DeBeers [i]doesn't{/i] do business in the US. They did until a DoJ looked into anti-trust suit. Then they informed each of their American buyers that they would have to buy from an assigned agent in (usually) London. These agents are not employees of DeBeers but independent distributors who have agreed to undisclosed terms with DeBeers.
It's not exactly a free trade purchase either. An American buyer must either buy the entire lot they are offered or decline it, with the clear threat that the agent won't bother making offers to them again, if they decline. Even though most American buyers have expressed a reticence to speak, because they might not be offered any more lots (I don't have any responsibility to offer to sell you anything, even if I offer it to your neighbor) a substantial body of disclosures and dealer complaints have built up over the decades.
The thriving trade in diamonds between American dealers exists primarily because they can't choose to pick and choose what they buy from the agents, and are therefore forced to trade/buy the stones from their mixed lots to get the stones they want.
How can they get away with this? A) through agreements and open market purchases, they control tha vast majority of the world's large lots; and B) they don't transact sales directly in the US, so our laws don't apply. They only directly transact in antions where the laws allow them to conduct business as they wish - generally small nations where their money and/or a strong local traditional diamond trade affords them considerable influence - and not just third world nations: they have a special status in the Netherlands, because Amsterdam has been a major diamond center for centuries.
Apple II's awkward pixel position dependent color scheme) sprites had to be stored as tables of pre-shifted bitmaps (these are the "shape tables" you mention) for every possible position within a byte.
I'm afraid not. Shape tables were an entirely different type drawing, that resembled vector graphics. Though the shape itself could only be defined with 90 degree angles, IIRC, it could, once defined be resized and rotated freely (IIRC the rotation unit wasn't degrees [360/circle], but 256/circle) It's been a while, but I believe the relavant Applesoft commands were DRAW, SIZE, ROT
They were completely different from the preshifted bitmaps you describe, which were neither resizable not rotatable. A shape's lines remained the same thickness not matter what size it was drawn in.
Actually, the team designing the B-1 that was deployed in the 1980s borrowed design elements from a Nazi-built Horton 18 long-range bomber that was brought back at the end of WWII (1945) and kept in government storage (ignored) for almost 40 years.
The Horton was meant to be capable of striking targets in the Continental US from Germany, and its 'stealth' was an accidental side-effect of the sweptback wings and curved fusilage surfaces needed to make this long trip at high speed with the German jet engines of the day. Its own test engineers were completely surprised by its radar properties.
The jets built in Europe after WWII were designed with 'conventional' frames (with structural elements often at right angles, which results in a strong radar return), so post-war jets, designed at relative leisureand with 'common sense' economies, did not have the stealth features that were stumbled onto by the now-forgotten Horton.
So a 40 year time frame does *not* mean 'obsolete' - but who's to say we might not derive more benefit from forcing the government to review what it is hiding, rather than letting it languish, ignored, like the Horton. Younger readers may not realize that is not uncommon for technology in the 20th century to remain undeveloped for decades after a successful 'proof of concept'.
On a purely fictional note, think of the many SF universes, like Star Trek's Federation, which seem to have so many undeveloped technologies available for the resident engineering genius to turn into hitherto unseen devices. (Yeah, the real reason for that is lazy or gimmicky writing - but people sometimes find fiction more believable than history) Over the next few deacdes, as we increasingly use our scientific and technical tools to build increasingly sophiticated tools, which in turn, create entirely new capabilities, we will probably have MORE, not LESS, unexploited technical capabilities that languish for decades until someone picks them up and runs with them. Our new knowledge and abilities will outpace our development dollars and the inspiration of those who determine product and technical timelines.
This is both good and bad. It leaves a lot of potential open for individual hackers: software, hardware, genetic , EM, crypto, and who knows what-all else. We may be some of those small inventors, but we also may not agree with the goals, methods or devices built by *other* individuals with the same potential power.
" There is no net positive impact for the economy from licensing fees. What one company gets, another pays. More earnings for workers in one firm means pink slips for another firm."
Please don't take offense, but this is entirely false. Economic arguments on Slashdot often treat the economy as a zero sum game of balance sheets, but it is quite the opposite. The "zero sum game" (if there is one, and I would argue there isn't) is in the money supply. Allow me to illustrate:
Corporation AB produces two products, I and II, with the same intrinsic cost of production, but product II also pays a 1% patent license fee, raising its production cost. For the sake of argument, lets say both products sell the same number of units at the same price - this is akin to comparing the same product to itself, with and without a license fee. (We get a similar result if we assume the more expensive product sells 1% fewer units at 1% higher price or sells at the same price and makes 1% less profit, and other similar cases, but I'll go with the easier math)
The economic impact depends on what AB does with the extra 1% profit from Product I and what the licensor does with the 1% patent license fee for product II. At one extreme, the extra cash can be put in a safe; at the other extreme, it can immediately be used to buy materials from suppliers or to pay more salaries or bonuses. In the middle is putting it in the bank, where part of it may be loaned or invested (and part retained as bank cash reserve under FDIC regs).
Money that is spent goes to someone else, who may, again, spend it on supplies, office equipment or other items, and is, in turn, likely to be spent again to he benefit of its new owner, ad nauseum.
It's not true that 'a dollar is a dollar', in a zero sum daily tally of balance sheets. A dollar that is spent has more positive economic impact than one tucked under your mattress. In hard times, we tend to hang onto our money, which often makes times a bit harder. In good times, we spend more freely, knowing more cash will be rolling in, making good times a bit better for everyone. Much of the affluence of the US economy relies (sadly, IMHO) on our 'consumer economy' where moe money is freely spent, and less prudently reserved.
I'm not saying patent license fees or taxes or any other expense is therefore automatically good. I'm saying that Zero Sum is a poor description of the economy - which is reflected in every capitalist or free market economic model. Regulation of the circulating money supply to stimulate the economy or prevent it from 'overheating' (inflation) does use a model that is a bit closer to 'xero sum' but even that is based on a more nuanced model than the one presented.
Earnings are not static end-of-quarter assets, they are also working capital.
Shouldn't it be covered in the user agreement? I admit that this would make it an issue between the miscreant and the software company (and we all know they can't be bothered to follow up on cases where actual users incur actual losses vs. their own intangible rights or percieved potential profits)
I'm surprised how many posts thus far seem to be confusing actions *within* the game with unauthorized access to an account or private resources (which is already a prosecutable crime)
Stealing or temporarily usurping a character could be used to do many nefarious things like trying to hack the server or US law enforcements favorite current bogeyman: facilitating concealed communication between terrorists. Think of the damage that can be done with any stolen account on any other type of server.
The blurb Timothy posted (or approved and passed on) said: "Currently the applications envisioned for metallic foams are in automobile and aircraft crumple zones, which absorb the impact of collisions..."
This sentence is taken from the article, but refers to the old-style metal foams, which have been tested for decades, NOT the 'glassy' metal foam discussed in the article. Most of the article explains why the new glassy foam is different from the old ones, and lists properties, like rigidity and high elastic energy return, which make it specifically unsuited for use in crumple zones. The article itself says:
"Given the bounce bubbloy would have off a wall or tree, Veazey said it might not be suitable by itself as a crumple zone."
Hitting a wall and bouncing creates up to twice the change in momentum, and potential for damage to humans, as a 'hit and stick impact' (e.g. wrapping your car around a tree or hitting the concrete after a 100 story fall). The impact would admittedly be mitigated by being spread out over several milliseconds vs. nearly instanteous, but "high elastic energy RETURN" is the opposite of an "energy ABSORBING crumple zone".
Similarly, a high rigidity, high energy return, bone replacement would place an extreme stress on its anchors and surrounding real bone. You want a material that absorbs energy as it flexes, rather than returning is as a one-two punch (initial impact and then sharp recoil in the opposite direction) The energy absorbed by the flexing of a good bone substitute should be released as heat (it takes a lot of kinetic energy to make rather little heat) instead of crumpling [mechanical deformation] like a Mercedes front end.
This glassy metallic foam has many potentially interesting applications. It's a shame that the blurb picked up on two applications where the old foams look more promising than the topic of the article
It actually works both ways. It depends on a subtlety of how you interpret "is" (shades of Clinton). If you interpret "est" as "=" (i.e not(in vita = pax) then it's a predicate nominative and you should use "pax" not "pacem". One can, however, interpret the "est" to mean other things, like "exists", and then the nominative is not required. The general meaning is unchanged, but one could make subtle distinctions by using one or the other. The Roman orators loved to do this, often indicating the shades of meaning through, for example, parallel phrases with less ambiguous grammar. Today's politicians do the same sometimes, making what would be considered a pun, if it were not a serious setting and elegant turn of a phrase. They also do it to usurp meanings without the listener quite knowing what happened.
