I pity the guy who doesn't realize he could install it on another machine first, then swap hard drives.
Here's the hardware: 486-33 12 MB RAM* The biggest, *SLOWEST* hard drive mobo can accept Painfully slow network link Any other stuff to be used
Install NT + service packs (they're at 6 now (!)) on another machine (unless you want to suffer, and have 20 more MB of RAM to spare). Install usual apps. Set NT to do network login (domain server) over painfully slow network link. Ensure several startup files happen over network link. Make a large swapfile (it'll be needed!). Fragment hard drive as much as possible, and make sure swapfile is likewise extremely fragmented. Boot the thing up, go to bed, then do your reboot trial (might have to bring several books to read while you're at it!).
Remember Wierd Al? "You're using a 286, don't make me laugh/Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?..."
* Yes, I remember someone booting NT up in VMWare stating it needed 32 Mb to install, but can be brought down to oh, 12 megs for which it will boot up [extremely slowly]...
I had a program that dealt with large integers (I restricted it 100 places, but it's possible to edit it). One of the assignment questions was to implement a factorial routine, and calculate large factorials. Should see what 300,000,000! is (need to expand that to what, 100,000 digits?)
****NINTENDO THREATENED THE AUTHOR OF THE GAMEBOY EMULATOR "GAMBIT"****
I have it on good authority (from friend of the author), that Nintendo has threatened action against the author should he release the code. Yes, I know there are 10,000+ other gameboy emulators out there, and yes, I know they emulate Color Gameboy when it came out. There are only two known copies of the emulator. One is my informant friend, the other the site of palmpilot news. Don't bug them. The author will get in enough trouble if it gets released.
Don't blame them. Blame nintendo and their crusade against emulators, for the sole reason that they promote piracy. [I don't know, but using Palm OS Emulator was useful in determining if a new app will kill my pilot. And Basilisk seems useful in running MacOS apps on other platforms.]
Thus, I am principally opposed to anything nintendo sells (as are several other people). I like to play games on my PC (less equipment to worry about), plus, when I'm sitting around, it's a lot easier to stare at a 17" monitor than a 1.5" green screen. Oh well. Not like I'm missing much.
Besides that, plenty of countries have rules about movies (i.e., they're censored), and various things about american portrayal, all that political junk.
Another reason for the region codes is just out of pure money making. North Americans may just buy DVDs for US$20, and consider, say US$40 to be expensive. But other regions may price it differently, to make more money out of it.
Oh, btw, I seem to recall that the DVD group is making it mandatory that all DVD-ROM drives must have non-changable region codes by sometime 2000.
As for copying the DVDs to DVD-RAM/DVD-R/etc, I'm told that the decryption key (stored on the disc) is in an area that, while readable, is already pre-burned/unburnable/unrecordable on the DVD-RAM surface, to foil image copies. Of course, I'm 99% certain there is a trivial workaround.
You know, some people *DO* have to work in Windows... I think a 73gb drive would be required to even consider installing Win2k plus office 2k (standard). Until Win2k SP1, that is... M$ will fill up that drive with the service pack. "Unable to install Service Pack 1 for Windows 2000: Insufficient drive space. You have: 53 GB free. You need: 948 GB free to continue."
I've found that hard drives tend to be the easiest (and fastest) way to backup hard drives. Buy two identical ones, hook em up, keep one unmounted until it's time to image. Only problem is keeping one offsite (but hey, it's unmounted...)
Sounds like me. I'm stuck at 800x600 resolution on my monitor because that's what it supports 85hz at (it tries to at 1024x768, but it doesn't lock). 60 hz is *way* too flickery for me (sometimes, I can almost see it refresh, top to bottom). 75 hz, bearable, but annoying at least. 85 hz, nice rock solid picture. Oh well.
As for lack of widescreen TVs? I see lots of widescreen films around. Only problem is that in North America, everything tends to have a lot of competition, thus cheaper. However, since TV's and most other goods are shipped worldwide, it makes no sense to ship a more expensive set to a place where stuff is cheaper. I've seen it. Here, the "advanced" cell phones with their nifty web browsers and ultra small formfactor don't come out until 6+ months after they've been released elsewhere (which, coincedentaly, has higher phone rates...). Similarly, why sell widescreen TVs here? There's so little profit to be made it's hardly worth the effort (only those with home-theatre systems and cash to burn can *afford* them...).
