly functional power saving ability. I do believe that one of goals of the eventual Linux 2.6.x kernel will include ACPI support.
Given that dragons do exist on Norrath, you really have to openly wonder how that would effect the economy of that place.
Their greed and the threat of extortion ("Give me all your town's treasury or you will all be eaten") could have some very interesting effects on the economy of any population center in that world. Dragonslayers will be paid handsomely, that's to be sure. ^_^ The closest Earth equivalent is a protection against what amounts to piracy.
If I remember correctly, there were some scientific experiments where they measured the amount of radiation received on a US cross-country flight in daytime by jet airplane flying at over 30,000 feet. The result was quite surprising: the amount of alpha, beta and gamma radiation recorded on just one flight was surprisingly high.
I'll have to look up the references to those experiments, which I believe were done in the early 1970's.
It's people like this that define the phrase junk science. (shaking head!)
Personally, if electricity were causing cancer and other dehabilitating conditions, they would have found out like by 1910, twenty years after electric power generation and power transmission by overhead wires became common in the northeastern USA.
Another good example is the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. The radioactive release on a per person basis near that plant is the equivalent of getting radiation at altitude from a New York City to Los Angeles jet flight of 5.5 hours.
Now you know why I dislike the majority of the environmental movement--they don't bother to test their theories before making their conclusions at times.
Now you know why I have a Brita water filter pitcher in my refrigerator. I drink quite a lot of water per day so I feel way better.
I think this action is going make it comedy fodder for Rush Limbaugh and other conservative hosts, sad to say.
It just proves that some Californians live up to the pejorative moniker of Land of Fruits and Nuts. They should be more concerned about things like low altitude air pollution.
You are totally correct in your assessments! :-)
I think the handwriting was literally on the wall once Microsoft released IE 5.0, which was the first version of IE that had very clean and fast rendering of web pages. It was in many ways far superior to Netscape 4.x versions; IE 5.5x and IE 6.0 built upon the foundation of IE 5.0.
Indeed, today's IE 6.0 is perhaps the best web browser out there in terms of a balance of speed and rendering accuracy, pending just how well Mozilla 1.0 code is like when that is finally released. IE 6.0 is well-designed enough that even the latest Sun Java VM integrates extremely well with IE 6.0.
Also, a nice thing about IE since 4.0 is that patching the browser to correct bugs and add features is very easily done; I'm not sure if Mozilla 1.0 will have that capability.
Microsoft and AOL-TW have one fundamental difference- AOLTW isn't afraid to play fair.
You have GOT to be seriously kidding saying that.
You're forgetting that when you look at AOL Time Warner's various assets, they have a HUGE presence on both the content creation and content distribution of mass media. The potential for conflict of interest and corporate-controlled censorship makes you wonder if the fictional Carver Media Group from the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies has already become frightening reality.
In short, the merger of AOL and Time Warner makes the Microsoft Corporation seem like a minor player in comparison.