Now wait a second - Just like modern CPUs, GPUs -also- downclock when under light load. My Nvidia downclocks from 576/999(core/memory) to 300/100 when just doing 2d stuff, and takes a -lot- less power. Even if it's -not- underclocking, it's just running NOPs - which take a lot less power than actually calculating things. Sure, it's not as effecient as having an integrated gpu... but it's not nearly as bad as the values you get when running a benchmark.
Well, I can say for certain it's hard to be killed with 120V(under normal conditions) - I've shocked my self quite a few times due to stupidity etc, and it tingles a bit. Annoying, but not -that- bad. 240V, on the other hand, hurts. It also makes you feel a bit rubbery for a minute or two after getting shocked. I'm not sure what getting shocked with that much DC feels like, though... We all know what 9v feels like across the tongue, probably a lot stronger sensation like that.
However, we are already -using- dc-dc converters inside these gadgets - They just take the input from a bridge rectifier and large smoothing capacitor. And I'm pretty sure that said rectification stage is fairly lossy - remove it, and your effeciency can go up quite a bit.
Eh, I don't know about more expensive - Most of the chargers I see on E-bay(or DX) are the crummy switching type. Probably because now a little silicon's way cheaper than the large lumps of copper needed for a transformer... And possibly some US company made a nice, cheap switching controller which got copied.
Perhaps the way to renew copyright is to publish and sell at least X copeis(where X is a relatively small number - 50 maby). This would prevent copyright trolls just sitting on works, keeping them away from the public, as well as bringing new copies of a work to the public. And if you -can't- sell 50 copies in 5-10 years, even for a few cents(taking a loss if needed)... you're obviously doing something wrong, and it's time to put it in the public domain.
That is extremely true. Now, perhaps Google shouldn't be the -only- way to acquire these books, but it's a start. I, for one, would -love- to be able to buy some obscure paperback from the 80's in ebook form, especially when I couldn't find it in print.
Now, sure, we'd all like to compensate the author etc... but if the author stops publishing something, then we -need- another way to get it, lest the content gets lost. If we had 20 year copyrights, that would be one thing - in 20 years a few copies will still be around. But with ~100 year copyrights... all copies of an obscure work could easily be gone, which is a definite detriment to society.
That sounds like a major problem in the bootloader, then. My N900 is basically -impossible- to perminately brick: Worst case, you plug it into USB, run the flasher utility and it will boot entirely off that flasher utility(cold flashing), allowing for a proper flash even when there's no software left. This also makes it easy for phone shops: No matter what's been done to it, it can easily be wiped back to stock.
I suppose it's up to the user. Personally, I've had good luck with it(Browsing slashdot right now on it). The screen's 230dpi, so everything's sharp - You may have to zoom in on webpages to see small text if you're vision's not great, though. Responsiveness is excellent for a resistive screen: You have to actually touch the screen with light pressure to register a click - something that capacitative screens don't need, apparently. Overall OS responsiveness is OK, though stock transitions are jerky. There is, of course, mods that increase responsiveness lots. Mine's responsive enough that it's a good replacement for my laptop for most tasks. And better than it for some.
I don't know. I just looked at various reviews, saw the fact that the N900's as free as it's predecessors(Full root terminal easily, no bootloader lock, plenty of Linux stuff available), and bought mine used off ebay.
As far as outside coverage goes, I'm sort of there - I get one bar where I am, with just about -any- phone. I've taken to setting up Google Voice with a sip provider as well as my t-mobile number, and auto connect to that on my n900 when I'm at home. It actually works well: The N900's got excellent integration with sip providers(right through the phone app) -- Though the battery life connected to sip is poor. Oh well.
Now wait a minute here. If I can load a custom Linux distro on my router(DD-WRT), run a webserver on it, and SSH into it, what makes it -NOT- a computer? It can certainly function like one in every manner but having a screen... and even -that- could be possible with a little hardware hacking.
Um... Pay As You Go? T-mobile has that; it only cost me like $10 for a sim and some credit off their website, stuck it in my N900, and now I have phone service for really cheap. I can even get unlimited internet for $1.50/24hrs(or $45 a month if I used it every day), which is very nice IMHO.