Don't forget, the combination of spinning and heat can also open up/attract wormholes/tears in the spacetime continuum, thereby causing socks to disappear.
Yes, socks only. Only the universe knows why socks are preferred. (Don't try to observe this phenomena though. The act of observation changes the experiment, therefore, socks won't get lost.).
Heh. PowerPC chips are bi-endian too, actually support 3 modes... big endian, little endian, and a pseudo mode in-between. Pseudo mode simply reverses the bit order, rather than byte order.
Yes, it's changable via a simple flag switch (meant to allow emulation, so task switching can easily put the processor in the right mode).
Heh. Talking about 50W processors... I used to remember when the Pentium MMX came out, several manufacturers put the *real* chip in, not the "mobile" version.
I think it's time to optimize the x86 so they don't draw so much power, on the processing-power/electrical-power ratio.
+and a thingy that tells me if the socket I'm feeling is a DB15, DB9, DB25, or PS2, DIN, or RJ11 or RJ14
AND, which direction the socket is facing!
AND how far the plug I'm holding is off-center from said socket! (nothing more annoying than having the correct socket, correct orientation, and not being able to plug it in because I was off-center. DB's are reallly bad in this respect. Offset by one pin left/right, and it appears that it can be plugged in, when it can't. DINs are equally annoying).
Actually, there are many versions of Win32 floating around:
* Windows NT (The Original Win32)
* Win32s (A highly limited subset of NT's Win32)
* Windows 95/98 (Closer to WinNT's win32 implementation, but not complete. Comes with certain win32 extensions that are brand new too!).
* Windows CE (A subset of the win32 API.)
Eek. Too many versions of Win32 floating around... No wonder things break so easily. (Yes, WinCE's win32 isn't a full API, but it's got more stuff than win32s).
In a few words: A realtime OS differs from a non-realtime OS in one important way: The realtime system will respond in the quickest way possible to any event - interrupt, etc.
Also, realtime OS' tend to be deterministic, i.e., you can say for certain that the kernel will give time to this task next, then that task, then that task, and so on.
A realtime OS is needed for where unexpected delays in servicing events can be very horrendous. E.g., Reactor starts to overheat. Run this under Linux [no RT modules], Windows (hah!), and you *might* get response oh, 10-100ms after the event happens. This is the time it takes for the OS to realize something happens and has to service it. A realtime OS, like QNX, will switch tasks within 37uS (on a 386-sx25), ready to run the task to service the event.
BTW, I read in Circuit Cellar (www.circuitcellarink.com), that Win95 responded within 30ms, NT 15ms, and a custom Win32 RT implementation of 2ms. Less overhead to worry about.
The only problem? RTOS' tend to use more resources to ensure their real-timeness. Of course, this extra requirement pales when compared to OS' like NT...
Seems a lot of games now are made with Macromedia's Safedisc technology and other similar devices, making it near-impossible to *backup*. You perform the copy, and unless you have a specific combination of Teac CD-ROM and Cd-burner, the CD is guarenteed to not work without some patches.
See: http://www.gamecopyworld.com
BTW, the starcraft datafiles are stored in that install.exe file! Programs open the file and extract files based on some table of offsets probably stored somewhere in install.exe. (Files stored in other files aren't new. See doom's WADs, some installers just ahve one EXE file...)
Heh. That's the only problem with cheapbytes. Shipping's more expensive than the product itself! (US$5 shipping for US$10 of product is pretty expensive, imho)
Heh. I probably peak around 120 wpm or so, but rarely do I reach the peak.
My "Typing buffer" is too small, and often, one of the following happens:
1) My thinking exceeds my typing, leading to buffer overruns and lost words and extra many typos (Arg! mistake! Arg, corrected mistake, lost 3 sentences (buffer overflow) in the process!) During this time, I wish I had a neural interface to keep up with my thinking.
2) My thinking is the limiting example - willing to type, but brain not thinking fast enough to fill buffer and keep it topped up.
If I don't have to do any thinking, i.e., just copy right out of a piece of paper, I can reach the peak, easily.
I could be mistaken, but I remember reading that this blue light is the result of when a particle in a medium travels faster than light in the same medium.
