Well, I'm just glad that nobody's going to try doing this in my lifetime... Any worries that I have will be worked out by then. Of course, maybe they'll be stupid and try to move the Earth in one big motion, which would pass a large asteroid very near to the surface. If that happened, I'd worry about fun things like volcanoes and magnitude 10+ earthquakes... When you pull on something like the Earth (which probably has the consistency of a tennis ball), it is going to stretch in interesting ways. --
IIRC, the kernel makefile sets things up to run as -j2 by default. I could be wrong though. Yes, it would have been nice if they had given a table of compile times, using -j[2345]... --
Indeed.. Well, considering the fact that the new Linux distributions are coming with XFree86 4.0, which has built-in YUV->RGB conversion support through the XVideo extension, I think it may be yet again time to campaign for a QuickTime client for Linux. Maybe something will happen once MacOS X comes out, since it's based on BSD. I suppose I shouldn't hold my breath..
I hope you're right. I just worry that people won't understand what is going on. The general populace probably doesn't have any interest in thinking about technical issues like this, and they won't hear about it from their normal news source (What else? TV!) --
Hmm.. I should read the article. But if it says basically what the summary says, which is that MS won't be keeping Java around, I think MS made a Really Bad Move.
Microsoft is still behaving as though they own the planet. Maybe they will be able to hold on, but I think they are just digging themselves into a hole. The trends I'm seeing in the tech market are toward open standards (though that might just be because of where I get my tech news). Microsoft appears to be continuing in the other direction, toward full integration of their entire software line upon proprietary standards.
The market is turning into two camps: Microsoft and Anything But Microsoft. Lines are being drawn, and I think MS will shortly be on the retreat, rethinking these ideas... --
I see that this is available at Sourceforge.. I downloaded the RPMs, and I noticed that they wanted libGLcore.so.1, which appears to be an X module for the NVidia X servers. The stock XFree86 4.0.x servers come with a similar file libGLcore.a.
Anyway, I'm just wondering -- does this mean that this EVAS stuff only works with NVidia cards? Is there any chance I'll get it to work with my G400? --
How would these systems handle the huge swings in temperature? I think that the temperature extremes these things would go through in space are beyond the tested tolerances for most consumer hardware.. --
Perhaps the problem isn't the radiation source, but the detectors used.
In any case, it's probably a good idea to upgrade, especially if more features are in new smoke detectors (such as the ability to detect both smoldering and flaming fires, and perhaps a carbon monoxide detection system as well). --
It amazes me how many of the confluences in the US are out in rural areas. Sometimes, the terrain makes it very hard to get there.. It will be interesting when they complete the project (or when they at least finish the US). We'll probably notice that there's a lot more space out there than we think..
And then someone will decide the next logical step is to start founding new towns at the unpopulated confluences.... --
Perhaps unfortunately, one of the best ways to boycott HDTV sets and tell your friends why you are doing so.
Ever since I heard about the concept of HDTV, I have been excited about the possibility of it finally coming to fruition. It's both good and bad that HDTV is coming out now. It's good because TV signals are overdue for an upgrade, IMHO. Our analog sets of today are very much based around 1930's technology. Fortunately, there have been a lot of smaller improvements in the meantime;-)
On the bad side, I'm not sure that our technology is quite as good as it should be for what we are trying to accomplish. I get annoyed when I see compression artifacts in DVD movies running in the several Megabit/second range. I worry that we will end up with lower video quality than we should have -- if HDTV video gets used in court at all, what would prevent us from seeing things that aren't there (or vice-versa) because of compression artifacts? Though I'm probably just paranoid on the subject.
Also, we have the problem that sparked me to write this message -- overzealous copyright holders that are all too willing to pull one over on an unsuspecting public. The same public that doesn't bother with the news, especially when it comes to technology (and they get it over TV anyway, which probably wouldn't report on itself..)
So, we have to avoid buying these sets. It's not all that hard for me, as I don't have enough money for one. We also have to inform people. If you know anyone who has been thinking about getting an HDTV (look for your buddy with the Jaguar;-), it's up to you to let them know about these problems. Write letters to all sorts of places, if you're annoyed enough. Local editorial pages, representatives, the FCC, etc.