There's also often wiggle room in usage between old Latin, classical, medieval, etc.
Maybe it's a meaningless nitpick, but I'm pleased to see such discussions here (or anywhere)
This will almost certainly not be proven in court. It is an assertion Cringeley made (or suggested). Cringeley is not suing Microsoft, and has no legal standing to do so - he's a bystander reporting it, not a participant. As far as the Burst case, goes, it's irrelevant why MS did it, the issue is *if* they did it, and if so, did they do it knowingly?
Though, technically, the mere fact of infringement may be enough, under many laws and precedents, "deliberate infringement" can be very important - as a practical matter, it certainly factors into the monetary judgment. I was once party to a potentially important (as a national legal precedent) verdict against a major organization, which caused the offender to draw up untterly revamped corporate practices... until the award phase (which came 4-5 months after the verdict). The court granted a mere $1 in damages. The written decision was clear that the big company was wrong beyond all doubt, but the judge felt it wasn't intentional or within the reasonable control of such a large outfit (a view he wouldn't have held for long, if he could have seen the tone of the policy revision documents generated after his verdict) The plaintiff promptly dropped all its plans to correct the practices the court had found "wrong". Apparently they felt the judge's decision gave them a few years of "yeah, we were wrong, but a court has found that it's not really our fault" leeway before some later case forced them to make changes they didn't want to make - and who knows what might change in the meantime?
Incidentally, this is a fundamental process in all 'History'. "History" is a matter of interpretation and extrapolation. We rarely have a smoking gun that tells us why a leader or governemnt does what it does. Almost always, we only know (a consensus view of) what happened, and can only guess "why".
Did negotiations fall through because Party A was intimidated or unimpressed by Party B's penis at the urinal during a break? Did Party A walk out of a party with a girl Party B had wildly fancied, but never got to the introduction stage with? Did Party A have an accent, or manner of speaking, that subconsciously reminded Party B of a much loathed stepfather or cousin? That kind of thing generally doesn't end up in memoirs or reports.
While higher-base number systems might have "special case" uses someday, it's important to understand that they are mere steps on the continuum to analog. This trivial seeming fact has some surprising consequences.
Binary, being the lowest base that can represent any integer mathematics, is not a point on the continuum, it is a defining terminus of the continuum, and has many special properties. Termini (endpoints) often do, especially in one-ended ranges (e.g. base two is the lowest number of sates, but in theory analog has an infinite number of states, and any real-world instantiation of an analog computer can only be an approximation.) One example of an open-ended range where the sole endpoint has unique properties is the prime numbers (which, properly, must be positive integers): the lowest prime, 2, has so many unusual properties that it is often excluded or dealt with as a special case. it is believed (but not quite proven) that there is no highest prime
This may sound trivial or like mealy-mouthed gibberish, so here's an example: In every multi-state binary-like computer, division is computationally 'harder' than multiplication except base two!
Any algorithm for general division (by an arbitary divisor) involve more multiplications (and then subtractions, according to the results of implicit trial and error subtraction [branchpoints]) than a corresponding extended ('long form') multiplication. The reason this does not occur in base two is that multiplications by the two binary digits 1 and zero is so trivial that it does not need to actually be performed - a compare and branch suffices, which corresponds to the compare and branch preceding the additions of a binary multiplication.
This is pretty special. While multiplication and division are inverse function, full generalized division is always 'harder' than generalized multiplication. This is quite unlike, say, subtraction, where a 'subtraction circuit' can be constructed to perform subtraction exactly as easily and in roughly the same number of, say, transistors as an adder.
Binary math has many special properties in group and number theory. We'd lose those in higher base math, and we wouldn't gain new properties to make up for that loss. Two, the low bound, is special.
You've got to be trolling. On the off chance that you aren't:
The article started right off by saying that system stability can be affect, that the stability of voltage levels and the amount of electrical noise varies greatly. It also noted that the power supplies distribute their power differently among the various output voltages The/. intro noted case noise and heat output into the case.
The effects on the CPU, chipset and RAM of electrical noise and/or 'brownouts' of voltage dropping below specs should be obvious. I've seen several systems go instable because the 5vsb line, or some voltage branch like the USB line couldn't drive the attached components. What good is having 200 extra watts you don't need at one voltage, if the PS goes flaky at full output and real usage on another? A lot of power supplies that do fine (or almost fine) on a bench or at 50% of their rated current draw in the real world will flake out occassionally at 85%. A few milliseconds of flaking out ever several hours can turn a dream machine into a nightmare.
Hook an oscilloscope to distal power traces on the motherboard (not near the power supply, and depending on your supply, you can see some pretty ugly stuff as peripherals/cards switch on/off. Sure, a good motherboard should have plenty of well placed filter caps, but on a fully loaded system, you can *see* how adequate they sometimes aren't, if the power supply doesn't supply great power in he first place. It's possible to design very rugged and tolerant motherboards (e.g. military), but in the consumer market, price competition is so tight that boards are often revised in mid-production to save one or two caps.
I'm not saying top-of-the line is always best, but bottom of the line is pretty much asking for trouble down the line. Most people 'add and test' when they build (or expand a system with use), but the culprit may not be the card you just added; it could be the power supply you 'vetted' up front.
Wow! I guess that really goes to show how differently various people think. I got a copy as a gift as teen in the 70s and while it's one of those rare gifts that I completely appreciate for the utter sincerity with which it was given, I never once found any use in it (despite a lifelong informal interest in heuristics and mathematics)
My advice? It's a short, easy read outlining approaches to problem solving that some geeks will find intuitive/obvious, so skim it in a bookstore or library. You should be able to read it cover to cover in an hour (a few hours, at most). It's highly regarded, so I'm sure it's useful for some people (who think very differently than I do), but despite its reputation, I never found any special insight in it. Don't expect miracles, but maybe you'll find them.
... such ideals have too frequently been left by the weigh site
Please understand that I am *not* making fun of you or trying to be a Usage Nazi.
Your use of the term "left by the weigh site" (vs. the standard "wayside" or side of the road) suggests that you have a specific image in mind when you use the term. I'm curious what that image is. To me, such usages are fascinating picture postcards about how others think. I spend all my time cooped up in my own 1500cc skull, so I'll take all the diversity of scenery I can get.
However, as an aside, I should not that "culture" is a fluid term. Certain philosophies, and their followers ("subcultures" in your nomenclature, I suppose) explicitly reject such altruism. Objectivism comes to mind.
Also, though most societies do indeed preach the merits of self-sacrifice in the abstract (to encourage their citizens to sacrifice in ways that the society feels will benefit it), they are far less likely to honor or reward those who actually makes such sacrifices. Indeed, it's not uncommon for such people or groups to be disdained or even demonized. In fact, I'd say such ingratitude is almost inevitable: the guilt that is imposed to encourage 'altruism' cuts both ways and inspires a guilty resentment in all who fall short of the impossible idea.
(I'm not an Objectivist. I've laughed at those who call themselves Objectivists -or worse 'strict' Objectivists- for 25 years. Ayn Rand often said Objectivism was exactly whatever she said it was, and not one whit more or less. Anyone who would subjugate their mind to the mind of another in that manner seriously "doesn't get it". That's not to say I don't find it instructive and useful.
I am HORRIFIED! You call yourselves'geeks'?
on
Duct Tape Goes Minature
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Look, I've loved duct tape since I first encountered the stuff in 2nd grade (my folks are not what you'd call 'handy'), but by age 12, I realized it was just a cheap widely available common denominator for many types of tape with better properties. It's usually not even the best common denominator. The best cloth gaffer tapes are stronger, more durable, tear more neatly, mold better, have better/longer lasting adhesive, and clean up with much less residue.
Appreciating the merits of duct tape may have been a clever observation once (e.g. in the 70's, it wasn't carried in all hardware stores, much less every retail store, pharmacy and gas station) but now it's cliche - the stuff of stand-up comedy routines that *everyone* understands, even if they are completely 'tape incompetent' (We've all seen it). I see a wide array of uselessly cheap shiny grey plastic (or even paper) so-called duct tapes, because manufacturers know that most people are aware of its reputation, but not its properties and use, and will buy anything that looks similar.
Too many of the posts sound like "Level 1 geek wannabes" Top quality gaffer tape (for example) may run up to $20 a roll, but it's still pennies per job and it'll handle jobs the plastic stuff won't (including things you wouldn't expect - it's often better for sealing leaks than duct tape, which studies have shown to be the worst option for sealing ducts) I carry top notch gaffer tape in my house and car, not duct tape. I also keep countless other plastic tapes (packing tapes, stranded tapes, etc.) that have greater strength and other properties. Nowadays 'moving' and packing supplies are widely stocked.
