Had that too, and a Windows 3.1 version that did the same thing. This is yet more proof of why software patents are BAD.
Of course, the best example is VMS... TONS of software patents on stuff that was incredibly advanced at the time, lots of which is still far ahead of the game. All locked up in patents being traded around like baseball cards.
The three-fingered-salute hasn't rebooted windows in years... you might need to upgrade past 98;)
Actually, rebooting does fix some issues on Macs, especially with Adobe CS2. That stupid version cue application (curse it forever) will frequently spawn literally dozens of processes, which hang and use up a ton of memory. A reboot forces it to die and start over again.
Rebooting rarely hurts microcomputers and frequently helps. Now, if you want me to reboot a server, then we're talking about an issue. Doesn't matter what OS, if it's not flat dead, rebooting will be a PITA.
I'm probably in the 1-2k category. Depends on how you count periodicals, since I also keep comic books, Dragon, and Dungeon magazines. Actual "books" like paperback/hardbacks probably 800 or so. I wouldn't say that's too unusual.
That's not pair programming, then. Control should change hands every 5-15 minutes. Both people should have equal access to keyboard, mouse, and screen. Both people should feel engaged. When you ask them the next day, "Who wrote this method?" the answer should be, "We did." Sorry, but that would send me right through the door. Enjoy:)
"A recent product has been the AIBO Recognition stick which will allow AIBO to recharge itself when it needs power by going over to the charging station (sold separately) and sit down to charge. When AIBO is charged, it will get up and wander around as normal. The new ERS-7 robots are taking the AIBO concept further and include extra sensors (electro-static sensors that do not require pushing in), more LEDs, pattern recognition and the ability to pick up a small bone with its mouth."
I happen to agree - especially WRT to Apple/ATT/Google/etc. Google has literally nothing to their name - just some server farms, code, and some short term contracts. They start losing "eyeballs" and they are history.
ATT has a piece of the wireless spectrum, tons and tons of installed hardware/cables/etc, tons of buildings, long-term contracts, etc. Even if they "crash" they can be parts'd out for a pretty good amount of money to a bunch of other carriers.
Apple has very little beyond design appeal and some assorted facilities. They can pretty easily have a bad year or two ruin the company. They never got entrenched in the business world like Compaq/HP, so there are no long-term sales contracts for billions in server hardware to bail them out.
IBM has pretty much everything going for it - major hardware and software R&D, niche OS and hardware markets, vast long-term contracts for sales and support, facilities like crazy, and a truly global presence.
In a "market crash" scenario, the only player who I would bet on to survive is IBM... ATT being a close second. IBM has survived big crashes repeatedly and done just fine.
Both ATT and IBM have something Apple and Google don't - companies larger than the execs who lead them. Where will Apple be in 50 years? Google? I can put a good bet on where IBM and ATT will be... they'll be right there someplace.
That said - I still think Apple will eventually become a good sized player in the consumer electronics market. I suspect they will be right alongside Sony in 10 years... doing a little bit of everything.
That's actually misleading - PDFs must be "tagged" to support different screen sizes (reflow).
Secured PDFs can actually prevent this - SAP certainly does on their PDFs.
This is, in fact, such a PITA that when I published my wife's books, I had to work for quite some time to find a way to tag the PDFs for download in order to make them reflow properly. Every site says how great and simple it is, but the reality of it is that Adobe's own Pocket PC and Palm software makes most PDFs look like total crap.
The Sony 505 has the same problem, but at least you can set them to landscape and read them. PDFs do *not* reflow well as a general rule. I'll be more than happy to take correction from anyone that knows a fast, easy, effective way to do it.
Actualy, IIRC the Aibo recharged itself on a little mat that it would look for when the power got low. Pity Sony axed it... I'd rather have the Aibo division than all that money spent on rootkits and DRM.
