"Who told you that the xServe uses an Intel CPU? That is simply not true. Apple has never used an Intel CPU for any computer, and I don't believe for a second that they're about to start now."
You should do your homework. (Link to Xserve RAID, which uses an Intel Xscale processor)
You should realize we're not talking about network storage appliances here, but actual user taskable systems. The Xserve RAID is at most a peripheral device, despite Apple's decision to market it under the same name as their actual server product.
Ah: jumping puzzles.
The most annoying part of FPS games, which require you to take a break from gleefully blowing the crap out of your enemies to make meticulously-timed jumps across platforms, like you've suddenly turned into Mario or something.
That's because kids nowadays don't have any problem solving skills. As my mother , a 7th-8th grade algebra teacher, complained to me last night, "They can't figure anything out on their own. Even their video games don't teach them problem solving. It's all 'jump-jump-squat', over and over again."
E911 enabled cell phones, i.e. all of them currently being manufactured, allow remote tracking over the cell network with GPS receivers embedded in phones.
The GPS performance on those E911 phones is a joke. It's a bone thown to panicky soccer moms and the FCC so they can take their time deploying the equipment necessary to track user locations based on signal triangulation from the cell towers. The GPS antenna is usually embedded in the upper part of the back of the phone. Do you keep the upper part of the back of your phone, out of its case, of course, facing the sky all the time? GPS lock is so slow on those things that they're not even worth worrying about. Furthermore, the GPS can usually be disbled via the setup menu. Trust me, they're not tracking you via your phone's GPS unless you specifically position the phone to make it possible.
Re:When will the public revolt about issues like t
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GPS-tracked Clothing
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· Score: 1
If you were tracking someone who's clothing you had access to, you could, get a device which stores datapoints on some small memory chip. When you recover the tracking device, that data could be downloaded and shown on a map. It wouldn't need to record everything, maybe just locations that they stayed at for more than 10 minutes. I'm sure this kind of technology is more possible than we think. If you put enough thought into it.
Great! Then all you have to do is arrange for the person being tracked to wear the GPS patch antenna on top of their head and not go indoors or ride in any covered vehicle. You do know that GPS devices require an unobstructed view of a fairly good bit of sky, right? There are many things that make this device unworkable.
I'm an EE. I work with GPS. Right now (well okay, during the week) I'm working with the cutting edge Xemics GPS engine. It's about 3cm x 4cm x 0.5 cm. That's the engine plus the em shield.
Transmitter. This will probably include a crystal.
Antenna for the transmitter. If we're talking about a VHF transmitter at 150 MHz, the antenna is going to be about 24 INCHES long. (That's already 1/4 wave!)
This is a point which can't be repeated too often: GPS is a totally passive system at the user end. I look forward to a time when regular people understand GPS well enough to know that GPS doesn't track anything! All a GPS device does is calculate its own location using radio and math. If I had a nickel for every time some jackass script writer has a TV/movie character say "we're tracking him via GPS satellites"...well...I'd have a lot of nickels. I fear eventually we'll get a society full of semi-educated dolts who think that GPS=Tracking Device and will demand that laws be passed mandating GPS devices be at least footstool sized so nobody can "plant one on them"; but they'll all walk around with cell phones, of course, which have no tracking capabilities at all, right?
Re:When will the public revolt about issues like t
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GPS-tracked Clothing
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· Score: 1
When will the public revolt about issues like this and demand either:
(A) Real privacy laws with shark's teeth to enforce them.
or (B) A completely transparent society where everything is public -- including our corporate master's finance books and the data of the wealthy elites?
"Issues like this"? You mean jokes? There's no surreptitious way to add GPS tracking to clothing. At present, the smallest GPS tracking device is about the size of a deck of playing cards, requires a clear view of the sky, and has maybe a week of battery life, as it has to get the GPS information to the "watcher" wirelessly somehow (you do know that GPS is an entirely passive system, right?). You won't see public revolt until something like this is actually possible. Public revolt at this point would be mindless hysteria, resulting in stupid laws prohibitting non-existant devices.
The VCR had significant limitations.
It was difficult to program and impossible to edit. Tapes did not stand up well to repeated viewings.
True, these limitations would go away with digital broadcast recording.
Broadcast films were censored, cut to fit pre-defined time slots, and were otherwise abused.
This isn't a disadvantage of the VCR, but a disadvantage to all broadcast TV. They'll still butcher movies to show them on TV, be they in analog or digital.
Yeesh. Post that one next to the article I read last week in the local business periodical that took half its column-inches to conclude that the reason most businesses go bankrupt is that their expenditures exceed their income. I was astounded. I was particularly intrigued with the use of the word "most". This means that there are a few businesses out there who somehow manage to go bankrupt while taking in more than they spend. That's quite a trick.
