Unfortunately, open source has more than it's share of big, unwieldy monolithic components that do many, many things and are therefore prone to errors. The Linux kernel, emacs (first time I've ever heard that e-macs is in any way orthogonal btw), and xfree come to mind.
Sometimes the complexity of the problem limits the desirability of simplicity. MP3 encoding is a good example of this. Would you prefer to do color conversion, pipe it into dct, pipe it into a compressor, pipe it into something that adds file header data all by hand (I know I'm forgetting a few steps, but these are the key ones)? I like having one tool, like lame.
Sometimes large things are a good idea, particularly when the task at hand is simple to program for, since integration has ease of use benefits (emacs is case in point here - did you know you can play "Adventure" on emacs?).
At any rate, all of the simple "do one thing well" tools are quite portable; they'll compile and run on Windows.
For me it's the breadth. With a few exceptions, any task that can be attempted with closed-source software can be attempted with open-source software, which ultimately means I can study every possible realm of computing I've got the hardware for without paying $1000 in software each time.
Also, the open source stuff is often much more customizable that the closed stuff, which I much prefer.
Specifically, language theory (Kleene's work, mostly) has shown that computer languages fall into a subset of the class of all possible languages.
Specifically, natural languages are "context sensitive" languages, whose parsing at worst is an NP hard problem, while programming languages are "context free" or "regular," whose parsing requires polynomial time.
So there are things that cannot be formulated in computer languages that can be in natural languages (I suppose that may be obvious, but there's mathematical backing, not just subjective studies). As far as learning young versus learning old, there's still the advantage of youth to aid in the process.
I learned my first programming language at the age of 7. It's been my experience that I pick up programming languages faster than most of my peers - probably because I've got a context-free language under my belt already to abstract from.
Therefore, we can make responding to spam a way that society decides who is an idiot!
Responding to spam should therefore be punishable by the revocation of the following privileges, which are given specifically because they assume that the average person is NOT an idiot: -use of computer networks without direct supervision of someone with an idiot-supervision license. -ability to vote -ability to work for the public in which responsibilty for others is given to you (so you could be a janitor, but not a teacher or prison guard) -ability to drive any vehicle that requires a license
And, finally, you would lose the privilege of legal purchase through the internet.
I think that the rest of the 9999 people can agree that we don't want people who are willing to respond to spam screwing up public resources for the rest of us, and if we do something like this, we can maybe keep the world safe. Anyone whose idiot friend bought/was screwed out of money by spam could report them, and the authorities could force the return of the money paid (since it was not a legal transaction since they made it by responding to spam), and after that point, it would never happen again, since the spammers wouldn't want to have their money taken again, and the idiot wouldn't be allowed back on the 'net without someone licensed watching them.
They could pay for the program with the licensing system. I'm sure that there are enough idiots who want to use the internet to make it worth it.
In my extensive search for things that did this in Linux, this was the best guide available.
HOWEVER, the problem remains that transcode can only work with AVI files reliably, and even then it doesn't deal with any of the MPEG4 codecs, such as DIVX.
The other thing that I found out was that mplayer people have decided to build an output system into mencoder (their file-reencoder) to do DVD-compatible mpegs as an output format.
This is a big thing, because it is also something that gives Linux an edge over Windows encoding solutions, and probably over all proprietary solutions, since mplayer can decode more than any other video player. So you could take old cartoons you downloaded from the net in wmv format, add a video in mjpeg format from your camera, and put them both on the same DVD.
Best of all, I think, is that it's about twice as fast, or more, than any other processing solution I know about.
I imagine that the reason that there is no good Linux solution for this at the moment is that video re-encoding isn't up to the standard such that making GUIs to do things for it is too complicated to be really useful. This may change that issue.
This type of argument is known as a "straw man argument." Like all straw man arguments, it's case is built upon simplifing the oppositions case to the point where it is obviously flawed, and then shooting the rediculious mock-up of an argument - the straw man - full of holes.
