Three years - almost to the day! - since I've commented on Slashdot. It was always the same things: trolls, Microsoft, transparent aluminum, and SCO.
I come back just to see if it still smells the same, and what do I find? SCO fires Darl McBride. WTF?
On the one hand, this is the day I've long awaited. We all knew it was coming, and that was the only sweet thing about SCO.
On the other hand, I can't believe I left for three years and yet on the front page the very first time I look is ANOTHER GODDAMN SCO STORY. Haven't all of these people gone to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison yet?
And of course the first comment in that SCO story is a troll. See ya in another three years!
"Yes, sadly, it's almost time to abandon slashdot...:-("
Almost? Hell, it's long since past time. Not much left here but crappy "editing", Slashvertisements, Roland Piquepaille, and the rising flux of poorly-crafted (and thus lacking even entertainment value) A/C troll posts. "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters" has been replaced by "News We Don't Have to Work For, Stuff That Generates Page Views".
Hey, and if I quit hanging around here, maybe I can get some work done!
That's a funny comment, true. But it's not the worst idea in the world. People who use electric ranges spend hundreds of watts for nothing but heat - why not get some computation done in the process? SETI@Home, hack some Diebold machines, protein folding - whatever!
You seem to be under the impression that the poor science somehow disqualifies it from consideration by Slashdot editors. I think there's a flaw in your underlying assumptions. Perhaps you'd like to spell some of them out, and we could work together to find which assumptions are erroneous?
It's not that the Diebold machines were designed to be opened with a minibar key. No, no. Other way around. The Diebold machines were designed to use a key that could be counted on to open the minibar at any hotel.
OS X: Virtue Desktops. It's an improved fork (I think) of Desktop Manager, gets regular attention and updates, and if you've got a MacBook or MacBook Pro you can do the "smackbook" thing where tapping the side of your macbook switches desktops. Still not as flexible as my Linux boxen, but prettier and beats the hell out of the crappy MS PowerToy one.
Indeed, 'tis true that some of the energy from the impact is dissipated as heat (see The Moon is a Harsh Mistress). Your point about the distribution of said energy is equally valid and well-stated. And the thing about the momentum not being a big deal? Thank you. I've always hated watching movies where some 85 lb Hollywood bimbette fires a.44 Magnum without flinching but her target flies backward as if hit by a car.
Now, as to the impossibility of an object gaining KE from bouncing... I think, if we're going to try to engage in a rigorously accurate discussion of Newtonian physics, we'll need to state our assumptions more clearly and explicitly. That statement is true if we assume that the object bounces from a stationary rigid surface. However, Barry Bonds will gleefully show you how an object can acquire momentum AND KE by bouncing off of another object, like his bat. Of course, all of this assumes inelastic collisions (and I had implicitly assumed that no KE was wasted as heat, sound, etc - not valid in the real world, but I did say that I was simplifying). Momentum in the SYSTEM (in Barry's case, the ball and bat system) is conserved, as is total energy in the system - at least until frictional effects from the air are considered. Am I nitpicking? Certainly. This appears to have become a bigger-physics-dick nitpicking thread. Why should I miss out on the fun?
The inelastic part is probably the crux of the entire concept of body armor, as no collision with the human body can be considered particularly inelastic. The real issue then becomes distribution of energy, dissipation of energy, specific impulse, etc. Could be hours of fun discussion, if that's your idea of fun.
However: the only point which I was discussing was the very simple and specific question of whether a bullet which sticks or a bullet which bounces imparts more energy. Notwithstanding all of the fine points that you make, the fact remains that a bullet which bounces back (as in, the sign of the momentum changes) does impart more energy to the target than one which sticks, other factors being equal. That was the question posed by the commenter who I answered, and that was the question that I answered.
Right you are. "Stuck or bounce off" is correct. GP's point is that a bullet that hits and sticks imparts energy to the target equal to the kinetic energy with which it arrives. A bullet which hits and bounces off imparts energy equal to the kinetic energy with which it arrives PLUS that with which it leaves (more or less, assuming that it leaves in exactly the opposite direction, etc. Yes, I'm simplifying). In other words, a ball that bounces off your nuts hurts more than one which sticks.