Microsoft was worth a half trillion dollars during the highlight of the dot com boom. With this kind of capital plus the software cost being distributed to ~90% of all desktops, you would think that at some point that you could get it right.
What do you mean, "get it right"? Microsoft isn't writing a fuel management system for a lunar lander that'll be used for one specific application and then abandoned. Modern software development at the OS level is a moving target. There was no "finished" system at the "highlight of the dot com boom" upon which they could've expended their huge capital resources to sweep away all the bugs, and even if there was, by the time they finally discoverd them all they'd have a perfect, bug free, obsolete system. The sheer quantity of new code constantly flowing into the system means that there will always be exploits.
It's not just about the money. It's about the atmosphere
The "Atmosphere" ? You mean the noisy chatter? Seriously, what do you mean?
The atmosphere of people who might interact, as opposed to the atmosphere of 20 unwashed gnomes of dorkdom hunched over their iBooks and Thinkpads silently reading fark or/.
When ever I get a new keyboard, the first thing I do is open it up and remove the sleep button.
I used to repeatedly bump the sleep button by accidentally pushing the keyboard under the front of the monitor, but found a good solution. You know the little plastic spacer ring that sits at the top of a spindle of CDRs to keep them from moving under that cake-box lid? Glue it in place it over/around the sleep button. No more accidental pressies, and the button is usable just like a proper recessed button as it should have been from the start.
It's interesting how you quoted the previous poster but your brain totally bypassed the comprehension part of what he's saying.
Interesting how both you and he are ignoring the very premise of the original poster's point: he wants a calculator button. That is, a buttonexpressly intended for and designed such that, when you press it, up pops the calculator app. Not a way to remap "F11" or "Caps Lock" to pop up a calculator; not a way to make "Apple-C" or "CTRL-META-ALT-SHIFT-PRETZEL-@" bring up a calculator; not a way to make putting the mouse in the corner, waving it back in forth, or sticking it up your bum start up the calculator; no, he wants a fraking CALCULATOR button! A button. Labelled CALCULATOR. That starts the calculator app.
We green now?
Ah, but I think the careful reader will understand that I am actually referring to the methods by which we as a race manage to justify violating others' rights. History has shown us time and time again that when there's a large group of people that want to violate the rights of a smaller group of people, and the larger group has technology on their side, then the first step is is for the bigger group to come up with whatever reasons they need to in order to feel okay about stomping all over the smaller group
Unfortunately, this line of thinking is a red herring. These "methods" are are identical whether the larger group is intent on "violating others' rights", or actually fighting for the just rights of all that are being infringed upon by the minority. Genocide is clearly a case of the former. You have not successfully argued that copyright is in the same category. Copyright has the force of law behind it right now, but then again, so did the ownership of human beings.
Basically, you're begging the question by assuming copyright infringement is on the same "side" as genocide. You need to argue that copyright, as it stands, is not an unjust infringement of the rights of the majority first.
Re:Calculator key?
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Blank Keyboard
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· Score: 4, Funny
d'uh it's not about mapping keys. if you knew how Dashboard works you'd know you wouldn't lose another key, just gain more options from that key.
Technically, that's still mapping keys. It's mapping an unused key or combination of keys to another use. He wants a single keypress to pop up his calculator. Even OSX can't do that without using an extant key, because even 10.4 is missing the ability to grow new keys on the keyboard.
Johnny writes "Unfortunately mice are one of the most overlooked computer peripherals, while in reality should be one of the first places where your hard earned cash should be invested in.
I've also lived in Canada and the U.S., and I have to tell you it's nice to buy something and pay the price on the sticker.... not up to 15% more once they punch it into the register and the tax gets calculated.
Up to 15% more? Where? Must be somewhere in Canada, because in the US the highest sales tax is in Tennesee, at 9.35%. What you see as an inconvenience is actually saving you money. The fact that people see exactly how much money the filthy local government is taking from them (and can therefore express their outrage when it's raised) is the reason why it's not absurdly high, like in countries with a VAT or GST.
iirc wiring one end to TIA-568A and the other end to TIA-568B gives you a crossover cable
so if your switches are half decent it shouldn't make any difference the switches will just detect it and connect fine.
This is true, but we can't assume anything. Not only can't we assume that their switch gear is halfway decent (you'd be amazed how many cheapskate people are still running old crap 10baseT hubs), we can't even assume that they'll be using it for ethernet connections! One customer used a dozen of their CAT5 runs to extend serial connections from an ancient crawling horror of an insurance quote server to some VT100 terminals. Subsequently, we pretty much have to just do things correctly, as we are paid to do.
They removed the "mammy" voice from the black maid in at least one Tom & Jerry and replaced it with a generic white woman's. Only her legs (black) are shown when she is talking to them. Granted it is mildly racist by today's standards but I'd rather see the original and understand the norms of the time than to be treated like a mindless child who needs to be shielded.
