"I for one, feel that Kerry indicating that the DCMA may be opened for examination is a positive point." That's because your a sheep (or young and inexperienced). Politicians through this line out all the time to make them seem like they're in the middle of the road. Same thing as when Kerry is shown in TV ads toting a shotgun as if he were out hunting. The NRA already knows he has voted against them each and every time. It might fool some of the sheep, but it won't fool those who know his true character.
"the possibilty of the American Union crumbling if one or the other is elected" It is a possibility. It has already happened back in, oh, about 1860. It won't be because of the DCMA, but the Patriot act, abortion, and gays might actually push the country in that direction. When a large group of people find something morally reprehensible, it is just a matter of time before they act. If the political methods don't prevail(courts and congress in this case), people always resort back to war as the final solution.
The US has not properly disposed of one ounce of high level nuclear reactor waste ever.
Wrong, approximately 9 kg of Pu and U-235 were successfully disposed of on Japan in 1945 to efficiently kill about 140,000 (+/- 10,000) in Hiroshima (approximately 70,000 in initial blast) and 70,000 in Nagasaki. The bombs were, of course, using Pu and U-235 obtained from the following reactors: - X-10 reactor produced plutonium arrived from Oak Ridge - F and B reactors at Hanford - Naval Research Laboratory
None of this is even counting the initial mass disposed of in the initial Gadget bomb to develop Little Boy and Fat Man.
And yes I consider this event highly successful since it probably save a million Japanese and 100,000 Americans (and allied troops).
Pseudo RAID-1 system. Buy an external USB-2 or Firewire laptop HD and case which can run off the USB or Firewire power (respectively). Get a file syncronizing program like SyncBack from http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html which is a FREE windows syncro tool, or use rsync on unix systems and you can back up your laptop drive nightly, or schedule SyncBack to run every hour, 10 minutes, whatever (1 minute granularity). I live on a laptop myself and used to have the big 3.5" drives that I could back up when I got home, but that was way too much trouble and extra work so I would tend to not do the backup daily because of laziness. I now carry the extra laptop drive with me in my laptop case because it is so small and lightweight. I don't even notice that much of a reduction in laptop life when using the external drive. I maybe lose 10-15 minutes of battery life (guess only - no real measurements).
Be careful if you buy the LD. There are different versions out there and some don't have THX or the remastered quality. I posted this under another thread already but here it is again:
I have the Laserdiscs for ANH and ESB. The LD's were pretty good for the day, but they have a lot of the old movie artifacts which I find slightly annoying to watch. You see some film scratches and you see the "double dots" which appear in the upper right corner, which for you young-uns was used to switch from one film reel to the next during presentations in a theater. The new versions of the VHS competed with the LD quality just because of the clean-up work they did. Don't get me wrong, LD can compete and exceed the DVD quality, but more often than not, the original film (used many times) or the transfer process makes the difference in the final LD quality (or DVD for that matter). It seems to be only in the last 8 years that the majority of film production has concentrated on making a good transfer to VHS, DVD, or LD. Before that, you got what you got unless you paid through some orifice for the "Criterion Collection" (or some other "richly titled" equivalent).
I think the best approach would be to rent the new DVD's when they come out and use the existing tools (DVD Shrink, Ifoedit, VOBedit and VideoReDo) to take the movies and simply remove the offending junk and burn to a new set of DVD blanks. Simple and effective, but you'll end up with better quality in the end. VideoReDo does a real good job with cutting the video and sound rather seamlessly if you run a few trials 1st since the actual "cut" location floats a little, but with trial and error you can get it basically perfectly.
I was once going to transfer all my LD's to DVD, but once DVD Shrink came out I found it far-far-far-far easier to rent the DVD (libraries, WalMart, etc) and copy to disk in less than 30 minutes than to do all the record, crop, compress, tweak, compress again (10-20 hours total although a lot of that is computer time). I did do this route for transfering my old 8mm videotapes to digital and that QUICKLY cured me from attempting the LD to digital route. But if you've got the time.....
Re:How hard would it be...
on
Star Wars on DVD
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I have the Laserdiscs for ANH and ESB. The LD's were pretty good for the day, but they have a lot of the old movie artifacts which I find slightly annoying to watch. You see some film scratches and you see the "double dots" which appear in the upper right corner, which for you young-uns was used to switch from one film reel to the next during presentations in a theater. The new versions of the VHS competed with the LD quality just because of the clean-up work they did. Don't get me wrong, LD can compete and exceed the DVD quality, but more often than not, the original film (used many times) or the transfer process makes the difference in the final LD quality (or DVD for that matter). It seems to be only in the last 8 years that the majority of film production has concentrated on making a good transfer to VHS, DVD, or LD. Before that, you got what you got unless you paid through some orifice for the "Criterion Collection" (or some other "richly titled" equivalent).
