Yes, he "purposefully" planted what he knew to be seeds accidentally bread with monsanto genes. The reason he did it is that he could not afford not to plant a crop. Farmers may gross hundreds of thousands of dollars, but they don't net anymore then you or me. Most can't afford to go a year without a mainstay crop like canola. The point was that this farmer couldn't go out of his way to protect monsanto's patent. He needed a crop. Period.
The only reason windows is my main desktop is application specific. Here's a rundown:
1) Email. I use outlook in windows, but Evolution would work fine in linux. If only i could import all my outlook shtuff...
2) "Office". I use MS Off. That said, i have used abiword and gnucalc (thats the spreadsheet, right?), and they're great and fine. Print ok, interoperable with MSO, etc.
3) Acrobat. Fine under linux.
4) JDK. Fine under linux.
--now the problems start-- 5) Autocad. I need it for work. Absolutely can't live without it. Thus, can't live without windows either.
6) Quickbooks. For my business. Same as AC2000.
7) Circuit Design Software, etc. ie, MaxPlus (for school), and programming software for PIC and 6800-chips.
Its not how much ram you have, or how fast your ide drive is. It comes down to bus bandwidth, not processor power or total memmory. The reason is simple:
The vast majority of the time, nothing is going on in your computer. The processor's running at 6% usage, drives are quiet, etc, etc. And yeah, then bus bandwidth doesn't matter. But when you're loading the huge graphics files in the games, then everything is going, and the bus is what's holding everything back. You could have a gig of ram, but if it can't get data in and out really fast, then who cares? The processor is at 100% usage because its trying to make up for the slowness of everything else.
In the end, fast computers don't come down to a fast drive, ram, and cpu. It comes down to a good drive, ram, and cpu THAT WORK WELL TOGETHER. Thats where sun, sgi, and apple have the advantage: they actually design systems to use specific componenets together. Unlike the pc designers, which just makes fast parts, and assumes they work well together. The old Sparc 5's at school, with 64mb ram and a 150mhz processor run faster then my celeron 800 laptop at home.
I work for a lighting company in canada, and have ample experience packing very large, heavy and expensive pieces of gear into truck for long rides. The reality is: anything not strapped in will move. No matter how small and cheap or large and expensive. And as the saying goes: the bigger they are, the more expensive it is when they fall.
carved out of one piece of wood. However, i created a prototype with removable legs, so that means the 1-piece is modular.
Re:Wireless Monitor? Not happening...
on
Wireless Monitors?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Yes, but then if you're drawing vector graphics on a monitor, its no longer a monitor.
First off, that is what this Viewsonic device is effectively doing, via a limited OS.
Secondly, analog TV has nowhere near the resolution of a 1024x768 computer monitor. Ever seen super-sharp 1/8" tall letters on your tv? No? oh, right, because its only got 300-odd scan lines.
WIth the current generation of technology, wireless monitors are totally impractical. Besies, considering the cost of building a super-high-bandwidth limited range RF transciever vs the cost of a 25-pin cable, it'll almost never fly. Small, wireless tablet-pc's OTOH are kinda cool though... just expensive.
Finally, the whole "assuming every pixel changes 60 times per seond thing" doesn't work. Lets say you're in windows/linux with gnome, doing work processing, so, lets say 1/100'th of your pixels change every second on average. Thats fine with good compression, and when you have a whole screen refresh it'll take a bit longer. But then you can't do games like quake, where everything changes every second. Remember, averages don't work in reality.
This is likely to become far more common. More and more old satellites are being shut down, and people tend to spend their satellite funding on running and using the satellite, not bringing it down safely. Maybe i should start selling insurance....
This system will wind up being a "liability leve sticker". ie, all open source software will obviously be marked level-0, as-is, despite the fact that much o/s software is more stable then closed source. Now, it i were a company with existing software, say, MS Word, i would stamp it with level 0 too, knowing that it limits my liability, and that the user will buy it for other reasons then "quality". Products with highter "quality levels" will simply cost too much to be marketable ($1000 for a word processor? $100,000 for an o/s??)
