I use pro/e all the time on a dell inspiron 7500 with the UXGA+ screen; it was the ne plus ultra of it's day. It's still very nice, but the graphics card is starting to be a bit dated.
I don't really chafe at the 700mhz processor, plenty quick for almost everything, and 512MB is enough for most regular web surfing, and it'll always take overnight to run a FEA optimization.
But with FEA, 512MB isn't enough. 1 gig is a lot better for the models I use - which are always simplified. And as one can never be too rich or to thin, one can never have too many pixels (or too fast a graphics card). I dream of the day when multi terabyte main memories and terahertz processors make intractive FEA a reality...
Until then, my next laptop is likely to be the current ne plus ultra of the laptop world, and it isn't the sony in this article, but the Fujitsu Siemens Mobile H. Check it out: 1 Gig main memory, 64MB Quadro4 to go, encrypted HD and boot!, bluetooth detachable keyboard (!), 1.9Ghz P4, 1600x1200 pixel display (!!) (+ dual head a 2nd UXGA display), S/PDIF out (!!!!) AND certified for Linux!!!!!
Michael Pollan wrote an editorial in the 7/19/02 NYT (reg req blah) that supports just the points I made above.
Michael Pollan is the brilliant botanist who's fresh air interview made a hero out of marajuana.
Both Low Carb Dieters and Healthy Eaters will probably find support for their beliefs in the article, but I would posit that the gist of the article supports my contention that refined sugar, vilified by both Atkins and The Health Establishment, is Bad rather than the Atkins/Seal claim that a "Healthy" diet high in complex carbohydrates is to blame for obesity and the cure is eschew that false saint and pray instead to the great god of well-marbled beef, deep fried and basted in butter.
To clarify, I don't object to the concept that reducing sugared foods will help people cut weight - that seems tautological - but I do object to the contention that fat doesn't cause weight gain and the villain is the vegetable. That just violates thermodynamics and all available data.
But simple physics also dictates that if someone finds that they, personally, are more satisfied with fewer calories of fat rather than more calories worth complex carbohydrates (times the 97% bioavailiblity of fat calories vs. the 85% bioavailibility of complex carbohydrate calories), then the fat will result in less net weight gain. Note that there is no long term study to suggest that it is safe to do so, and the suggestion that it is contradicts all studies so far done. But what the hell, if you look good who cares?
Anyway, to dump another steaming load of reason into the middle of the debate, one which fits the established view of diet, Pollan points out:
The problem in corn's case is that we're sacrificing the health of both our bodies and the environment by growing and eating so much of it. Though we're only beginning to understand what our cornified food system is doing to our health, there's cause for concern. It's probably no coincidence that the wholesale switch to corn sweeteners in the 1980's marks the beginning of the epidemic of obesity and Type 2 diabetes in this country. Sweetness became so cheap that soft drink makers, rather than lower their prices, super-sized their serving portions and marketing budgets. Thousands of new sweetened snack foods hit the market, and the amount of fructose in our diets soared.
This would be bad enough for the American waistline, but there's also preliminary research suggesting that high-fructose corn syrup is metabolized differently than other sugars, making it potentially more harmful. A recent study at the University of Minnesota found that a diet high in fructose (as compared to glucose) elevates triglyceride levels in men shortly after eating, a phenomenon that has been linked to an increased risk of obesity and heart disease. Little is known about the health effects of eating animals that have themselves eaten so much corn, but in the case of cattle, researchers have found that corn-fed beef is higher in saturated fats than grass-fed beef.
It's the damn corn syrup kids - no matter what diet religion you pledge fealty to, it's the source of your Satan: fructose and saturated fat.
I think you're replying to my post, in which case the answer is "I did," of course. I have also read a good chunk of Barry Sears book, an excellent text book on sports nutrition (Sports Nutrition), a well written popular book on sports nutrition (Optimal Sports Nutrition - gotta love creative titles), and I've been a competitive athlete, run 3 marathons (3:18 in the Boston Marathon, though that was years ago), was a nationals level wrestler (PAPSWIT) in high school, competed in the (div 3) nationals in gymnastics in college, etc...