If things go all to hell, you may still be able to knock a station off the air by telling the FCC that the station has not been working in the public interest. I'm already planning on doing something similar to my local CBS affiliate, as they always found time in their newscasts to cover the stupid Survivor show rather than real news last fall. --
Well, as an American, I must say that I learned Physics in metric. I was annoyed as hell when I went to college and had a foreign professor who thought us Americans wanted to do all of our problems in English units... It took me a year to figure out that the English unit of mass was a slug... --
I'm a big Linux guy, but I have to wonder why the NSA decided to do this at all when they could have just as easily played around with one or all of the BSDs. The licensing is such that they would never have to release their modified code, right? --
Well, trollies were definitely pushed out of a few cities by force from GM and others. Minneapolis is one example. I guess I don't know how loud the trollies were, but I'd bet they were quieter than the diesel junkers that rumble past my apartment at all hours of the day.. Hopefully, more buses will run off of `quieter' fuels or electricity in the coming years..
Pneumatic systems are pretty neat, but e-mail and alphanumeric pagers are wonderful things..
I understand that the Amiga was pretty good, though I don't really understand the idea of hooking a computer up to a TV as the primary display..
The ribbon mic sounds pretty cool..
Wax cylinder? Hah! You couldn't even stamp them out, could you?
Slide rules should probably be a little more common. Heck, with all of the calculators these days where you can store notes within them, slide rules are a good way to make sure that nobody is cheating..
The reel mower sure looks cool, but I have my doubts about it.. My family just got an electric mulching mower, which is quite a bit quieter than a gas-powered one (though not exactly whisper-quiet..), and it seems to do the job. (I haven't tried yet, but I think it's actually quiet enough to listen to a walkman while mowing..)
The automatic watch is not a bad idea, and there are new designs that use the same technique to charge a battery which runs a quartz movement. Still, most watches will last a few years on just one battery..
Lastly, the airship is coming back, last I heard.. However, they're using modern materials like carbon fiber. Maybe hydrogen should come back too, but perhaps not in the US (where gun nuts are happy to shoot at anything.. NASA has to cover their parts, including stuff for the shuttle, with bullet-proof cowlings whenever they are transported by train..) --
I'm curious what other people are using for databases of mp3s (and any other format of file, for that matter). I took a look at RIMPS as a frontend, and I wasn't terribly impressed (maybe it's because I was using their 1.0 version rather than whatever is in CVS). Bad things seemed to happen, like it would attempt to re-insert the same file sometimes and would crap out on me.. It also apparently couldn't handle non-numeric characters in the year field of an ID3 tag...
Anyway, I'm thinking of reworking a simple database system I already made, but it would include support for multiple `creators', which is especially important when you think about how many people are `featured' artists, or other collaborative efforts. Most systems require you to decide which single artist is `The Artist' I also want to add in some sort of support for multiple songs in a single file (such as the single 70 minute file I have of my copy of Paul Oakenfold's Tranceport CD).
Also, I really get annoyed when files get sorted character-by-character, and the sort includes a leading `A' or `The'. In addition, I was thinking of adding support for fixing the case of letters in song titles. Ordinarily, words like `on', `in', `for', etc., are supposed to be lowercase in titles, but most people seem to capitalize them.. Who knows if that would ever happen, though..
Just doing some playing with the numbers. Seeing what is apparently current for Gore, Bush, Nader, Buchanan, Browne, Philips, Hagelin, and Harris (this probably excludes any write-ins for those candidates), it is interesting to apply the popular vote numbers to what they could represent in an Electoral College.
If the EC votes were based off of the popular vote across the nation, it would break down like this (I'm not rounding up -- using floor()):
Gore 259, Bush 258, Nader 14, Buchanan 2, Browne 2, with 3 leftovers (ie, each other candidate gets less than one 538th of the vote).
Of course, this would mean that the (House? Senate? I forget) would have to vote for President and VP.. --
``Benjamin Harrison's election in 1888 is really the only clear-cut instance in which the Electoral College vote went contrary to the popular vote. This happened because the incumbent, Democrat Grover Cleveland, ran up huge popular majorities in several of the 18 States which supported him while the Republican challenger, Benjamin Harrison, won only slender majorities in some of the larger of the 20 States which supported him (most notably in Cleveland's home State of New York). Even so, the difference between them was only 110,476 votes out of 11,381,032 cast - less than 1% of the total. Interestingly, in this case, there were few critical issues (other than tariffs) separating the candidates so that the election seems to have been fought - and won - more on the basis of superior party organization in getting out the vote than on the issues of the day.''