I guess everyone who has one of these will be unable to get an MRI (since it will probably have to have metal in it).
For those who don't know, MRI's and pacemakers aren't compatible since MRI's user super-huge magnets for scanning.
Bassically, what i'm getting at is these chips will probably contain a comlicated, encryptyed, and small ID number. When a person "scans" the chip, the number has to be looked up in a database for the appropriate info, like a credit or debit card. So... the only advantage (i'm not going to get into the big-brother stuff here) is that it makes it harder to fake who you are. However, It'll be hard to legistlate that everyone needs an implant.
Assuming a 200-cd changer thats full, with an average cd length of 55 minutes, assuming it takes 10 seconds to change discs, and assuming that everythings works in time (ie, nothing crashes, and the encoding keeps up with the player), it would take approximately 7 days, 15 hours, 53 minutes to rip a carousel.
I just realized something: with the talk in this article and the other one mentioned, about hacking everyday hardware for use in a lab, why bother? Sure, lab equipment is expensive, but if accuracy and reliablility matter, thats what you pay for. When you buy a bench PSU, it puts out the voltage its marked for. Same with oscilliscopes. The reason its expensive is because its made to exacting specs. Besides, those new Tektronix lcd scopes are only like $2k CDN. And i know old highschools and university dept's selling old scopes for a couple hundred bux. Buy one that you know is good!
Everyone's lookin for an a/d thats already standard on a pc... but there probably isn't anything good. Why not build a black-box of sorts, and just use the pc for display and ui?
What i mean is this: there are pic chips out there with a/d converters (16F877, although i don't know the sampling rate). Now, these chips also have uarts and support serial io. If you wrote a piece of code for the chip, it could easily measure voltage variances, timing, etc, and output that to pc in a simplified format (ie, not realtime, but already simplified). Just a thought.
You missed my point (because i didn't spell it out). Western people have to start thinking globally and acting locally. Basically, the us and canada shouldn't be so concerned with petty little things like how their economies do this quarter or lowering taxes when there are fellow humans out there starving. I'm a student, but i pay taxes. I would have no problem paying an extra 10% if it went towards people in need. If i can do that making under $10k / year (us), then so can people making 10 and 100 times as much.
All i'm saying is that people have to start thinking and acting in the greater interest of all people, not just their countrymen. All humans are equal. Period.
First off, the cost of energy in western countries is largely irrelevant: its what you do with it. The average californian uses 500-times more energy then the average citizen of China.
Thing about it this way: i live in a southern canadian climate, where temps range from +30degC in summer to -40degC in winter. In summer, it generally takes me less time to bike places then to drive, so i do. In winter, it takes marignally more time to bus places then to drive, so i do. Plus all the other environmental benefits (and i can sleep on the bus to school:-). The point is this: two simple things with don't affect me adversely reduce energy usage. There are soooo many people i see commuting alone in their cars everyday who could bus or bike as easily.
There are other small things which make a big difference: insulating houses (yes, in warm climates too, as it makes AC work better). Turning off lights and appliances (except servers o/c:-) when not in use, etc, saves energy. California, former home of an electricity crises, uses more power per capita then any other place on earth. A small effort by everyone in that state to save power (even if everyone cut back by, say, 20%) would save billions of dollars, and possibly the environment.
Finally, energy usage doesn't feed people. That is a far more complicated issue. Feeding people simple required people to grow food near where they live, and to eat it. Stopping wars and putting money into development will help feed people far more then genetically engineered crops or using are engergy or whatever. Oh, and organic food means that pesticides are not used, genius.
Yeah rob, i guess you guys would have to resurrect the show just for that;-)
Anyways, congrats to mark... at least he's doing more then the last tourist, and not just breathing valuable air.
IT security is all fine and dandy for scoring and such, but what about real-world things? I can recall that in Atlanta, the very few busses actually ran at the end of the games (the rest broke down from overuse). Also, things like logistics, feeding people, etc, that were poorly orgainized and often failed. Imagine all the problems they'll be having with things other then IT!