Every geek should be able to improvise, true, but they should also have a fine understanding of the fine points of common tapes. It's the difference between success and failure for those who actually improvise instead of imagining doing it. 95% of the time, a top quality gaffer tape will beat the pacts off duct tape, but the guy in the article knows the duct tape mystique will sell where genuine gaffer tape quality won't.
The one true advantage of duct tape is that it is somewhat more widely available, in the stores and in your friend's closets. In the 70s, masking tape was everywhere and the duct tape crowd knew masking tape would quickly fail, if it worked at all, for most jobs where duct tape works great- but geek-wannabes and kids used masking tape for every job, and considered themselves clever. A slight edge in availability does not make it any better or less ignorant a default choice. Today, duct tape occupies the place in the market that masking tape once did: a passable cure-all for those who don't know better options exist or can't be bothered to think ahead and stock them.
I agree that the term "release candidate" *sounds* like it's expected to be a final release, and that may be true of some RC1 releases. However, it is a misleading characteriation of how the process is often meant to work (as indicated by the very fact that they're called RC1, instead of just RC -- RC2 is not unexpected) If all RCs were considered final until proven otherwise, we'd never see an announced "final release candidate", would we?
An RC1 gets tested more than mere alpha/betas, and that higher level of testing is *necessary* for a reliable release. If they didn't release RC1s with a few known issues, the actual release would not be as "final" (e.g. programs, chipsets, etc. often don't have fully stable function or performance on all features until the "A" version. Real world RC strategy is an up-front recognition of the realities that toss minor monkey wrenches in the best intentions of the engineering and testing departments.
An RC1 may be released with "minor" known bugs to help debug them, assess severity in the universe of real users, choose workable trade-offs, and enlist user aid in creating fixes for specific configs. Often a well thought-out Release Candidates contains chunks of testing/debugging code that is not meant to be in the final release. No matter what you might expect from the term, a 'Release Candidate" is usually not identical to the final release, even if it passes user testing with flying colors. This fact kills the simplistic assumption of many end users (we've all seen the rare release problems when debug code is removed from a stable RC)
The more intense RC testing typically turns up a handful of issues (nothing is bug-free). Some can be fixed cleanly once noticed. Others require testing beyond the abilities of the staff. Intermediate versions may be needed to work out the intricacies of the fixes across, say, all hardware and software configs. If intermediate versions are relabeled as "mere" betas, they won't get the testing that an RC gets, and the debugging could be delayed by months. If an RC1 includes 3 subtle issues, would you insist they all be "fully fixed" before an RC2 in 12-16 wks, or would you be happier if a RC2 with 'testing code' for one of more of those subtle bugs led to a fully functional RC3 (or 4) in 4-8 weeks?
That's why you rarely see post-RC1 'non-RC betas', and why we often hit RC3 or more: it's not that completely new issues arise in RC1/2/3, it's that downgrading from RC to v1.39b3 would have a psychological effect on the amount of deployment and testing, and project leaders know it
This is a bit off topic, but I find it interesting that the 27th Amendment (1992 - the last Amendment to the US reads), in its entirety:
No law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened
Typically Constitutional Amendments were made for far weightier matters, like, say the 26th (1971), which gave the vote to citizens over the age of 18 (21 had been the voting age). This was a very important rectification, because most men drafted, crippled or killed in Vietnam had been too young to vote - old enough for a legal responsibility to give up their lives and health, but not 'responsible enough' to have their opinions heard!
Hardly in the same league as Congressional pay, I think - or, say, the Equal Rights Amendment, which never managed to find its way to passage.
I wouldn't trust anything on that page (and I'd have doubts about any of their products, by extension). It is full of ridiculous gaffes that scream that it was written, proofread and maintained by people who lack any hint of a clue. I'll be charitable and guess that they don't get much correction/feedback because most knowledgable surfer leave after reading a few paragraphs, shaking their heads sadly.
e.g.
Suppose a simple circuit "wastes" 4 volts, and only 3 volts reach the output terminals. Transformers can step them up to 50,000 volts at 0.00006 amps (6 milliamps). The formula is:
I (current) = W/V
I = 3 watts/50,000 volts
I = 6 milliamps (mA)
Six milliamps (0.06mA) is eight times weaker than the half-milliamp (0.5 mA) the Consumer Products Safety Commission allows to leak from household appliances. Half a milliamp is the accepted threshold for perceiving an electrical current.
Obviously amperage so low a suspect could barely perceive it would be useless in a Taser.
Sometimes I can tell what they "meant" to say (i.e. change the terms or numebr to make some sort of sense), but in some cases I can't even guess. One error is a mistake, a hundred is a warning.
I had one friend (a Hollywood writer) who swore by hers. Of our friends who saw it, bought one, and liked it, none have posted on the review sites. Of the two who hated it (either because they got shipped a bad 'luck of the draw'; or assumed it could do some , without bothering to ask or RTFM) -- well unhappy people kvetch to every site they can. That's a well known fact of marketing, and if internet reviews in particular. But hey I *like* knowing the worst: that way I'm usually pleasantly surprised by my actual purchase
READ INTERNET REVIEWS BUT GO SEE ONE IN OPERATION TOO. There is batch/unit variation in the actual playback compatibility. My happy friends have no problem with home recorded media, or VCD playback, though sony may not list these in the specs. Some people on the web had less luck. To many, the less compatible units are virtually junk, but if they'd been lucky in the draw, they'd be thrilled.
That's why I suggested bringing a representative sample of your media to the store. Even if you only have a few CDs of some type - say a dozen MP3 cds out of the 301 stored disks, the inability to play them is a major loss of function. You should also test any unit you actually buy immediately -that's just common sense- its better to return it the same day than risk disppointment in 3 mos.
The menu system is okay for my intended use, but definitely lacks the flexibility of, say, many MP3 playlists. but it's still worlds better than jewel cases in a CD rack or disk folders.
This is not just a AV CD/DVD storage system, but an CD/DVD PLAYER, which puts it in a different class than all the other solutions. It also can't store your CDROMS which is its biggest drawback in my book - oh, what I'd give for CDROM reading capability and an ethernet port!
IF you're storing SVCDs, DVDs and the like, you might want to seriously consider the Sony DVP CX860/875 (and related series. They can store up to 301 DVDs (for example) in a box that looks like thick DVD player, and costs under $300
Downsides: cost (under $1/disc) is a bit more than printing CD/case labels and using jewel boxes. Some of the earlier models weren't compatible with all formats (though I know more happy users who can play their CD-R SVCDs and MP3s than unhappy ones who can't, Sony makes no promises - take some representative samples of your collection to the store to test the one you want to buy) Some of the models, at least, have a limited menu system (e.g. limited flexibility of folder/genre and playlist structure, limited title length, only 16 tracks per CD may show up in the menu)
Upsides: extremely compact storage for 301 audio or video disks. You can't beat the convenience for a DVD or VCD collection: just point and pick with the included remote. It has a quality DVD and audio player built in, which I consider a big freebie. The on-screen disc selection is great, if you buy a model whose menu system suits you; and they are daisy chainable, so if you need to store another 300 disc is a couple of years, you can tack on a second unit (which will probably cost half as much by then) instead of buying a completely new, larger, unit.
In short: research the models carefully on the web before buying (some have drawbacks that may bug you) but I know many happy users, and am currently in the market for one myself.
*Yawn* I basically did this *years* ago, using a $40 NT-150 (a tiny K5-133 box with built-in smart card reader, A-V circuitry and IR remote, designed as a TV set-top box, then dumped as surplus).
I experimenting with various uses. It was a poor DVR DVR, due to the limited CPU and the small HDDs back then; it was an okay MP3 server but sometimes hiccuped if playing songs locally while streaming to other machines; NT-150 hackers still use the smart card slot for satellite card hacking, but that wasn't my gig.
It eventually became the least powerful CPU in my junkbox, but I liked its small, silent form factor and hated to trash its other capabilities. With a few components, I added an IR data reciever. the transfer rate never reached 10Mbps, but it was faster than the wireless networks of the time.
In the 70's, when lasers diodes ran $10+ surplus, hobbyists routinely used IR LEDs to communicate 100s of meters. A cluster of today's high-powered IR LEDs might reach a km or more (the transmitter needn't be directional if it's bright (illuminate a 6" translucent plastic cap and make the reciever directional with a cheap lens+tube focused on the emitter. Imagine, for example, a detector with a 1" dia "directional" tube fixed high in a tree on a distant hill, connected by RF or camouflaged wire to a buried server.
To be really clever, plant a second set-top box, filled with legal but embarrassing material in your backyard. When the cops "persuade" you to surrender the device, they won't suspect the existence of the real one.