Indeed. It's not so ridiculously over-the-top racist like "Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarves". Now there's a cartoon we'll never see on TV! One good thing about P2P networks is that it provides a controversy-proof outlet for "ojectionable" material like "Coal Black", "Song of the South", or the wartime propaganda cartoons.
They removed the "mammy" voice from the black maid in at least one Tom & Jerry and replaced it with a generic white woman's. Only her legs (black) are shown when she is talking to them. Granted it is mildly racist by today's standards but I'd rather see the original and understand the norms of the time than to be treated like a mindless child who needs to be shielded.
Indeed. It's not so ridiculously over-the-top racist like "Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarves". Now there's a cartoon we'll never see on TV!
They aren't shielding you, they are shielding themselves from idiotic (yet costly) lawsuits.
Actually, they're shielding themselves from idiotic public outry. A vocal minority getting their dander up and organizing a stupid boycott is more dangerous than a lawsuit. A lawsuit needs to have a claim of damages, and any suit wherein damages are claimed as a result of simply viewing a cartoon will likely be summarily dismissed at little cost. A baseless rumor that a TV station is "racist" because they showed a historically accurate cartoon is the bigger threat. You can't get a judge to order public sentiment to turn and go the other way.
Some people would be crippled if they couldn't remember the difference between TIA-568A and TIA-568B
Indeed. I nearly crippled a coworker who punched down an entire office full of CAT5 jacks (about 80 of 'em) to TIA-568A when we were terminating the cables on a TIA-568B patch panel (as we always do; we have NEVER used '568A). I spent a good 2 hours on a friday night after work switching oranges and greens at the panel.
Slashdot Mirror
Is that what they're calling it in Sumatra?
You should do your homework. (Link to Xserve RAID, which uses an Intel Xscale processor)
You should realize we're not talking about network storage appliances here, but actual user taskable systems. The Xserve RAID is at most a peripheral device, despite Apple's decision to market it under the same name as their actual server product.
Xserve RAID is a storage appliance. It could use a massive array of Zilog Z80's for all its relevance to the discussion at hand.
That's because kids nowadays don't have any problem solving skills. As my mother , a 7th-8th grade algebra teacher, complained to me last night, "They can't figure anything out on their own. Even their video games don't teach them problem solving. It's all 'jump-jump-squat', over and over again."
The GPS performance on those E911 phones is a joke. It's a bone thown to panicky soccer moms and the FCC so they can take their time deploying the equipment necessary to track user locations based on signal triangulation from the cell towers. The GPS antenna is usually embedded in the upper part of the back of the phone. Do you keep the upper part of the back of your phone, out of its case, of course, facing the sky all the time? GPS lock is so slow on those things that they're not even worth worrying about. Furthermore, the GPS can usually be disbled via the setup menu. Trust me, they're not tracking you via your phone's GPS unless you specifically position the phone to make it possible.
Great! Then all you have to do is arrange for the person being tracked to wear the GPS patch antenna on top of their head and not go indoors or ride in any covered vehicle. You do know that GPS devices require an unobstructed view of a fairly good bit of sky, right? There are many things that make this device unworkable.
Transmitter. This will probably include a crystal. Antenna for the transmitter. If we're talking about a VHF transmitter at 150 MHz, the antenna is going to be about 24 INCHES long. (That's already 1/4 wave!)
This is a point which can't be repeated too often: GPS is a totally passive system at the user end. I look forward to a time when regular people understand GPS well enough to know that GPS doesn't track anything ! All a GPS device does is calculate its own location using radio and math. If I had a nickel for every time some jackass script writer has a TV/movie character say "we're tracking him via GPS satellites"...well...I'd have a lot of nickels. I fear eventually we'll get a society full of semi-educated dolts who think that GPS=Tracking Device and will demand that laws be passed mandating GPS devices be at least footstool sized so nobody can "plant one on them"; but they'll all walk around with cell phones, of course, which have no tracking capabilities at all, right?
"Issues like this"? You mean jokes? There's no surreptitious way to add GPS tracking to clothing. At present, the smallest GPS tracking device is about the size of a deck of playing cards, requires a clear view of the sky, and has maybe a week of battery life, as it has to get the GPS information to the "watcher" wirelessly somehow (you do know that GPS is an entirely passive system, right?). You won't see public revolt until something like this is actually possible. Public revolt at this point would be mindless hysteria, resulting in stupid laws prohibitting non-existant devices.
Heh. When that happens, we may actually see a challenge on 3rd Amendment grounds.
Yes, true. Consultants are, by definition, not regular corporate employees-- they're working under contract.
True, these limitations would go away with digital broadcast recording.
Broadcast films were censored, cut to fit pre-defined time slots, and were otherwise abused.