I think the best approach would be to rent the new DVD's when they come out and use the existing tools (DVD Shrink, Ifoedit, VOBedit and VideoReDo) to take the movies and simply remove the offending junk and burn to a new set of DVD blanks. Simple and effective, but you'll end up with better quality in the end. VideoReDo does a real good job with cutting the video and sound rather seamlessly if you run a few trials 1st since the actual "cut" location floats a little, but with trial and error you can get it basically perfectly.
I was once going to transfer all my LD's to DVD, but once DVD Shrink came out I found it far-far-far-far easier to rent the DVD (libraries, WalMart, etc) and copy to disk in less than 30 minutes than to do all the record, crop, compress, tweak, compress again (10-20 hours total although a lot of that is computer time). I did do this route for transfering my old 8mm videotapes to digital and that QUICKLY cured me from attempting the LD to digital route. But if you've got the time.....
I'm getting a sustained 469.4 (KB/sec) direct from the Microsoft servers during roughly the middle of the day. It looks like it will finish in all of about 8 minutes for the entire 273KB.
Agree on the Celeron 300A. I still have one too. Nice to overclock the memory bus to 100Mhz. But, have to add, the "other" time to buy a Celeron was in the laptop market since AMD was absent from that arena for so many years, and then came with power sucking devices initially. The Celeron's would run quite cool and sip power miserly and be a good $100 -$200 cheaper than the Pentium alternative.
Slight correction: The Poweredge 400SC can cost as low as $250 with the Celeron processor and $300 with the Pentium 4 (2.4Ghz) with Hyper Threading (HT) after rebates which are common on these units (just watch techbargains.com). Well worth the upgrade to the Pentium with HT because of the dual-port RAM (800 Mhz) as well as HT, and of course, the faster Pentium processor over the Celeron. I have one with the Pentium chip and two PC3200 RAM chips and this system just screams. Plus it is built like a tank, particularly the power supply. The motherboard is the I875 from Intel and it has gigabit ethernet and SATA. One of my drives, a 250 gig Hitachi is on the SATA and the other is on the regular EIDE. I can copy a DVD movie (4 GB) is about 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Whisper quiet unless you are really pushing the processor hard, then you might hear a little bit of fan noise. Comes standard with a 7200 RPM 40 Gig drive. Only complaint is the cover they put on the front blocks the USB 2.0 ports that are ALREADY INSTALLED ON THE FRONT!!! - wierd. Quick Dremel job fixes the problem, but it isn't as pretty as a correctly designed case. They do have 6 USB 2.0 ports on the back, so you could just run a hub or a few extension cables to the rear of the case to get easy front access. Nice, Nice, Nice. I highly recommend these machines. Oh, one more thing, these machines don't come with an operating system (no MS tax, yeah). I've installed win2000, Mandrake 9.2, and win2000 server(only $50 through non-profit routes), all with no problems. If someone can show me a better machine than these for the money, I would love to hear about it (after I call BS first).
Actually, DARPA's FALCON programs require a 24-hour notice to take a new vehicle and prep it for launch and a 2-hour time (after the 24) to actually complete the launch itself. No re-use is invisioned by any of the 9 or so competitors, except for Space-X with their re-usable 1st stage, but I doubt they would turn that stage around in less than a few weeks. If Orbital bids their Pegasus vehicle for the FALCON program, then you could say that that "stage" is re-useable, however, Orbital probably can't come up with a good story to get to the $5 million launch cost with Pegasus.
Air resistance is insignificant compared to the power of the force (force of gravity in this case). For a rocket going straight up, you loose about 350-450 ft/s of final velocity due to drag (all drag, as in the entire boost in the atmosphere). Gravity on the other hand accounts for 3000 ft/s and it doesn't stop (9.6 m/s^2 versus 9.8 m/s^2 on the ground).
For an orbital insertion type trajectory you get 3,500 ft/s - 4,000 ft/s of gravity loss and drag losses are in the ballpark of 700 ft/s - 1,200 ft/s. The Space Shuttle has about 5,600 ft/s total loss (primarily gravity).
No parachute would survive reentry. You would need some sort of ablative coated surface to take the heat for any length of time, but then your shedding a plasma field that would block any earth-bound receiver from listening to the transmission. I've seen the video feeds off sounding rockets (Black Brant, etc). Once you start picking up the atmosphere, you only see 2-3 seconds of telemetry before loss-of-signal. So, let it burn.