As a matter of fact, I never got around to getting it back from the distant tree I used for range testing. If the battery weren't long since dead, I might give it a spin. Sure, rain, fog, and foliage would be problems over time, but depending on your location, you might be able to find a suitable location (e.g. the roof of a distant building). Power is also a problem, but the NT-150's current 10W draw could easily be handled by a small solar cell charging a battery (it'd charge 8-16 hours a day, but would probably only be used a few minutes a day) and even building technicians are hesitant to mess with unknown devices.
(The Stazi kept a covert surveillance station in Prague's old clock tower, but never gave a second thought to a wiring box along the power lines they ran up the tower stairway. It recently was found to contain a radio relay believed to be have been used by the KGB to relay small local KGB bugs to a Soviet office downtown. The KGB stole Stazi power because the tower -perfect for a relay- wasn't otherwise electrified, and they did not want to inform the Stazi about their local bugs)
This was, and is, beginner-level hardware hacking. It costs more in ingenuity than cash.
Actually, though I understand you problem with such blanket statements, your example actually proves his point. Phoenix would be far better off if (as the original poster said) some entrepreneur had run fiber through existing conduits, instead of (as Qwest and many companies have done) tried to over-leverage existing infrastructure (twisted pair copper) for more bandwidth.
Fiber is a mature technology, whose properties and system design are very well known. It's been in use since the 50's, though it was too expensive and awkward to implement. Through improvments over the decades, the signal loss, noise, interrepeater distance, repeater design, durability, etc. have improved dramatically. Better manufacturing and the economies of large-scale deployment have also cut the cost per kilometer of fiber.
Pair gain is a kludge, originally intended for use on existing twisted pair, but often deployed by companies that didn't want to invest in in-house re-training, equipment, and other costs of moving to another medium (which often was, indeed a bit more expensive at roll-out, at the time) I don't know exactly when Pair Gain or its immediate antecedent technology were invented (it might have been the 50's, too) but twisted pair deployments were very different form each other, because each deployment had to accomodate the unique situation in each city, industrial park, etc. -- and these accomodations weren't always the best choice.
In short, Pair Gain (and several other twisted Pair techs) are not as mature as fiber, because there is less actual experience with any given style of deployment; and worse, it was originally meant only as a stopgap extension of an older technology, compared to pulling fiber and laying repeaters for a consistent, mature, intrinsically higher bandwidth solution.
Don't get me wrong: fiber has its addon "extender" technologies, too (multi mode multiple frequency, in-line laser pumped erbium amplifiers, etc.) but though these represent more radical changes than pair gain vs. POTS, I'd call them 'improvements', doing what (intrinsically higher bandwidth) fiber was always designed to do; while Pair Gain, etc. use Twisted Pair for things the original install never intended (or lay new twisted pair, knowing it is more limited than the (maybe) slightly more expensive, longer-term alternative, in an era when the quarterly bottom line was king.
To me th point of the article is that they DID lay fiber, instead of trying to leverage the old TP,
Re:Oh dear God! The Religious Wars!
on
AI in Sci-Fi
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't mean to argue with you, but you've made me see that I stated my point poorly.
According server logs, Taco/Hemos, etc. Win logins outnumbered *nix logins 15:1 on Slashdot (in early 2002) I concede that many Winlogins were probably from work or school, and that the *nix percentage has probably risen, as more users make *nix their primary machine and OS X makes many primary Mac users into unwitting 'nix users (if you want to count them in the 'Nix tally)
While I may be biased by my early years of reading Slashdot (I've been here far longer than my current user ID indicates), I find that, reading at -1 or 0 where the bulk of Slashdot postings end up, I see many posts that are fully buzzword compliant but have errors that no actual user would make. For every poster who gives him/herself away defnitively, there are several who sound like they've read about *nix but never seriously used it, but don't say anything specific enough to prove that impression.
This is not a slam at anyone. It's par for the course. While some of my examples are necessarily expensive, others are not: a house-sized backyard methane reactor can cost $20, village-sized is under $100. A sporty car doesn't have to cost more than a mini-van, but many unmarried Barcalounger 'racing experts' choose, say, an SUV or pickup instead. You can buy a decent X-10 home automation system for $50-100, but most geeks simply dream of remote control (e.g. a certain bedside switch), and end up stringing wire (with all its attendant disadvantages) when they actually get around to installing.
My house has 20 years of handy-geek add-ons -solar heating, X-10, encrypted cam surveillance, a 12ft HDTV wall, etc.- but I'll freely admit that I count myself as knowledgeably conversant with more technologies than I've actually used. My planned to-do list is longer now than ever, and judging by history, at best 1/3 will be permanent additions
Due to work, children, aging parents (living with me) and impromptu support of friends, etc, I probably use Windows more than *nix, despite my preferences. e.g. I'm typing from one of several hacked webplayers I have around the house. I had a choice between downloading a full-function DOC Win98 set-up or helping to create an incomplete Linux webplayer project. I decided that I wanted my webplayers to be operational appliances today. I've hacked other devices in various *nices as more experimental learning projects.
My point is: here (as in the developed nations at large) the Windows predominance is overwhelming - for temporary pragmatic reasons. There's a huge qualitative difference between 5% and 10% (or 10% and 20%, or 20% and 40%). Further, many regular *nix users are almost completely unfamiliar with their OS; they may as well be using OS 9 or WinXX as far as their actual usage is concerned. Others have an outdated machine using *nix (which is a good learning tool), but no matter where their heart lies, we can't ignore that their multi-GHz CPU runs Windows almost exclusively, even if it has a rarely-used dual-boot partition.
I see every sign that *nix is making the steady advance to mainstream, but my decades as a technogeek stand firmly behind the statement that most fans of any new or not-yet-mainstream tech do not actually have/use it to any appreciable degree -- and that *nix is still in that category. That may not be the case in a couple of years, but I believe the numbers show that it still is, today. Should it be any surprise that it's easier to talk the talk than walk the walk - especially 24/7?
Again, this is not a slam at anyone. It's a practical reality of how technology use advances.
Now, to return to the original topic: AIs would have a relationship to their hardware and software that we can't even approach. I was joking that they might display a level of partisanship that our hottest flamewars can't approach. It's only a joke because there's no overwhelming reason to presume they will have an emotional structure that would support "racism" etc. They may, but that remains to be seen.
Oh dear God! The Religious Wars!
on
AI in Sci-Fi
·
· Score: 1
You think the religious OS wars are bad now? Just wait until we have partisans who are actual experts in their OS -- AND are *truly* tied to it!
(Most Linux/etc partisans here don't even run the OS. This is typical of any technology: racing cars or horse drawn carriages; methane, solar, hydrogen or atomic power; vacuum tube audiophiles; you name it)
Actually, what you need is an HDTV tuner card. There are several on the market, for the price of a top graphics card (that is to say, under $300) The computer I'm on now has a MyHD MDP-100 $260 from the Digital Connection, who also happen to offer the primary US tech support for the card, on bug report/support threads on the AVS forum (read the entire forum - there have been separate followup threads for each driver revision and they contain other support tips too. Especially check out the v1.55.2 driver thread. That driver allowed DVDs to be displayed in 1080i - something the DVD consortium has since declared to be forbidden. All other cards and DVD players display DVD in 480p)
The MyHD comes with VGA output with a passthrough cable for dual monitor or simultaneous computer/HDTV use, and a breakout cable that gives Component Video and s-video. it also offers your choice of stereo or Dolby outputs. I don't usually to use it in that mode however. I find that it's usually simpler and equally high quality to simply rout the video through my (decent but nothing special) graphics card.
I also own a Telemann tuner, but I can't look at the model number and outputs right now. It's in the basement, cabled through the floor to a Toshiba DLP-650 LCD projector (though it's a used 1999 model, I usually can't even imagine what better quality would look like. Maybe a tad blacker blacks -it's only 300:1 contrast ratio, unlike the newer models at 450-3000:1- but that's it!) There is at least a third major manufacturer, whose name eludes me at the moment, but all the model numbers and details are listed in the support thread I linked above, with more info in other threads
In short, the card you want is out there. I've run the LCD projector off the MyHD a junkbox celeron 466 and ATI Rage-something card, running Win98 and projecting onto a bare wall (that was my test rig) and the results were outstanding: a crystal clear 120"+ image for a total equipment cost much less than a hinky 60" rear projection screen on sale at Best Buy. I did later upgrade to a better machine (Athlon 1700XP, but it worked with a P-III 800, too), so I could do HDTV recording. HTDV VCRs, like D-VHS, cost several thousand by themselves, but with a card, all you need is a moderately powerful CPu and a decent sized HDD to sotre them on (I saw a 200GB for $160 after rebate on Fatwallet Hot Deals forum this week) You can compress/record the transport stream to DVD-R for archival storage, and still get DVD quality or better. (I compress to DVD the next day. I haven't tried doing it in real-time yet, but it should be possible)
As much as I hate to say it, if you're building your own Home Theater PC, I'd recommend an Intel processor over a AMD. Maybe the newer or better Athlon boards are rock stable for HTPC use, and set and forget for at least a week at a stretch, but this wasn't the case for myself or others on the AVS forum a year ago (As a workaround, I have it reboot at 5 am every day. ) In general, I readfewer Atlon complaints for HTPC, I almost never heard Intel problems - and the drop in Atlon issues may be due to a shift to Intel, which is the general advice of that board.