So, since sweden uses 240v power, and since the max you can run on a three-phase temporary power system is 200amps per run, they must have 10-3phase 200a power disconnects there, and most likely the same number of generators. Whew!
This story illustrates a wider problem internationally, that of regimes which quell any sort of human rights and freedoms. US & Allies are currently engaged in a war in persuit of one man, accused of murder. The side affect of this (which is widely publicised in the Canadian press) is that Afghan citizens (especially women) are regaining many fundamental freedoms. However, liberating oppressed people was clearly not the intent of the war.
If one man is worth starting a war over, then isn't it also worthwhile to fight for people's freedom? Saudi-Arabia, China, Pakistan, and Indonesia are amongst the nations that the west does business with, and yet the oppress billions of people. Why can't we justify war with these countries, or even extreme trade embargoes, if only to ensure their people's freedom? How many barrels of oil or cheap shirts is a woman/man's freedom worth??
I'm not making an anti-US statement here. Canada, Britain, the EU, and australia, amongst others, are exactly the same.
One of the hallmarks of International Development is the impact that western "aid" has on "undeveloped" communities. The effect of introducing new crops, for example, might mean people spend less time farming, thus needing other work to do, etc. The impact can be huge.
However, i digress. You were talking about imposing the UN decleration of human rights on Afghanistan (citing cultural examples of Amish and Orthodox Jews). That said, here is the difference: an Amish or Orthodox Jewish Woman in the US or Canada or Sweden (or Israel or any democratic free country) can choose wether or not to observe their religion. IE, the state does not force anything upon them, they have a choice of weather to dress modestly, pray seperately from men, etc. In afghanistan, the women had no such choice. If a woman there sees fit to wear a burqa and not learn and stay in the house, thats her choice. However, any woman who does not want to should be able to choose not to. THATS THE UN DECLARATION. We aren't forcing anything but the freedom to choose on opposed people.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, he "purposefully" planted what he knew to be seeds accidentally bread with monsanto genes. The reason he did it is that he could not afford not to plant a crop. Farmers may gross hundreds of thousands of dollars, but they don't net anymore then you or me. Most can't afford to go a year without a mainstay crop like canola. The point was that this farmer couldn't go out of his way to protect monsanto's patent. He needed a crop. Period.
Careful or mastercard will ask you, er, sue-your-ass-off, to get you to remove your post.1 &mode=nested&tid=133
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/04/10/16221
The only reason windows is my main desktop is application specific. Here's a rundown:
1) Email. I use outlook in windows, but Evolution would work fine in linux. If only i could import all my outlook shtuff...
2) "Office". I use MS Off. That said, i have used abiword and gnucalc (thats the spreadsheet, right?), and they're great and fine. Print ok, interoperable with MSO, etc.
3) Acrobat. Fine under linux.
4) JDK. Fine under linux.
--now the problems start--
5) Autocad. I need it for work. Absolutely can't live without it. Thus, can't live without windows either.
6) Quickbooks. For my business. Same as AC2000.
7) Circuit Design Software, etc. ie, MaxPlus (for school), and programming software for PIC and 6800-chips.
Thats why!
Its not how much ram you have, or how fast your ide drive is. It comes down to bus bandwidth, not processor power or total memmory. The reason is simple:
The vast majority of the time, nothing is going on in your computer. The processor's running at 6% usage, drives are quiet, etc, etc. And yeah, then bus bandwidth doesn't matter. But when you're loading the huge graphics files in the games, then everything is going, and the bus is what's holding everything back. You could have a gig of ram, but if it can't get data in and out really fast, then who cares? The processor is at 100% usage because its trying to make up for the slowness of everything else.
In the end, fast computers don't come down to a fast drive, ram, and cpu. It comes down to a good drive, ram, and cpu THAT WORK WELL TOGETHER. Thats where sun, sgi, and apple have the advantage: they actually design systems to use specific componenets together. Unlike the pc designers, which just makes fast parts, and assumes they work well together. The old Sparc 5's at school, with 64mb ram and a 150mhz processor run faster then my celeron 800 laptop at home.