In this case, the simplification is the reason for wanting to support copywrites in the case of the GPL, while ignoring them for Microsoft. The author of the previous post asserts that others are merely justifying what they believe to be otherwise unjust merely because Microsoft is a monopoly.
While it is possible that this is partly the case, I highly doubt that this covers most of the issue. Personally, I can think of lots of much more complex reasons why people might decide to pirate from Microsoft, many of which you'll find in this thread. I personally wouldn't mind copying Microsoft stuff if I felt the terms of the copywrite were unjust, even if I felt that the terms of the GPL are just. Copywrite owners aren't free to make whatever claims they want - copywrites are a privelege granted to companies, not rights, and the limits are supposedly decided for the benefit of the public.
Specifically, it I feel like pirating a copy of the media when consumer hardware companies give you their bloatware version of Windows with all the extra stuff you don't need.
I also feel like pirating if I get one of those "you can only use this copy of Windows on this machine, and not transfer it to any others if this one breaks" license. I especially don't mind defying that license if I've got one of those dainty, highly breakable computers known more commonly as "laptops."
No, I don't think that works. It sounds like a polite way of saying "used food."
"Want to buy some open consumables? Only slightly eaten!"
How about just using the expression "Open-specification," or "open-spec" as an adjective for things like this. Then we can know exactly that open means "open specification" and not "some jerk just opened the package and we still want you to buy it."
Feelings are not just any conditioned response to what are normally emotional stimuli. They are an emotional resposes, which are internal, and currently only observable by the subject. It is possible, for instance, to watch a sad movie, and act as though it didn't affect you at all, even though you became very sad, or conversely to say "that movie made me sad," and you do a very convincing job of acting sad, even though you aren't. What's to keep an AI from doing the latter?
Unfortunately, we can't exactly quantify emotion, so judging that an AI effectively emulates it is as good as we've got so far. Just don't make the mistake of thinking that it's all the same.
You're right that it couldn't happen, but our sun could go nova, and explode a lot of material out of it after becoming a white dwarf. http://observe.arc.nasa.gov/nasa/space/ste llardeat h/stellardeath_6.html
As far as producing a nebula, do you think we're in one now? Hydrogen gas exists in a density of roughly one atom per cubic meter around the earth, which we think of as a vaccuum. As the sun continues to expel it's contents into space, they continue to expand outward; they don't have the gravity to stay together.
Unlucky, however, is that most (all, afaik) man-made fusion reactions don't involve that proton-electron duo.
They involve heavy hydrogen (deuterium, hydrogen with a neutron) and heavy-heavy hydrogen (tritium, hydrogen with two neutrons), which is much more rare. The result, by the way, is not just one helium - it's a helium and a neutron for a net mass loss of about 2AU per reaction.
The activation cost of fusion using normal water is much, much higher than when using heavy water. There are processes to produce both of these isotopes (tritium can be produced as a side-reaction from the fusion, but deuterium must be filtered from water), but they're not especially capable of producing large quantities easily. But we've got to crawl before we can walk; once we get controllable, sustainable, and energy producing fusion, then we can worry about switching over to a fuel source that will actually make it practical to use for power.
Yes...well, my point was that steps 1-6 can be accomplished better (and by better I mean with more developer support and user testing base) with other source based distros, while step #7 is about two lines of code.
Step #8 is nice, but it's not worth getting a whole distro just for a CD-based config system. There are are few things on freshmeat that are designed for this. So, I don't see the point of using it if this feature it it's only claim to fame.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but from the Rock Linux manual, it looks like installs work pretty much like they do for command line installs with ANY source based distribution, just that the installer script includes a small extra section to copy all the stuff to an ISO.
That's maybe four lines of code.
It's worth a bit more to go ahead and use an established distribution - source or otherwise, since you'd be building generic binaries anyway if you want to use it on CD - for that purpose.
If you're really keen to use installers like this, Gentoo is probably a better way to go because they have more people to test code and get it working reliably. Like I said, the addition of about four lines of code are enough to do this - and I'm talking about a little bash script, not C code.