Slashdot Mirror
DeBeers [i]doesn't{/i] do business in the US. They did until a DoJ looked into anti-trust suit. Then they informed each of their American buyers that they would have to buy from an assigned agent in (usually) London. These agents are not employees of DeBeers but independent distributors who have agreed to undisclosed terms with DeBeers.
It's not exactly a free trade purchase either. An American buyer must either buy the entire lot they are offered or decline it, with the clear threat that the agent won't bother making offers to them again, if they decline. Even though most American buyers have expressed a reticence to speak, because they might not be offered any more lots (I don't have any responsibility to offer to sell you anything, even if I offer it to your neighbor) a substantial body of disclosures and dealer complaints have built up over the decades.
The thriving trade in diamonds between American dealers exists primarily because they can't choose to pick and choose what they buy from the agents, and are therefore forced to trade/buy the stones from their mixed lots to get the stones they want.
How can they get away with this? A) through agreements and open market purchases, they control tha vast majority of the world's large lots; and B) they don't transact sales directly in the US, so our laws don't apply. They only directly transact in antions where the laws allow them to conduct business as they wish - generally small nations where their money and/or a strong local traditional diamond trade affords them considerable influence - and not just third world nations: they have a special status in the Netherlands, because Amsterdam has been a major diamond center for centuries.
I'm afraid not. Shape tables were an entirely different type drawing, that resembled vector graphics. Though the shape itself could only be defined with 90 degree angles, IIRC, it could, once defined be resized and rotated freely (IIRC the rotation unit wasn't degrees [360/circle], but 256/circle) It's been a while, but I believe the relavant Applesoft commands were DRAW, SIZE, ROT
They were completely different from the preshifted bitmaps you describe, which were neither resizable not rotatable. A shape's lines remained the same thickness not matter what size it was drawn in.
Actually, the team designing the B-1 that was deployed in the 1980s borrowed design elements from a Nazi-built Horton 18 long-range bomber that was brought back at the end of WWII (1945) and kept in government storage (ignored) for almost 40 years.
The Horton was meant to be capable of striking targets in the Continental US from Germany, and its 'stealth' was an accidental side-effect of the sweptback wings and curved fusilage surfaces needed to make this long trip at high speed with the German jet engines of the day. Its own test engineers were completely surprised by its radar properties.
The jets built in Europe after WWII were designed with 'conventional' frames (with structural elements often at right angles, which results in a strong radar return), so post-war jets, designed at relative leisureand with 'common sense' economies, did not have the stealth features that were stumbled onto by the now-forgotten Horton.
So a 40 year time frame does *not* mean 'obsolete' - but who's to say we might not derive more benefit from forcing the government to review what it is hiding, rather than letting it languish, ignored, like the Horton. Younger readers may not realize that is not uncommon for technology in the 20th century to remain undeveloped for decades after a successful 'proof of concept'.
On a purely fictional note, think of the many SF universes, like Star Trek's Federation, which seem to have so many undeveloped technologies available for the resident engineering genius to turn into hitherto unseen devices. (Yeah, the real reason for that is lazy or gimmicky writing - but people sometimes find fiction more believable than history) Over the next few deacdes, as we increasingly use our scientific and technical tools to build increasingly sophiticated tools, which in turn, create entirely new capabilities, we will probably have MORE, not LESS, unexploited technical capabilities that languish for decades until someone picks them up and runs with them. Our new knowledge and abilities will outpace our development dollars and the inspiration of those who determine product and technical timelines.
This is both good and bad. It leaves a lot of potential open for individual hackers: software, hardware, genetic , EM, crypto, and who knows what-all else. We may be some of those small inventors, but we also may not agree with the goals, methods or devices built by *other* individuals with the same potential power.
Please don't take offense, but this is entirely false. Economic arguments on Slashdot often treat the economy as a zero sum game of balance sheets, but it is quite the opposite. The "zero sum game" (if there is one, and I would argue there isn't) is in the money supply. Allow me to illustrate:
Corporation AB produces two products, I and II, with the same intrinsic cost of production, but product II also pays a 1% patent license fee, raising its production cost. For the sake of argument, lets say both products sell the same number of units at the same price - this is akin to comparing the same product to itself, with and without a license fee. (We get a similar result if we assume the more expensive product sells 1% fewer units at 1% higher price or sells at the same price and makes 1% less profit, and other similar cases, but I'll go with the easier math)
The economic impact depends on what AB does with the extra 1% profit from Product I and what the licensor does with the 1% patent license fee for product II. At one extreme, the extra cash can be put in a safe; at the other extreme, it can immediately be used to buy materials from suppliers or to pay more salaries or bonuses. In the middle is putting it in the bank, where part of it may be loaned or invested (and part retained as bank cash reserve under FDIC regs).
Money that is spent goes to someone else, who may, again, spend it on supplies, office equipment or other items, and is, in turn, likely to be spent again to he benefit of its new owner, ad nauseum.
It's not true that 'a dollar is a dollar', in a zero sum daily tally of balance sheets. A dollar that is spent has more positive economic impact than one tucked under your mattress. In hard times, we tend to hang onto our money, which often makes times a bit harder. In good times, we spend more freely, knowing more cash will be rolling in, making good times a bit better for everyone. Much of the affluence of the US economy relies (sadly, IMHO) on our 'consumer economy' where moe money is freely spent, and less prudently reserved.
I'm not saying patent license fees or taxes or any other expense is therefore automatically good. I'm saying that Zero Sum is a poor description of the economy - which is reflected in every capitalist or free market economic model. Regulation of the circulating money supply to stimulate the economy or prevent it from 'overheating' (inflation) does use a model that is a bit closer to 'xero sum' but even that is based on a more nuanced model than the one presented.
Earnings are not static end-of-quarter assets, they are also working capital.
Shouldn't it be covered in the user agreement? I admit that this would make it an issue between the miscreant and the software company (and we all know they can't be bothered to follow up on cases where actual users incur actual losses vs. their own intangible rights or percieved potential profits)
I'm surprised how many posts thus far seem to be confusing actions *within* the game with unauthorized access to an account or private resources (which is already a prosecutable crime)
Stealing or temporarily usurping a character could be used to do many nefarious things like trying to hack the server or US law enforcements favorite current bogeyman: facilitating concealed communication between terrorists. Think of the damage that can be done with any stolen account on any other type of server.
The blurb Timothy posted (or approved and passed on) said: "Currently the applications envisioned for metallic foams are in automobile and aircraft crumple zones, which absorb the impact of collisions..."
This sentence is taken from the article, but refers to the old-style metal foams, which have been tested for decades, NOT the 'glassy' metal foam discussed in the article. Most of the article explains why the new glassy foam is different from the old ones, and lists properties, like rigidity and high elastic energy return, which make it specifically unsuited for use in crumple zones. The article itself says:
"Given the bounce bubbloy would have off a wall or tree, Veazey said it might not be suitable by itself as a crumple zone."
Hitting a wall and bouncing creates up to twice the change in momentum, and potential for damage to humans, as a 'hit and stick impact' (e.g. wrapping your car around a tree or hitting the concrete after a 100 story fall). The impact would admittedly be mitigated by being spread out over several milliseconds vs. nearly instanteous, but "high elastic energy RETURN" is the opposite of an "energy ABSORBING crumple zone".
Similarly, a high rigidity, high energy return, bone replacement would place an extreme stress on its anchors and surrounding real bone. You want a material that absorbs energy as it flexes, rather than returning is as a one-two punch (initial impact and then sharp recoil in the opposite direction) The energy absorbed by the flexing of a good bone substitute should be released as heat (it takes a lot of kinetic energy to make rather little heat) instead of crumpling [mechanical deformation] like a Mercedes front end.
