I wonder how well Progressive's device will corralate with actual accident rates. It can't tell the difference between going 55 on a highway and going 55 in a preschool parking lot. Or, for that matter, 20 mph in the lot, and 20 on the highway.
Hopefully they'll do more than just histogram your speeds -- maybe they'll try to categorize your driving -- local, stop-and-go, freeway -- and then maybe check to see how often you suddenly decellerate. Jazz it up right, and you could detect cell phone usage, too.
In 1995, I put together an animation of a satellite my company was working on. I used POVray running on DOS, and wrote a little pair of programs that would hand off render-jobs to different computers. I used 16 computers (mostly P60's) lying around the office to render about 400 frames total. The whole job took about 35 hours of wall time, which was important because I had only three 1/2 days to tweak my small demo & make a final rendering.
I didn't know network programming, so all communication was through read/writing a few networked control files. One acted as a semaphore - if you had sucessfully written your computer ID to it, you could modify the main to-do-list file. One specialized computer was assigned the task of copying the finshed files onto my new 810MB laptop's hard drive; otherwise the file server didn't have enough space for all the.TGA files.
It was a fun project & I've got it included on my resume. Today it sounds kindof trivial, so I've had to explain that general-purpose clustering tools weren't available then. I guess Beouwulf beat me to it by a year (and a zillion-fold on capability), so I was wrong. Information travelled so much slower those days...
In virginia, a hybrid with only one passenger can use an HOV lane (more details) -- that means a hybrid suv can use the lane even when my car is more fuel efficient. We'll see what happens in two years when the rule comes up for renewal and its folly will look a little worse when hybrid != execellent gas milage.
Domain names in the.com and.net domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information.
No match for "GIRLSLIFEONLINE.COM".
>>> Last update of whois database: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 08:43:31 EDT
I know you were probably going for +1 INSENSITIVE CLOD, but this is an opportunity! I willingly quit my job to do a year-long sabbatical -- one of the better decisions in my life, I think. I learned about my self, about what makes me happy in a job, and some technical things too (that helped get me my next job). Consider this time self-employment, so only you own your thoughts.
hook this up to a little webcam and go over the seams slowly, and the computer can do all the adjustment automatically... it can recogonize what part of the seam it's on by projecting a test pattern, then it can figure out the overlap. It might even then paint the de-seamed area a different color so you know that part is done.
I wonder if they do what ink jet printers do... not make it an absolute seam, but a blurry seam, slowly blending from one projector to another over the space of a few inches. The article says both "blended" and "get rid of overlap," which seem to be opposites to me.
I'm an optimist! Especially with sony, there is a good chance that this is a custom chip. But the level of customness varies... it could be anything from a fully-automatic decoder to a simple hardware assist (I'm not sure what that is with audio, but it would be like a DCT engine for video). If all else fails, a software-only solution would probably work (although at lower battery life).
Interesting note: the portal player chips in ipods have the ability to decode wma's, but apple doesn't use it...
I'd love to see a dissassembly & get the real scientific evidence:-)
The big battery-killer is the drive. Find a way to use it less, and you'll get longer battery life. Two ways: more SDRAM buffer memory, and lower data rate (like the sibling post so eloquently poinnts out). Of course, if you skip around a lot so that your music selections are not predictable, you'll force the drive to spin up and kill it much sooner -- that's why a 2-hour SDRAM buffer won't help that much in real live (but it will make the specs look good)
The hardware looks really nice -- smaller, lighter, longer battery, and a magnesium case. (it's also $100 more). The only drawback is the stupid file format choice. How long is it going to be until someone hacks this to play standard MP3's? Figuring that out may be enough reason for me to buy one (heh!).
Side note: it's pretty neat that they made it smaller. Assuming that it uses the same 1.8" drive, the ipod is already pretty close to that size, so there isn't much remove for improvement.
I'm looking forward to Apple breaking the format another way... lifting all restrictions from Real music and allowing people to export to a non-encrypted MP3. Real can't make an protected file because a real apple file has the account-holder's name - if that account doesn't exist in the apple databases, or if there is no record of a song purchase, then it should be easy to drop restrictions. Of course, apple would have to be *very* sure that this is correct before they do that, or else by spoofing the apple servers, you may be able to open up actual apple files.