(before I get flamed: the "speed barrier", c, refers to light in a *vacuum* (which is impossible, btw, thanks to the uncertainty principle). Light travels slower in any medium (but 1 atm air tends to be "vacuumy enough" that it's very close to c).).
I remember on/. a while back about how someone managed to force light to travel at a snail 60mph or so. If in that medium, something was travelling faster than it, you'd witness this radiation. Probably happened because the particle was bombarded with gamma radiation.
AFAIK, it's just a *measure*. Like a 2x4 being 1.5"x3.5" or so.
So what if a movie is rated 'R'? or 'XXX'? Does that mean, as an adult, that I can't watch it?
Is it against the law that I can't buy music labeled "explicit"?
Is it breaking some quaint bylaw stating that websites that don't have an "approved" label can't be viewed?
Yes, if these are made into law, then rights are being taken away. But ratings are just another piece of information. Point in case: Movie ratings by critics. I have yet to see a movie that is wildly popular (say, the Matrix) get anything above two out of five. This "rating" doesn't judge me the movie. I may not want to watch a movie with 3 out of 5, but that's *my* choice, not the government.
Rant=off;
Now, for a good point: nothing's worse than having the government legislate. And generally speaking, they don't legislate until there is evidence of something not working. Best way to prevent legislation? Don't create the problem. Or find workable solutions to the problem. *Remove the incentive for people to complain to government*.
Here's a lame analogy: RedHat IPO. A lot of us (not me) got "the letter." A lot of people couldn't join, because of SEC recommendations. I don't know for sure, but I'll bet those recommendations came about because people decided that they should throw money down on bad IPOs.
But if I was some technician who needs lots of technical manuals easily and quickly, I wouldn't mind wearing this for the job. But I won't wear this thing down the street. In between, I'd probably keep it in a briefcase and walk down the street with the case.
I may be paranoid, but would someone want to be caught with $2000 worth of equipment sticking out? It's not the bulkiness, no, but *personal safety*. Until everyone has one, walking down the street with an obviously expensive piece of gear is inviting trouble. Probably good enough to kill for.
Soon in the news: "Person killed on the street: was reading Slashdot before death" }}:-) Or gives new meaning to "Blue Screen of Death".
Ahem. What's wrong with someone wanting to offer money?
Just because the CIA decides that it wants to fund some companies, doesn't mean said companies *WILL TAKE* said funding. Heck, the thought that the CIA might even be interesting might spur other VCs to offer money.
Unlike IPOs/stock market, startups do have the option to not take an investor's money (but usually don't, because they need the money to start up, and probably can't find funding elsewhere).
I bought an old style natural keyboard, and *NEVER* experienced wrist pains. But when I'm using a regular keyboard, if I use it for > 3 hours, my wrists will begin to hurt. Once I get home, and settle infront of the old style MS Natural, the pain eases.
For mouse, I use a Logitech Marble FX. Great trackball, requires very little cleaning.
BTW, IIRC, the front end (closer to spacebar) of the keyboard should be raised, not the back end. Back end is bad ergonomically. (Something about negative angle or somesuch). Mine set all the way up (flat is a bit too angled for me).
I believe you should be able to get the old style keyboards somewhere... if not, I gotta make mine last as long as possible.
Basically, because of the way the Joe User (not us) work, to a detriment to everyone.
Joe User loves pretty eye candy (usually to the expense of content). So an app that's based on HTML is easy to make eye candy for, and thus "easier" for the user. Plus, it makes things a bit easier for the back-end designer - it's easy to refresh the eye candy to the "now" look than to modify a program to do the same (just a few bits of HTML here and there...).
Unfortunatly, lots of eye candy, no content. What's worse is javascript...
I love to print out documents. PDF, PS, HTML, what-have-you.
Very simple reason: It's a helluva lot hard to sit in bed with a monitor on your lap than with even a hefty book like Cryptonomicon.
I like my PalmPilot. I use it to read fiction. I carry it into bed to read. Very good.
But for reference material, if it's going to be used often, I insist on a printout. Easy scribbling, better speed (scrolling through to find a page is much easier with paper than on screen. Faster too). It might be easier to search an electronic file, but I'd like to keep a paper copy handy, too. (My monitor runs at a very low resolution. 800x600. Reason? 60hz refresh hurts the eyes, and 75hz flickers too to me. Monitor only handles 85hz at 800x600.).