I have never understood all the hate on Oblivion. I play it constantly, and it's one of my favorite games of all time. What's to hate? Great story telling, TONS of NPCs (many with personalities), TONS of quests, a world you can fast-travel OR just wander around, nice graphics (except the faces on most women...YUCK).
I love it. I have all the "amazing" Xbox titles, but most are merely OK in comparison. Fable, Oblivion, those are the biggies for me.
Game reviews, BTW, are overall just a bunch of crap. The only place you can actually get decent reviews half the time is Penny Arcade or Gu...
Also for the record, just to be fair, I support Linux, Solaris, AIX, and VMS professionally (for over 10 years now). I have run nearly everything on the desktop at some point, though for Linux I like Debian and Fedora best. FreeBSD was my prior favorite.
The daily issues I get with this HP are mostly little oversights - ACPI broken, no wireless, video issues, stuff that works under x86 but not x86_64, etc. Annoyances.
The ones that piss me off are the ones that just should work, and don't. For example, compiling Kate PMP should be a no-brainer, but it blows up all over. Java installation requires a really cheesy workaround, Kontact can't pick up a contact if using "enterprise" headers (The pretty ones), etc.
Simple stuff. Things like wireless drivers I understand - simple stuff like that annoys me.
Yes - I can code. Yes, I will look into making patches for those if I get a few minutes. But I still like my Mac... because that stuff (for the most part) works properly. The little stuff. The stuff that *Should* work.
My other machines are happy on Fedora 8 - seems to just be this HP laptop with the wireless and display issues. Some sort of over-heat issue too, I think.
Gotta second that - Vista was crappy on my new company supplied laptop (super slow, even when dumbed down) and
So I installed XP... very unstable.
So I installed Ubuntu... LOTS of issues.
So I installed Fedora... FEWER issues.
Now maybe it's the laptop that just sucks? Stupid HP. I want my damn Macbook back... it only crashed every couple weeks. Not every hour or two.
FWIW - I had the same problems the article is describing when I first upgraded to 10.3. Typically they are video issues IME. (in my case my vid card was overheating about every 2-3 hours)
When I document a complex system install for Unix (non-graphical) it takes me about as long as "script doc_for_install.txt" and "exit" plus the install. I then spend about 15 minutes cleaning it up and making it presentable.
That same documentation for the same program installed on Windows requires nearly 50 screen shots that must be taken, clipped, fit into word, and then cleaned up. Plus the install, of course.
So for example, this week I did two docs - one for a customer running this install under Solaris, and one for a customer running it under Windows. The Unix docs took about 1 day (the install took about a day, too... so I was done with the docs early the next morning). The Windows docs took 3 days (the install took about a day, and I spent two additional days futzing with the gui docs... putting the little retarded red outlines on the buttons, etc.)
I'll take a simpler UI ANY day. Best is a KDE/Gnome type UI where I can have tons of simpler UIs.
As for computer speed - I think that I can do the docs for a CLI app in the same time on anything since an Apple II. The GUI docs, however, require at least a machine that can easily run the GUI, plus run remote desktop for the Windows box.
On most kite powered vehicles it is difficult to turn through the wind, turn in so that at one point of the turn your craft is pointed directly into the wind. Instead most kite powered vehicles have to jibe, turn in such that you vehicle never points directly into the wind. Turning radius is of critical importance in order to make upwind progress.
Sounds pretty painful to me - tacking on a sailboat is incredibly easy. I have frequently single-handed my 14' boat with no difficulty at all.
I was thinking the exact same thing - this is just a super-sized spinnaker. Unless I totally misunderstand, tacking would be impossible with this "kite".
Thank you for posting such an insightful and well-thought-out comment on slashdot... they're rare, and worth seeing. It's why I read it:)
Ok - I agree with you that bitching about Iraq doesn't get the science field funding. I *totally* disagree that we should stop bitching about it. I think it is important to keep pressure on our reps and our media with our viewpoints... whatever they may be.