And I eat about 50-75 grams of protein/day when I'm exercising, as little LDL heavy fat as possible, a good dose of HDL heavy fat (vegetable sources such as rape seed oil), fish when I can, occasionally red meat, and LOTS of carbohydrate.
Yeah - it's slashdot and when I answer people I carefully research my answers - usually on the web (though I use my texts when they're at hand). I'm careful to get data from what appear to be reasonable, responsible sources. Now in this case the proponents have no meaningful studies to back up their claims so it's hard to refute, but Sears in particular argues that the nutrition world has been bought by the Vegetable Cartel! so of course all those heart/weight/diet studies have been bought... can't argue with that.
"Lots and lots of vegetables" "as much of the cuisine as vegetables and rice" "vegetables and fruit dishes"
That's exactly the point. Umm, that big marbled slab of beef on the plate.... I think you're missing the point. The high fat diets are typified by the cover of the NYT article - butter on a pork chop.
If you're a cook, you should become familiar with the nutritional information for common foods; this might help:
Please site the reference which quantifies satiety...
Both complex carbohydrates and fats are considered "high satiety" foods. Simple sugars aren't. I doubt you'll find any diet promoting simple sugars as the foundation of a good diet.
The "gram for gram" statement is poorly constructed as you attempt to conflate an accurately quantifiable and objective measure (grams) with a subjective, non-quantifiable measure (satiety).
Now here's the simple bit: energy in = energy out + energy retained.
Note that I spoke of energy, not mass. The mass equation is, indeed, more complex: though energy is neither created nor destroyed.
Fact the bio-available energy in fat is about 93%, proteins yield about 70%, complex carbohydrates yield about 85% as about 15% cannot be digested before reaching the small intestine (anal exit mode); unless you eat too much carbohydrate for your liver to store as glucose, in which case approximately 23% of the energy available is consumed (thermogenesis) and the rest is stored as fat. (W.P.T. James, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1987)
Now a bit more protein is probably wont hurt (though it can be hard on your liver, but that takes decades and you can always get a new one), and less refined sugar is definitely a good thing (preserve that pancreas). But substituting complex carbohydrates such as grains for fats is a quick prescription for heart disease.
They're not "new," we used Anorad linear motors back in college too many years ago to remember, back mapping the EMF using a sub-nanometer resolution laser interferometer to improve the velocity and position accuracy (they've been around since the '50s).
Currently I help design machines that use a mixture of linear motors and ball screws as appropriate. In applications with high linear speed, short/medium stroke, and no static hold requirement, linear motors are a good choice.
If you move slowly, that long chain of rare earth magnets isn't a good investment compared to a ball screw (but the ones that came out of a linear motor we broke that are on my refrigerator really impress people.)
If you need a long stroke, that chain of magnets gets very expensive ( though they're used for elevators sometimes.) On the other hand, ball screws can be limiting in applications requiring long length as the driven mass increases linearly with the length of the drive, not the case with a linear motor.
If your application requires extended static holds, then a ball screw is a lot easier to integrate.
For most machine tool applications they aren't really a good choice (since machine tools typically have feed rates and target accelerations well suited to ball screws) but a number of companies do build machines with linear motors for one or more axis, and they tend to dominante the "ultra-high speed machining market."
This is a decent comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of the two dominant linear motion technologies for the curious.
Now if you want a really new technology for linear motion appropriate to high accuracy machining, then what you really want is hydrostatic leadscrews and bearings.
You're eating less and therefore losing weight, not claiming some thermodynamic miracle from what you do eat.
You're taking fiber and vitamins to replace important bits that are missing from an otherwise incomplete diet.
You're keeping track of your LDL:HDL.
All excellent diet plans, no matter what one were to choose as a diet base. I'm repeating your points to amplify them because I think if anyone else bothers to read this far, and should they be looking for a good example of the right way to experiment with a reduced carbohydrate diet plan that might work for them, you've got it.
My problem is with the more extreme proponents of the high fat diets - such as the original times piece which is bizarrely partisan and biased - that suggest (as the text and particularly the accompanying photograph did) that butter on pork is the foundation of a good weight loss program and a healthy, heart smart diet somehow in synchrony with our cattle-ranching, vegitable-eschewing, pre-agrarian proto-humans.