A person who receives an honorary doctorate *shouldn't* call themselves a "Doctor." Linux Torvalds or not.
They *can*, but *shouldn't*. Besides not working for it, it devalues the degree for those who work for it. Plenty of people have honorary degrees certainly don't insist on the Dr title (and often keep it quiet, or suggest to not call them Dr). Example? "Dr." Anne Landers (you'll never see her call herself that). Of course, there are those that do, unfortunately.
I have a IIIx, and the memory is almost full. I use its PIM a lot, but most of the space is used up by 3rd party alls (1 meg's worth), and reading material (doc files: 1.8 megs!).
There's tons of apps for the palm[pilot]. Too many, in some cases... (better than WinCE...)
Oh. Your remote control program already exists - it's called OmniRemote, by Pacific Neotek. www.pacificneotek.com. It's creates a learning remote, and with the optional high-power addon, can transmit IR further. I think Omniremote is $20 (shareware), and the module is another $20 or so.
BTW, it was this program that started the "Palmpilots can break into cars" newsarticles. (Oh, *YES* tehre are cars that use IR remotes. But they inevitably use rolling codes, so it only works once, only if you programmed OmniRemote out of sight of the car).
Heh. I know what you mean. I went through a course last year called Data Structures and Algorithms, using C++. The prof was visiting, so we got lucky (he was a *GREAT* prof! Great class, Dr. Astrachan, if you read/.). Spent lots of effort drilling in the various algorithms and data structures (to the point of exhaustion). Lots of complaints (lab too long, too hard, etc), but really useful class.
Makes me wonder how many programs out there use *BUBBLE SORT* (the dog of all sorts) as their sorting algorithms. Great for low n, but doesn't compete with other O(n^2) algorithms.
Lots of time spent trying to make elegant (and readable) algorithms, and armed myself with lots of algorithms. I may not remember them, but I certainly will keep the notes and files (hey. I coded some, others were given as experimental data. Code reuse == good).
BTW, if you were speaking Klingon (like I do from time to time), people would step back first to avoid the spittle }}:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the hardware:
486-33
12 MB RAM*
The biggest, *SLOWEST* hard drive mobo can accept
Painfully slow network link
Any other stuff to be used
Install NT + service packs (they're at 6 now (!)) on another machine (unless you want to suffer, and have 20 more MB of RAM to spare). Install usual apps. Set NT to do network login (domain server) over painfully slow network link. Ensure several startup files happen over network link. Make a large swapfile (it'll be needed!). Fragment hard drive as much as possible, and make sure swapfile is likewise extremely fragmented.
Boot the thing up, go to bed, then do your reboot trial (might have to bring several books to read while you're at it!).
Remember Wierd Al? "You're using a 286, don't make me laugh/Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?..."
* Yes, I remember someone booting NT up in VMWare stating it needed 32 Mb to install, but can be brought down to oh, 12 megs for which it will boot up [extremely slowly]...
I had a program that dealt with large integers (I restricted it 100 places, but it's possible to edit it). One of the assignment questions was to implement a factorial routine, and calculate large factorials. Should see what 300,000,000! is (need to expand that to what, 100,000 digits?)
Guess what?
****NINTENDO THREATENED THE AUTHOR OF THE GAMEBOY EMULATOR "GAMBIT"****
I have it on good authority (from friend of the author), that Nintendo has threatened action against the author should he release the code. Yes, I know there are 10,000+ other gameboy emulators out there, and yes, I know they emulate Color Gameboy when it came out. There are only two known copies of the emulator. One is my informant friend, the other the site of palmpilot news. Don't bug them. The author will get in enough trouble if it gets released.
Don't blame them. Blame nintendo and their crusade against emulators, for the sole reason that they promote piracy. [I don't know, but using Palm OS Emulator was useful in determining if a new app will kill my pilot. And Basilisk seems useful in running MacOS apps on other platforms.]
Thus, I am principally opposed to anything nintendo sells (as are several other people). I like to play games on my PC (less equipment to worry about), plus, when I'm sitting around, it's a lot easier to stare at a 17" monitor than a 1.5" green screen. Oh well. Not like I'm missing much.
Besides that, plenty of countries have rules about movies (i.e., they're censored), and various things about american portrayal, all that political junk.