I also agree that even in the best of times Arecibo would probably still get budget cuts. That's life. Convincing an increasingly anti-science country to fund more science is a long fight, and one that's being lost.
I personally chose against a path in science after college (wasting all that math education) because I was dismayed to learn that the US economy really had no science jobs that paid decently. Scientists in the US... hell, SCIENCE in the US, is a joke. We are one of the richest countries in the world, we do lots of good science, but rather than do *great* science we would rather waste money on every little thing but.
Our military prides themselves on their tech. Our government largely funds development of this tech. Good, but we need more tech research than simply ways to kill and avoid death. Most medical research money goes to 'political' causes. Cure the popular diseases, let the rest figure it out. Astronomy has little to do with the government's plans, so there isn't a lot of focus on it. The same goes for every science with no short-term glamour. I do my part - I contribute to science foundations, teach science to my kids and their classmates, and do what I can to encourage science.
So no - I don't think that we would ever see a drastic over-spending effort on science in the US. But I sure as hell won't stop trying to get one:)
While I think welfare definitely needs work, those parts could arguably be found right here:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
"Iraq has nothing to do with it, raising that as an issue is just beyond ignorant."
Sooo - if you're short 2 million dollars, don't look to an place where the budget is bleeding billions?
You know, a billion here and a billion there, pretty soon you're talking some real money. NASA was also just recently cutting back. Obviously we (the USA) have LOTS of cash to burn as long as it fits the correct agenda. 6 BILLION seems a lot - ever seen what the DOD gets? 440 Billion. That's a pretty large investment, I think. I would suggest that perhaps cutting them back a few billion could maybe MAYBE do some good in other sectors.
Oh, sorry. I'm spreading humainst FUD. My bad. Ignore the troubles - watch out for terrorists!
That is excellent - and I think agrees with one of my points. Much of what is wrong with the iPhone is software... the crappy address book, the screen keyboard placement, the insensitivity to tilt (lack of consistent application, that is... I should be able to flip landscape in any Apple app. Only third party apps should be given a "pass" if they ignore it)
So like I, and others, have said - 1.0 is a nice phone. Maybe worth a couple hundred to the apple faithful. To me, it isn't quite there. I will wait one more version, and see if little things like SD cards, GPS, and hopefully batteries make it in.
Everyone keeps making a big deal about the SD card thing - so let me say why I use mine: On my 2GB transflash(microSD) card is a bootable Knoppix, all of my business docs, my resume, my contacts, my phone numbers, and a full Qemu environment that I can run without leaving a footprint. I have frequently used this to save my ass on client sites. It's been everything from a jumpdrive to transfer files back and forth on hostile networks to a way to transport the docs I have every day.
It rests in my phone 90% of the time - and this means it is always on me without taking up any additional space in my pockets.
iPhones can't do this. 8GB of storage I can't get to at a client site on a client's computer are worthless to me. I *have* an iPod (the 160GB), so that when I need tons of storage I can just connect that.
In comparison to the Kindle, though, I have the Sony e-book reader, which already does a pretty good job in the latest rev. The dictionary would be handy for the stuff I read in German (since it is easy for me to get lost on the technical stuff). The iPhone is no competitor to the Kindle, and is hardly even worth a mention. It's a competitor to other phones, and mostly to Apple's own products. Not to the Kindle. The Nokia N800 is a competitor, the Sony 505 is a competitor... but not the iPhone.
Slashdot Mirror
Had that too, and a Windows 3.1 version that did the same thing. This is yet more proof of why software patents are BAD.
Of course, the best example is VMS... TONS of software patents on stuff that was incredibly advanced at the time, lots of which is still far ahead of the game. All locked up in patents being traded around like baseball cards.
Drives me nuts.
The three-fingered-salute hasn't rebooted windows in years... you might need to upgrade past 98 ;)
Actually, rebooting does fix some issues on Macs, especially with Adobe CS2. That stupid version cue application (curse it forever) will frequently spawn literally dozens of processes, which hang and use up a ton of memory. A reboot forces it to die and start over again.