Something I thought I'd mention about the state of Wisconsin (and this is probably true in other states as well). Many pundits have plastered the effect of Nader all over the place, but in some cases, Nader is not the only effect.
In Wisconsin, the votes are now in favor of Al Gore by 6000, after over 2.5 million have been counted. This brings into effect not only Nader (93000), but Buchanan (11000) as well as Browne (6500). --
It's finally over (well, for me). I voted, though I must admit that much of it wasn't a very informed vote. The entire back side of my ballot was full of boxes for judicial positions, which I had not researched. I think I may have researched the wrong candidates as well in at least one case. The information I found on the web was very convoluted -- I couldn't understand the numbering that they used.
Anyway, for the Presidential race, I voted for Nader. I was surprised to find his checkbox at the bottom. I thought that the ballot was supposed to go in alphabetical order by party name, but I guess it must have been the order in which the people registered to be in the running.
For my state House representative, I voted for Ficus.. There were two choices on the ballot -- Democratic incumbent or a young Republican college student. I'm not a Republican, and the incumbent has been there for many years.
I'm not sure if the line was longer than normal or anything, but I waited for a good while before getting to the ballot box. I expect voter turnout to be up this year, but I also expect Nader to get a better showing than he's been getting in polls lately. I could easily be wrong on both counts.
There has been a lot of worry about GWB on my campus. However, if this story is even remotely true, my companion students have overreacted to the threat. So many people said, ``I can't vote for Nader because of the Supreme Court.'' If it turns out that 90% of the vote went to Gore around here, then they need to re-examine their reasons, I think. (Obviously, 20 people is an insanely small sample)
The machine at my voting location was broken. Apparently it was brand-new (and apparently untested). Anyway, I just hope they can count everything up okay. --
Just because I thought it would be interesting to try, I decided to keep track of some of the variables in this poll. I only tracked five of the possibilities, so this could be off, but I think it shows that Bush supporters are linking to this site and having their supporters tip the poll.
Some snapshots since the poll went up:
1667 total votes (excluding too young, waste of time, not citizen)
27% (457) for Bush
31% (520) for Gore
23% (389) for Nader
12% (213) for Browne
5% (88) for Jeff (none of the above, undecided?)
---
8024 total
27% (2206) for Bush
31% (2503) for Gore
24% (1888) for Nader
13% (1021) for Browne
5% (406) for Jeff
---
12654 total
28% (3595) for Bush
31% (3880) for Gore
23% (2969) for Nader
12% (1537) for Browne
5% (653) for Jeff
---
24048 total
29% (7023) for Bush
31% (7346) for Gore
23% (5441) for Nader
12% (2932) for Browne
5% (1306) for Jeff
---
38270 total
31% (11993) for Bush
30% (11563) for Gore
22% (8359) for Nader
12% (4474) for Browne
5% (1881) for Jeff
Personally, I'd be more inclined to believe the early polls that are not likely influenced by ballot-stuffers. Since things began, Nader went up one point, back down a point, and has appeared to go down one more point. Gore has only gone down by one point. Browne broke 13% at one point, but then came back down. Jeff (which I'm taking to mean undecided or other) has remained steady. If we attempt to adjust for ballot-stuffing on the part of Bush, some interesting values may come up. I wouldn't be surprised if supporters of any of the other candidates have moved numbers around as well.. --
If peer-to-peer does go away, it will be because service providers (telcos running DSL and cable companies with their cable modems) restrict upload speeds to intolerable levels.
At my home, upload speeds are limited to 112kbps (about 14kB/s). It isn't terrible, though uploading a single MP3 can bog down your downstream rate too (since the two-way handshaking that goes on takes up a small but significant amount of the TX/RX time). --
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I'm just glad that nobody's going to try doing this in my lifetime... Any worries that I have will be worked out by then. Of course, maybe they'll be stupid and try to move the Earth in one big motion, which would pass a large asteroid very near to the surface. If that happened, I'd worry about fun things like volcanoes and magnitude 10+ earthquakes... When you pull on something like the Earth (which probably has the consistency of a tennis ball), it is going to stretch in interesting ways.