Interestingly enough, white LEDs (as opposed to RGB LEDs) are usually either blue or UV LEDs with a phosphor coating, much like a fluorescent light bulb's. So the LED itself is in fact monochromatic, or as nearly so as LEDs tend to be. The mechanism behind photon emission in LEDs (and diode lasers, which are nearly the same thing) strongly favors emission of photons clustered very tightly around a single energy level.
Excellent point. Let's see, what have I been doing with the last 18 years of my life... Ooh! Ooh! I've been NOT becoming a suit! I don't have to fucking TOUCH business or management! I can sit back and do engineering and research without having to do any of the bullshit that McNealy and Schwartz have to do.
Do they make more money? Yes. Do I care? Amazingly enough, not so much. Right now I have a roof over my head, food on the table, health insurance, decent transportation, daycare for the munchkin - and approximately 50% of my income is currently in the "disposable" column - meaning unallocated and available for new cars, nicer houses, fantastic stereo systems, huge monitors, etc. Next year, when I go full time, it gets better.
So thanks for pointing out what a difference there is between my position and Schwartz's. He does stuff I don't want to do, and gets paid more than he needs for doing it. I do what I love, and get paid more than I need for doing it. Sounds like I chose the right path. That was your point, right?
I just bought a pair of Samsung 204T's at Sam's Club. They're $424 each, 20.1", 1600x1200 resolution. Thin bezels, no shitty built-in speakers. You can sometimes catch Dell monitors of equivalent resolution even cheaper, but I didn't have to pay shipping or wait for these - picked 'em up, took 'em home, plugged 'em in. I'm very happy with the quality, too. I bought a third one for my Mac Mini, and they will rotate 90 degrees for that oh-so-hip 80's Portrait Mode look. Great for picking up chicks, too.
Just did it again. Came up with the same number I did before. Don't have a $750 coupon. Obviously we're getting those Dell quotes from different sections of their website, because Corel wasn't an option for me. I did have a "$200 off Instantly!" discount applied. I'm curious to know what route you took to get that pricing, because Dell aren't giving me that pricing. I tried going through education store, and that got me down to $2200 (mostly because I could then dump Office). I still can't duplicate the prices you found for that hardware.
I've been looking (seriously looking) for a new notebook for a few weeks now, and I'm not seeing much of a price difference at all in the high end. I just now - just this moment - spec'd out an Inspiron E1505 and a MacBook Pro as identically as I could get them. I'm not interested in a low-option stripper, so I'm not settling for 1 GB or an 80 GB.
The specs, matched as closely as I could get them:
Core Duo T2500 2GHz 2 GB DDR2/533 (667 on the Mac, but who's counting?) 15.4" Ultra-mega-Super-Duper-Sharp display with genuine Diamonique inlay(1680x1050 Dell, 1440x900 Mac) 100 GB 5400 rpm SATA DVD burner Wireless A/B/G and Bluetooth (yes, even on the Dell) 53 W-hr battery (on the Dell vs. 60 Mac, trying to compare oranges to oranges here) 128 MB ATI X1300 (X1600 Mac) iWork or Office Basic (again, as close as I can get - I'd dump 'em both, but the Dell won't let me) 3 year warranty (Applecare in Mac price)
The final tally?
Dell $2486 MacBook $2857
And, as you pointed out, the Macbook is 33% thinner, an inch smaller, and weighs 1/2 lb less. It's also not a Dell. The Dell does have a better-spec'd screen. The Dell isn't available in a 2.16 GHz at all. Nor does it have the backlit keyboard, which I'm very fond of. Built-in camera? Not that I can tell. Also, you can easily run OS X, Windows, or Linux on the MacBook. Can't say the same for the Dell.
There is a cost difference, certainly, but it's not as large when you start looking at the faster notebooks. Once we get to the $2500 range, the extra $369 to upgrade from a Dell to a MacBook seems like a bargain. Having acquired a 1.66 GHz Core Duo Mac Mini and an Athlon X2 4600 (Win XP) desktop in the last 10 days, I have to say I'd pay the extra $300 JUST for OS X. The fact that the hardware on the Mac is nicer than that of the Dell is, to me, lagniappe.
Needless to say, the "half-price" thing is simply bullshit. You CANNOT find a notebook with those specs for anything close to $1450, unless you know Tony Soprano.
Well, then we should ALL ask Alesis for the relevant information. Then they'll have no defensible way to say, "We know he done it, he asked us how first."