Of course he's dead now, but before he died he read almost all (maybe all) of his books for "books on tape" recordings.
If I heard someone with a thick, deep voice as the narrator, it just wouldn't seem right. The narrator for the radio show, books on tape, and miniseries was always a higher baritone voice (like what most men have).
Actors are absolutely the worst things in the world, and there are none worse than Stephen Moore. Of course, Warwick Davis is even worse than that. His very presence gives me a pain on all the diodes down my left side.
I suppose it's to be expected, what with my brain the size of a planet and everyone being so dreadfully stupid. I suppose an excrutiatingly bad representation of Marvin is as inevitable as the rest of the unspeakably dreary monotony that is my life. Life! Don't talk to me about life. I'm not getting you down, am I? Because I'd hate to think that I was getting you down.
Re:Take down a space station
on
Space Burial
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Oh, and by the way, it also leaves me open for coming back in the sequel, where the ship is picked up by some garbage collectors in the distant future and I wreak havoc on a space station 500 years from now before finally being launched into the sun where I am finally and completely destroyed, leaving no hope for another sequel with me in it.
However, the radioactive eggs that I probably laid at the time could end up hatching and once again striking the fear into the hearts of the living.
I got it all worked out. I'm looking forward to my afterlife.
Re:Take down a space station
on
Space Burial
·
· Score: 2, Funny
I personally plan to become a radioactive monster with poisonous radioactive breath that can only be stopped by trapping it in a ship and sending it into the deep space.
It's a lot cheaper than your plan, and I still get the added bonus of the fear-striking thing.
This once again points to an important argument for not hiring other people.
They make mistakes. The only one you can really trust is numero Uno.
This is exactly why more companies need to hire me. I know all about myself, and can therefore trust myself, and therefore, you can trust me. Too many companies are making the idiotic mistake of trusting people that I don't know, and therefore can't trust, and therefore they can't trust either.
Documents-to-Go can either store stuff in Native Windows document formats, which can be read by anything that can read them, or in a compressed version of the same, which can be converted by Documents-to-Go's desktop software, which I never save things in.
But why would you even need to convert back? Do you realize how hard it is to write something on a device without a keyboard? I keep them stored on my computer, and if I ever loose the opportunity to use Documents-to-Go, I can always convert them to html using Open Office's html engine and read them in plucker.
As wifi sniffer is, of course, a moot point. How can you have that when you don't have wifi? I don't know how partitions are encrypted, only that they can be. Don't see much point in pursuing that either, since 32MB is way more than enough for a text storage device, which is what I'm using it for. I guess I could use it if I wanted to start watching movies on it. 90 minutes would be about 120MB when compressed down to the size that my PDA can handle if stored in two-pass compressed DIVX format.
As for flashing roms: yes, it can be done, but I like the one that came with my device. It's very customizable, and easy to add and remove anything I don't want. It's exceedingly hackable. I don't need to remove it to get freedom of choice.
You're going to scratch up your screen a bit through use. Why not have it? It's good to have an area that won't make the bottom portion of the viewable area worse-for-wear in three years. It's not like the screen has less real-estate. It's 320x320, and because of the limitation of the lcd commodity hardware, it would be 320x320 even if they removed the bottom portion. Besides, from a programming perspective, a perfectly square screen is a lot easier to work with.
While I get your point, I might also add that Sony doesn't make the Tungsten E; Palm does.
I have a Palm Pilot - specifically, a Tungsten E, their newest low end model, which I got for $170.
So far, I've gotten movies to play in divx format with mmplayer (which means they're about 1/10 the size they were with the included app); 15 books to be stored in 3MB with plucker; a better light dimming system (you could hardly affect the light before) with dimmer, a NES emulator from nesem, and a remote control system (using your palm as a remote) through Omniremote.
It also comes with Documents-to-Go, which can read and write word, excel and powerpoint documents (the same kind you find on the PC, not an import).