This glassy metallic foam has many potentially interesting applications. It's a shame that the blurb picked up on two applications where the old foams look more promising than the topic of the article
It actually works both ways. It depends on a subtlety of how you interpret "is" (shades of Clinton). If you interpret "est" as "=" (i.e not(in vita = pax) then it's a predicate nominative and you should use "pax" not "pacem". One can, however, interpret the "est" to mean other things, like "exists", and then the nominative is not required. The general meaning is unchanged, but one could make subtle distinctions by using one or the other. The Roman orators loved to do this, often indicating the shades of meaning through, for example, parallel phrases with less ambiguous grammar. Today's politicians do the same sometimes, making what would be considered a pun, if it were not a serious setting and elegant turn of a phrase. They also do it to usurp meanings without the listener quite knowing what happened.
There's also often wiggle room in usage between old Latin, classical, medieval, etc.
Maybe it's a meaningless nitpick, but I'm pleased to see such discussions here (or anywhere)
This will almost certainly not be proven in court. It is an assertion Cringeley made (or suggested). Cringeley is not suing Microsoft, and has no legal standing to do so - he's a bystander reporting it, not a participant. As far as the Burst case, goes, it's irrelevant why MS did it, the issue is *if* they did it, and if so, did they do it knowingly?
Though, technically, the mere fact of infringement may be enough, under many laws and precedents, "deliberate infringement" can be very important - as a practical matter, it certainly factors into the monetary judgment. I was once party to a potentially important (as a national legal precedent) verdict against a major organization, which caused the offender to draw up untterly revamped corporate practices... until the award phase (which came 4-5 months after the verdict). The court granted a mere $1 in damages. The written decision was clear that the big company was wrong beyond all doubt, but the judge felt it wasn't intentional or within the reasonable control of such a large outfit (a view he wouldn't have held for long, if he could have seen the tone of the policy revision documents generated after his verdict) The plaintiff promptly dropped all its plans to correct the practices the court had found "wrong". Apparently they felt the judge's decision gave them a few years of "yeah, we were wrong, but a court has found that it's not really our fault" leeway before some later case forced them to make changes they didn't want to make - and who knows what might change in the meantime?
Incidentally, this is a fundamental process in all 'History'. "History" is a matter of interpretation and extrapolation. We rarely have a smoking gun that tells us why a leader or governemnt does what it does. Almost always, we only know (a consensus view of) what happened, and can only guess "why".
Did negotiations fall through because Party A was intimidated or unimpressed by Party B's penis at the urinal during a break? Did Party A walk out of a party with a girl Party B had wildly fancied, but never got to the introduction stage with? Did Party A have an accent, or manner of speaking, that subconsciously reminded Party B of a much loathed stepfather or cousin? That kind of thing generally doesn't end up in memoirs or reports.
Binary, being the lowest base that can represent any integer mathematics, is not a point on the continuum, it is a defining terminus of the continuum, and has many special properties. Termini (endpoints) often do, especially in one-ended ranges (e.g. base two is the lowest number of sates, but in theory analog has an infinite number of states, and any real-world instantiation of an analog computer can only be an approximation.) One example of an open-ended range where the sole endpoint has unique properties is the prime numbers (which, properly, must be positive integers): the lowest prime, 2, has so many unusual properties that it is often excluded or dealt with as a special case. it is believed (but not quite proven) that there is no highest prime
This may sound trivial or like mealy-mouthed gibberish, so here's an example:
In every multi-state binary-like computer, division is computationally 'harder' than multiplication except base two!
Any algorithm for general division (by an arbitary divisor) involve more multiplications (and then subtractions, according to the results of implicit trial and error subtraction [branchpoints]) than a corresponding extended ('long form') multiplication. The reason this does not occur in base two is that multiplications by the two binary digits 1 and zero is so trivial that it does not need to actually be performed - a compare and branch suffices, which corresponds to the compare and branch preceding the additions of a binary multiplication.
This is pretty special. While multiplication and division are inverse function, full generalized division is always 'harder' than generalized multiplication. This is quite unlike, say, subtraction, where a 'subtraction circuit' can be constructed to perform subtraction exactly as easily and in roughly the same number of, say, transistors as an adder.
Binary math has many special properties in group and number theory. We'd lose those in higher base math, and we wouldn't gain new properties to make up for that loss. Two, the low bound, is special.
You've got to be trolling. On the off chance that you aren't:
/. intro noted case noise and heat output into the case.
The article started right off by saying that system stability can be affect, that the stability of voltage levels and the amount of electrical noise varies greatly. It also noted that the power supplies distribute their power differently among the various output voltages The
The effects on the CPU, chipset and RAM of electrical noise and/or 'brownouts' of voltage dropping below specs should be obvious. I've seen several systems go instable because the 5vsb line, or some voltage branch like the USB line couldn't drive the attached components. What good is having 200 extra watts you don't need at one voltage, if the PS goes flaky at full output and real usage on another? A lot of power supplies that do fine (or almost fine) on a bench or at 50% of their rated current draw in the real world will flake out occassionally at 85%. A few milliseconds of flaking out ever several hours can turn a dream machine into a nightmare.
Hook an oscilloscope to distal power traces on the motherboard (not near the power supply, and depending on your supply, you can see some pretty ugly stuff as peripherals/cards switch on/off. Sure, a good motherboard should have plenty of well placed filter caps, but on a fully loaded system, you can *see* how adequate they sometimes aren't, if the power supply doesn't supply great power in he first place. It's possible to design very rugged and tolerant motherboards (e.g. military), but in the consumer market, price competition is so tight that boards are often revised in mid-production to save one or two caps.
I'm not saying top-of-the line is always best, but bottom of the line is pretty much asking for trouble down the line. Most people 'add and test' when they build (or expand a system with use), but the culprit may not be the card you just added; it could be the power supply you 'vetted' up front.
Wow! I guess that really goes to show how differently various people think. I got a copy as a gift as teen in the 70s and while it's one of those rare gifts that I completely appreciate for the utter sincerity with which it was given, I never once found any use in it (despite a lifelong informal interest in heuristics and mathematics)
My advice? It's a short, easy read outlining approaches to problem solving that some geeks will find intuitive/obvious, so skim it in a bookstore or library. You should be able to read it cover to cover in an hour (a few hours, at most). It's highly regarded, so I'm sure it's useful for some people (who think very differently than I do), but despite its reputation, I never found any special insight in it. Don't expect miracles, but maybe you'll find them.
... such ideals have too frequently been left by the weigh site
Please understand that I am *not* making fun of you or trying to be a Usage Nazi.
Your use of the term "left by the weigh site" (vs. the standard "wayside" or side of the road) suggests that you have a specific image in mind when you use the term. I'm curious what that image is. To me, such usages are fascinating picture postcards about how others think. I spend all my time cooped up in my own 1500cc skull, so I'll take all the diversity of scenery I can get.
Your point is very well taken.
However, as an aside, I should not that "culture" is a fluid term. Certain philosophies, and their followers ("subcultures" in your nomenclature, I suppose) explicitly reject such altruism. Objectivism comes to mind.
Also, though most societies do indeed preach the merits of self-sacrifice in the abstract (to encourage their citizens to sacrifice in ways that the society feels will benefit it), they are far less likely to honor or reward those who actually makes such sacrifices. Indeed, it's not uncommon for such people or groups to be disdained or even demonized. In fact, I'd say such ingratitude is almost inevitable: the guilt that is imposed to encourage 'altruism' cuts both ways and inspires a guilty resentment in all who fall short of the impossible idea.
(I'm not an Objectivist. I've laughed at those who call themselves Objectivists -or worse 'strict' Objectivists- for 25 years. Ayn Rand often said Objectivism was exactly whatever she said it was, and not one whit more or less. Anyone who would subjugate their mind to the mind of another in that manner seriously "doesn't get it". That's not to say I don't find it instructive and useful.
Appreciating the merits of duct tape may have been a clever observation once (e.g. in the 70's, it wasn't carried in all hardware stores, much less every retail store, pharmacy and gas station) but now it's cliche - the stuff of stand-up comedy routines that *everyone* understands, even if they are completely 'tape incompetent' (We've all seen it). I see a wide array of uselessly cheap shiny grey plastic (or even paper) so-called duct tapes, because manufacturers know that most people are aware of its reputation, but not its properties and use, and will buy anything that looks similar.
Too many of the posts sound like "Level 1 geek wannabes" Top quality gaffer tape (for example) may run up to $20 a roll, but it's still pennies per job and it'll handle jobs the plastic stuff won't (including things you wouldn't expect - it's often better for sealing leaks than duct tape, which studies have shown to be the worst option for sealing ducts) I carry top notch gaffer tape in my house and car, not duct tape. I also keep countless other plastic tapes (packing tapes, stranded tapes, etc.) that have greater strength and other properties. Nowadays 'moving' and packing supplies are widely stocked.