--
IIRC, the kernel makefile sets things up to run as -j2 by default. I could be wrong though. Yes, it would have been nice if they had given a table of compile times, using -j[2345]...
--
Quoth CmdrTaco:
Indeed.. Well, considering the fact that the new Linux distributions are coming with XFree86 4.0, which has built-in YUV->RGB conversion support through the XVideo extension, I think it may be yet again time to campaign for a QuickTime client for Linux. Maybe something will happen once MacOS X comes out, since it's based on BSD. I suppose I shouldn't hold my breath..
--
I hope you're right. I just worry that people won't understand what is going on. The general populace probably doesn't have any interest in thinking about technical issues like this, and they won't hear about it from their normal news source (What else? TV!)
--
Hmm.. I should read the article. But if it says basically what the summary says, which is that MS won't be keeping Java around, I think MS made a Really Bad Move.
Microsoft is still behaving as though they own the planet. Maybe they will be able to hold on, but I think they are just digging themselves into a hole. The trends I'm seeing in the tech market are toward open standards (though that might just be because of where I get my tech news). Microsoft appears to be continuing in the other direction, toward full integration of their entire software line upon proprietary standards.
The market is turning into two camps: Microsoft and Anything But Microsoft. Lines are being drawn, and I think MS will shortly be on the retreat, rethinking these ideas...
--
...So I can wait even longer to get cable installed, eh? The cable guy already missed his three-hour window for installation today...
--
I see that this is available at Sourceforge.. I downloaded the RPMs, and I noticed that they wanted libGLcore.so.1, which appears to be an X module for the NVidia X servers. The stock XFree86 4.0.x servers come with a similar file libGLcore.a .
Anyway, I'm just wondering -- does this mean that this EVAS stuff only works with NVidia cards? Is there any chance I'll get it to work with my G400?
--
Okay, so when will someone make a good reiserfsck?
--
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson
``Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God''
--
How would these systems handle the huge swings in temperature? I think that the temperature extremes these things would go through in space are beyond the tested tolerances for most consumer hardware..
--
Perhaps the problem isn't the radiation source, but the detectors used.
In any case, it's probably a good idea to upgrade, especially if more features are in new smoke detectors (such as the ability to detect both smoldering and flaming fires, and perhaps a carbon monoxide detection system as well).
--
It amazes me how many of the confluences in the US are out in rural areas. Sometimes, the terrain makes it very hard to get there.. It will be interesting when they complete the project (or when they at least finish the US). We'll probably notice that there's a lot more space out there than we think..
And then someone will decide the next logical step is to start founding new towns at the unpopulated confluences....
--
Or, heck, a version of the trailer that isn't in Quicktime? (not that they can't be found elsewhere, I suppose..)
--
Perhaps unfortunately, one of the best ways to boycott HDTV sets and tell your friends why you are doing so.
;-)
;-), it's up to you to let them know about these problems. Write letters to all sorts of places, if you're annoyed enough. Local editorial pages, representatives, the FCC, etc.
Ever since I heard about the concept of HDTV, I have been excited about the possibility of it finally coming to fruition. It's both good and bad that HDTV is coming out now. It's good because TV signals are overdue for an upgrade, IMHO. Our analog sets of today are very much based around 1930's technology. Fortunately, there have been a lot of smaller improvements in the meantime
On the bad side, I'm not sure that our technology is quite as good as it should be for what we are trying to accomplish. I get annoyed when I see compression artifacts in DVD movies running in the several Megabit/second range. I worry that we will end up with lower video quality than we should have -- if HDTV video gets used in court at all, what would prevent us from seeing things that aren't there (or vice-versa) because of compression artifacts? Though I'm probably just paranoid on the subject.
Also, we have the problem that sparked me to write this message -- overzealous copyright holders that are all too willing to pull one over on an unsuspecting public. The same public that doesn't bother with the news, especially when it comes to technology (and they get it over TV anyway, which probably wouldn't report on itself..)