What exactly am I missing in freedom of choice? All the stuff I chose didn't come with my Palm device, with the exception of Documents-to-Go, and one app is even GPL (plucker).
I think I'm limited only by the speed of the processor, and for wireless stuff. I could have gotten the faster ones, or wireless, but I'd have paid more for those. I got a lot of bang for my buck, without paying the extra $130 that you did.
Please share whatever extra information you got that allowed you to arrive at the conclusion that this patent is trivial or obvious. All I got from the article was that it has something to do with on-chip clocking, which may be done in a clever/nonobvious way.
It could work, though, if parents kept got a log for what their kids wrote and assigned punishment for forgetting punctuation, and for misspelling. Either that, or giving rewards for not forgetting it, and not mispelling.
Maybe, if we all work together, one day people who type like third graders will be treated like third graders.
Re:Lets hope that the result is progress
on
Google v. Microsoft
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, it looks like the server is down.
On the plus side, this has never happened before in the two years I've had the site.
Re:Lets hope that the result is progress
on
Google v. Microsoft
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
For most sites, boycotting MSN now would be like telling a deaf blind person that they can't listen to your music or watch your movies.
Google visits my site once or twice a week. Altavista and Inkomi both make regular monthly visits. MSN has paid someone them for that data, because while I have no record of their site's visit, I can find my site on theirs if I look really specifically.
As for searches, I've had 43 visits thank to google for my piddly non-commercial homepage. Most of my visitors have actually come from Slashdot (unfortunately, my client is not altogether accurate knowing that everything ending in "slashdot.org" is actually the same site, so I don't have an accurate count).
I believe this is a microcosm of how it is for most sites with respect to google and Microsoft: they do not have an effective search engine.
I don't know about you, but my company's payroll department is staffed exclusively by ninjas. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've gone to get my paycheck and gotten a throat punch.
They broke my pta (personal throat assistant) right when I got there, and I had to buy something else.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish that this were always true.
Unfortunately, open source has more than it's share of big, unwieldy monolithic components that do many, many things and are therefore prone to errors. The Linux kernel, emacs (first time I've ever heard that e-macs is in any way orthogonal btw), and xfree come to mind.
Sometimes the complexity of the problem limits the desirability of simplicity. MP3 encoding is a good example of this. Would you prefer to do color conversion, pipe it into dct, pipe it into a compressor, pipe it into something that adds file header data all by hand (I know I'm forgetting a few steps, but these are the key ones)? I like having one tool, like lame.
Sometimes large things are a good idea, particularly when the task at hand is simple to program for, since integration has ease of use benefits (emacs is case in point here - did you know you can play "Adventure" on emacs?).
At any rate, all of the simple "do one thing well" tools are quite portable; they'll compile and run on Windows.
For me it's the breadth. With a few exceptions, any task that can be attempted with closed-source software can be attempted with open-source software, which ultimately means I can study every possible realm of computing I've got the hardware for without paying $1000 in software each time.
Also, the open source stuff is often much more customizable that the closed stuff, which I much prefer.
Specifically, language theory (Kleene's work, mostly) has shown that computer languages fall into a subset of the class of all possible languages.
Specifically, natural languages are "context sensitive" languages, whose parsing at worst is an NP hard problem, while programming languages are "context free" or "regular," whose parsing requires polynomial time.
So there are things that cannot be formulated in computer languages that can be in natural languages (I suppose that may be obvious, but there's mathematical backing, not just subjective studies). As far as learning young versus learning old, there's still the advantage of youth to aid in the process.
I learned my first programming language at the age of 7. It's been my experience that I pick up programming languages faster than most of my peers - probably because I've got a context-free language under my belt already to abstract from.
Yes! You have it!
Therefore, we can make responding to spam a way that society decides who is an idiot!
Responding to spam should therefore be punishable by the revocation of the following privileges, which are given specifically because they assume that the average person is NOT an idiot:
-use of computer networks without direct supervision of someone with an idiot-supervision license.