Another reason for the region codes is just out of pure money making. North Americans may just buy DVDs for US$20, and consider, say US$40 to be expensive. But other regions may price it differently, to make more money out of it.
Oh, btw, I seem to recall that the DVD group is making it mandatory that all DVD-ROM drives must have non-changable region codes by sometime 2000.
As for copying the DVDs to DVD-RAM/DVD-R/etc, I'm told that the decryption key (stored on the disc) is in an area that, while readable, is already pre-burned/unburnable/unrecordable on the DVD-RAM surface, to foil image copies. Of course, I'm 99% certain there is a trivial workaround.
You know, some people *DO* have to work in Windows... I think a 73gb drive would be required to even consider installing Win2k plus office 2k (standard). Until Win2k SP1, that is... M$ will fill up that drive with the service pack. "Unable to install Service Pack 1 for Windows 2000: Insufficient drive space. You have: 53 GB free. You need: 948 GB free to continue."
I've found that hard drives tend to be the easiest (and fastest) way to backup hard drives. Buy two identical ones, hook em up, keep one unmounted until it's time to image. Only problem is keeping one offsite (but hey, it's unmounted...)
Sounds like me. I'm stuck at 800x600 resolution on my monitor because that's what it supports 85hz at (it tries to at 1024x768, but it doesn't lock). 60 hz is *way* too flickery for me (sometimes, I can almost see it refresh, top to bottom). 75 hz, bearable, but annoying at least. 85 hz, nice rock solid picture. Oh well.
As for lack of widescreen TVs? I see lots of widescreen films around. Only problem is that in North America, everything tends to have a lot of competition, thus cheaper. However, since TV's and most other goods are shipped worldwide, it makes no sense to ship a more expensive set to a place where stuff is cheaper. I've seen it. Here, the "advanced" cell phones with their nifty web browsers and ultra small formfactor don't come out until 6+ months after they've been released elsewhere (which, coincedentaly, has higher phone rates...). Similarly, why sell widescreen TVs here? There's so little profit to be made it's hardly worth the effort (only those with home-theatre systems and cash to burn can *afford* them...).
Don't forget, the combination of spinning and heat can also open up/attract wormholes/tears in the spacetime continuum, thereby causing socks to disappear.
Yes, socks only. Only the universe knows why socks are preferred. (Don't try to observe this phenomena though. The act of observation changes the experiment, therefore, socks won't get lost.).
Heh. PowerPC chips are bi-endian too, actually support 3 modes... big endian, little endian, and a pseudo mode in-between. Pseudo mode simply reverses the bit order, rather than byte order.
Yes, it's changable via a simple flag switch (meant to allow emulation, so task switching can easily put the processor in the right mode).
Heh. Talking about 50W processors... I used to remember when the Pentium MMX came out, several manufacturers put the *real* chip in, not the "mobile" version.
I think it's time to optimize the x86 so they don't draw so much power, on the processing-power/electrical-power ratio.
AND, which direction the socket is facing!
AND how far the plug I'm holding is off-center from said socket! (nothing more annoying than having the correct socket, correct orientation, and not being able to plug it in because I was off-center. DB's are reallly bad in this respect. Offset by one pin left/right, and it appears that it can be plugged in, when it can't. DINs are equally annoying).
* Windows NT (The Original Win32)
* Win32s (A highly limited subset of NT's Win32)
* Windows 95/98 (Closer to WinNT's win32 implementation, but not complete. Comes with certain win32 extensions that are brand new too!).
* Windows CE (A subset of the win32 API.)
Eek. Too many versions of Win32 floating around... No wonder things break so easily. (Yes, WinCE's win32 isn't a full API, but it's got more stuff than win32s).
In a few words: A realtime OS differs from a non-realtime OS in one important way: The realtime system will respond in the quickest way possible to any event - interrupt, etc.
Also, realtime OS' tend to be deterministic, i.e., you can say for certain that the kernel will give time to this task next, then that task, then that task, and so on.
A realtime OS is needed for where unexpected delays in servicing events can be very horrendous. E.g., Reactor starts to overheat. Run this under Linux [no RT modules], Windows (hah!), and you *might* get response oh, 10-100ms after the event happens. This is the time it takes for the OS to realize something happens and has to service it. A realtime OS, like QNX, will switch tasks within 37uS (on a 386-sx25), ready to run the task to service the event.