Rebooting rarely hurts microcomputers and frequently helps. Now, if you want me to reboot a server, then we're talking about an issue. Doesn't matter what OS, if it's not flat dead, rebooting will be a PITA.
I'm probably in the 1-2k category. Depends on how you count periodicals, since I also keep comic books, Dragon, and Dungeon magazines. Actual "books" like paperback/hardbacks probably 800 or so. I wouldn't say that's too unusual.
Now *that* is an idea :D
Yup - as commented, probably single digit MHz: the PC/AT for example, was 6 to 8 MHz.
Of course, at the time that came out, I was using a 7.83 MHz processor on my desk, and had access to something a bit bigger for the fun stuff.
I saw it in lots of reviews - the charging stick: http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.19/19.11/Toys/index.html
"A recent product has been the AIBO Recognition stick which will allow AIBO to recharge itself when it needs power by going over to the charging station (sold separately) and sit down to charge. When AIBO is charged, it will get up and wander around as normal. The new ERS-7 robots are taking the AIBO concept further and include extra sensors (electro-static sensors that do not require pushing in), more LEDs, pattern recognition and the ability to pick up a small bone with its mouth."
I happen to agree - especially WRT to Apple/ATT/Google/etc. Google has literally nothing to their name - just some server farms, code, and some short term contracts. They start losing "eyeballs" and they are history.
ATT has a piece of the wireless spectrum, tons and tons of installed hardware/cables/etc, tons of buildings, long-term contracts, etc. Even if they "crash" they can be parts'd out for a pretty good amount of money to a bunch of other carriers.
Apple has very little beyond design appeal and some assorted facilities. They can pretty easily have a bad year or two ruin the company. They never got entrenched in the business world like Compaq/HP, so there are no long-term sales contracts for billions in server hardware to bail them out.
IBM has pretty much everything going for it - major hardware and software R&D, niche OS and hardware markets, vast long-term contracts for sales and support, facilities like crazy, and a truly global presence.
In a "market crash" scenario, the only player who I would bet on to survive is IBM... ATT being a close second. IBM has survived big crashes repeatedly and done just fine.
Both ATT and IBM have something Apple and Google don't - companies larger than the execs who lead them. Where will Apple be in 50 years? Google? I can put a good bet on where IBM and ATT will be... they'll be right there someplace.
That said - I still think Apple will eventually become a good sized player in the consumer electronics market. I suspect they will be right alongside Sony in 10 years... doing a little bit of everything.
That's actually misleading - PDFs must be "tagged" to support different screen sizes (reflow).
Secured PDFs can actually prevent this - SAP certainly does on their PDFs.
This is, in fact, such a PITA that when I published my wife's books, I had to work for quite some time to find a way to tag the PDFs for download in order to make them reflow properly. Every site says how great and simple it is, but the reality of it is that Adobe's own Pocket PC and Palm software makes most PDFs look like total crap.
The Sony 505 has the same problem, but at least you can set them to landscape and read them. PDFs do *not* reflow well as a general rule. I'll be more than happy to take correction from anyone that knows a fast, easy, effective way to do it.
Actualy, IIRC the Aibo recharged itself on a little mat that it would look for when the power got low. Pity Sony axed it... I'd rather have the Aibo division than all that money spent on rootkits and DRM.
Hate responding to my own comment - but it's OT... I thought I was on the reviwers/publishers thread :D
Bioshock is a really fun game - not so good as Oblivion so far, but I haven't warmed up to it enough yet.
I have never understood all the hate on Oblivion. I play it constantly, and it's one of my favorite games of all time. What's to hate? Great story telling, TONS of NPCs (many with personalities), TONS of quests, a world you can fast-travel OR just wander around, nice graphics (except the faces on most women...YUCK).