-ability to vote
-ability to work for the public in which responsibilty for others is given to you (so you could be a janitor, but not a teacher or prison guard)
-ability to drive any vehicle that requires a license
And, finally, you would lose the privilege of legal purchase through the internet.
I think that the rest of the 9999 people can agree that we don't want people who are willing to respond to spam screwing up public resources for the rest of us, and if we do something like this, we can maybe keep the world safe. Anyone whose idiot friend bought/was screwed out of money by spam could report them, and the authorities could force the return of the money paid (since it was not a legal transaction since they made it by responding to spam), and after that point, it would never happen again, since the spammers wouldn't want to have their money taken again, and the idiot wouldn't be allowed back on the 'net without someone licensed watching them.
They could pay for the program with the licensing system. I'm sure that there are enough idiots who want to use the internet to make it worth it.
I've tried it encoding divx stuff and it didn't work.
I was using the latest version of transcode that Gentoo has to offer.
I"m not talking about exports, either. I'm talking about imports. If you're doing DVD authoring, all the exports are through mp2enc.
In my extensive search for things that did this in Linux, this was the best guide available.
HOWEVER, the problem remains that transcode can only work with AVI files reliably, and even then it doesn't deal with any of the MPEG4 codecs, such as DIVX.
The other thing that I found out was that mplayer people have decided to build an output system into mencoder (their file-reencoder) to do DVD-compatible mpegs as an output format.
This is a big thing, because it is also something that gives Linux an edge over Windows encoding solutions, and probably over all proprietary solutions, since mplayer can decode more than any other video player. So you could take old cartoons you downloaded from the net in wmv format, add a video in mjpeg format from your camera, and put them both on the same DVD.
Best of all, I think, is that it's about twice as fast, or more, than any other processing solution I know about.
I imagine that the reason that there is no good Linux solution for this at the moment is that video re-encoding isn't up to the standard such that making GUIs to do things for it is too complicated to be really useful. This may change that issue.
This type of argument is known as a "straw man argument." Like all straw man arguments, it's case is built upon simplifing the oppositions case to the point where it is obviously flawed, and then shooting the rediculious mock-up of an argument - the straw man - full of holes.
In this case, the simplification is the reason for wanting to support copywrites in the case of the GPL, while ignoring them for Microsoft. The author of the previous post asserts that others are merely justifying what they believe to be otherwise unjust merely because Microsoft is a monopoly.
While it is possible that this is partly the case, I highly doubt that this covers most of the issue. Personally, I can think of lots of much more complex reasons why people might decide to pirate from Microsoft, many of which you'll find in this thread. I personally wouldn't mind copying Microsoft stuff if I felt the terms of the copywrite were unjust, even if I felt that the terms of the GPL are just. Copywrite owners aren't free to make whatever claims they want - copywrites are a privelege granted to companies, not rights, and the limits are supposedly decided for the benefit of the public.
Specifically, it I feel like pirating a copy of the media when consumer hardware companies give you their bloatware version of Windows with all the extra stuff you don't need.
I also feel like pirating if I get one of those "you can only use this copy of Windows on this machine, and not transfer it to any others if this one breaks" license. I especially don't mind defying that license if I've got one of those dainty, highly breakable computers known more commonly as "laptops."
No, I don't think that works. It sounds like a polite way of saying "used food."
"Want to buy some open consumables? Only slightly eaten!"
How about just using the expression "Open-specification," or "open-spec" as an adjective for things like this. Then we can know exactly that open means "open specification" and not "some jerk just opened the package and we still want you to buy it."
...no, it's technically not true.
Feelings are not just any conditioned response to what are normally emotional stimuli. They are an emotional resposes, which are internal, and currently only observable by the subject. It is possible, for instance, to watch a sad movie, and act as though it didn't affect you at all, even though you became very sad, or conversely to say "that movie made me sad," and you do a very convincing job of acting sad, even though you aren't. What's to keep an AI from doing the latter?