A full OS (Linux or Windows) would be great on a PDA. I don't own a PDA type system because they don't do enough for me yet. I'm still waiting for the next generation which will basically be a full fledge computer the size of a PDA, or iPod. Think entire computer minus monitor, keyboard and mouse. I'll have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor wearever I go, and I'll just plug in my "PDA" wherever I am, and poof, I'll have all my stuff with me. I press a button and the machine goes into "standby" or "hibernate" modes (al la Windows). I'd only use the PDA functions and LCD screen to access document's that I already have created, and make minor changes (add name, appointment, address, phone number, etc). Since the full OS comes in the handheld, I can open and edit anything, limited only by my small keyboard and imput device. I don't need/want to create new documents on the PDA, I mostly need a reference device and calandar, phone book, etc. This would be a fabulous device, and if Linux can own the space before Windows walks in, all the better. Some of the nano-ATX (was that the name that VIA gave the new version?) motherboards are getting down to the size I'm after. Put a 1" or 1.8" harddrive to boot and hold data, and I've basically got what I'm after (small LCD screen too). Mix in one of those small QWERTY keyboards with a sliding cover that come on some PDA's and I'm even closer.
"dual-layer DVD+R capable of holding up to 8.5 GB" article is from december of last year and the other "DVD+RW drives not being upgradable" article is from 2002
A much more recent article about the new double layer discs:
"dual-layer DVD+R capable of holding up to 8.5 GB" article is from december of last year and the other "DVD+RW drives not being upgradable" article is from 2002.
Another thing that is very UN-Star-Trek-like is the fact that this is short range. A "Real Communicator"(tm) would talk to a satellite in orbit at the very least. This announcement is akin to claiming an automatic air soft pistol is a WMD.
I agree with the original poster. It is very hard to be productive and more importantly to maintain a positive attitude around layoffs and downsizing. I was layed off my first job after seven years. I was never really worried, but the company kept laying off for several YEARS. I was layoff round number 43. That is decimal number 43, as in 43 rounds of layoffs, and each round included hundreds of people. Staggering really to me even today. Makes me really wonder why I hung on.
But, the good news was what I learned. I should have jumped ship earlier, maybe a year or two before I got laid off. It was the downturn in the defense market that got me, but I found there were still jobs available. I had to look for a few months, but the jobs are there. Plus the feeling of productivity and usefulness is far, Far, FAR, greater than the horrible atmosphere at my first job. Plus, I now look out for myself better and leave a company before the layoff start affecting people and attitudes. Don't get me wrong, some lay offs are useful, particularly in today's litigous atmosphere. I'm subsequently been at two companies that have had minor lay-offs and have stayed for years after because the situation wasn't the same as my first employer. Nice to get rid of some deadweight sometimes. Plus some people just shouldn't be engineers or programmers and a lay off notice is the right kick in the pants with the clue-by-four.
If your facing the negative environment, I say it's time to move on. You stand a very, very low chance of performing in that environment and your satisfaction, salary, family, etc will suffer. The only good out of those situations are for the company itself and rarely for the individuals. Even most companies don't fair well, but are sometimes backed into the situation - ie defense companies are ALWAYS cyclical.
I'd like to slightly add/modify the parents post. I used to use DVD Decrypter, but switched full time to DVDShrink . The reason being that it can still rip the movie, but you can save some extra space by cutting out the beginning and ends, particularly the movie studio logos and some of the credits on long movies. You can also mildly compress/transcode the movies on the fly and hardly take any more time than just a straight rip. Both programs will allow you to deselect the unnecessary languages and subtitles, but DVDShrink tells you the size of each piece so that you can make a more informed decision. Using this method, I've easily gotten the average file size for a movie down to about 4.5 GB with hi/lo of 3GB/7GB. 7GB is rare and is typically a long movie, or two discs.
I have slightly better luck with PowerDVD for the player, but keep Zoomplayer, WinDVD and PowerDVD on the machine (Shuttle cube in living room with built in S-Video output) for unique circumstances.
Oh, since I haven't seen anyone mention it yet, 100 Mbits/sec ethernet is just fine for any movie operating through either a hub or switch. 10Mbits/sec can do only if the movie is compressed to 3.5GB or less, otherwise you get freezeframes and droppouts on occasion. Tried 802.11b, but it just plain wasn't watchable. I'd like to try 802.11g and see if there is an improvement.
Great idea (since I've been doing it for about 3 years already), but I surely wonder how this made it to the Slashdot front page. This is hardly new, nor difficult to execute.
You won't really hear the pause as a pause given the way our ears work (which basically ignore or can't discern the sound following a spike). You can hear the double peaks though and I've heard the double boom myself (40ft rockets and military planes in my younger days before the ban). Math example - a 55 ft aircraft flying parallel to the earth surface at 1100 ft/s (Mach 1 at sea level) would have the pulses placed at 0.05 seconds apart. Think of two snare drum hits at 20 beats per second.