As in, you can remove all of windows as one big module?
I work for a lighting company in canada, and have ample experience packing very large, heavy and expensive pieces of gear into truck for long rides. The reality is: anything not strapped in will move. No matter how small and cheap or large and expensive. And as the saying goes: the bigger they are, the more expensive it is when they fall.
carved out of one piece of wood.
However, i created a prototype with removable legs, so that means the 1-piece is modular.
Yes, but then if you're drawing vector graphics on a monitor, its no longer a monitor.
First off, that is what this Viewsonic device is effectively doing, via a limited OS.
Secondly, analog TV has nowhere near the resolution of a 1024x768 computer monitor. Ever seen super-sharp 1/8" tall letters on your tv? No? oh, right, because its only got 300-odd scan lines. WIth the current generation of technology, wireless monitors are totally impractical. Besies, considering the cost of building a super-high-bandwidth limited range RF transciever vs the cost of a 25-pin cable, it'll almost never fly. Small, wireless tablet-pc's OTOH are kinda cool though... just expensive. Finally, the whole "assuming every pixel changes 60 times per seond thing" doesn't work. Lets say you're in windows/linux with gnome, doing work processing, so, lets say 1/100'th of your pixels change every second on average. Thats fine with good compression, and when you have a whole screen refresh it'll take a bit longer. But then you can't do games like quake, where everything changes every second. Remember, averages don't work in reality.
jokes start all over again????
with $20/month dialup, once people realize that they only use their connection at home for checking email/news occationally.
This is likely to become far more common. More and more old satellites are being shut down, and people tend to spend their satellite funding on running and using the satellite, not bringing it down safely. Maybe i should start selling insurance....
This system will wind up being a "liability leve sticker". ie, all open source software will obviously be marked level-0, as-is, despite the fact that much o/s software is more stable then closed source. Now, it i were a company with existing software, say, MS Word, i would stamp it with level 0 too, knowing that it limits my liability, and that the user will buy it for other reasons then "quality". Products with highter "quality levels" will simply cost too much to be marketable ($1000 for a word processor? $100,000 for an o/s??)
do this all the time???
& aid=-1
http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?section=&qid=643
I guess everyone who has one of these will be unable to get an MRI (since it will probably have to have metal in it). For those who don't know, MRI's and pacemakers aren't compatible since MRI's user super-huge magnets for scanning.
Bassically, what i'm getting at is these chips will probably contain a comlicated, encryptyed, and small ID number. When a person "scans" the chip, the number has to be looked up in a database for the appropriate info, like a credit or debit card. So... the only advantage (i'm not going to get into the big-brother stuff here) is that it makes it harder to fake who you are. However, It'll be hard to legistlate that everyone needs an implant.
Assuming a 200-cd changer thats full, with an average cd length of 55 minutes, assuming it takes 10 seconds to change discs, and assuming that everythings works in time (ie, nothing crashes, and the encoding keeps up with the player), it would take approximately 7 days, 15 hours, 53 minutes to rip a carousel.
I just realized something: with the talk in this article and the other one mentioned, about hacking everyday hardware for use in a lab, why bother? Sure, lab equipment is expensive, but if accuracy and reliablility matter, thats what you pay for. When you buy a bench PSU, it puts out the voltage its marked for. Same with oscilliscopes. The reason its expensive is because its made to exacting specs. Besides, those new Tektronix lcd scopes are only like $2k CDN. And i know old highschools and university dept's selling old scopes for a couple hundred bux. Buy one that you know is good!
Everyone's lookin for an a/d thats already standard on a pc... but there probably isn't anything good. Why not build a black-box of sorts, and just use the pc for display and ui?
What i mean is this: there are pic chips out there with a/d converters (16F877, although i don't know the sampling rate). Now, these chips also have uarts and support serial io. If you wrote a piece of code for the chip, it could easily measure voltage variances, timing, etc, and output that to pc in a simplified format (ie, not realtime, but already simplified). Just a thought.
