Sorry, I'm a bit thick, but why is that useful? If I want a web browser I would just use a web browser. The hard part is making the browser do something interesting, and I can do that with cgi already.
I'm interested in what advantages you see for cocoa over say python-gtk. I've put together apps that impressed the hell out of my MacOSX collegues in a day using python-gtk. There are similarly powerful tools like ruby-qt.
Perhaps you can give an example of something that is easy in cocoa and hard in python-gtk?
"I could make a massive list of complaints about desktop Linux regarding the very same subjects you described here, but I guarantee the solutions wouldn't be as easy."
Would you be so kind? I'm looking for some new projects, and I'm always in for these sorts of self-contained problems. Perhaps you could put them on a website as a set of challenges? I'm puzzled at your tone, btw, you sound very defensive.
You're wrong about sleep, there is no straightforward (perhaps no) way to program sleep to not occur during downloads, but sleep after that. On linux, on the other hand it is quite straightforward to add the rule to powermgmt.
Have you looked at the Cairo-graphics project? (cairographics.org) Everyone is porting their apps and DEs to it. It will give Quartz a run for its money (probably not core image for a while, but it will happen if core image turns out to be actually useful).
Gtk+ already runs on cairo, btw. I believe that gnome 2.12 or whatever is planned to run on cairo.
It does happen, it's just that sometimes it takes an external example to motivate free software people to do it (such as MacOSX and Avalon). This isn't necessarily a bad thing.
I've wondered in the past whether there is a topology for transformers that relies on the magnetic shielding effect from a zero resistance conductor. The problem is, as far as I can see, that you will get leakage magnetic fields between the windings.
Except that they string the leds together to make a 160V LED with a current regulator that prevents the leds blowing. So you waste about 10/160 = 6% using a resistor. For real applications there will be a low pf regulator with an efficient switchmode system. Perhaps 1% of the power would be wasted.
The eye is much better at seeing blue light in low light conditions. This is why submarines have red illumination at night, the red doesn't overload the very sensitive blue light detectors. Blue LEDs are also more efficient and have higher operating powers.
A similar point is that nightime illumination looks much better/cosier with lower BB temps. I think that is one reason why places like casinos use lots of low temp lightbulbs rather than the surely cheaper metal halide. This probably is something to do with camp fires.
Why can't people spell fluorescent? There is no flour involved!
Right... which is why the Amiga did so well. History has shown that people use what they are familiar with, and if work forces them to use something, they will choose the same thing at home, even if something else is technically superior.
I think that by the time a human reacts most problems are past the point of no return. An awful lot of people die each year in Melbourne due to being hit by trains, trams and busses. Similarly, a blind person lost their legs when the conductor erroneously closed the doors and drove off.
So a computer really only has to prevent avertible disasters, which they already do with great reliability. The vast majority of train accidents are human error/impatience.
I think I would rather a system as robust as the japanese PT system which is computer run, than relying on slow reacting humans. (Not that it helps with suicides)
How would you make an oscillator with unity gain? The only circuit I've ever seen for making oscillators was the astable flipflop thing we did at school, and from memory that required considerable gain.
Very amusing, but please note that the Dodo became extinct due to human influences such as habitat loss and the introduction of invasive species. We haven't had very many ice ages since the 17th century:) The destruction brought about by invading humans follows a very regular pattern. You can read about it in Tim Flannery's "Future Eaters".
Interestingly your analogy is perhaps more apt as Ubuntu could be considered an invasive parasite (using the excellent base Debian provides to its own ends).
Ok, thanks. I can't see how you can make an oscillator without gain though, so they would have to extrapolate the frequency to find the unity gain point? I guess they probably use valves. I can't find any useful information on the upper frequency limit for valves though?
None of those reasons are reasons to go to the moon in the first place - sure, once you are there moon dust has many uses, but why go there in the first place?
One possible reason is the vast amounts of He (3), a rare isotope of Helium that is produced by the sun and collects on the moon in the regolith. He (3) is potentially a huge source of fusion energy, far safer, cheaper or easier than Deuterium or Tritium.
Until we work out how to do it though, I'm putting my money on solar power:)
They certainly are for small numbers of panels, which is what interested me for a remote power system. For larger systems I expect there is a break point where you are better off with a larger inverter. The big advantages of per cell inverters are: that you can scale the system as you grow; panels don't have to be located near each other, only near existing wiring; shaded cells don't drag the whole string down; the inverter can be sized optimally for the panel; and the inverter can implement peak power point tracking more effectively. I expect that being closer to mobile/cell phone tech with the lower voltages would be helpful.
Ideally we would get the tech to the point where each cell (or cell stack) generated its own 400V DC output, these could then be collected and fed into the grid at the panel level. It may be possible to build a significant port of the circuit in the same die as the panel (may also be a bad idea - IANASE).
I expect that with higher production rates the cost of the inverter would disappear in the noise (a cheap 100W inverter costs $20 here, compared with around $1k for a 100W panel)
Sort of like vapourphase but without any energy input. Combine with something like coolchips and you have a really nifty new area in the ancient science of thermodynamics.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, I'm a bit thick, but why is that useful? If I want a web browser I would just use a web browser. The hard part is making the browser do something interesting, and I can do that with cgi already.
I'm interested in what advantages you see for cocoa over say python-gtk. I've put together apps that impressed the hell out of my MacOSX collegues in a day using python-gtk. There are similarly powerful tools like ruby-qt.
Perhaps you can give an example of something that is easy in cocoa and hard in python-gtk?
Anti-freeze is usually Ethylene-glycol. You are correct that it is quite toxic.