So, we have to avoid buying these sets. It's not all that hard for me, as I don't have enough money for one. We also have to inform people. If you know anyone who has been thinking about getting an HDTV (look for your buddy with the Jaguar
If things go all to hell, you may still be able to knock a station off the air by telling the FCC that the station has not been working in the public interest. I'm already planning on doing something similar to my local CBS affiliate, as they always found time in their newscasts to cover the stupid Survivor show rather than real news last fall.
--
Well, as an American, I must say that I learned Physics in metric. I was annoyed as hell when I went to college and had a foreign professor who thought us Americans wanted to do all of our problems in English units... It took me a year to figure out that the English unit of mass was a slug...
--
I'm a big Linux guy, but I have to wonder why the NSA decided to do this at all when they could have just as easily played around with one or all of the BSDs. The licensing is such that they would never have to release their modified code, right?
--
Well, trollies were definitely pushed out of a few cities by force from GM and others. Minneapolis is one example. I guess I don't know how loud the trollies were, but I'd bet they were quieter than the diesel junkers that rumble past my apartment at all hours of the day.. Hopefully, more buses will run off of `quieter' fuels or electricity in the coming years..
Pneumatic systems are pretty neat, but e-mail and alphanumeric pagers are wonderful things..
I understand that the Amiga was pretty good, though I don't really understand the idea of hooking a computer up to a TV as the primary display..
The ribbon mic sounds pretty cool..
Wax cylinder? Hah! You couldn't even stamp them out, could you?
Slide rules should probably be a little more common. Heck, with all of the calculators these days where you can store notes within them, slide rules are a good way to make sure that nobody is cheating..
The reel mower sure looks cool, but I have my doubts about it.. My family just got an electric mulching mower, which is quite a bit quieter than a gas-powered one (though not exactly whisper-quiet..), and it seems to do the job. (I haven't tried yet, but I think it's actually quiet enough to listen to a walkman while mowing..)
The automatic watch is not a bad idea, and there are new designs that use the same technique to charge a battery which runs a quartz movement. Still, most watches will last a few years on just one battery..
Lastly, the airship is coming back, last I heard.. However, they're using modern materials like carbon fiber. Maybe hydrogen should come back too, but perhaps not in the US (where gun nuts are happy to shoot at anything.. NASA has to cover their parts, including stuff for the shuttle, with bullet-proof cowlings whenever they are transported by train..)
--
I'm curious what other people are using for databases of mp3s (and any other format of file, for that matter). I took a look at RIMPS as a frontend, and I wasn't terribly impressed (maybe it's because I was using their 1.0 version rather than whatever is in CVS). Bad things seemed to happen, like it would attempt to re-insert the same file sometimes and would crap out on me.. It also apparently couldn't handle non-numeric characters in the year field of an ID3 tag...
Anyway, I'm thinking of reworking a simple database system I already made, but it would include support for multiple `creators', which is especially important when you think about how many people are `featured' artists, or other collaborative efforts. Most systems require you to decide which single artist is `The Artist' I also want to add in some sort of support for multiple songs in a single file (such as the single 70 minute file I have of my copy of Paul Oakenfold's Tranceport CD).
Also, I really get annoyed when files get sorted character-by-character, and the sort includes a leading `A' or `The'. In addition, I was thinking of adding support for fixing the case of letters in song titles. Ordinarily, words like `on', `in', `for', etc., are supposed to be lowercase in titles, but most people seem to capitalize them.. Who knows if that would ever happen, though..
But maybe something like that already exists?
--
Just doing some playing with the numbers. Seeing what is apparently current for Gore, Bush, Nader, Buchanan, Browne, Philips, Hagelin, and Harris (this probably excludes any write-ins for those candidates), it is interesting to apply the popular vote numbers to what they could represent in an Electoral College.
If the EC votes were based off of the popular vote across the nation, it would break down like this (I'm not rounding up -- using floor()):
Gore 259, Bush 258, Nader 14, Buchanan 2, Browne 2, with 3 leftovers (ie, each other candidate gets less than one 538th of the vote).
Of course, this would mean that the (House? Senate? I forget) would have to vote for President and VP..
--
Wow. This sounds familiar...