Actually you'll hear it two or more times. Once for the leading shock wave (nose of the aircraft) and once for the tail shock wave. Very close together, and they almost sound like one boom, but there is actually two. There can also be more than two if you have sharp angles on the plane, like around where the wings are attached to the fuselage, or anywhere else that has a sharp transition.
You're thinking way too narrow. First off, a lot of professional's use medium format, but your shots per roll still hold. However, the professional shooters often have multiple camera bodies (major bucks) and MOST IMPORTANTLY the professional have an assistant to change the film in the extra camera bodies. So now a professional can still bring the extra camera bodies, but have them loaded with a 8GB card and can basically instantly switch to a new camera and keep on shooting. They can now save on the cost of having an assistant around which would save them way more than a measly $6000. And, yes, they will ALWAYS have extra camera bodies because you will not trust that one camera (lens, battery, etc.) will not fail.
X isn't wrong for this device. It's wrong for you maybe, but definately not the device. I don't own a PDA type device because they don't do enough yet and I'm waiting for the next generation. The next generation device will basically be a full fledge computer the size of a PDA. I'll have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor wearever I go, and I'll just plug in my "PDA" wherever I am, and poof, I'll have all my stuff with me. Think PDA merged with 40GB iPod for storage. I'd only use the PDA functions to access document's that I already have. I don't need/want to create new documents on the PDA, I mostly need a reference device and calandar, phone book, etc. This would be a fabulous device, and if Linux can own the space before Windows walks in, all the better.
OK, I'll bite. The very OBVIOUS corollary to your statement is "Why leave God out of ANYTHING". Since you specifically mentioned God, and not Jesus, Mohammed, Buda, Gandhi, whatever, it would indeed be more "universal" to mention God in most any conversation, since most of the world (~80%) believes in a 'god'. The differences are in the definition of whose god (The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or the god of the Jehovah Witnesses, Mohammed's or whomever's). So in true international spirit and in the context of a public forum, why shouldn't we mention God in most every context? Or put another way, why should we pander to you minority atheists?
Sentences 2 & 3. So let's say there are 1,000,000 decent arguments for the big bang and zero for proving God, does that make either argument fact? Patently no. Empirical evidence, tests, etc. is what makes something prove-able, or not. So we are left with "You can't prove yours, and I can't prove mine". Fine. But you and many others like you still talk about yours, and I will continue to talk about mine. Why doesn't this seem fair to people like you. Your opinion (and I do mean opinion, theory, whatever) is yours and you can talk about it, but why take shots at mine when all you have to offer is inconclusive evidence and supposed theories?
Sentence 4. Have to agree. "going into a meltdown" is neither biblical nor readily observable. Perhaps he was alluding to people like Hemmingway and others like him who lived life to the fullest without regard to God, and died miserable in the end. But that is just a guess at the author's comment.
Rest of paragraph: I quite don't see a point. Most anyone that believes in a god also believes in free will, or constrained free will, so I'm at a loss.
Last paragraph: Well, that's fine if you want to be one of the minority that separate life from theology, but you are in the minority. This being a public forum, I fail to see why lashing out at other people's beliefs is somehow superior to stating ones beliefs. I can't even begin to explain how you could possibly separate the WHY from theology and philosophy, so I won't even try.
But, enough. The above won't convince you or anyone like you, since I'm one of the "weaklings" who needs the Jesus crutch to save me from sin and explain my existance. But since you asked the question "Why must people bring God into EVERYTHING", I felt I would give a shot at a response.
I would like to see a source that shows SD exceeding compact flash. I thought it was a good year because Sony is finally (partially) giving up their Memory Stick format and putting compact flash into some of their cameras and PDAs. Kodak did switch to SD in many of their cameraa, but also appears to be loosing market share - NOT saying a causation, maybe just coincidence, but I used to like the Kodak cameras, but only recommend compact flash for any device since it's been around and will be around for quite a while. SD cards are all over the place (just like smart media used to be), but so is CF and in much larger sizes/better prices. Spread the word!
Meanwhile, us other folks don't use firewire as the primary disk, but as a super-uber backup device, or mass transportable storage (or both in my case).
213 DVD's at 15mins to burn each is 53 HOURS to burn versus 5.25 hrs to backup to this LaCie harddrive over firewire (assuming correct machine setup with firewire 800).
1500 CD's at half a lifetime.
894600 floppies at 10 lifetimes.
Back on topic: We use external firewire/USB drives in pairs to backup the servers. One remains in a safety depost box in case of dire problems, and the other is updated (rsync) everyday to maintain a VERY current copy. $2500 for two of these is much cheaper than having a trained monkey constantly switching DVD disks, smaller firewire drives, etc over the long haul. I'd much rather carry one box than several, and I really like NOT having multiple power supplies dangling everywhere (which I currently do have) for each of the separate firewire/USB drives.