Unfortunately, we can't exactly quantify emotion, so judging that an AI effectively emulates it is as good as we've got so far. Just don't make the mistake of thinking that it's all the same.
You're right that it couldn't happen, but our sun could go nova, and explode a lot of material out of it after becoming a white dwarf.e llardeat h/stellardeath_6.html
http://observe.arc.nasa.gov/nasa/space/st
As far as producing a nebula, do you think we're in one now? Hydrogen gas exists in a density of roughly one atom per cubic meter around the earth, which we think of as a vaccuum. As the sun continues to expel it's contents into space, they continue to expand outward; they don't have the gravity to stay together.
Unlucky, however, is that most (all, afaik) man-made fusion reactions don't involve that proton-electron duo.
They involve heavy hydrogen (deuterium, hydrogen with a neutron) and heavy-heavy hydrogen (tritium, hydrogen with two neutrons), which is much more rare. The result, by the way, is not just one helium - it's a helium and a neutron for a net mass loss of about 2AU per reaction.
The activation cost of fusion using normal water is much, much higher than when using heavy water. There are processes to produce both of these isotopes (tritium can be produced as a side-reaction from the fusion, but deuterium must be filtered from water), but they're not especially capable of producing large quantities easily. But we've got to crawl before we can walk; once we get controllable, sustainable, and energy producing fusion, then we can worry about switching over to a fuel source that will actually make it practical to use for power.
Yes...well, my point was that steps 1-6 can be accomplished better (and by better I mean with more developer support and user testing base) with other source based distros, while step #7 is about two lines of code.
Step #8 is nice, but it's not worth getting a whole distro just for a CD-based config system. There are are few things on freshmeat that are designed for this.
So, I don't see the point of using it if this feature it it's only claim to fame.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but from the Rock Linux manual, it looks like installs work pretty much like they do for command line installs with ANY source based distribution, just that the installer script includes a small extra section to copy all the stuff to an ISO.
That's maybe four lines of code.
It's worth a bit more to go ahead and use an established distribution - source or otherwise, since you'd be building generic binaries anyway if you want to use it on CD - for that purpose.
If you're really keen to use installers like this, Gentoo is probably a better way to go because they have more people to test code and get it working reliably. Like I said, the addition of about four lines of code are enough to do this - and I'm talking about a little bash script, not C code.
Of course he's dead now, but before he died he read almost all (maybe all) of his books for "books on tape" recordings.
If I heard someone with a thick, deep voice as the narrator, it just wouldn't seem right. The narrator for the radio show, books on tape, and miniseries was always a higher baritone voice (like what most men have).
Actors are absolutely the worst things in the world, and there are none worse than Stephen Moore. Of course, Warwick Davis is even worse than that. His very presence gives me a pain on all the diodes down my left side.
I suppose it's to be expected, what with my brain the size of a planet and everyone being so dreadfully stupid. I suppose an excrutiatingly bad representation of Marvin is as inevitable as the rest of the unspeakably dreary monotony that is my life. Life! Don't talk to me about life. I'm not getting you down, am I? Because I'd hate to think that I was getting you down.
Oh, and by the way, it also leaves me open for coming back in the sequel, where the ship is picked up by some garbage collectors in the distant future and I wreak havoc on a space station 500 years from now before finally being launched into the sun where I am finally and completely destroyed, leaving no hope for another sequel with me in it.
However, the radioactive eggs that I probably laid at the time could end up hatching and once again striking the fear into the hearts of the living.
I got it all worked out. I'm looking forward to my afterlife.
I personally plan to become a radioactive monster with poisonous radioactive breath that can only be stopped by trapping it in a ship and sending it into the deep space.
It's a lot cheaper than your plan, and I still get the added bonus of the fear-striking thing.
This once again points to an important argument for not hiring other people.
They make mistakes. The only one you can really trust is numero Uno.