I think I see what you mean but it's not quite what I was saying. I wasn't concentrating on the hardware aspects of the iPod... I was just using the printer cartridge case to show that the law was being interpreted very narrowly (and the copyright office thinks its too narrow).
What I was trying to say that rather than a sofware/software interoperability case, this may be seen as data/software interoperability. The first one is where one piece of software interacts with another -- example: a mouse driver and windows. Both programs are running on the same processor and at the same time (well, at least, time-sliced).
The second case is different because, once you've run the Harmony program, you're left with a data file... It's that file that is interoperating with the ipod firmware. (note that, at the time of playback, the harmony program isn't running and the computer it would run on (PC) isn't even connected to the ipod).
There's a difference, and I'm not so sure that a judge would find Harmony in this narrow exception. Of course, the copyright office and judges may have to battle it out, and I hope that eventually Real wins. We need more DMCA caselaw, and I'd like to make sure that this portion of the dmca is interpreted broadly.
The DMCA allows an exception "solely for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title or violate applicable law other that this section" 17 U.S.C 1201(f)(3). (emphasis mine)
The judge in the SCC/Lexmark case read this very narrowly and said that since the algorithm came on a chip, it was non-exempt hardware instead of software. This case isn't allowing software/software interoperability (like Wine offers), but it's data/software interoperability. Big difference; if the DMCA allowed that, then DVD-playing would be legal (same interoperability, except in reverse)
The updated version won silver. It doesn't look like it would comfortably fit in my pocket, but the judges seemed impressed by the handling of the device and the Dual Durometer Disc (which allows you to clean up bad guys). I guess they're the experts, but I'll stick with the old version.
at least one marketing company is in that building... demand interactive. Wrong floor & phone number doesn't match well, and it looks like it's a one-man-show run by Tony Selb. Then again, I wouldn't use my real name for a promotion like this...
Now I'm residing in the Nigera with my dead deposed father dictator (see coverage on nbc and other tv) and several esteemed banking institutions in my country wondering how we can transfer the monies (TWO HUNDREND AND THIRTY THOUSAND AMERICAN DOLLARS) out of the country. Perhaps we could have your assistance, for I know for sure you are a good person?
--Pete Avignia, honorable civil servant at your service.
p.s. Discretion is of the utmost importance in this matter. Please send your banking account number as a sign of good faith.
Bring that wheel to North Carolina! The roads here are especially designed to be traveled on by 6.00 radian wheels -- the potholes are purposely laid down in that other 0.28 radian section. So, not only is math class easier for the slow kids, but we save 4.45% of highway construction costs!
(of course, out-of-staters with their fancy 6.28 radian tires will experience substantial bumps when travelling our roads)
You can get transparent metal meshes for the windows... your microwave has a course version of this that lets high-frequency light through, but not lower-frequency microwaves. Microwaves have doors, too, although forcing your workers inside would probably be illegal for other reasons...
after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the company expanded its focus to information security courses.
That makes no sense. I could see them expanding in the wake of some vicious worm or virus, but they might as well take their inspiration from Chechnya. It makes it seem like they are in the business to trade on fear-of-hackers rather than to provide real security. Not that that's a bad marketing angle, but just one I'd have moral issues using.
Ha Ha. No, I type LEEE, but with a lowercase L. It's the group of Laser, Electrical, and Electronics Engineers -- it's been expanded to include fiber optic people, too.:-)
Remember the old electric typewriters that didn't have a '1' (one) or a '0' (zero) key? You had to use letters instead.
Military connectors (and many others, I'm sure) skip the confusing letters (like "I", "O", and "Q") in their numbering. I'm sure IEEE could do the same.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder how well Progressive's device will corralate with actual accident rates. It can't tell the difference between going 55 on a highway and going 55 in a preschool parking lot. Or, for that matter, 20 mph in the lot, and 20 on the highway.
Hopefully they'll do more than just histogram your speeds -- maybe they'll try to categorize your driving -- local, stop-and-go, freeway -- and then maybe check to see how often you suddenly decellerate. Jazz it up right, and you could detect cell phone usage, too.
