"Funny, I played a lot of PC versions of Xbox 1 titles on a Celeron OC'd to 464 MHz, a Geforce 2 MX, though I did have 256 MB RAM. Ran games great on XP."
Yes, XBox ONE.... The Xbox 360 is a completely different beast and is a new from the ground up redesign, including a PowerPC-family processor (FYI all current consoles use PowerPC processors). The original XBox was nothing more than a modified PC, which accounted for its size and power-consumption. It's also why there are a limited number of games from the original XBox that will play on the 360 since it must use a virtual machine and emulation to translate x86 opcodes to PPC.
15 watts max power dissipation, runs 1.2GHz ARM processor w/Debian or Ubuntu. Has dual 1GbE ports, eSATA, SDHC, (Internal 4GB microSD w/OS/kernel), 2 USB host, 512MB of RAM. Oh and it has built-in audio in/out, optical (SPDIF) audio out, Bluetooth 3.0, and Wifi B/G/N that automatically configures itself as a bridging access point. $159 here: http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/p-54-dreamplug-devkit.aspx
I have nothing to do with the company, just a happy customer. Using the latest Debian repos make updates a breeze and with that amount of RAM it has no problems running anything you'd every need for routing/file services/print/etc. I use one at work and have been meaning to get another for home use as my DD-WRT is getting a little long in the tooth.
Without a doubt, nVidia makes top-notch drivers and tries to stay in sync with the rapidly developing kernel and distributions. I've seen some nice ATI cards and been tempted, but every time I look I shrug it off and buy another NV card. Their installer is pleasant, quick, and text-mode based so I can even set up my wife's computer remotely. Their openness in allowing you to (easily) expand the installer files and potentially patch specific files (hibernate support was problematic at one point), then run the installer from that set of modified files is to be applauded. Having a unified driver core makes for a excellent experience for users of both Windows and Linux.
I might add that the old trick of having a catch-all address and signing up as (business_name)@(your_personal_domain) is actually kind of dangerous. Some freaks at a particular (unknown) site I created an account on noticed the address for what it was and began joe-jobbing me for spite: I became the return domain with random email addresses for all their stock scams and spamming. Forced me to actually whitelist important accounts and dump the rest straight into the trash. Pretty frustrating, and good luck finding out the losers who did it.
I don't understand. If the guy who runs the company goes away usually it's fairly easy process (albeit longwinded and boring) to get a new general manager, CEO or whatever.
If the company is founded as a sole proprietorship and the owner/proprietor disappears things can be very difficult. I was part of a company that started that way and once they got big enough they had to register as a corporation to avoid having the company dissolved if something happened to the owner. I'm unclear on why this happens but I expect it has something to do with the idea that the owner literally owns the company's assets and if they should die the state may try to claim those assets.
It's not that hard to hook up just about anything that's supported in Linux over the USB. The connector is a standard mini-USB port and all it takes is connecting 5 volts to the power wires (black/red) within that cable to make it talk to any device (a F-F gender changer is needed so you can actually plug something into it). I've connected a flash reader, keyboard, and hard drive so far and I am loving it. Nothing else even comes close to the 770 in that regard! My next purchase will be a USB network adapter so I can connect to networks without wireless.
When the node is switched from one rail to the other, there is a brief period where both transistors partially conduct, and the current goes up dramatically...
Ah, no. What you're referring to is called shoot-through and is more of a problem in power switching circuits (half/full-bridge/etc.). Shoot-through in this type of circuit can potentially cause destruction of the transistors due to the large amount of current passed by typical low-resistance MOSFETs tied to each supply rail.
The switching losses in a chip are related to the capacitance of the gates and interconnect-- each time a transition from one state to another occurs energy is used, either by charging the gate/wire up or discharging it to ground. So while the power usage scales with the frequency of switching, I don't believe it has much to do with simultaneous gate drive of transistors in a "totem pole" configuration.
Take medications, for example. IANAL, but my take on it would be that (for example), if I come up with, say, a new class of painkillers that are different from those we have today, then that's patentable, because it wouldn't be obvious that substances of the new class do function as painkillers, or that if you wanted a painkiller, using that class of substances would be the natural way to go.