I've used Protel and Eagle on the same basic design, and found that Eagle's autorouter is both faster and less crappy than Protel's - especially the first few updates of Protel DXP, which had an awful autorouter. Protel kept leaving loops, routing all the way around the world to get next door, and took forever to do it. I wouldn't use autoplacing for anything important, so I'm not really concerned about that "lack".
Basically, I have to cordially disagree completely with your assessment of Eagle. It isn't the best interface in the world, but the number of bugs and the performance are far better in my experience than you've described. I intentionally and preferably use it over Protel all the time.
I'd try to feel sorry for you, but having just spent $775 to get the full-on Professional version of Eagle (with Linux and OS X licenses), I just can't muster any pity. I earn money by using Eagle. You can get a 100mm x 160mm, 4 layer version of Eagle for $125, as long as you aren't making a profit using it. If you are making a profit with it, either you can afford to upgrade to a for-profit version, or else you aren't charging enough for your work. You can also upgrade at any time with full credit for previous versions.
Now, I'm sure that all the gEDA people will tell you that you can help make their project do all you need it to... but I'm not really a programmer, nor do I have the time to become one - I'm busy earning money to feed my baby. I've contributed (a very small amount of) code to the kernel, I've contributed financially to open-source projects... but there isn't always a viable open-source solution to your software needs. That's when you need to pay someone for software that already works.
You want to design boards using Linux, you probably need to be using Eagle. Sorry. Consider either a) using the non-profit version or b) getting the for-profit version but not the autorouter - Eagle's is very good indeed (FAR better than Protel's, IMHO), but you'll almost always get better results hand-routing anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
That's Hedley.
Three years - almost to the day! - since I've commented on Slashdot. It was always the same things: trolls, Microsoft, transparent aluminum, and SCO.
I come back just to see if it still smells the same, and what do I find? SCO fires Darl McBride. WTF?
On the one hand, this is the day I've long awaited. We all knew it was coming, and that was the only sweet thing about SCO.
On the other hand, I can't believe I left for three years and yet on the front page the very first time I look is ANOTHER GODDAMN SCO STORY. Haven't all of these people gone to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison yet?
And of course the first comment in that SCO story is a troll. See ya in another three years!
Perhaps I'll just drop in every few weeks, check comment replies (like this one), and see if the S/N has improved any. I'm not holding out much hope.
"Yes, sadly, it's almost time to abandon slashdot... :-("
Almost? Hell, it's long since past time. Not much left here but crappy "editing", Slashvertisements, Roland Piquepaille, and the rising flux of poorly-crafted (and thus lacking even entertainment value) A/C troll posts. "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters" has been replaced by "News We Don't Have to Work For, Stuff That Generates Page Views".
Hey, and if I quit hanging around here, maybe I can get some work done!
That's a funny comment, true. But it's not the worst idea in the world. People who use electric ranges spend hundreds of watts for nothing but heat - why not get some computation done in the process? SETI@Home, hack some Diebold machines, protein folding - whatever!
You seem to be under the impression that the poor science somehow disqualifies it from consideration by Slashdot editors. I think there's a flaw in your underlying assumptions. Perhaps you'd like to spell some of them out, and we could work together to find which assumptions are erroneous?
It's not that the Diebold machines were designed to be opened with a minibar key. No, no. Other way around. The Diebold machines were designed to use a key that could be counted on to open the minibar at any hotel.
OS X: Virtue Desktops. It's an improved fork (I think) of Desktop Manager, gets regular attention and updates, and if you've got a MacBook or MacBook Pro you can do the "smackbook" thing where tapping the side of your macbook switches desktops. Still not as flexible as my Linux boxen, but prettier and beats the hell out of the crappy MS PowerToy one.
Indeed, 'tis true that some of the energy from the impact is dissipated as heat (see The Moon is a Harsh Mistress). Your point about the distribution of said energy is equally valid and well-stated. And the thing about the momentum not being a big deal? Thank you. I've always hated watching movies where some 85 lb Hollywood bimbette fires a .44 Magnum without flinching but her target flies backward as if hit by a car.