"I could make a massive list of complaints about desktop Linux regarding the very same subjects you described here, but I guarantee the solutions wouldn't be as easy."
Would you be so kind? I'm looking for some new projects, and I'm always in for these sorts of self-contained problems. Perhaps you could put them on a website as a set of challenges? I'm puzzled at your tone, btw, you sound very defensive.
You're wrong about sleep, there is no straightforward (perhaps no) way to program sleep to not occur during downloads, but sleep after that. On linux, on the other hand it is quite straightforward to add the rule to powermgmt.
It's there, and some distros do it already:
http://www.thepenguin.org.uk/alsa/
Have you looked at the Cairo-graphics project? (cairographics.org) Everyone is porting their apps and DEs to it. It will give Quartz a run for its money (probably not core image for a while, but it will happen if core image turns out to be actually useful).
Gtk+ already runs on cairo, btw. I believe that gnome 2.12 or whatever is planned to run on cairo.
It does happen, it's just that sometimes it takes an external example to motivate free software people to do it (such as MacOSX and Avalon). This isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Joking or ignorant.
Linux midi support is second only to macosx. You do need to be using alsa.
Well, off you go!
I've wondered in the past whether there is a topology for transformers that relies on the magnetic shielding effect from a zero resistance conductor. The problem is, as far as I can see, that you will get leakage magnetic fields between the windings.
Except that they string the leds together to make a 160V LED with a current regulator that prevents the leds blowing. So you waste about 10/160 = 6% using a resistor. For real applications there will be a low pf regulator with an efficient switchmode system. Perhaps 1% of the power would be wasted.
The eye is much better at seeing blue light in low light conditions. This is why submarines have red illumination at night, the red doesn't overload the very sensitive blue light detectors. Blue LEDs are also more efficient and have higher operating powers.
A similar point is that nightime illumination looks much better/cosier with lower BB temps. I think that is one reason why places like casinos use lots of low temp lightbulbs rather than the surely cheaper metal halide. This probably is something to do with camp fires.
Why can't people spell fluorescent? There is no flour involved!
Yes, instead they pay $20/mo for broadband instead :)
Right... which is why the Amiga did so well. History has shown that people use what they are familiar with, and if work forces them to use something, they will choose the same thing at home, even if something else is technically superior.
"my X session will freeze."
Does cntl-alt-backspace help here?
It sounds to me like you need to upgrade your X server to support your hardware.
I think that by the time a human reacts most problems are past the point of no return. An awful lot of people die each year in Melbourne due to being hit by trains, trams and busses. Similarly, a blind person lost their legs when the conductor erroneously closed the doors and drove off.
So a computer really only has to prevent avertible disasters, which they already do with great reliability. The vast majority of train accidents are human error/impatience.
I think I would rather a system as robust as the japanese PT system which is computer run, than relying on slow reacting humans. (Not that it helps with suicides)
To make up for lost energy? I don't know, IANAEE.
How would you make an oscillator with unity gain? The only circuit I've ever seen for making oscillators was the astable flipflop thing we did at school, and from memory that required considerable gain.
Very amusing, but please note that the Dodo became extinct due to human influences such as habitat loss and the introduction of invasive species. We haven't had very many ice ages since the 17th century :) The destruction brought about by invading humans follows a very regular pattern. You can read about it in Tim Flannery's "Future Eaters".
Interestingly your analogy is perhaps more apt as Ubuntu could be considered an invasive parasite (using the excellent base Debian provides to its own ends).
Ok, thanks. I can't see how you can make an oscillator without gain though, so they would have to extrapolate the frequency to find the unity gain point? I guess they probably use valves. I can't find any useful information on the upper frequency limit for valves though?
So how do they generate the signal if this is the fastest transistor and has no gain? (I think you need gain to make an oscillator don't you?)
None of those reasons are reasons to go to the moon in the first place - sure, once you are there moon dust has many uses, but why go there in the first place?
:)
One possible reason is the vast amounts of He (3), a rare isotope of Helium that is produced by the sun and collects on the moon in the regolith. He (3) is potentially a huge source of fusion energy, far safer, cheaper or easier than Deuterium or Tritium.
Until we work out how to do it though, I'm putting my money on solar power
I don't know, but I would have read that as 'using the free software drivers at 16 bpp will give you 3d accel, everything else remaining the same'.
Personally I'd rather 24bpp and no accel though.
They certainly are for small numbers of panels, which is what interested me for a remote power system. For larger systems I expect there is a break point where you are better off with a larger inverter. The big advantages of per cell inverters are: that you can scale the system as you grow; panels don't have to be located near each other, only near existing wiring; shaded cells don't drag the whole string down; the inverter can be sized optimally for the panel; and the inverter can implement peak power point tracking more effectively. I expect that being closer to mobile/cell phone tech with the lower voltages would be helpful.
Ideally we would get the tech to the point where each cell (or cell stack) generated its own 400V DC output, these could then be collected and fed into the grid at the panel level. It may be possible to build a significant port of the circuit in the same die as the panel (may also be a bad idea - IANASE).
I expect that with higher production rates the cost of the inverter would disappear in the noise (a cheap 100W inverter costs $20 here, compared with around $1k for a 100W panel)
I asked google nicely and it said:
:)
http://www.heatpipe.com/heatpipes.htm
They're really cool aren't they!
Sort of like vapourphase but without any energy input. Combine with something like coolchips and you have a really nifty new area in the ancient science of thermodynamics.
Indeed the US bootstrapped itself by ignoring 'IP' from Europe. Just ask Charles Dickens :)