I love it. I have all the "amazing" Xbox titles, but most are merely OK in comparison. Fable, Oblivion, those are the biggies for me.
Game reviews, BTW, are overall just a bunch of crap. The only place you can actually get decent reviews half the time is Penny Arcade or Gu...
Also for the record, just to be fair, I support Linux, Solaris, AIX, and VMS professionally (for over 10 years now). I have run nearly everything on the desktop at some point, though for Linux I like Debian and Fedora best. FreeBSD was my prior favorite.
The daily issues I get with this HP are mostly little oversights - ACPI broken, no wireless, video issues, stuff that works under x86 but not x86_64, etc. Annoyances.
The ones that piss me off are the ones that just should work, and don't. For example, compiling Kate PMP should be a no-brainer, but it blows up all over. Java installation requires a really cheesy workaround, Kontact can't pick up a contact if using "enterprise" headers (The pretty ones), etc.
Simple stuff. Things like wireless drivers I understand - simple stuff like that annoys me.
Yes - I can code. Yes, I will look into making patches for those if I get a few minutes. But I still like my Mac... because that stuff (for the most part) works properly. The little stuff. The stuff that *Should* work.
My other machines are happy on Fedora 8 - seems to just be this HP laptop with the wireless and display issues. Some sort of over-heat issue too, I think.
Gotta second that - Vista was crappy on my new company supplied laptop (super slow, even when dumbed down) and
So I installed XP... very unstable.
So I installed Ubuntu... LOTS of issues.
So I installed Fedora... FEWER issues.
Now maybe it's the laptop that just sucks? Stupid HP. I want my damn Macbook back... it only crashed every couple weeks. Not every hour or two.
FWIW - I had the same problems the article is describing when I first upgraded to 10.3. Typically they are video issues IME. (in my case my vid card was overheating about every 2-3 hours)
Better analogy -
When I document a complex system install for Unix (non-graphical) it takes me about as long as "script doc_for_install.txt" and "exit" plus the install.
I then spend about 15 minutes cleaning it up and making it presentable.
That same documentation for the same program installed on Windows requires nearly 50 screen shots that must be taken, clipped, fit into word, and then cleaned up. Plus the install, of course.
So for example, this week I did two docs - one for a customer running this install under Solaris, and one for a customer running it under Windows. The Unix docs took about 1 day (the install took about a day, too... so I was done with the docs early the next morning). The Windows docs took 3 days (the install took about a day, and I spent two additional days futzing with the gui docs... putting the little retarded red outlines on the buttons, etc.)
I'll take a simpler UI ANY day. Best is a KDE/Gnome type UI where I can have tons of simpler UIs.
As for computer speed - I think that I can do the docs for a CLI app in the same time on anything since an Apple II. The GUI docs, however, require at least a machine that can easily run the GUI, plus run remote desktop for the Windows box.
Not according to the American Kitefliers Association:
On most kite powered vehicles it is difficult to turn through the wind, turn in so that at one point of the turn your craft is pointed directly into the wind. Instead most kite powered vehicles have to jibe, turn in such that you vehicle never points directly into the wind. Turning radius is of critical importance in order to make upwind progress.
Sounds pretty painful to me - tacking on a sailboat is incredibly easy. I have frequently single-handed my 14' boat with no difficulty at all.
I was thinking the exact same thing - this is just a super-sized spinnaker. Unless I totally misunderstand, tacking would be impossible with this "kite".
The Sony 505 and the Kindle seem to have very similar screens. I have a 505 and adore it - I'll see if I can find a Kindle to compare it to.
Thank you for posting such an insightful and well-thought-out comment on slashdot... they're rare, and worth seeing. It's why I read it :)
:)
Ok - I agree with you that bitching about Iraq doesn't get the science field funding. I *totally* disagree that we should stop bitching about it. I think it is important to keep pressure on our reps and our media with our viewpoints... whatever they may be.