Ahhh... no. Do you have any idea how many companies lose patent protection on a drug, only to create a slightly altered version to foist off as "New AND Improved"? Take Claritin vs. Clarinex, or Prilosec vs. Nexium. In either case it's a minor variation of a compound, and really isn't much better than the previous version. Nexium was essentially the same as Prilosec at preventing esophageal erosions until they doubled the dosage. Even then it was no big win. See here for more info on their dirty patent tricks.
After adding the "yq" bookmark/keyword search to Firefox I decided to give it a real challenge with the question: What is the best operating system? First entry: Linux Online:-)
I'm on my fifth PDA (a Tapwave Zodiac) and it's beautiful. Long battery life, BT wireless, dual SD slots, large screen. It combines all the features I want, and I go everywhere with it. What I can't understand is how people will settle for matchbook-sized screens on "smart" phones, dimunitive amounts of storage, and craptastic input methods. Then there's the biggest gotcha-- the monthly fee. Basically they keep your device's functionality hostage, predicated on your ability to keep making payments. No payment == a crippled device, semi-permanently tied your wireless provider's network. At least I can depend on my PDA working without the need to keep paying each month.
Are you sure you don't mean Electrical Discharge Machining? Do a google for EDM and machining to find tons of links. Also you left out an important part in your proposed plans: a capacitor. The resistors feeds power to the capacitor and limits the amount of current drawn when the arc fires. Also, very handy if you don't want your PS to melt down if you create a short accidentally.
I always love it when people make generalized comments like "it never ever goes down"; referring to Solaris. I spent several years on a team of sys admins helping to maintain anywhere from 5 to 10 E10K boxes running multiple domains on each system. I can assure you they DID go down, and often enough to really cause issues. Mind you this was a very stressful environment, processing millions of telecom records a day, but we got bitten by a myriad of odd bugs, ranging from the eCache bug to random reboots for no apparent reason. No messages, no logging, just poof! Reboot. Then there were the days spent down because some odd hardware fault would keep the on-site Sun guy scratching his head, be it a bad backplane or some other problem. We constantly had issues with correctable memory errors as well; we were told that a few were fine, and it took 50 an hour to get them to swap RAM out. I never got a chance to run those same loads on Linux so I have no basis for comparison, but I assure you there's nothing flawless about Solaris (we ran 2.6-8, incidentally). Much like another vendor's "Unbreakable" claim...
Lead? Ahhhh no. Most coolers are made using bismuth telluride, and it's the relatively rare peltier power generators that use lead because it can handle the higher (250C+) temperatures required.
Re:when we're finished patting ourselves on the ba
on
2003: Year of Apache
·
· Score: 1
"These statistics make us happy, but they're not the whole story.
When we bragg about these numbers, Microsoft respond with: 'Our webserver is used by more Forbes/Fortune 500 companies and is used by more secure websites. Apaches numbers are only high because a lot of amateurs use it'. "
On the face of it the numbers do look bad. But there's a flip-side here: those same "amateur" sites are the up-and-coming leaders of the future. The students, small businesses, developers, and researchers that aren't stratified into believing Microsoft is the only solution. Saying IIS is preferred by the top 500 companies is somewhat like saying IIS is preferred by terrorists around the world for its ease of use and devastating crashes:-) It's not something you really want to brag about.
I've read quite a few comments from people speculating that a particular filesystem (fat32) will cause issues because all the wear is concentrated in the FAT sectors, etc. This just isn't the case because the card will do wear-leveling in hardware, including replacing bad blocks with good blocks from a spare pool. Other interfaces (Mem Stick/MMC/SD/SM) do not have this advantage, as CF has a built-in intelligent controller to manage this behavior. The others allow direct access to sectors, and thus it is possible to "burn" a particular sector by writing to it repeatedly.
When asked about DRM, he said it was bad that a person could restrict who reads his data. Or does Zimmerman have a bias against companies?
I think you're missing the point. The companies utilizing DRM are using it to prevent you from making full use of the content which you purchase. This is in contrast to you encrypting mail which is simply to keep spying eyes from peering into your private life.