You missed my point (because i didn't spell it out). Western people have to start thinking globally and acting locally. Basically, the us and canada shouldn't be so concerned with petty little things like how their economies do this quarter or lowering taxes when there are fellow humans out there starving. I'm a student, but i pay taxes. I would have no problem paying an extra 10% if it went towards people in need. If i can do that making under $10k / year (us), then so can people making 10 and 100 times as much.
All i'm saying is that people have to start thinking and acting in the greater interest of all people, not just their countrymen. All humans are equal. Period.
First off, the cost of energy in western countries is largely irrelevant: its what you do with it. The average californian uses 500-times more energy then the average citizen of China.
:-). The point is this: two simple things with don't affect me adversely reduce energy usage. There are soooo many people i see commuting alone in their cars everyday who could bus or bike as easily.
:-) when not in use, etc, saves energy. California, former home of an electricity crises, uses more power per capita then any other place on earth. A small effort by everyone in that state to save power (even if everyone cut back by, say, 20%) would save billions of dollars, and possibly the environment.
Thing about it this way: i live in a southern canadian climate, where temps range from +30degC in summer to -40degC in winter. In summer, it generally takes me less time to bike places then to drive, so i do. In winter, it takes marignally more time to bus places then to drive, so i do. Plus all the other environmental benefits (and i can sleep on the bus to school
There are other small things which make a big difference: insulating houses (yes, in warm climates too, as it makes AC work better). Turning off lights and appliances (except servers o/c
Finally, energy usage doesn't feed people. That is a far more complicated issue. Feeding people simple required people to grow food near where they live, and to eat it. Stopping wars and putting money into development will help feed people far more then genetically engineered crops or using are engergy or whatever. Oh, and organic food means that pesticides are not used, genius.
Yeah rob, i guess you guys would have to resurrect the show just for that ;-)
Anyways, congrats to mark... at least he's doing more then the last tourist, and not just breathing valuable air.
IT security is all fine and dandy for scoring and such, but what about real-world things? I can recall that in Atlanta, the very few busses actually ran at the end of the games (the rest broke down from overuse). Also, things like logistics, feeding people, etc, that were poorly orgainized and often failed. Imagine all the problems they'll be having with things other then IT!
So, since sweden uses 240v power, and since the max you can run on a three-phase temporary power system is 200amps per run, they must have 10-3phase 200a power disconnects there, and most likely the same number of generators. Whew!
This story illustrates a wider problem internationally, that of regimes which quell any sort of human rights and freedoms. US & Allies are currently engaged in a war in persuit of one man, accused of murder. The side affect of this (which is widely publicised in the Canadian press) is that Afghan citizens (especially women) are regaining many fundamental freedoms. However, liberating oppressed people was clearly not the intent of the war.
If one man is worth starting a war over, then isn't it also worthwhile to fight for people's freedom? Saudi-Arabia, China, Pakistan, and Indonesia are amongst the nations that the west does business with, and yet the oppress billions of people. Why can't we justify war with these countries, or even extreme trade embargoes, if only to ensure their people's freedom? How many barrels of oil or cheap shirts is a woman/man's freedom worth??
I'm not making an anti-US statement here. Canada, Britain, the EU, and australia, amongst others, are exactly the same.
One of the hallmarks of International Development is the impact that western "aid" has on "undeveloped" communities. The effect of introducing new crops, for example, might mean people spend less time farming, thus needing other work to do, etc. The impact can be huge.
However, i digress. You were talking about imposing the UN decleration of human rights on Afghanistan (citing cultural examples of Amish and Orthodox Jews). That said, here is the difference: an Amish or Orthodox Jewish Woman in the US or Canada or Sweden (or Israel or any democratic free country) can choose wether or not to observe their religion. IE, the state does not force anything upon them, they have a choice of weather to dress modestly, pray seperately from men, etc. In afghanistan, the women had no such choice. If a woman there sees fit to wear a burqa and not learn and stay in the house, thats her choice. However, any woman who does not want to should be able to choose not to. THATS THE UN DECLARATION. We aren't forcing anything but the freedom to choose on opposed people.
-Michael Roy