This isn't a disadvantage of the VCR, but a disadvantage to all broadcast TV. They'll still butcher movies to show them on TV, be they in analog or digital.
Yeesh. Post that one next to the article I read last week in the local business periodical that took half its column-inches to conclude that the reason most businesses go bankrupt is that their expenditures exceed their income. I was astounded. I was particularly intrigued with the use of the word "most". This means that there are a few businesses out there who somehow manage to go bankrupt while taking in more than they spend. That's quite a trick.
What do you mean, "get it right"? Microsoft isn't writing a fuel management system for a lunar lander that'll be used for one specific application and then abandoned. Modern software development at the OS level is a moving target. There was no "finished" system at the "highlight of the dot com boom" upon which they could've expended their huge capital resources to sweep away all the bugs, and even if there was, by the time they finally discoverd them all they'd have a perfect, bug free, obsolete system. The sheer quantity of new code constantly flowing into the system means that there will always be exploits.
The atmosphere of people who might interact, as opposed to the atmosphere of 20 unwashed gnomes of dorkdom hunched over their iBooks and Thinkpads silently reading fark or /.
I used to repeatedly bump the sleep button by accidentally pushing the keyboard under the front of the monitor, but found a good solution. You know the little plastic spacer ring that sits at the top of a spindle of CDRs to keep them from moving under that cake-box lid? Glue it in place it over/around the sleep button. No more accidental pressies, and the button is usable just like a proper recessed button as it should have been from the start.
Interesting how both you and he are ignoring the very premise of the original poster's point: he wants a calculator button. That is, a buttonexpressly intended for and designed such that, when you press it, up pops the calculator app. Not a way to remap "F11" or "Caps Lock" to pop up a calculator; not a way to make "Apple-C" or "CTRL-META-ALT-SHIFT-PRETZEL-@" bring up a calculator; not a way to make putting the mouse in the corner, waving it back in forth, or sticking it up your bum start up the calculator; no, he wants a fraking CALCULATOR button! A button. Labelled CALCULATOR. That starts the calculator app.
We green now?
Unfortunately, this line of thinking is a red herring. These "methods" are are identical whether the larger group is intent on "violating others' rights", or actually fighting for the just rights of all that are being infringed upon by the minority. Genocide is clearly a case of the former. You have not successfully argued that copyright is in the same category. Copyright has the force of law behind it right now, but then again, so did the ownership of human beings.
Basically, you're begging the question by assuming copyright infringement is on the same "side" as genocide. You need to argue that copyright, as it stands, is not an unjust infringement of the rights of the majority first.
Technically, that's still mapping keys. It's mapping an unused key or combination of keys to another use. He wants a single keypress to pop up his calculator. Even OSX can't do that without using an extant key, because even 10.4 is missing the ability to grow new keys on the keyboard.
Johnny may be able to read, but he can't write...
Up to 15% more? Where? Must be somewhere in Canada, because in the US the highest sales tax is in Tennesee, at 9.35%. What you see as an inconvenience is actually saving you money. The fact that people see exactly how much money the filthy local government is taking from them (and can therefore express their outrage when it's raised) is the reason why it's not absurdly high, like in countries with a VAT or GST.
This is true, but we can't assume anything. Not only can't we assume that their switch gear is halfway decent (you'd be amazed how many cheapskate people are still running old crap 10baseT hubs), we can't even assume that they'll be using it for ethernet connections! One customer used a dozen of their CAT5 runs to extend serial connections from an ancient crawling horror of an insurance quote server to some VT100 terminals. Subsequently, we pretty much have to just do things correctly, as we are paid to do.
Indeed. It's not so ridiculously over-the-top racist like "Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarves". Now there's a cartoon we'll never see on TV! One good thing about P2P networks is that it provides a controversy-proof outlet for "ojectionable" material like "Coal Black", "Song of the South", or the wartime propaganda cartoons.
Indeed. It's not so ridiculously over-the-top racist like "Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarves". Now there's a cartoon we'll never see on TV!
Actually, they're shielding themselves from idiotic public outry. A vocal minority getting their dander up and organizing a stupid boycott is more dangerous than a lawsuit. A lawsuit needs to have a claim of damages, and any suit wherein damages are claimed as a result of simply viewing a cartoon will likely be summarily dismissed at little cost. A baseless rumor that a TV station is "racist" because they showed a historically accurate cartoon is the bigger threat. You can't get a judge to order public sentiment to turn and go the other way.
Indeed. I nearly crippled a coworker who punched down an entire office full of CAT5 jacks (about 80 of 'em) to TIA-568A when we were terminating the cables on a TIA-568B patch panel (as we always do; we have NEVER used '568A). I spent a good 2 hours on a friday night after work switching oranges and greens at the panel.