However, I did have one concern about a wholesale use of encryption for personal affairs. Suppose I keep a personal journal and I use encryption; who's to say that I won't get run over by a truck, thereby effectively locking that information forever? Ideally I'd like to think that my grandchildren and so forth could learn and appreciate me as a person by reading it when I'm gone. You can't really write down the password as you don't want it falling into the wrong hands (i.e. government), but there's a terrible risk that it may never be readable in the future. Ditto for personal email, which can also be important to future generations.
Having just purchased a new (HP) printer in the last couple months, I can definitely say a few things about the job they've done on making sure you pay-- one way or another. Take a look at the ink cartridge capacity of those low-end HP printers; I could probably sneeze and expel more fluid;-) The more you pay for the printer (especially the "office" inkjets), the more the ink cartridge holds. I look at it as the difference between buying a car outright for cash or getting a 36 month loan. I haven't calculated how long you'd have to use the cheap printers to equal the cost difference of a more expensive printer, but I can't imagine at $30-$40/cartridge it would take too long. Take a look at the capacities on the cartridges some time when you're at a store; it infuriates me to see a MUCH larger-capacity cartridge available for cheaper than the one I have to buy because they've designed each printer line only to take a particular cartridge!
If you stop to think about it, this is really an attempt to ban things like Freenet. The whole spiel about obscuring source/destinations, passing information for unknown parties is targetted at the ideal P2P client which fetches bits and pieces of data spread out across multiple systems. No-one knows where the information is stored, nor what you're storing on your node; they want to ban the ability to post and retrieve content anonymously.
Although EasyTrax works (did a couple big boards with it), Eagle is much better and is also free (as in beer) for the non-profit version (limited to one schematic sheet, double sided 3x5 PCB). It has a relatively recent part library, and the nice thing is, the only difference between the "pro" version and the free version is the license file, so you're not using some crusty old unmaintained demo.
It's available for Windows/Linux, so download away...
I've been in and out of most of the electronic gadgets in my house since I was a kid. Without a doubt quality has declined and friendliness to repair attempts is deplorable. Try opening your average portable electronic device. If you somehow got it apart without snapping at least one cheap plastic clip/post, try getting it back together with the same goal in mind. It's virtually impossible these days, as things are made to be assembled quickly and thrown away when they break.
About a year ago I got a new hobby: Metalworking. Before you groan and mod me as OT, let me explain. One of the greatest things about this hobby is the equipment. Whether it's a lathe, mill, shaper, etc., it's designed to be tinkered with. Nothing is destroyed when you disassemble the thing, and it goes together without having little springy bits flying off like shrapnel when they break. There are many mods available for them and you can be confident that the thing will work once you get it back together unless you grossly butcher the job. And the best part is that you get this kind quality with cheaper Chinese-made equipment.
I'm not sure why it's different for this equipment, although I'm guessing it might have something to do with the relative popularity of the hobby vs. the number of people who purchase consumer electronics every day.
I can't recall what vehicle it was, but an experimental luxury car had two of these type of units integrated for the back seat. They were built into the headliner of the roof and (obviously) fired downwards, with the nifty effect of producing sound audible by the person below it but nowhere else. I'm not sure if it ever entered mass-production. At any rate, the theory was the same, where the interference between ultrasonic sound waves created an audible result. Aside from the aiming problems I believe the biggest issue was poor fidelity, as it was difficult to reproduce the full range of frequencies necessary for music with this technique.
Or perhaps people have forgotten about the Eclipse Project. Cross platform with native GUI bindings including win32, GTK, and Motif (ack!). I've worked with it a little and it is definitely a departure from swing; having to actually free graphic resources feels odd after having it done automagically for you for so long.
I've heard the argument that open source companies rely on the difficulty in using or installing their products (i.e. sendmail). However, now that MS is pondering charging for security, doesn't that suggest the argument that they are charging for what they can most easily make money on? Having many issues with security could become a strong business model and effectively force people to pay for the fixes as the "default" patch level that the OS ships with becomes correspondingly decrepit and bug-ridden.
Slashdot Mirror
"Funny, I played a lot of PC versions of Xbox 1 titles on a Celeron OC'd to 464 MHz, a Geforce 2 MX, though I did have 256 MB RAM. Ran games great on XP."