This is exactly why more companies need to hire me. I know all about myself, and can therefore trust myself, and therefore, you can trust me. Too many companies are making the idiotic mistake of trusting people that I don't know, and therefore can't trust, and therefore they can't trust either.
That's mostly untrue.
Documents-to-Go can either store stuff in Native Windows document formats, which can be read by anything that can read them, or in a compressed version of the same, which can be converted by Documents-to-Go's desktop software, which I never save things in.
But why would you even need to convert back? Do you realize how hard it is to write something on a device without a keyboard? I keep them stored on my computer, and if I ever loose the opportunity to use Documents-to-Go, I can always convert them to html using Open Office's html engine and read them in plucker.
As wifi sniffer is, of course, a moot point. How can you have that when you don't have wifi? I don't know how partitions are encrypted, only that they can be. Don't see much point in pursuing that either, since 32MB is way more than enough for a text storage device, which is what I'm using it for. I guess I could use it if I wanted to start watching movies on it. 90 minutes would be about 120MB when compressed down to the size that my PDA can handle if stored in two-pass compressed DIVX format.
As for flashing roms: yes, it can be done, but I like the one that came with my device. It's very customizable, and easy to add and remove anything I don't want. It's exceedingly hackable. I don't need to remove it to get freedom of choice.
You're going to scratch up your screen a bit through use. Why not have it? It's good to have an area that won't make the bottom portion of the viewable area worse-for-wear in three years. It's not like the screen has less real-estate. It's 320x320, and because of the limitation of the lcd commodity hardware, it would be 320x320 even if they removed the bottom portion. Besides, from a programming perspective, a perfectly square screen is a lot easier to work with.
While I get your point, I might also add that Sony doesn't make the Tungsten E; Palm does.
I have a Palm Pilot - specifically, a Tungsten E, their newest low end model, which I got for $170.
So far, I've gotten movies to play in divx format with mmplayer (which means they're about 1/10 the size they were with the included app); 15 books to be stored in 3MB with plucker; a better light dimming system (you could hardly affect the light before) with dimmer, a NES emulator from nesem, and a remote control system (using your palm as a remote) through Omniremote.
It also comes with Documents-to-Go, which can read and write word, excel and powerpoint documents (the same kind you find on the PC, not an import).
What exactly am I missing in freedom of choice? All the stuff I chose didn't come with my Palm device, with the exception of Documents-to-Go, and one app is even GPL (plucker).
I think I'm limited only by the speed of the processor, and for wireless stuff. I could have gotten the faster ones, or wireless, but I'd have paid more for those. I got a lot of bang for my buck, without paying the extra $130 that you did.
Please share whatever extra information you got that allowed you to arrive at the conclusion that this patent is trivial or obvious. All I got from the article was that it has something to do with on-chip clocking, which may be done in a clever/nonobvious way.
So what's your source?
It could work, though, if parents kept got a log for what their kids wrote and assigned punishment for forgetting punctuation, and for misspelling. Either that, or giving rewards for not forgetting it, and not mispelling.
Maybe, if we all work together, one day people who type like third graders will be treated like third graders.
Yeah, it looks like the server is down.
On the plus side, this has never happened before in the two years I've had the site.
For most sites, boycotting MSN now would be like telling a deaf blind person that they can't listen to your music or watch your movies.
Google visits my site once or twice a week. Altavista and Inkomi both make regular monthly visits. MSN has paid someone them for that data, because while I have no record of their site's visit, I can find my site on theirs if I look really specifically.
As for searches, I've had 43 visits thank to google for my piddly non-commercial homepage. Most of my visitors have actually come from Slashdot (unfortunately, my client is not altogether accurate knowing that everything ending in "slashdot.org" is actually the same site, so I don't have an accurate count).
I believe this is a microcosm of how it is for most sites with respect to google and Microsoft: they do not have an effective search engine.
I don't know about you, but my company's payroll department is staffed exclusively by ninjas. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've gone to get my paycheck and gotten a throat punch.
They broke my pta (personal throat assistant) right when I got there, and I had to buy something else.