I was going to post a similar article, but I'll add to the above instead.
A hundred years ago: poor, average, house the size of one room today, living on a farm/ranch/rural, outdoor toilet (flies, smell, cold in winter, breezy ) limited toilet paper (Sears catalog if your lucky), sooty and smelly candles and kerosene lamps for light, spend significant time collecting, canning, storing food to make it through the next winter, a horse (but it was more likely a work horse than a riding horse-think Belgian or Clysedales), running water as long as you keep pumping, very limited food/drink variety, drafty home, collect your own heating source (firewood), baths???/showers???-once a week or month whether you needed it or not.
Nowadays, American's live like kings did just 200 years ago. We even have hundreds of servants, but they don't work for us directly (serve us food, gas, fix roads, mow lawns, can/freeze food, etc). The corollary to American's being like kings of yesteryear is the selfish reponse: fat (I do mean to insult), lazy (TV, fat, etc), always wanting more (cars, houses, toys, bigger this and that, or even multiple redundant items), exploding pornography/prostitution, constant travel and far-flung vacation trips. Basically little petty dictators. I like Star Trek, but the typically greedy, self serving human nature has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Gene Roddenberry had the cashless, future, self-impoving utopia DEAD WRONG. Better technology won't improve the miserable human condition, it will just feed it. And, no I'm not a communist and I certainly don't believe the government can solve the situation (exact opposite actually), but I am making a simple and quite readily proveable point.
Slashdot Mirror
"I for one, feel that Kerry indicating that the DCMA may be opened for examination is a positive point."
That's because your a sheep (or young and inexperienced). Politicians through this line out all the time to make them seem like they're in the middle of the road. Same thing as when Kerry is shown in TV ads toting a shotgun as if he were out hunting. The NRA already knows he has voted against them each and every time. It might fool some of the sheep, but it won't fool those who know his true character.
"the possibilty of the American Union crumbling if one or the other is elected"
It is a possibility. It has already happened back in, oh, about 1860. It won't be because of the DCMA, but the Patriot act, abortion, and gays might actually push the country in that direction. When a large group of people find something morally reprehensible, it is just a matter of time before they act. If the political methods don't prevail(courts and congress in this case), people always resort back to war as the final solution.
Wrong, approximately 9 kg of Pu and U-235 were successfully disposed of on Japan in 1945 to efficiently kill about 140,000 (+/- 10,000) in Hiroshima (approximately 70,000 in initial blast) and 70,000 in Nagasaki. The bombs were, of course, using Pu and U-235 obtained from the following reactors:
- X-10 reactor produced plutonium arrived from Oak Ridge
- F and B reactors at Hanford
- Naval Research Laboratory
None of this is even counting the initial mass disposed of in the initial Gadget bomb to develop Little Boy and Fat Man.
And yes I consider this event highly successful since it probably save a million Japanese and 100,000 Americans (and allied troops).
Pseudo RAID-1 system. Buy an external USB-2 or Firewire laptop HD and case which can run off the USB or Firewire power (respectively). Get a file syncronizing program like SyncBack from http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html which is a FREE windows syncro tool, or use rsync on unix systems and you can back up your laptop drive nightly, or schedule SyncBack to run every hour, 10 minutes, whatever (1 minute granularity). I live on a laptop myself and used to have the big 3.5" drives that I could back up when I got home, but that was way too much trouble and extra work so I would tend to not do the backup daily because of laziness. I now carry the extra laptop drive with me in my laptop case because it is so small and lightweight. I don't even notice that much of a reduction in laptop life when using the external drive. I maybe lose 10-15 minutes of battery life (guess only - no real measurements).
I have the Laserdiscs for ANH and ESB. The LD's were pretty good for the day, but they have a lot of the old movie artifacts which I find slightly annoying to watch. You see some film scratches and you see the "double dots" which appear in the upper right corner, which for you young-uns was used to switch from one film reel to the next during presentations in a theater. The new versions of the VHS competed with the LD quality just because of the clean-up work they did. Don't get me wrong, LD can compete and exceed the DVD quality, but more often than not, the original film (used many times) or the transfer process makes the difference in the final LD quality (or DVD for that matter). It seems to be only in the last 8 years that the majority of film production has concentrated on making a good transfer to VHS, DVD, or LD. Before that, you got what you got unless you paid through some orifice for the "Criterion Collection" (or some other "richly titled" equivalent).