Perhaps for some people... And if your argument is that in full knowledge of your cholesterol level and having evaluated your vitamin and mineral intake and sodium/potassium balance etc etc you'd rather eat 2000 calories of fat than 2000 calories of vegetables.... well... enjoy!
If your argument is that you'll somehow magically shed those pounds if you stuff yourself with butter and beef, well you'll make grand and exquisite corpse.
The primary gist of my earlier statement was not to dis the atkins diet as written, my (shallow) analysis finds it not nearly so extreme, nor so remarkable, as most of the most vociferous partisans (on each side) seem to believe.
But I do strongly counter the arguments that somehow one can eat as much fat and protein as one wants so long as one avoids carbs and still lose weight. That's just a big fat lump of lard. (Not that you were making this argument, but many proponents seem to.)
And I find ludicrous the notion that it is a "better" diet (not in the losing weight sense but in the general nutrition sense). That is that fat is somehow more healthy than grains, (though this interpretation misstates the diets, which do not suggest forgoing all grains and vegetables, simply taking them in moderation).
Now, the argument that one who is already given in to snacking and accepted that the ready availability of junk food and the endless barrage of food advertising has overwhelmed whatever self control they may ever have possessed and there is no hope for moderation, then should the choice be between a snack of fat and protein and an equally caloric snack of refined sugar... the winner of that Hobson's choice is probably the fat and protein. (Of course if you really want to win snackers, you sell crunchy salty sugared fat chunks!)
Anecdotal evidence is intrinsically weak, but it's about all there is. Cultures that eat low fat, high carbohydrate diets (Asians especially, but also most third world countries) have low incidences of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, etc. The US eats more fat than anyone as a percentage of diet (and more refined sugar) and wins the wealthy death disease competition hands down. Vegetarians tend to be thin and relatively healthy, meat eaters tend to be fat.
One can argue (and Atkins et al would) that there are other causes at work - and certainly there are, but the health of the peoples of the world does not lend credence to a high fat diet.
Obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay are strongly associated with eating lots of sugar. Obesity and heart disease are statistically associated with eating a diet high in fat. Choose your poison. But you want to stay thin, eat less of it.
You've summarized the real concept well, and I don't really argue with it - some people might find its easier to get full with net callorically equal chunk-o-fat than a twinkie, and might not have any access to vegetables or lean meats.
But many proponents suggest that carbohydrates are the cause of obesity and heart disease. This is just bunk.
If so vegetarians should be HUGE, but their BMI (body mass index) is on average 1Kg/m2 less than meat eaters.
If so vegetarians should die of heart disease more frequently but the rate of ischaemic heart disease is 34% less in vegetarians.
If so vegetarians should have higher LDL:HDL ratios, but vegetarians have mean LDLs of 2.29 mmol/l vs meat eaters LDL of 3.17.
And consuming a diet high in animal fat vs. being a vegetarian yields a death rate ratio of 3.29 (95% CI).
Maybe it's easier to have one steak than one cake for some people, but a diet high in fat is not, compared to a "balanced diet" or vegetarian diet, in any way healthy. It is only - possibly - a good choice against the straw man argument of being better than eating a diet of refined sugar products.
First law of thermodynamics: energy cannot be created or destroyed. 2nd law, everything becomes heat.
Body temp is 98.6 - to a first approximation this sets energy consumption by the body (exercise and you... anyone? anyone? get hot). 2000 calories/day. 1lb of human fat = 3500 Calories.
Now here's the simple bit: energy in = energy out + energy retained.
Put in 3500 calories eating a pound of butter--or 2.5 pounds of pasta--and it will either come out as heat (eg run 35 miles if you weigh 150 lbs to burn it off, or wait 2 days without eating anything else...)
OR it will stay on your body (=1 lb of fat)
OR it will come out your anus (eg anal leakage from olestra.).
THERE IS NO OTHER OPTION.
There is no magic diet. Zone, Atkins, it's all a bunch of crap... well almost. The real deal is that the difference between a "zone" diet and a NIH diet is relatively trivial. Perhaps a bit too much fat for most hearts, but not really that big a deal. Eating a little more fat and a little less carbohydrate comes out a wash... which is to say the argument is a bunch of crap, the diets don't matter that much.