BTW, I read in Circuit Cellar (www.circuitcellarink.com), that Win95 responded within 30ms, NT 15ms, and a custom Win32 RT implementation of 2ms. Less overhead to worry about.
The only problem? RTOS' tend to use more resources to ensure their real-timeness. Of course, this extra requirement pales when compared to OS' like NT...
It's "Titanium" you fools }};-)
or is a dropped T the result of passing the string through some of intel's processors?
And I really was waiting for Intel to release the "sextium" (follows from Pentium).
Until you hit wierd uncopyable CDs...
Seems a lot of games now are made with Macromedia's Safedisc technology and other similar devices, making it near-impossible to *backup*. You perform the copy, and unless you have a specific combination of Teac CD-ROM and Cd-burner, the CD is guarenteed to not work without some patches.
See: http://www.gamecopyworld.com
BTW, the starcraft datafiles are stored in that install.exe file! Programs open the file and extract files based on some table of offsets probably stored somewhere in install.exe. (Files stored in other files aren't new. See doom's WADs, some installers just ahve one EXE file...)
Heh. That's the only problem with cheapbytes. Shipping's more expensive than the product itself! (US$5 shipping for US$10 of product is pretty expensive, imho)
Heh. I probably peak around 120 wpm or so, but rarely do I reach the peak.
My "Typing buffer" is too small, and often, one of the following happens:
1) My thinking exceeds my typing, leading to buffer overruns and lost words and extra many typos (Arg! mistake! Arg, corrected mistake, lost 3 sentences (buffer overflow) in the process!) During this time, I wish I had a neural interface to keep up with my thinking.
2) My thinking is the limiting example - willing to type, but brain not thinking fast enough to fill buffer and keep it topped up.
If I don't have to do any thinking, i.e., just copy right out of a piece of paper, I can reach the peak, easily.
I could be mistaken, but I remember reading that this blue light is the result of when a particle in a medium travels faster than light in the same medium.
/. a while back about how someone managed to force light to travel at a snail 60mph or so. If in that medium, something was travelling faster than it, you'd witness this radiation. Probably happened because the particle was bombarded with gamma radiation.
(before I get flamed: the "speed barrier", c, refers to light in a *vacuum* (which is impossible, btw, thanks to the uncertainty principle). Light travels slower in any medium (but 1 atm air tends to be "vacuumy enough" that it's very close to c).).
I remember on
Rant=on;
Um, where's the rights-taking part of rating?
AFAIK, it's just a *measure*. Like a 2x4 being 1.5"x3.5" or so.
So what if a movie is rated 'R'? or 'XXX'? Does that mean, as an adult, that I can't watch it?
Is it against the law that I can't buy music labeled "explicit"?
Is it breaking some quaint bylaw stating that websites that don't have an "approved" label can't be viewed?
Yes, if these are made into law, then rights are being taken away. But ratings are just another piece of information. Point in case: Movie ratings by critics. I have yet to see a movie that is wildly popular (say, the Matrix) get anything above two out of five. This "rating" doesn't judge me the movie. I may not want to watch a movie with 3 out of 5, but that's *my* choice, not the government.
Rant=off;
Now, for a good point: nothing's worse than having the government legislate. And generally speaking, they don't legislate until there is evidence of something not working. Best way to prevent legislation? Don't create the problem. Or find workable solutions to the problem. *Remove the incentive for people to complain to government*.
Here's a lame analogy: RedHat IPO. A lot of us (not me) got "the letter." A lot of people couldn't join, because of SEC recommendations. I don't know for sure, but I'll bet those recommendations came about because people decided that they should throw money down on bad IPOs.
I wouldn't.
But if I was some technician who needs lots of technical manuals easily and quickly, I wouldn't mind wearing this for the job. But I won't wear this thing down the street. In between, I'd probably keep it in a briefcase and walk down the street with the case.
I may be paranoid, but would someone want to be caught with $2000 worth of equipment sticking out? It's not the bulkiness, no, but *personal safety*. Until everyone has one, walking down the street with an obviously expensive piece of gear is inviting trouble. Probably good enough to kill for.
Soon in the news: "Person killed on the street: was reading Slashdot before death" }}:-) Or gives new meaning to "Blue Screen of Death".
Ahem. What's wrong with someone wanting to offer money?