I think the best approach would be to rent the new DVD's when they come out and use the existing tools (DVD Shrink, Ifoedit, VOBedit and VideoReDo) to take the movies and simply remove the offending junk and burn to a new set of DVD blanks. Simple and effective, but you'll end up with better quality in the end. VideoReDo does a real good job with cutting the video and sound rather seamlessly if you run a few trials 1st since the actual "cut" location floats a little, but with trial and error you can get it basically perfectly.
I was once going to transfer all my LD's to DVD, but once DVD Shrink came out I found it far-far-far-far easier to rent the DVD (libraries, WalMart, etc) and copy to disk in less than 30 minutes than to do all the record, crop, compress, tweak, compress again (10-20 hours total although a lot of that is computer time). I did do this route for transfering my old 8mm videotapes to digital and that QUICKLY cured me from attempting the LD to digital route. But if you've got the time.....
I think the best approach would be to rent the new DVD's when they come out and use the existing tools (DVD Shrink, Ifoedit, VOBedit and VideoReDo) to take the movies and simply remove the offending junk and burn to a new set of DVD blanks. Simple and effective, but you'll end up with better quality in the end. VideoReDo does a real good job with cutting the video and sound rather seamlessly if you run a few trials 1st since the actual "cut" location floats a little, but with trial and error you can get it basically perfectly.
I was once going to transfer all my LD's to DVD, but once DVD Shrink came out I found it far-far-far-far easier to rent the DVD (libraries, WalMart, etc) and copy to disk in less than 30 minutes than to do all the record, crop, compress, tweak, compress again (10-20 hours total although a lot of that is computer time). I did do this route for transfering my old 8mm videotapes to digital and that QUICKLY cured me from attempting the LD to digital route. But if you've got the time.....
I'm getting a sustained 469.4 (KB/sec) direct from the Microsoft servers during roughly the middle of the day. It looks like it will finish in all of about 8 minutes for the entire 273KB.
Agree on the Celeron 300A. I still have one too. Nice to overclock the memory bus to 100Mhz. But, have to add, the "other" time to buy a Celeron was in the laptop market since AMD was absent from that arena for so many years, and then came with power sucking devices initially. The Celeron's would run quite cool and sip power miserly and be a good $100 -$200 cheaper than the Pentium alternative.
Slight correction: The Poweredge 400SC can cost as low as $250 with the Celeron processor and $300 with the Pentium 4 (2.4Ghz) with Hyper Threading (HT) after rebates which are common on these units (just watch techbargains.com). Well worth the upgrade to the Pentium with HT because of the dual-port RAM (800 Mhz) as well as HT, and of course, the faster Pentium processor over the Celeron. I have one with the Pentium chip and two PC3200 RAM chips and this system just screams. Plus it is built like a tank, particularly the power supply. The motherboard is the I875 from Intel and it has gigabit ethernet and SATA. One of my drives, a 250 gig Hitachi is on the SATA and the other is on the regular EIDE. I can copy a DVD movie (4 GB) is about 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Whisper quiet unless you are really pushing the processor hard, then you might hear a little bit of fan noise. Comes standard with a 7200 RPM 40 Gig drive. Only complaint is the cover they put on the front blocks the USB 2.0 ports that are ALREADY INSTALLED ON THE FRONT!!! - wierd. Quick Dremel job fixes the problem, but it isn't as pretty as a correctly designed case. They do have 6 USB 2.0 ports on the back, so you could just run a hub or a few extension cables to the rear of the case to get easy front access. Nice, Nice, Nice. I highly recommend these machines. Oh, one more thing, these machines don't come with an operating system (no MS tax, yeah). I've installed win2000, Mandrake 9.2, and win2000 server(only $50 through non-profit routes), all with no problems. If someone can show me a better machine than these for the money, I would love to hear about it (after I call BS first).
Actually, DARPA's FALCON programs require a 24-hour notice to take a new vehicle and prep it for launch and a 2-hour time (after the 24) to actually complete the launch itself. No re-use is invisioned by any of the 9 or so competitors, except for Space-X with their re-usable 1st stage, but I doubt they would turn that stage around in less than a few weeks. If Orbital bids their Pegasus vehicle for the FALCON program, then you could say that that "stage" is re-useable, however, Orbital probably can't come up with a good story to get to the $5 million launch cost with Pegasus.
For an orbital insertion type trajectory you get 3,500 ft/s - 4,000 ft/s of gravity loss and drag losses are in the ballpark of 700 ft/s - 1,200 ft/s. The Space Shuttle has about 5,600 ft/s total loss (primarily gravity).
No parachute would survive reentry. You would need some sort of ablative coated surface to take the heat for any length of time, but then your shedding a plasma field that would block any earth-bound receiver from listening to the transmission. I've seen the video feeds off sounding rockets (Black Brant, etc). Once you start picking up the atmosphere, you only see 2-3 seconds of telemetry before loss-of-signal. So, let it burn.