Every geek should be able to improvise, true, but they should also have a fine understanding of the fine points of common tapes. It's the difference between success and failure for those who actually improvise instead of imagining doing it. 95% of the time, a top quality gaffer tape will beat the pacts off duct tape, but the guy in the article knows the duct tape mystique will sell where genuine gaffer tape quality won't.
The one true advantage of duct tape is that it is somewhat more widely available, in the stores and in your friend's closets. In the 70s, masking tape was everywhere and the duct tape crowd knew masking tape would quickly fail, if it worked at all, for most jobs where duct tape works great- but geek-wannabes and kids used masking tape for every job, and considered themselves clever. A slight edge in availability does not make it any better or less ignorant a default choice. Today, duct tape occupies the place in the market that masking tape once did: a passable cure-all for those who don't know better options exist or can't be bothered to think ahead and stock them.
I agree that the term "release candidate" *sounds* like it's expected to be a final release, and that may be true of some RC1 releases. However, it is a misleading characteriation of how the process is often meant to work (as indicated by the very fact that they're called RC1, instead of just RC -- RC2 is not unexpected) If all RCs were considered final until proven otherwise, we'd never see an announced "final release candidate", would we?
An RC1 gets tested more than mere alpha/betas, and that higher level of testing is *necessary* for a reliable release. If they didn't release RC1s with a few known issues, the actual release would not be as "final" (e.g. programs, chipsets, etc. often don't have fully stable function or performance on all features until the "A" version. Real world RC strategy is an up-front recognition of the realities that toss minor monkey wrenches in the best intentions of the engineering and testing departments.
An RC1 may be released with "minor" known bugs to help debug them, assess severity in the universe of real users, choose workable trade-offs, and enlist user aid in creating fixes for specific configs. Often a well thought-out Release Candidates contains chunks of testing/debugging code that is not meant to be in the final release. No matter what you might expect from the term, a 'Release Candidate" is usually not identical to the final release, even if it passes user testing with flying colors. This fact kills the simplistic assumption of many end users (we've all seen the rare release problems when debug code is removed from a stable RC)
The more intense RC testing typically turns up a handful of issues (nothing is bug-free). Some can be fixed cleanly once noticed. Others require testing beyond the abilities of the staff. Intermediate versions may be needed to work out the intricacies of the fixes across, say, all hardware and software configs. If intermediate versions are relabeled as "mere" betas, they won't get the testing that an RC gets, and the debugging could be delayed by months. If an RC1 includes 3 subtle issues, would you insist they all be "fully fixed" before an RC2 in 12-16 wks, or would you be happier if a RC2 with 'testing code' for one of more of those subtle bugs led to a fully functional RC3 (or 4) in 4-8 weeks?
That's why you rarely see post-RC1 'non-RC betas', and why we often hit RC3 or more: it's not that completely new issues arise in RC1/2/3, it's that downgrading from RC to v1.39b3 would have a psychological effect on the amount of deployment and testing, and project leaders know it
This is a bit off topic, but I find it interesting that the 27th Amendment (1992 - the last Amendment to the US reads), in its entirety:
No law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened
Typically Constitutional Amendments were made for far weightier matters, like, say the 26th (1971), which gave the vote to citizens over the age of 18 (21 had been the voting age). This was a very important rectification, because most men drafted, crippled or killed in Vietnam had been too young to vote - old enough for a legal responsibility to give up their lives and health, but not 'responsible enough' to have their opinions heard!
Hardly in the same league as Congressional pay, I think - or, say, the Equal Rights Amendment, which never managed to find its way to passage.
e.g.
Suppose a simple circuit "wastes" 4 volts, and only 3 volts reach the output terminals. Transformers can step them up to 50,000 volts at 0.00006 amps (6 milliamps). The formula is:
I (current) = W/V
I = 3 watts/50,000 volts
I = 6 milliamps (mA)
Six milliamps (0.06mA) is eight times weaker than the half-milliamp (0.5 mA) the Consumer Products Safety Commission allows to leak from household appliances. Half a milliamp is the accepted threshold for perceiving an electrical current.
Obviously amperage so low a suspect could barely perceive it would be useless in a Taser.
Sometimes I can tell what they "meant" to say (i.e. change the terms or numebr to make some sort of sense), but in some cases I can't even guess. One error is a mistake, a hundred is a warning.
I had one friend (a Hollywood writer) who swore by hers. Of our friends who saw it, bought one, and liked it, none have posted on the review sites. Of the two who hated it (either because they got shipped a bad 'luck of the draw'; or assumed it could do some , without bothering to ask or RTFM) -- well unhappy people kvetch to every site they can. That's a well known fact of marketing, and if internet reviews in particular. But hey I *like* knowing the worst: that way I'm usually pleasantly surprised by my actual purchase
READ INTERNET REVIEWS BUT GO SEE ONE IN OPERATION TOO. There is batch/unit variation in the actual playback compatibility. My happy friends have no problem with home recorded media, or VCD playback, though sony may not list these in the specs. Some people on the web had less luck. To many, the less compatible units are virtually junk, but if they'd been lucky in the draw, they'd be thrilled.
That's why I suggested bringing a representative sample of your media to the store. Even if you only have a few CDs of some type - say a dozen MP3 cds out of the 301 stored disks, the inability to play them is a major loss of function. You should also test any unit you actually buy immediately -that's just common sense- its better to return it the same day than risk disppointment in 3 mos.
The menu system is okay for my intended use, but definitely lacks the flexibility of, say, many MP3 playlists. but it's still worlds better than jewel cases in a CD rack or disk folders.
This is not just a AV CD/DVD storage system, but an CD/DVD PLAYER, which puts it in a different class than all the other solutions. It also can't store your CDROMS which is its biggest drawback in my book - oh, what I'd give for CDROM reading capability and an ethernet port!
IF you're storing SVCDs, DVDs and the like, you might want to seriously consider the Sony DVP CX860/875 (and related series. They can store up to 301 DVDs (for example) in a box that looks like thick DVD player, and costs under $300
Downsides: cost (under $1/disc) is a bit more than printing CD/case labels and using jewel boxes. Some of the earlier models weren't compatible with all formats (though I know more happy users who can play their CD-R SVCDs and MP3s than unhappy ones who can't, Sony makes no promises - take some representative samples of your collection to the store to test the one you want to buy) Some of the models, at least, have a limited menu system (e.g. limited flexibility of folder/genre and playlist structure, limited title length, only 16 tracks per CD may show up in the menu)
Upsides: extremely compact storage for 301 audio or video disks. You can't beat the convenience for a DVD or VCD collection: just point and pick with the included remote. It has a quality DVD and audio player built in, which I consider a big freebie. The on-screen disc selection is great, if you buy a model whose menu system suits you; and they are daisy chainable, so if you need to store another 300 disc is a couple of years, you can tack on a second unit (which will probably cost half as much by then) instead of buying a completely new, larger, unit.
In short: research the models carefully on the web before buying (some have drawbacks that may bug you) but I know many happy users, and am currently in the market for one myself.
Man! I thought you wer joking, but I guess Taco is the one with the weird sense of humor.
One thing though... when I'm logged him as him, I can't see any of the articles. Any suggestions?
I experimenting with various uses. It was a poor DVR DVR, due to the limited CPU and the small HDDs back then; it was an okay MP3 server but sometimes hiccuped if playing songs locally while streaming to other machines; NT-150 hackers still use the smart card slot for satellite card hacking, but that wasn't my gig.
It eventually became the least powerful CPU in my junkbox, but I liked its small, silent form factor and hated to trash its other capabilities. With a few components, I added an IR data reciever. the transfer rate never reached 10Mbps, but it was faster than the wireless networks of the time.
In the 70's, when lasers diodes ran $10+ surplus, hobbyists routinely used IR LEDs to communicate 100s of meters. A cluster of today's high-powered IR LEDs might reach a km or more (the transmitter needn't be directional if it's bright (illuminate a 6" translucent plastic cap and make the reciever directional with a cheap lens+tube focused on the emitter. Imagine, for example, a detector with a 1" dia "directional" tube fixed high in a tree on a distant hill, connected by RF or camouflaged wire to a buried server.
To be really clever, plant a second set-top box, filled with legal but embarrassing material in your backyard. When the cops "persuade" you to surrender the device, they won't suspect the existence of the real one.
As a matter of fact, I never got around to getting it back from the distant tree I used for range testing. If the battery weren't long since dead, I might give it a spin. Sure, rain, fog, and foliage would be problems over time, but depending on your location, you might be able to find a suitable location (e.g. the roof of a distant building). Power is also a problem, but the NT-150's current 10W draw could easily be handled by a small solar cell charging a battery (it'd charge 8-16 hours a day, but would probably only be used a few minutes a day) and even building technicians are hesitant to mess with unknown devices.