And I disagree. At least as fiction goes, I want interesting content and -lots- of it. A 2000 page book - provided it had plenty of plot to fill the space - is fine by me. I really hate these dinky 100-page-or-so paperbacks - I can get through them in a couple of days and am left wanting more.
That being said, this is why I'm happy with online works and oddball authors - You can -find- some guy's interesting book that's many hundred pages long, and as there's no publishing costs, it doesn't have to be cut short. I mean, look at some of this guy's work: http://www.weavespinner.net/Worlds_of_Fel.htm It's not all 'perfect', and occasionally there's wording/grmmar errors where the spellchecker messed up(I.e. hasn't been throughly checked), but there's enough content there to keep me busy for a month or two! (I once calculated that a single book of his was about 435,000 words - Not that much shorter than war and peace, and a heck of a lot more interesting)
Ah, but that's where you're wrong: If I buy something with some capibility - even if I never/use/ that capibility - and it gets removed, I have every right to complain.
Using a car analogy, lets say I buy a 4wd truck that's computer controlled, Now, lets say I take it into the shop, and they apply a firmware update that disables the 4wd feature. Do I have a right to complain about it? Heck yes! Even if I/never used it/.
I'm not sure, but there's got to be -some- reason the heavily-modified 3rd party kernels are all based on the same version, especially when they had to backport some extra features to make it work. I -heard- that it was graphics drivers, but I'm not sure - It's definitely -something- though.
Possibly your Android's not as useful as my N900, but I routinely -do- load it up with a half-dozen programs and another half-dozen web windows. It works fine, but if you try to do any task that does compression/decompression... it lags things down. So, no background apt updates if you want to work. I'd certainly make use of some of this... but I probably won't be able to unless someone backports it to 2.6.28 due to the damn proprietary graphics drivers.
Looks like you missed the part about "service mode". Provided you have to physically flip a swich or press a series of buttons, it's perfectly safe - Unless the user decides to update with a virus cd that just -happens- to be signed and encrypted correctly, nothing will happen. And, if it's not in service mode, it should just play as bad data.
Of course, you can also look at it as a matter of "If taken to the extreme, this is what I'd be like". Sure, TBBT is making fon of nerds etc., but really only when taken to the extreme. If you don't recall, there are several characters who are nerds and -don't- get made fun of - Leslie Winkle, for example.
But when you upgrade your rig, you generally get some major performance gains for that. Unless each OS incarnation makes the same rig at least 20% faster, that upgrade isn't worth the cost. Oh, and most "gamers" keep their OS license across several upgrade-builds of their computers, provided they did the upgrade themselves.
Re:Now is the time *not* to try Firefox 4
on
Firefox 4 RC1 Released
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· Score: 4, Informative
Power users -really- use FF -without- disabling compatibility checking? Amazing. I've been using FF4 nightlies with "incompatible" add-ons for over a year, now... Most work fine, occasionally something wont, but that's usually fixed by getting a beta from the addon author's site.
I would not be surpised to see a "new generation" of lightweight publishers who, for $10 will publish it to all major ebook markets, convert it to all major formats for you, and possibly run it through a spelling and grammar checker script for you(Possibly an interactive editor). And heck, they might even submit it to a onfdemand publisher for you, giving you a way to sell dead-tree editions too!
Thing is, most of what a big publisher would charge $$$ for can be done for just a few $ thanks to APIs on the big sites and some simple scripting by some kid in his basement.
I was messing about with the js last night on my phone, hoping to try it on some other flash files and I found the same issues as you - I assumed it was just because of my low-spec'd ARM processor(950mhz) being too slow to handle it correctly.
As far as "installing" it, that'd be a simple matter of a Greasemonkey-like application, wouldn't it? Just have it re-write the object/embed tags with Smokescreen code and load the js file
Admittedly, that wouldn't work on the iDevices, due to not being able to add extensions to the browser... I suppose you could just setup a "flash to html5 proxy" site that does it server-side.
Oh, yes. I ran into that myself when developing a small SVG-based comic editor/assembler: Speed was excellent, but the fact that it doesn't support SVG glyph fonts just made me sad. *sigh*
I dropped support for it a while back, but I'm not corporate(or getting paid for my work), so I don't care whether or not a few % of idiots still use it.