A full OS (Linux or Windows) would be great on a PDA. I don't own a PDA type system because they don't do enough for me yet. I'm still waiting for the next generation which will basically be a full fledge computer the size of a PDA, or iPod. Think entire computer minus monitor, keyboard and mouse. I'll have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor wearever I go, and I'll just plug in my "PDA" wherever I am, and poof, I'll have all my stuff with me. I press a button and the machine goes into "standby" or "hibernate" modes (al la Windows). I'd only use the PDA functions and LCD screen to access document's that I already have created, and make minor changes (add name, appointment, address, phone number, etc). Since the full OS comes in the handheld, I can open and edit anything, limited only by my small keyboard and imput device. I don't need/want to create new documents on the PDA, I mostly need a reference device and calandar, phone book, etc. This would be a fabulous device, and if Linux can own the space before Windows walks in, all the better. Some of the nano-ATX (was that the name that VIA gave the new version?) motherboards are getting down to the size I'm after. Put a 1" or 1.8" harddrive to boot and hold data, and I've basically got what I'm after (small LCD screen too). Mix in one of those small QWERTY keyboards with a sliding cover that come on some PDA's and I'm even closer.
"dual-layer DVD+R capable of holding up to 8.5 GB" article is from december of last year and the other "DVD+RW drives not being upgradable" article is from 2002
A much more recent article about the new double layer discs:
Sony double layer article
How about some recent info:
href=http://www.theregister.com/content/63/3635
Another thing that is very UN-Star-Trek-like is the fact that this is short range. A "Real Communicator"(tm) would talk to a satellite in orbit at the very least. This announcement is akin to claiming an automatic air soft pistol is a WMD.
But, the good news was what I learned. I should have jumped ship earlier, maybe a year or two before I got laid off. It was the downturn in the defense market that got me, but I found there were still jobs available. I had to look for a few months, but the jobs are there. Plus the feeling of productivity and usefulness is far, Far, FAR, greater than the horrible atmosphere at my first job. Plus, I now look out for myself better and leave a company before the layoff start affecting people and attitudes. Don't get me wrong, some lay offs are useful, particularly in today's litigous atmosphere. I'm subsequently been at two companies that have had minor lay-offs and have stayed for years after because the situation wasn't the same as my first employer. Nice to get rid of some deadweight sometimes. Plus some people just shouldn't be engineers or programmers and a lay off notice is the right kick in the pants with the clue-by-four.
If your facing the negative environment, I say it's time to move on. You stand a very, very low chance of performing in that environment and your satisfaction, salary, family, etc will suffer. The only good out of those situations are for the company itself and rarely for the individuals. Even most companies don't fair well, but are sometimes backed into the situation - ie defense companies are ALWAYS cyclical.
I have slightly better luck with PowerDVD for the player, but keep Zoomplayer, WinDVD and PowerDVD on the machine (Shuttle cube in living room with built in S-Video output) for unique circumstances.
Oh, since I haven't seen anyone mention it yet, 100 Mbits/sec ethernet is just fine for any movie operating through either a hub or switch. 10Mbits/sec can do only if the movie is compressed to 3.5GB or less, otherwise you get freezeframes and droppouts on occasion. Tried 802.11b, but it just plain wasn't watchable. I'd like to try 802.11g and see if there is an improvement.
Great idea (since I've been doing it for about 3 years already), but I surely wonder how this made it to the Slashdot front page. This is hardly new, nor difficult to execute.
You won't really hear the pause as a pause given the way our ears work (which basically ignore or can't discern the sound following a spike). You can hear the double peaks though and I've heard the double boom myself (40ft rockets and military planes in my younger days before the ban). Math example - a 55 ft aircraft flying parallel to the earth surface at 1100 ft/s (Mach 1 at sea level) would have the pulses placed at 0.05 seconds apart. Think of two snare drum hits at 20 beats per second.
Actually you'll hear it two or more times. Once for the leading shock wave (nose of the aircraft) and once for the tail shock wave. Very close together, and they almost sound like one boom, but there is actually two. There can also be more than two if you have sharp angles on the plane, like around where the wings are attached to the fuselage, or anywhere else that has a sharp transition.
You're thinking way too narrow. First off, a lot of professional's use medium format, but your shots per roll still hold. However, the professional shooters often have multiple camera bodies (major bucks) and MOST IMPORTANTLY the professional have an assistant to change the film in the extra camera bodies. So now a professional can still bring the extra camera bodies, but have them loaded with a 8GB card and can basically instantly switch to a new camera and keep on shooting. They can now save on the cost of having an assistant around which would save them way more than a measly $6000. And, yes, they will ALWAYS have extra camera bodies because you will not trust that one camera (lens, battery, etc.) will not fail.