Now, as to the impossibility of an object gaining KE from bouncing... I think, if we're going to try to engage in a rigorously accurate discussion of Newtonian physics, we'll need to state our assumptions more clearly and explicitly. That statement is true if we assume that the object bounces from a stationary rigid surface. However, Barry Bonds will gleefully show you how an object can acquire momentum AND KE by bouncing off of another object, like his bat. Of course, all of this assumes inelastic collisions (and I had implicitly assumed that no KE was wasted as heat, sound, etc - not valid in the real world, but I did say that I was simplifying). Momentum in the SYSTEM (in Barry's case, the ball and bat system) is conserved, as is total energy in the system - at least until frictional effects from the air are considered. Am I nitpicking? Certainly. This appears to have become a bigger-physics-dick nitpicking thread. Why should I miss out on the fun?
The inelastic part is probably the crux of the entire concept of body armor, as no collision with the human body can be considered particularly inelastic. The real issue then becomes distribution of energy, dissipation of energy, specific impulse, etc. Could be hours of fun discussion, if that's your idea of fun.
However: the only point which I was discussing was the very simple and specific question of whether a bullet which sticks or a bullet which bounces imparts more energy. Notwithstanding all of the fine points that you make, the fact remains that a bullet which bounces back (as in, the sign of the momentum changes) does impart more energy to the target than one which sticks, other factors being equal. That was the question posed by the commenter who I answered, and that was the question that I answered.
Right you are. "Stuck or bounce off" is correct. GP's point is that a bullet that hits and sticks imparts energy to the target equal to the kinetic energy with which it arrives. A bullet which hits and bounces off imparts energy equal to the kinetic energy with which it arrives PLUS that with which it leaves (more or less, assuming that it leaves in exactly the opposite direction, etc. Yes, I'm simplifying). In other words, a ball that bounces off your nuts hurts more than one which sticks.
Ah, but the legality of abortions has been upheld by the Supreme Court. In order to change that, he would have to replace one or more justices.
"Flashlight geeks?
Where on the geek scale does *that* fit?"
Oh, they're some of the brightest geeks you'll find.
"On /. there will be discussion based on more reasonable features, and identify technical hurdles."
... you WERE kidding, right?
Dude, THAT was funny. For a newcomer, you sure have figured out how this place works.
Dude, I heard Vista killed Chuck Norris - with a roundhouse kick!
Interestingly enough, white LEDs (as opposed to RGB LEDs) are usually either blue or UV LEDs with a phosphor coating, much like a fluorescent light bulb's. So the LED itself is in fact monochromatic, or as nearly so as LEDs tend to be. The mechanism behind photon emission in LEDs (and diode lasers, which are nearly the same thing) strongly favors emission of photons clustered very tightly around a single energy level.
...consider that the "suits" are the ones dictating what engineering and research you'll be doing.
Not at my company.
No, I don't want to lead the company. That's business. If I wanted to run a business, I'd have gone to B-school. I didn't. By choice.
[blush]
Excellent point. Let's see, what have I been doing with the last 18 years of my life... Ooh! Ooh! I've been NOT becoming a suit! I don't have to fucking TOUCH business or management! I can sit back and do engineering and research without having to do any of the bullshit that McNealy and Schwartz have to do.
Do they make more money? Yes. Do I care? Amazingly enough, not so much. Right now I have a roof over my head, food on the table, health insurance, decent transportation, daycare for the munchkin - and approximately 50% of my income is currently in the "disposable" column - meaning unallocated and available for new cars, nicer houses, fantastic stereo systems, huge monitors, etc. Next year, when I go full time, it gets better.
So thanks for pointing out what a difference there is between my position and Schwartz's. He does stuff I don't want to do, and gets paid more than he needs for doing it. I do what I love, and get paid more than I need for doing it. Sounds like I chose the right path. That was your point, right?
I just bought a pair of Samsung 204T's at Sam's Club. They're $424 each, 20.1", 1600x1200 resolution. Thin bezels, no shitty built-in speakers. You can sometimes catch Dell monitors of equivalent resolution even cheaper, but I didn't have to pay shipping or wait for these - picked 'em up, took 'em home, plugged 'em in. I'm very happy with the quality, too. I bought a third one for my Mac Mini, and they will rotate 90 degrees for that oh-so-hip 80's Portrait Mode look. Great for picking up chicks, too.