I also agree that even in the best of times Arecibo would probably still get budget cuts. That's life. Convincing an increasingly anti-science country to fund more science is a long fight, and one that's being lost.
I personally chose against a path in science after college (wasting all that math education) because I was dismayed to learn that the US economy really had no science jobs that paid decently. Scientists in the US... hell, SCIENCE in the US, is a joke. We are one of the richest countries in the world, we do lots of good science, but rather than do *great* science we would rather waste money on every little thing but.
Our military prides themselves on their tech. Our government largely funds development of this tech. Good, but we need more tech research than simply ways to kill and avoid death. Most medical research money goes to 'political' causes. Cure the popular diseases, let the rest figure it out. Astronomy has little to do with the government's plans, so there isn't a lot of focus on it. The same goes for every science with no short-term glamour. I do my part - I contribute to science foundations, teach science to my kids and their classmates, and do what I can to encourage science.
So no - I don't think that we would ever see a drastic over-spending effort on science in the US.
But I sure as hell won't stop trying to get one
While I think welfare definitely needs work, those parts could arguably be found right here:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
*That* is actually an extremely good point.
:)
Of course, cutting 440 billion of budgeted DOD spending by a few billion would be a great way to address it
"Iraq has nothing to do with it, raising that as an issue is just beyond ignorant."
Sooo - if you're short 2 million dollars, don't look to an place where the budget is bleeding billions?
You know, a billion here and a billion there, pretty soon you're talking some real money. NASA was also just recently cutting back. Obviously we (the USA) have LOTS of cash to burn as long as it fits the correct agenda. 6 BILLION seems a lot - ever seen what the DOD gets? 440 Billion. That's a pretty large investment, I think. I would suggest that perhaps cutting them back a few billion could maybe MAYBE do some good in other sectors.
Oh, sorry. I'm spreading humainst FUD. My bad. Ignore the troubles - watch out for terrorists!
I hate to say it, but I have to: ONE day of deployment in Iraq would pay for this thing.
That is excellent - and I think agrees with one of my points. Much of what is wrong with the iPhone is software... the crappy address book, the screen keyboard placement, the insensitivity to tilt (lack of consistent application, that is... I should be able to flip landscape in any Apple app. Only third party apps should be given a "pass" if they ignore it)
So like I, and others, have said - 1.0 is a nice phone. Maybe worth a couple hundred to the apple faithful. To me, it isn't quite there. I will wait one more version, and see if little things like SD cards, GPS, and hopefully batteries make it in.
Everyone keeps making a big deal about the SD card thing - so let me say why I use mine:
On my 2GB transflash(microSD) card is a bootable Knoppix, all of my business docs, my resume, my contacts, my phone numbers, and a full Qemu environment that I can run without leaving a footprint. I have frequently used this to save my ass on client sites. It's been everything from a jumpdrive to transfer files back and forth on hostile networks to a way to transport the docs I have every day.
It rests in my phone 90% of the time - and this means it is always on me without taking up any additional space in my pockets.
iPhones can't do this. 8GB of storage I can't get to at a client site on a client's computer are worthless to me. I *have* an iPod (the 160GB), so that when I need tons of storage I can just connect that.
In comparison to the Kindle, though, I have the Sony e-book reader, which already does a pretty good job in the latest rev. The dictionary would be handy for the stuff I read in German (since it is easy for me to get lost on the technical stuff). The iPhone is no competitor to the Kindle, and is hardly even worth a mention. It's a competitor to other phones, and mostly to Apple's own products. Not to the Kindle. The Nokia N800 is a competitor, the Sony 505 is a competitor... but not the iPhone.
My 160GB iPod has 450 CDs (physical, uploaded to iTunes), 200 downloaded CDs, and the Knoppix DVD on it. There's still room.
:)
160GB is Crazy big
I honestly am not sure how people intend to fill them... I'm thinking of going back and re-ripping with lossless!