``Benjamin Harrison's election in 1888 is really the only clear-cut instance in which the Electoral College vote went contrary to the popular vote. This happened because the incumbent, Democrat Grover Cleveland, ran up huge popular majorities in several of the 18 States which supported him while the Republican challenger, Benjamin Harrison, won only slender majorities in some of the larger of the 20 States which supported him (most notably in Cleveland's home State of New York). Even so, the difference between them was only 110,476 votes out of 11,381,032 cast - less than 1% of the total. Interestingly, in this case, there were few critical issues (other than tariffs) separating the candidates so that the election seems to have been fought - and won - more on the basis of superior party organization in getting out the vote than on the issues of the day.''
From here
--
Random Electoral College link
--
Something I thought I'd mention about the state of Wisconsin (and this is probably true in other states as well). Many pundits have plastered the effect of Nader all over the place, but in some cases, Nader is not the only effect.
In Wisconsin, the votes are now in favor of Al Gore by 6000, after over 2.5 million have been counted. This brings into effect not only Nader (93000), but Buchanan (11000) as well as Browne (6500).
--
It's finally over (well, for me). I voted, though I must admit that much of it wasn't a very informed vote. The entire back side of my ballot was full of boxes for judicial positions, which I had not researched. I think I may have researched the wrong candidates as well in at least one case. The information I found on the web was very convoluted -- I couldn't understand the numbering that they used.
Anyway, for the Presidential race, I voted for Nader. I was surprised to find his checkbox at the bottom. I thought that the ballot was supposed to go in alphabetical order by party name, but I guess it must have been the order in which the people registered to be in the running.
For my state House representative, I voted for Ficus.. There were two choices on the ballot -- Democratic incumbent or a young Republican college student. I'm not a Republican, and the incumbent has been there for many years.
I'm not sure if the line was longer than normal or anything, but I waited for a good while before getting to the ballot box. I expect voter turnout to be up this year, but I also expect Nader to get a better showing than he's been getting in polls lately. I could easily be wrong on both counts.
There has been a lot of worry about GWB on my campus. However, if this story is even remotely true, my companion students have overreacted to the threat. So many people said, ``I can't vote for Nader because of the Supreme Court.'' If it turns out that 90% of the vote went to Gore around here, then they need to re-examine their reasons, I think. (Obviously, 20 people is an insanely small sample)
The machine at my voting location was broken. Apparently it was brand-new (and apparently untested). Anyway, I just hope they can count everything up okay.
--
Just because I thought it would be interesting to try, I decided to keep track of some of the variables in this poll. I only tracked five of the possibilities, so this could be off, but I think it shows that Bush supporters are linking to this site and having their supporters tip the poll.
Some snapshots since the poll went up:
1667 total votes (excluding too young, waste of time, not citizen)
27% (457) for Bush
31% (520) for Gore
23% (389) for Nader
12% (213) for Browne
5% (88) for Jeff (none of the above, undecided?)
---
8024 total
27% (2206) for Bush
31% (2503) for Gore
24% (1888) for Nader
13% (1021) for Browne
5% (406) for Jeff
---
12654 total
28% (3595) for Bush
31% (3880) for Gore
23% (2969) for Nader
12% (1537) for Browne
5% (653) for Jeff
---
24048 total
29% (7023) for Bush
31% (7346) for Gore
23% (5441) for Nader
12% (2932) for Browne
5% (1306) for Jeff
---
38270 total
31% (11993) for Bush
30% (11563) for Gore
22% (8359) for Nader
12% (4474) for Browne
5% (1881) for Jeff
Personally, I'd be more inclined to believe the early polls that are not likely influenced by ballot-stuffers. Since things began, Nader went up one point, back down a point, and has appeared to go down one more point. Gore has only gone down by one point. Browne broke 13% at one point, but then came back down. Jeff (which I'm taking to mean undecided or other) has remained steady. If we attempt to adjust for ballot-stuffing on the part of Bush, some interesting values may come up. I wouldn't be surprised if supporters of any of the other candidates have moved numbers around as well..
--
If peer-to-peer does go away, it will be because service providers (telcos running DSL and cable companies with their cable modems) restrict upload speeds to intolerable levels.
At my home, upload speeds are limited to 112kbps (about 14kB/s). It isn't terrible, though uploading a single MP3 can bog down your downstream rate too (since the two-way handshaking that goes on takes up a small but significant amount of the TX/RX time).
--