Just because the CIA decides that it wants to fund some companies, doesn't mean said companies *WILL TAKE* said funding. Heck, the thought that the CIA might even be interesting might spur other VCs to offer money.
Unlike IPOs/stock market, startups do have the option to not take an investor's money (but usually don't, because they need the money to start up, and probably can't find funding elsewhere).
Now, if CIA started to buy some Red Hat shares...
I'll second that.
I bought an old style natural keyboard, and *NEVER* experienced wrist pains. But when I'm using a regular keyboard, if I use it for > 3 hours, my wrists will begin to hurt. Once I get home, and settle infront of the old style MS Natural, the pain eases.
For mouse, I use a Logitech Marble FX. Great trackball, requires very little cleaning.
BTW, IIRC, the front end (closer to spacebar) of the keyboard should be raised, not the back end. Back end is bad ergonomically. (Something about negative angle or somesuch). Mine set all the way up (flat is a bit too angled for me).
I believe you should be able to get the old style keyboards somewhere... if not, I gotta make mine last as long as possible.
Basically, because of the way the Joe User (not us) work, to a detriment to everyone.
Joe User loves pretty eye candy (usually to the expense of content). So an app that's based on HTML is easy to make eye candy for, and thus "easier" for the user. Plus, it makes things a bit easier for the back-end designer - it's easy to refresh the eye candy to the "now" look than to modify a program to do the same (just a few bits of HTML here and there...).
Unfortunatly, lots of eye candy, no content. What's worse is javascript...
I love to print out documents. PDF, PS, HTML, what-have-you.
Very simple reason: It's a helluva lot hard to sit in bed with a monitor on your lap than with even a hefty book like Cryptonomicon.
I like my PalmPilot. I use it to read fiction. I carry it into bed to read. Very good.
But for reference material, if it's going to be used often, I insist on a printout. Easy scribbling, better speed (scrolling through to find a page is much easier with paper than on screen. Faster too). It might be easier to search an electronic file, but I'd like to keep a paper copy handy, too. (My monitor runs at a very low resolution. 800x600. Reason? 60hz refresh hurts the eyes, and 75hz flickers too to me. Monitor only handles 85hz at 800x600.).
A person who receives an honorary doctorate *shouldn't* call themselves a "Doctor." Linux Torvalds or not.
They *can*, but *shouldn't*. Besides not working for it, it devalues the degree for those who work for it. Plenty of people have honorary degrees certainly don't insist on the Dr title (and often keep it quiet, or suggest to not call them Dr). Example? "Dr." Anne Landers (you'll never see her call herself that). Of course, there are those that do, unfortunately.
8mb worth of friends? tsk tsk.
I have a IIIx, and the memory is almost full. I use its PIM a lot, but most of the space is used up by 3rd party alls (1 meg's worth), and reading material (doc files: 1.8 megs!).
There's tons of apps for the palm[pilot]. Too many, in some cases... (better than WinCE...)
Oh. Your remote control program already exists - it's called OmniRemote, by Pacific Neotek. www.pacificneotek.com. It's creates a learning remote, and with the optional high-power addon, can transmit IR further. I think Omniremote is $20 (shareware), and the module is another $20 or so.
BTW, it was this program that started the "Palmpilots can break into cars" newsarticles. (Oh, *YES* tehre are cars that use IR remotes. But they inevitably use rolling codes, so it only works once, only if you programmed OmniRemote out of sight of the car).
Heh. I know what you mean. I went through a course last year called Data Structures and Algorithms, using C++. The prof was visiting, so we got lucky (he was a *GREAT* prof! Great class, Dr. Astrachan, if you read /.). Spent lots of effort drilling in the various algorithms and data structures (to the point of exhaustion). Lots of complaints (lab too long, too hard, etc), but really useful class.
Makes me wonder how many programs out there use *BUBBLE SORT* (the dog of all sorts) as their sorting algorithms. Great for low n, but doesn't compete with other O(n^2) algorithms.
Lots of time spent trying to make elegant (and readable) algorithms, and armed myself with lots of algorithms. I may not remember them, but I certainly will keep the notes and files (hey. I coded some, others were given as experimental data. Code reuse == good).
BTW, if you were speaking Klingon (like I do from time to time), people would step back first to avoid the spittle }}:-)