Yes, XBox ONE.... The Xbox 360 is a completely different beast and is a new from the ground up redesign, including a PowerPC-family processor (FYI all current consoles use PowerPC processors). The original XBox was nothing more than a modified PC, which accounted for its size and power-consumption. It's also why there are a limited number of games from the original XBox that will play on the 360 since it must use a virtual machine and emulation to translate x86 opcodes to PPC.
15 watts max power dissipation, runs 1.2GHz ARM processor w/Debian or Ubuntu. Has dual 1GbE ports, eSATA, SDHC, (Internal 4GB microSD w/OS/kernel), 2 USB host, 512MB of RAM. Oh and it has built-in audio in/out, optical (SPDIF) audio out, Bluetooth 3.0, and Wifi B/G/N that automatically configures itself as a bridging access point. $159 here: http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/p-54-dreamplug-devkit.aspx
I have nothing to do with the company, just a happy customer. Using the latest Debian repos make updates a breeze and with that amount of RAM it has no problems running anything you'd every need for routing/file services/print/etc. I use one at work and have been meaning to get another for home use as my DD-WRT is getting a little long in the tooth.
Without a doubt, nVidia makes top-notch drivers and tries to stay in sync with the rapidly developing kernel and distributions. I've seen some nice ATI cards and been tempted, but every time I look I shrug it off and buy another NV card. Their installer is pleasant, quick, and text-mode based so I can even set up my wife's computer remotely. Their openness in allowing you to (easily) expand the installer files and potentially patch specific files (hibernate support was problematic at one point), then run the installer from that set of modified files is to be applauded. Having a unified driver core makes for a excellent experience for users of both Windows and Linux.
Larry
I might add that the old trick of having a catch-all address and signing up as (business_name)@(your_personal_domain) is actually kind of dangerous. Some freaks at a particular (unknown) site I created an account on noticed the address for what it was and began joe-jobbing me for spite: I became the return domain with random email addresses for all their stock scams and spamming. Forced me to actually whitelist important accounts and dump the rest straight into the trash. Pretty frustrating, and good luck finding out the losers who did it.
Larry
I don't understand. If the guy who runs the company goes away usually it's fairly easy process (albeit longwinded and boring) to get a new general manager, CEO or whatever.
If the company is founded as a sole proprietorship and the owner/proprietor disappears things can be very difficult. I was part of a company that started that way and once they got big enough they had to register as a corporation to avoid having the company dissolved if something happened to the owner. I'm unclear on why this happens but I expect it has something to do with the idea that the owner literally owns the company's assets and if they should die the state may try to claim those assets.
"Adoption rates of these devices is expected to continue..."
"The Utah Jazz used the Shout service to record message from a player..."
In other news Unga the caveman was said to have remarked "Unga no like me SCO no more!"
Or something like that. I can hardly wait for the flushed, quivering press release announcing a partnership with Amway/Quixtar/Pampered Chef next.
It's not that hard to hook up just about anything that's supported in Linux over the USB. The connector is a standard mini-USB port and all it takes is connecting 5 volts to the power wires (black/red) within that cable to make it talk to any device (a F-F gender changer is needed so you can actually plug something into it). I've connected a flash reader, keyboard, and hard drive so far and I am loving it. Nothing else even comes close to the 770 in that regard! My next purchase will be a USB network adapter so I can connect to networks without wireless.
When the node is switched from one rail to the other, there is a brief period where both transistors partially conduct, and the current goes up dramatically...
Ah, no. What you're referring to is called shoot-through and is more of a problem in power switching circuits (half/full-bridge/etc.). Shoot-through in this type of circuit can potentially cause destruction of the transistors due to the large amount of current passed by typical low-resistance MOSFETs tied to each supply rail.
The switching losses in a chip are related to the capacitance of the gates and interconnect-- each time a transition from one state to another occurs energy is used, either by charging the gate/wire up or discharging it to ground. So while the power usage scales with the frequency of switching, I don't believe it has much to do with simultaneous gate drive of transistors in a "totem pole" configuration.
Take medications, for example. IANAL, but my take on it would be that (for example), if I come up with, say, a new class of painkillers that are different from those we have today, then that's patentable, because it wouldn't be obvious that substances of the new class do function as painkillers, or that if you wanted a painkiller, using that class of substances would be the natural way to go.