Just did it again. Came up with the same number I did before. Don't have a $750 coupon. Obviously we're getting those Dell quotes from different sections of their website, because Corel wasn't an option for me. I did have a "$200 off Instantly!" discount applied. I'm curious to know what route you took to get that pricing, because Dell aren't giving me that pricing. I tried going through education store, and that got me down to $2200 (mostly because I could then dump Office). I still can't duplicate the prices you found for that hardware.
Huh.
I've been looking (seriously looking) for a new notebook for a few weeks now, and I'm not seeing much of a price difference at all in the high end. I just now - just this moment - spec'd out an Inspiron E1505 and a MacBook Pro as identically as I could get them. I'm not interested in a low-option stripper, so I'm not settling for 1 GB or an 80 GB.
The specs, matched as closely as I could get them:
Core Duo T2500 2GHz
2 GB DDR2/533 (667 on the Mac, but who's counting?)
15.4" Ultra-mega-Super-Duper-Sharp display with genuine Diamonique inlay(1680x1050 Dell, 1440x900 Mac)
100 GB 5400 rpm SATA
DVD burner
Wireless A/B/G and Bluetooth (yes, even on the Dell)
53 W-hr battery (on the Dell vs. 60 Mac, trying to compare oranges to oranges here)
128 MB ATI X1300 (X1600 Mac)
iWork or Office Basic (again, as close as I can get - I'd dump 'em both, but the Dell won't let me)
3 year warranty (Applecare in Mac price)
The final tally?
Dell $2486
MacBook $2857
And, as you pointed out, the Macbook is 33% thinner, an inch smaller, and weighs 1/2 lb less. It's also not a Dell. The Dell does have a better-spec'd screen. The Dell isn't available in a 2.16 GHz at all. Nor does it have the backlit keyboard, which I'm very fond of. Built-in camera? Not that I can tell. Also, you can easily run OS X, Windows, or Linux on the MacBook. Can't say the same for the Dell.
There is a cost difference, certainly, but it's not as large when you start looking at the faster notebooks. Once we get to the $2500 range, the extra $369 to upgrade from a Dell to a MacBook seems like a bargain. Having acquired a 1.66 GHz Core Duo Mac Mini and an Athlon X2 4600 (Win XP) desktop in the last 10 days, I have to say I'd pay the extra $300 JUST for OS X. The fact that the hardware on the Mac is nicer than that of the Dell is, to me, lagniappe.
Needless to say, the "half-price" thing is simply bullshit. You CANNOT find a notebook with those specs for anything close to $1450, unless you know Tony Soprano.
Well, then we should ALL ask Alesis for the relevant information. Then they'll have no defensible way to say, "We know he done it, he asked us how first."
There is safety in numbers.
I've used Protel and Eagle on the same basic design, and found that Eagle's autorouter is both faster and less crappy than Protel's - especially the first few updates of Protel DXP, which had an awful autorouter. Protel kept leaving loops, routing all the way around the world to get next door, and took forever to do it. I wouldn't use autoplacing for anything important, so I'm not really concerned about that "lack".
Basically, I have to cordially disagree completely with your assessment of Eagle. It isn't the best interface in the world, but the number of bugs and the performance are far better in my experience than you've described. I intentionally and preferably use it over Protel all the time.
I guess that's why they call them opinions.
I'd try to feel sorry for you, but having just spent $775 to get the full-on Professional version of Eagle (with Linux and OS X licenses), I just can't muster any pity. I earn money by using Eagle. You can get a 100mm x 160mm, 4 layer version of Eagle for $125, as long as you aren't making a profit using it. If you are making a profit with it, either you can afford to upgrade to a for-profit version, or else you aren't charging enough for your work. You can also upgrade at any time with full credit for previous versions.
Now, I'm sure that all the gEDA people will tell you that you can help make their project do all you need it to... but I'm not really a programmer, nor do I have the time to become one - I'm busy earning money to feed my baby. I've contributed (a very small amount of) code to the kernel, I've contributed financially to open-source projects... but there isn't always a viable open-source solution to your software needs. That's when you need to pay someone for software that already works.
You want to design boards using Linux, you probably need to be using Eagle. Sorry. Consider either a) using the non-profit version or b) getting the for-profit version but not the autorouter - Eagle's is very good indeed (FAR better than Protel's, IMHO), but you'll almost always get better results hand-routing anyway.
Frankly, even at $400 Eagle is a bargain.
Books aren't very waterproof either.