(The Stazi kept a covert surveillance station in Prague's old clock tower, but never gave a second thought to a wiring box along the power lines they ran up the tower stairway. It recently was found to contain a radio relay believed to be have been used by the KGB to relay small local KGB bugs to a Soviet office downtown. The KGB stole Stazi power because the tower -perfect for a relay- wasn't otherwise electrified, and they did not want to inform the Stazi about their local bugs)
This was, and is, beginner-level hardware hacking. It costs more in ingenuity than cash.
Actually, though I understand you problem with such blanket statements, your example actually proves his point. Phoenix would be far better off if (as the original poster said) some entrepreneur had run fiber through existing conduits, instead of (as Qwest and many companies have done) tried to over-leverage existing infrastructure (twisted pair copper) for more bandwidth.
Fiber is a mature technology, whose properties and system design are very well known. It's been in use since the 50's, though it was too expensive and awkward to implement. Through improvments over the decades, the signal loss, noise, interrepeater distance, repeater design, durability, etc. have improved dramatically. Better manufacturing and the economies of large-scale deployment have also cut the cost per kilometer of fiber.
Pair gain is a kludge, originally intended for use on existing twisted pair, but often deployed by companies that didn't want to invest in in-house re-training, equipment, and other costs of moving to another medium (which often was, indeed a bit more expensive at roll-out, at the time) I don't know exactly when Pair Gain or its immediate antecedent technology were invented (it might have been the 50's, too) but twisted pair deployments were very different form each other, because each deployment had to accomodate the unique situation in each city, industrial park, etc. -- and these accomodations weren't always the best choice.
In short, Pair Gain (and several other twisted Pair techs) are not as mature as fiber, because there is less actual experience with any given style of deployment; and worse, it was originally meant only as a stopgap extension of an older technology, compared to pulling fiber and laying repeaters for a consistent, mature, intrinsically higher bandwidth solution.
Don't get me wrong: fiber has its addon "extender" technologies, too (multi mode multiple frequency, in-line laser pumped erbium amplifiers, etc.) but though these represent more radical changes than pair gain vs. POTS, I'd call them 'improvements', doing what (intrinsically higher bandwidth) fiber was always designed to do; while Pair Gain, etc. use Twisted Pair for things the original install never intended (or lay new twisted pair, knowing it is more limited than the (maybe) slightly more expensive, longer-term alternative, in an era when the quarterly bottom line was king.
To me th point of the article is that they DID lay fiber, instead of trying to leverage the old TP,
I don't mean to argue with you, but you've made me see that I stated my point poorly.
According server logs, Taco/Hemos, etc. Win logins outnumbered *nix logins 15:1 on Slashdot (in early 2002) I concede that many Winlogins were probably from work or school, and that the *nix percentage has probably risen, as more users make *nix their primary machine and OS X makes many primary Mac users into unwitting 'nix users (if you want to count them in the 'Nix tally)
While I may be biased by my early years of reading Slashdot (I've been here far longer than my current user ID indicates), I find that, reading at -1 or 0 where the bulk of Slashdot postings end up, I see many posts that are fully buzzword compliant but have errors that no actual user would make. For every poster who gives him/herself away defnitively, there are several who sound like they've read about *nix but never seriously used it, but don't say anything specific enough to prove that impression.
This is not a slam at anyone. It's par for the course. While some of my examples are necessarily expensive, others are not: a house-sized backyard methane reactor can cost $20, village-sized is under $100. A sporty car doesn't have to cost more than a mini-van, but many unmarried Barcalounger 'racing experts' choose, say, an SUV or pickup instead. You can buy a decent X-10 home automation system for $50-100, but most geeks simply dream of remote control (e.g. a certain bedside switch), and end up stringing wire (with all its attendant disadvantages) when they actually get around to installing.
My house has 20 years of handy-geek add-ons -solar heating, X-10, encrypted cam surveillance, a 12ft HDTV wall, etc.- but I'll freely admit that I count myself as knowledgeably conversant with more technologies than I've actually used. My planned to-do list is longer now than ever, and judging by history, at best 1/3 will be permanent additions
Due to work, children, aging parents (living with me) and impromptu support of friends, etc, I probably use Windows more than *nix, despite my preferences. e.g. I'm typing from one of several hacked webplayers I have around the house. I had a choice between downloading a full-function DOC Win98 set-up or helping to create an incomplete Linux webplayer project. I decided that I wanted my webplayers to be operational appliances today. I've hacked other devices in various *nices as more experimental learning projects.
My point is: here (as in the developed nations at large) the Windows predominance is overwhelming - for temporary pragmatic reasons. There's a huge qualitative difference between 5% and 10% (or 10% and 20%, or 20% and 40%). Further, many regular *nix users are almost completely unfamiliar with their OS; they may as well be using OS 9 or WinXX as far as their actual usage is concerned. Others have an outdated machine using *nix (which is a good learning tool), but no matter where their heart lies, we can't ignore that their multi-GHz CPU runs Windows almost exclusively, even if it has a rarely-used dual-boot partition.
I see every sign that *nix is making the steady advance to mainstream, but my decades as a technogeek stand firmly behind the statement that most fans of any new or not-yet-mainstream tech do not actually have/use it to any appreciable degree -- and that *nix is still in that category. That may not be the case in a couple of years, but I believe the numbers show that it still is, today. Should it be any surprise that it's easier to talk the talk than walk the walk - especially 24/7?
Again, this is not a slam at anyone. It's a practical reality of how technology use advances.
Now, to return to the original topic: AIs would have a relationship to their hardware and software that we can't even approach. I was joking that they might display a level of partisanship that our hottest flamewars can't approach. It's only a joke because there's no overwhelming reason to presume they will have an emotional structure that would support "racism" etc. They may, but that remains to be seen.
You think the religious OS wars are bad now? Just wait until we have partisans who are actual experts in their OS -- AND are *truly* tied to it!
(Most Linux/etc partisans here don't even run the OS. This is typical of any technology: racing cars or horse drawn carriages; methane, solar, hydrogen or atomic power; vacuum tube audiophiles; you name it)
Actually, what you need is an HDTV tuner card. There are several on the market, for the price of a top graphics card (that is to say, under $300) The computer I'm on now has a MyHD MDP-100 $260 from the Digital Connection, who also happen to offer the primary US tech support for the card, on bug report/support threads on the AVS forum (read the entire forum - there have been separate followup threads for each driver revision and they contain other support tips too. Especially check out the v1.55.2 driver thread. That driver allowed DVDs to be displayed in 1080i - something the DVD consortium has since declared to be forbidden. All other cards and DVD players display DVD in 480p)
The MyHD comes with VGA output with a passthrough cable for dual monitor or simultaneous computer/HDTV use, and a breakout cable that gives Component Video and s-video. it also offers your choice of stereo or Dolby outputs. I don't usually to use it in that mode however. I find that it's usually simpler and equally high quality to simply rout the video through my (decent but nothing special) graphics card.
I also own a Telemann tuner, but I can't look at the model number and outputs right now. It's in the basement, cabled through the floor to a Toshiba DLP-650 LCD projector (though it's a used 1999 model, I usually can't even imagine what better quality would look like. Maybe a tad blacker blacks -it's only 300:1 contrast ratio, unlike the newer models at 450-3000:1- but that's it!) There is at least a third major manufacturer, whose name eludes me at the moment, but all the model numbers and details are listed in the support thread I linked above, with more info in other threads
In short, the card you want is out there. I've run the LCD projector off the MyHD a junkbox celeron 466 and ATI Rage-something card, running Win98 and projecting onto a bare wall (that was my test rig) and the results were outstanding: a crystal clear 120"+ image for a total equipment cost much less than a hinky 60" rear projection screen on sale at Best Buy. I did later upgrade to a better machine (Athlon 1700XP, but it worked with a P-III 800, too), so I could do HDTV recording. HTDV VCRs, like D-VHS, cost several thousand by themselves, but with a card, all you need is a moderately powerful CPu and a decent sized HDD to sotre them on (I saw a 200GB for $160 after rebate on Fatwallet Hot Deals forum this week) You can compress/record the transport stream to DVD-R for archival storage, and still get DVD quality or better. (I compress to DVD the next day. I haven't tried doing it in real-time yet, but it should be possible)
As much as I hate to say it, if you're building your own Home Theater PC, I'd recommend an Intel processor over a AMD. Maybe the newer or better Athlon boards are rock stable for HTPC use, and set and forget for at least a week at a stretch, but this wasn't the case for myself or others on the AVS forum a year ago (As a workaround, I have it reboot at 5 am every day. ) In general, I readfewer Atlon complaints for HTPC, I almost never heard Intel problems - and the drop in Atlon issues may be due to a shift to Intel, which is the general advice of that board.