Ahhh... no. Do you have any idea how many companies lose patent protection on a drug, only to create a slightly altered version to foist off as "New AND Improved"? Take Claritin vs. Clarinex, or Prilosec vs. Nexium. In either case it's a minor variation of a compound, and really isn't much better than the previous version. Nexium was essentially the same as Prilosec at preventing esophageal erosions until they doubled the dosage. Even then it was no big win. See here for more info on their dirty patent tricks.
After adding the "yq" bookmark/keyword search to Firefox I decided to give it a real challenge with the question: What is the best operating system? First entry: Linux Online :-)
I'm on my fifth PDA (a Tapwave Zodiac) and it's beautiful. Long battery life, BT wireless, dual SD slots, large screen. It combines all the features I want, and I go everywhere with it. What I can't understand is how people will settle for matchbook-sized screens on "smart" phones, dimunitive amounts of storage, and craptastic input methods. Then there's the biggest gotcha-- the monthly fee. Basically they keep your device's functionality hostage, predicated on your ability to keep making payments. No payment == a crippled device, semi-permanently tied your wireless provider's network. At least I can depend on my PDA working without the need to keep paying each month.
Are you sure you don't mean Electrical Discharge Machining? Do a google for EDM and machining to find tons of links. Also you left out an important part in your proposed plans: a capacitor. The resistors feeds power to the capacitor and limits the amount of current drawn when the arc fires. Also, very handy if you don't want your PS to melt down if you create a short accidentally.
"Does anyone know if obtaining the SDK requires the agreement to a NDA..."
Judging by the fact that they say it will be based on Java and hosted on SourceForge I would guess not.
I always love it when people make generalized comments like "it never ever goes down"; referring to Solaris. I spent several years on a team of sys admins helping to maintain anywhere from 5 to 10 E10K boxes running multiple domains on each system. I can assure you they DID go down, and often enough to really cause issues. Mind you this was a very stressful environment, processing millions of telecom records a day, but we got bitten by a myriad of odd bugs, ranging from the eCache bug to random reboots for no apparent reason. No messages, no logging, just poof! Reboot. Then there were the days spent down because some odd hardware fault would keep the on-site Sun guy scratching his head, be it a bad backplane or some other problem. We constantly had issues with correctable memory errors as well; we were told that a few were fine, and it took 50 an hour to get them to swap RAM out. I never got a chance to run those same loads on Linux so I have no basis for comparison, but I assure you there's nothing flawless about Solaris (we ran 2.6-8, incidentally). Much like another vendor's "Unbreakable" claim...
Lead? Ahhhh no. Most coolers are made using bismuth telluride, and it's the relatively rare peltier power generators that use lead because it can handle the higher (250C+) temperatures required.
"These statistics make us happy, but they're not the whole story.
:-) It's not something you really want to brag about.
When we bragg about these numbers, Microsoft respond with:
'Our webserver is used by more Forbes/Fortune 500 companies and is used by more secure websites. Apaches numbers are only high because a lot of amateurs use it'. "
On the face of it the numbers do look bad. But there's a flip-side here: those same "amateur" sites are the up-and-coming leaders of the future. The students, small businesses, developers, and researchers that aren't stratified into believing Microsoft is the only solution. Saying IIS is preferred by the top 500 companies is somewhat like saying IIS is preferred by terrorists around the world for its ease of use and devastating crashes
I've read quite a few comments from people speculating that a particular filesystem (fat32) will cause issues because all the wear is concentrated in the FAT sectors, etc. This just isn't the case because the card will do wear-leveling in hardware, including replacing bad blocks with good blocks from a spare pool. Other interfaces (Mem Stick/MMC/SD/SM) do not have this advantage, as CF has a built-in intelligent controller to manage this behavior. The others allow direct access to sectors, and thus it is possible to "burn" a particular sector by writing to it repeatedly.
Here's a link to a FAQ about a CF interface for the Apple II, which discusses the issue (or lack thereof): http://dreher.net/CFforAppleII/FAQ.html
Here's a link to a maker of CF controllers and a description of their features: http://www.mittoni.com/compactflash/article5.html
When asked about DRM, he said it was bad that a person could restrict who reads his data. Or does Zimmerman have a bias against companies?