Slashdot Mirror
Now wait a second - Just like modern CPUs, GPUs -also- downclock when under light load. My Nvidia downclocks from 576/999(core/memory) to 300/100 when just doing 2d stuff, and takes a -lot- less power. Even if it's -not- underclocking, it's just running NOPs - which take a lot less power than actually calculating things.
Sure, it's not as effecient as having an integrated gpu... but it's not nearly as bad as the values you get when running a benchmark.
Well, I can say for certain it's hard to be killed with 120V(under normal conditions) - I've shocked my self quite a few times due to stupidity etc, and it tingles a bit. Annoying, but not -that- bad.
240V, on the other hand, hurts. It also makes you feel a bit rubbery for a minute or two after getting shocked.
I'm not sure what getting shocked with that much DC feels like, though... We all know what 9v feels like across the tongue, probably a lot stronger sensation like that.
However, we are already -using- dc-dc converters inside these gadgets - They just take the input from a bridge rectifier and large smoothing capacitor.
And I'm pretty sure that said rectification stage is fairly lossy - remove it, and your effeciency can go up quite a bit.
Eh, I don't know about more expensive - Most of the chargers I see on E-bay(or DX) are the crummy switching type. Probably because now a little silicon's way cheaper than the large lumps of copper needed for a transformer... And possibly some US company made a nice, cheap switching controller which got copied.
Perhaps the way to renew copyright is to publish and sell at least X copeis(where X is a relatively small number - 50 maby). This would prevent copyright trolls just sitting on works, keeping them away from the public, as well as bringing new copies of a work to the public.
And if you -can't- sell 50 copies in 5-10 years, even for a few cents(taking a loss if needed)... you're obviously doing something wrong, and it's time to put it in the public domain.
That is extremely true. Now, perhaps Google shouldn't be the -only- way to acquire these books, but it's a start. I, for one, would -love- to be able to buy some obscure paperback from the 80's in ebook form, especially when I couldn't find it in print.
Now, sure, we'd all like to compensate the author etc... but if the author stops publishing something, then we -need- another way to get it, lest the content gets lost.
If we had 20 year copyrights, that would be one thing - in 20 years a few copies will still be around. But with ~100 year copyrights... all copies of an obscure work could easily be gone, which is a definite detriment to society.
Oh, how I wish I had a mod point right now... :P
That sounds like a major problem in the bootloader, then.
My N900 is basically -impossible- to perminately brick: Worst case, you plug it into USB, run the flasher utility and it will boot entirely off that flasher utility(cold flashing), allowing for a proper flash even when there's no software left.
This also makes it easy for phone shops: No matter what's been done to it, it can easily be wiped back to stock.
I suppose it's up to the user. Personally, I've had good luck with it(Browsing slashdot right now on it).
The screen's 230dpi, so everything's sharp - You may have to zoom in on webpages to see small text if you're vision's not great, though.
Responsiveness is excellent for a resistive screen: You have to actually touch the screen with light pressure to register a click - something that capacitative screens don't need, apparently.
Overall OS responsiveness is OK, though stock transitions are jerky. There is, of course, mods that increase responsiveness lots. Mine's responsive enough that it's a good replacement for my laptop for most tasks. And better than it for some.
I don't know.
I just looked at various reviews, saw the fact that the N900's as free as it's predecessors(Full root terminal easily, no bootloader lock, plenty of Linux stuff available), and bought mine used off ebay.
As far as outside coverage goes, I'm sort of there - I get one bar where I am, with just about -any- phone. I've taken to setting up Google Voice with a sip provider as well as my t-mobile number, and auto connect to that on my n900 when I'm at home. It actually works well: The N900's got excellent integration with sip providers(right through the phone app) -- Though the battery life connected to sip is poor. Oh well.
Now wait a minute here. If I can load a custom Linux distro on my router(DD-WRT), run a webserver on it, and SSH into it, what makes it -NOT- a computer? It can certainly function like one in every manner but having a screen... and even -that- could be possible with a little hardware hacking.
Um... Pay As You Go?
T-mobile has that; it only cost me like $10 for a sim and some credit off their website, stuck it in my N900, and now I have phone service for really cheap.
I can even get unlimited internet for $1.50/24hrs(or $45 a month if I used it every day), which is very nice IMHO.