In 1995, I put together an animation of a satellite my company was working on. I used POVray running on DOS, and wrote a little pair of programs that would hand off render-jobs to different computers. I used 16 computers (mostly P60's) lying around the office to render about 400 frames total. The whole job took about 35 hours of wall time, which was important because I had only three 1/2 days to tweak my small demo & make a final rendering.
.TGA files.
I didn't know network programming, so all communication was through read/writing a few networked control files. One acted as a semaphore - if you had sucessfully written your computer ID to it, you could modify the main to-do-list file. One specialized computer was assigned the task of copying the finshed files onto my new 810MB laptop's hard drive; otherwise the file server didn't have enough space for all the
It was a fun project & I've got it included on my resume. Today it sounds kindof trivial, so I've had to explain that general-purpose clustering tools weren't available then. I guess Beouwulf beat me to it by a year (and a zillion-fold on capability), so I was wrong. Information travelled so much slower those days...
You're not using the right bike -- put those kids to work, and you can tow a boat easily!
In virginia, a hybrid with only one passenger can use an HOV lane (more details) -- that means a hybrid suv can use the lane even when my car is more fuel efficient. We'll see what happens in two years when the rule comes up for renewal and its folly will look a little worse when hybrid != execellent gas milage.
[morcheeba:~] mouse% whois girlslifeonline.com
.com and .net domains can now be registered
Whois Server Version 1.3
Domain names in the
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.
No match for "GIRLSLIFEONLINE.COM".
>>> Last update of whois database: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 08:43:31 EDT
so, they're saying some monopolies are good because it lets their webmonkeys design for only one platform?
I know you were probably going for +1 INSENSITIVE CLOD, but this is an opportunity! I willingly quit my job to do a year-long sabbatical -- one of the better decisions in my life, I think. I learned about my self, about what makes me happy in a job, and some technical things too (that helped get me my next job). Consider this time self-employment, so only you own your thoughts.
hook this up to a little webcam and go over the seams slowly, and the computer can do all the adjustment automatically... it can recogonize what part of the seam it's on by projecting a test pattern, then it can figure out the overlap. It might even then paint the de-seamed area a different color so you know that part is done.
I wonder if they do what ink jet printers do... not make it an absolute seam, but a blurry seam, slowly blending from one projector to another over the space of a few inches. The article says both "blended" and "get rid of overlap," which seem to be opposites to me.
An attempt to apply the Dewey Decimal system to an orgy.
I just filed my orgy under 126 -- see it is useful!!
I'm an optimist! Especially with sony, there is a good chance that this is a custom chip. But the level of customness varies... it could be anything from a fully-automatic decoder to a simple hardware assist (I'm not sure what that is with audio, but it would be like a DCT engine for video). If all else fails, a software-only solution would probably work (although at lower battery life).
:-)
Interesting note: the portal player chips in ipods have the ability to decode wma's, but apple doesn't use it...
I'd love to see a dissassembly & get the real scientific evidence
The big battery-killer is the drive. Find a way to use it less, and you'll get longer battery life. Two ways: more SDRAM buffer memory, and lower data rate (like the sibling post so eloquently poinnts out). Of course, if you skip around a lot so that your music selections are not predictable, you'll force the drive to spin up and kill it much sooner -- that's why a 2-hour SDRAM buffer won't help that much in real live (but it will make the specs look good)
The hardware looks really nice -- smaller, lighter, longer battery, and a magnesium case. (it's also $100 more). The only drawback is the stupid file format choice. How long is it going to be until someone hacks this to play standard MP3's? Figuring that out may be enough reason for me to buy one (heh!).
Side note: it's pretty neat that they made it smaller. Assuming that it uses the same 1.8" drive, the ipod is already pretty close to that size, so there isn't much remove for improvement.
I'm looking forward to Apple breaking the format another way... lifting all restrictions from Real music and allowing people to export to a non-encrypted MP3. Real can't make an protected file because a real apple file has the account-holder's name - if that account doesn't exist in the apple databases, or if there is no record of a song purchase, then it should be easy to drop restrictions. Of course, apple would have to be *very* sure that this is correct before they do that, or else by spoofing the apple servers, you may be able to open up actual apple files.