X isn't wrong for this device. It's wrong for you maybe, but definately not the device. I don't own a PDA type device because they don't do enough yet and I'm waiting for the next generation. The next generation device will basically be a full fledge computer the size of a PDA. I'll have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor wearever I go, and I'll just plug in my "PDA" wherever I am, and poof, I'll have all my stuff with me. Think PDA merged with 40GB iPod for storage. I'd only use the PDA functions to access document's that I already have. I don't need/want to create new documents on the PDA, I mostly need a reference device and calandar, phone book, etc. This would be a fabulous device, and if Linux can own the space before Windows walks in, all the better.
Sentences 2 & 3. So let's say there are 1,000,000 decent arguments for the big bang and zero for proving God, does that make either argument fact? Patently no. Empirical evidence, tests, etc. is what makes something prove-able, or not. So we are left with "You can't prove yours, and I can't prove mine". Fine. But you and many others like you still talk about yours, and I will continue to talk about mine. Why doesn't this seem fair to people like you. Your opinion (and I do mean opinion, theory, whatever) is yours and you can talk about it, but why take shots at mine when all you have to offer is inconclusive evidence and supposed theories?
Sentence 4. Have to agree. "going into a meltdown" is neither biblical nor readily observable. Perhaps he was alluding to people like Hemmingway and others like him who lived life to the fullest without regard to God, and died miserable in the end. But that is just a guess at the author's comment.
Rest of paragraph: I quite don't see a point. Most anyone that believes in a god also believes in free will, or constrained free will, so I'm at a loss.
Last paragraph: Well, that's fine if you want to be one of the minority that separate life from theology, but you are in the minority. This being a public forum, I fail to see why lashing out at other people's beliefs is somehow superior to stating ones beliefs. I can't even begin to explain how you could possibly separate the WHY from theology and philosophy, so I won't even try.
But, enough. The above won't convince you or anyone like you, since I'm one of the "weaklings" who needs the Jesus crutch to save me from sin and explain my existance. But since you asked the question "Why must people bring God into EVERYTHING", I felt I would give a shot at a response.
I would like to see a source that shows SD exceeding compact flash. I thought it was a good year because Sony is finally (partially) giving up their Memory Stick format and putting compact flash into some of their cameras and PDAs. Kodak did switch to SD in many of their cameraa, but also appears to be loosing market share - NOT saying a causation, maybe just coincidence, but I used to like the Kodak cameras, but only recommend compact flash for any device since it's been around and will be around for quite a while. SD cards are all over the place (just like smart media used to be), but so is CF and in much larger sizes/better prices. Spread the word!
213 DVD's at 15mins to burn each is 53 HOURS to burn versus 5.25 hrs to backup to this LaCie harddrive over firewire (assuming correct machine setup with firewire 800).
1500 CD's at half a lifetime.
894600 floppies at 10 lifetimes.
Back on topic: We use external firewire/USB drives in pairs to backup the servers. One remains in a safety depost box in case of dire problems, and the other is updated (rsync) everyday to maintain a VERY current copy. $2500 for two of these is much cheaper than having a trained monkey constantly switching DVD disks, smaller firewire drives, etc over the long haul. I'd much rather carry one box than several, and I really like NOT having multiple power supplies dangling everywhere (which I currently do have) for each of the separate firewire/USB drives.
I was going to post a similar article, but I'll add to the above instead.
A hundred years ago: poor, average, house the size of one room today, living on a farm/ranch/rural, outdoor toilet (flies, smell, cold in winter, breezy ) limited toilet paper (Sears catalog if your lucky), sooty and smelly candles and kerosene lamps for light, spend significant time collecting, canning, storing food to make it through the next winter, a horse (but it was more likely a work horse than a riding horse-think Belgian or Clysedales), running water as long as you keep pumping, very limited food/drink variety, drafty home, collect your own heating source (firewood), baths???/showers???-once a week or month whether you needed it or not.
Nowadays, American's live like kings did just 200 years ago. We even have hundreds of servants, but they don't work for us directly (serve us food, gas, fix roads, mow lawns, can/freeze food, etc). The corollary to American's being like kings of yesteryear is the selfish reponse: fat (I do mean to insult), lazy (TV, fat, etc), always wanting more (cars, houses, toys, bigger this and that, or even multiple redundant items), exploding pornography/prostitution, constant travel and far-flung vacation trips. Basically little petty dictators. I like Star Trek, but the typically greedy, self serving human nature has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Gene Roddenberry had the cashless, future, self-impoving utopia DEAD WRONG. Better technology won't improve the miserable human condition, it will just feed it. And, no I'm not a communist and I certainly don't believe the government can solve the situation (exact opposite actually), but I am making a simple and quite readily proveable point.