And I disagree. At least as fiction goes, I want interesting content and -lots- of it. A 2000 page book - provided it had plenty of plot to fill the space - is fine by me. I really hate these dinky 100-page-or-so paperbacks - I can get through them in a couple of days and am left wanting more.
That being said, this is why I'm happy with online works and oddball authors - You can -find- some guy's interesting book that's many hundred pages long, and as there's no publishing costs, it doesn't have to be cut short.
I mean, look at some of this guy's work: http://www.weavespinner.net/Worlds_of_Fel.htm
It's not all 'perfect', and occasionally there's wording/grmmar errors where the spellchecker messed up(I.e. hasn't been throughly checked), but there's enough content there to keep me busy for a month or two! (I once calculated that a single book of his was about 435,000 words - Not that much shorter than war and peace, and a heck of a lot more interesting)
Ah, but that's where you're wrong: If I buy something with some capibility - even if I never /use/ that capibility - and it gets removed, I have every right to complain.
Using a car analogy, lets say I buy a 4wd truck that's computer controlled, Now, lets say I take it into the shop, and they apply a firmware update that disables the 4wd feature. Do I have a right to complain about it? Heck yes! Even if I /never used it/.
I'm not sure, but there's got to be -some- reason the heavily-modified 3rd party kernels are all based on the same version, especially when they had to backport some extra features to make it work.
I -heard- that it was graphics drivers, but I'm not sure - It's definitely -something- though.
Possibly your Android's not as useful as my N900, but I routinely -do- load it up with a half-dozen programs and another half-dozen web windows. It works fine, but if you try to do any task that does compression/decompression... it lags things down. So, no background apt updates if you want to work.
I'd certainly make use of some of this... but I probably won't be able to unless someone backports it to 2.6.28 due to the damn proprietary graphics drivers.
Looks like you missed the part about "service mode". Provided you have to physically flip a swich or press a series of buttons, it's perfectly safe - Unless the user decides to update with a virus cd that just -happens- to be signed and encrypted correctly, nothing will happen.
And, if it's not in service mode, it should just play as bad data.
Of course, you can also look at it as a matter of "If taken to the extreme, this is what I'd be like". Sure, TBBT is making fon of nerds etc., but really only when taken to the extreme. If you don't recall, there are several characters who are nerds and -don't- get made fun of - Leslie Winkle, for example.
But when you upgrade your rig, you generally get some major performance gains for that. Unless each OS incarnation makes the same rig at least 20% faster, that upgrade isn't worth the cost. Oh, and most "gamers" keep their OS license across several upgrade-builds of their computers, provided they did the upgrade themselves.
Power users -really- use FF -without- disabling compatibility checking? Amazing.
I've been using FF4 nightlies with "incompatible" add-ons for over a year, now... Most work fine, occasionally something wont, but that's usually fixed by getting a beta from the addon author's site.
I would not be surpised to see a "new generation" of lightweight publishers who, for $10 will publish it to all major ebook markets, convert it to all major formats for you, and possibly run it through a spelling and grammar checker script for you(Possibly an interactive editor). And heck, they might even submit it to a onfdemand publisher for you, giving you a way to sell dead-tree editions too!
Thing is, most of what a big publisher would charge $$$ for can be done for just a few $ thanks to APIs on the big sites and some simple scripting by some kid in his basement.
I was messing about with the js last night on my phone, hoping to try it on some other flash files and I found the same issues as you - I assumed it was just because of my low-spec'd ARM processor(950mhz) being too slow to handle it correctly.
As far as "installing" it, that'd be a simple matter of a Greasemonkey-like application, wouldn't it? Just have it re-write the object/embed tags with Smokescreen code and load the js file
Admittedly, that wouldn't work on the iDevices, due to not being able to add extensions to the browser... I suppose you could just setup a "flash to html5 proxy" site that does it server-side.
You mean like say... Smokescreen? http://smokescreen.us/
Looks like exactly what you want, though it seems a bit slow on my cellphone.
Oh, yes. I ran into that myself when developing a small SVG-based comic editor/assembler: Speed was excellent, but the fact that it doesn't support SVG glyph fonts just made me sad. *sigh*
I dropped support for it a while back, but I'm not corporate(or getting paid for my work), so I don't care whether or not a few % of idiots still use it.