I think you're missing the point. The companies utilizing DRM are using it to prevent you from making full use of the content which you purchase. This is in contrast to you encrypting mail which is simply to keep spying eyes from peering into your private life.
However, I did have one concern about a wholesale use of encryption for personal affairs. Suppose I keep a personal journal and I use encryption; who's to say that I won't get run over by a truck, thereby effectively locking that information forever? Ideally I'd like to think that my grandchildren and so forth could learn and appreciate me as a person by reading it when I'm gone. You can't really write down the password as you don't want it falling into the wrong hands (i.e. government), but there's a terrible risk that it may never be readable in the future. Ditto for personal email, which can also be important to future generations.
Having just purchased a new (HP) printer in the last couple months, I can definitely say a few things about the job they've done on making sure you pay-- one way or another. Take a look at the ink cartridge capacity of those low-end HP printers; I could probably sneeze and expel more fluid ;-) The more you pay for the printer (especially the "office" inkjets), the more the ink cartridge holds. I look at it as the difference between buying a car outright for cash or getting a 36 month loan. I haven't calculated how long you'd have to use the cheap printers to equal the cost difference of a more expensive printer, but I can't imagine at $30-$40/cartridge it would take too long. Take a look at the capacities on the cartridges some time when you're at a store; it infuriates me to see a MUCH larger-capacity cartridge available for cheaper than the one I have to buy because they've designed each printer line only to take a particular cartridge!
If you stop to think about it, this is really an attempt to ban things like Freenet. The whole spiel about obscuring source/destinations, passing information for unknown parties is targetted at the ideal P2P client which fetches bits and pieces of data spread out across multiple systems. No-one knows where the information is stored, nor what you're storing on your node; they want to ban the ability to post and retrieve content anonymously.
Although EasyTrax works (did a couple big boards with it), Eagle is much better and is also free (as in beer) for the non-profit version (limited to one schematic sheet, double sided 3x5 PCB). It has a relatively recent part library, and the nice thing is, the only difference between the "pro" version and the free version is the license file, so you're not using some crusty old unmaintained demo.
It's available for Windows/Linux, so download away...
I've been in and out of most of the electronic gadgets in my house since I was a kid. Without a doubt quality has declined and friendliness to repair attempts is deplorable. Try opening your average portable electronic device. If you somehow got it apart without snapping at least one cheap plastic clip/post, try getting it back together with the same goal in mind. It's virtually impossible these days, as things are made to be assembled quickly and thrown away when they break.
About a year ago I got a new hobby: Metalworking. Before you groan and mod me as OT, let me explain. One of the greatest things about this hobby is the equipment. Whether it's a lathe, mill, shaper, etc., it's designed to be tinkered with. Nothing is destroyed when you disassemble the thing, and it goes together without having little springy bits flying off like shrapnel when they break. There are many mods available for them and you can be confident that the thing will work once you get it back together unless you grossly butcher the job. And the best part is that you get this kind quality with cheaper Chinese-made equipment.
I'm not sure why it's different for this equipment, although I'm guessing it might have something to do with the relative popularity of the hobby vs. the number of people who purchase consumer electronics every day.
I can't recall what vehicle it was, but an experimental luxury car had two of these type of units integrated for the back seat. They were built into the headliner of the roof and (obviously) fired downwards, with the nifty effect of producing sound audible by the person below it but nowhere else. I'm not sure if it ever entered mass-production. At any rate, the theory was the same, where the interference between ultrasonic sound waves created an audible result. Aside from the aiming problems I believe the biggest issue was poor fidelity, as it was difficult to reproduce the full range of frequencies necessary for music with this technique.
Or perhaps people have forgotten about the Eclipse Project. Cross platform with native GUI bindings including win32, GTK, and Motif (ack!). I've worked with it a little and it is definitely a departure from swing; having to actually free graphic resources feels odd after having it done automagically for you for so long.
I've heard the argument that open source companies rely on the difficulty in using or installing their products (i.e. sendmail). However, now that MS is pondering charging for security, doesn't that suggest the argument that they are charging for what they can most easily make money on? Having many issues with security could become a strong business model and effectively force people to pay for the fixes as the "default" patch level that the OS ships with becomes correspondingly decrepit and bug-ridden.