I think I see what you mean but it's not quite what I was saying. I wasn't concentrating on the hardware aspects of the iPod... I was just using the printer cartridge case to show that the law was being interpreted very narrowly (and the copyright office thinks its too narrow).
What I was trying to say that rather than a sofware/software interoperability case, this may be seen as data/software interoperability. The first one is where one piece of software interacts with another -- example: a mouse driver and windows. Both programs are running on the same processor and at the same time (well, at least, time-sliced).
The second case is different because, once you've run the Harmony program, you're left with a data file... It's that file that is interoperating with the ipod firmware. (note that, at the time of playback, the harmony program isn't running and the computer it would run on (PC) isn't even connected to the ipod).
There's a difference, and I'm not so sure that a judge would find Harmony in this narrow exception. Of course, the copyright office and judges may have to battle it out, and I hope that eventually Real wins. We need more DMCA caselaw, and I'd like to make sure that this portion of the dmca is interpreted broadly.
The DMCA allows an exception "solely for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title or violate applicable law other that this section" 17 U.S.C 1201(f)(3). (emphasis mine)
The judge in the SCC/Lexmark case read this very narrowly and said that since the algorithm came on a chip, it was non-exempt hardware instead of software. This case isn't allowing software/software interoperability (like Wine offers), but it's data/software interoperability. Big difference; if the DMCA allowed that, then DVD-playing would be legal (same interoperability, except in reverse)
also works with house pets, and, to a lesser degree, lions.
The updated version won silver. It doesn't look like it would comfortably fit in my pocket, but the judges seemed impressed by the handling of the device and the Dual Durometer Disc (which allows you to clean up bad guys). I guess they're the experts, but I'll stick with the old version.
at least one marketing company is in that building... demand interactive. Wrong floor & phone number doesn't match well, and it looks like it's a one-man-show run by Tony Selb. Then again, I wouldn't use my real name for a promotion like this...
This is basically the same problem organ transplantation has - transporting and speed is essential. Hearts and lungs must be transplanted within approximately 4 hours after being removed from the donor. Livers can be preserved between 12 - 18 hours; pancreas can be preserved 8 - 12 hours; intestines can be preserved approximately 8 hours; kidneys can be preserved 24 - 48 hours. (quoted from ) I wouldn't be too surprised to see the UPS people coming out from the back room in scrubs (and shorts, of course), and then washing up really well before going back.
No, that's not the way it's done. Try:
:)
----
It woorked for me!
Now I'm residing in the Nigera with my dead deposed father dictator (see coverage on nbc and other tv) and several esteemed banking institutions in my country wondering how we can transfer the monies (TWO HUNDREND AND THIRTY THOUSAND AMERICAN DOLLARS) out of the country. Perhaps we could have your assistance, for I know for sure you are a good person?
--Pete Avignia, honorable civil servant at your service.
p.s. Discretion is of the utmost importance in this matter. Please send your banking account number as a sign of good faith.
Bring that wheel to North Carolina! The roads here are especially designed to be traveled on by 6.00 radian wheels -- the potholes are purposely laid down in that other 0.28 radian section. So, not only is math class easier for the slow kids, but we save 4.45% of highway construction costs!
(of course, out-of-staters with their fancy 6.28 radian tires will experience substantial bumps when travelling our roads)
You can get transparent metal meshes for the windows ... your microwave has a course version of this that lets high-frequency light through, but not lower-frequency microwaves. Microwaves have doors, too, although forcing your workers inside would probably be illegal for other reasons...
after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the company expanded its focus to information security courses.
That makes no sense. I could see them expanding in the wake of some vicious worm or virus, but they might as well take their inspiration from Chechnya. It makes it seem like they are in the business to trade on fear-of-hackers rather than to provide real security. Not that that's a bad marketing angle, but just one I'd have moral issues using.
Ha Ha. No, I type LEEE, but with a lowercase L. It's the group of Laser, Electrical, and Electronics Engineers -- it's been expanded to include fiber optic people, too. :-)
Remember the old electric typewriters that didn't have a '1' (one) or a '0' (zero) key? You had to use letters instead.
Military connectors (and many others, I'm sure) skip the confusing letters (like "I", "O", and "Q") in their numbering. I'm sure IEEE could do the same.