One good bit of advice from Atkins et al - avoid sugar. If we all skipped the soda at the PC, and the junk food (oooohhh carboyhdrates.... NAW! just 200 calories a can, 400 for a soda and candy bar = 1/8 of a pound of fat you gain that day).
Now, as for the carbodhydrate diets: asians eat some of the most carbohydrate rich diets in the world, and have the lowest obesity and heart disease. They come to the US and they get fat. The ratio of fat goes up, which may be significant for heart disease, but the amount of refined sugar explodes, as does the fat... and everything else. Mmmmm BK double and a giant size coke!
Eat a well balanced diet, get plenty of exercise and forget the Nietzschean crap. Skip the soda, take a walk.
Compare the Fujitsu Siemens Celsius Mobile H which has more pixels (1600x1200 vs. 1536x1024), a killer GPU (64MB Quadro4 to go with twinview for a 2nd external UXGA screen), and wins or ties every other spec + bluetooth removable keyboard and fingerprint authentication to decrypt the harddrive on boot.
Not available in US, so get your euro friends to send you one or hassle Fujitsu into putting it into the US market.
http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/rl/products/works ta tions/mobile/celsiusmobile/celsiusmobile_h.html#
IP law must serve to maximize the public good.
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Fair IP Laws?
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It's quite simple really: the intent of copyright law is, and never has truly been, to protect the "right" to profit of the inventor. The purpose is explicitly and solely to maximize the production and dissemination of invention and the useful arts. It should be considered, as Thomas Jefferson did, an embarrassing monopoly that is granted only begrudgingly as necessary to maximize the greatest public good.
That much is simple fact, easily gleaned from the original sources. How to implement that simple fact is a matter of opinion, but when the core purpose is obscured in a fog of "property rights" and "contractual obligations" the real purpose can never be realized, much to the detriment of society and the rule of law.
The first step must be to refute once and for all the "right" to profit as a purpose or goal of intellectual property law and to annul the contractual obligations entangling the free dissemination of ideas and inventions.
In my inexpert analysis I would suggest a few changes to the standing law immediately:
1) Purely artistic works (useless arts) should be denied all copyright protection. That was a later invention, originally intended to provide incentive for publishers who, at then great expense, tooled up to produce physical artifacts necessary to enable the propagation of such works.
These efforts and expenses are no longer required and the embarrassing monopoly granted to publishers of such works is no longer necessary to ensure the dissemination of these works.
There is an argument that artists would not create without some financial incentive protected by copyright, but that argument is proven false by a quick trip to the local museum, wherein one will find halls filled with great works, almost all created without any copyright protection at all.
This would challenge some of the protected revenue streams currently enjoyed by the music industry and rational people might argue that the industry has such tremendous value to society that such protections are necessary. I do not believe that they are, nor that music nor movies require these protections and that they serve unnecessary to restrain the freedom of individuals, and that--indeed--their existence and enforcement have become a cudgel against innovation critically restraining the computer industry and are therefore in explicit contravention of the intent and purpose of copyright and patent law.
2) No "discovered" concept should be patentable. This applies to algorithms and to genes, as well as to mechanisms that are copied from nature. It is an offense against humanity that the information contained within our very bodies might be owned by another. All algorithmic patents derived from mathematics should be revoked, as well as all patents on discovered entities.
It is argued that the only incentive to undertake massive sequencing efforts is for the reward of exploiting the information thereby discovered. I find that argument weak and would counter that the discovery is a critical step in the invention of useful exploitations of the information (cures for diseases rather than the disease sequence itself) that are patentable. We would not, for example, let an explorer patent an oil well, though we would not contend the ownership of the oil usefully extracted therefrom.
3) Copyright for "useful" arts, which may be broadly and loosely interpreted and might well reasonably embody both works of music or movies in addition to non-fiction and reference, should be protected by the least monopoly necessary to ensure their continued production and dissemination.
It can be argued reasonably that the work undertaken to create a dictionary or a treatise on mathematics might not be undertaken if the author could not reasonably expect to derive some income therefrom, nor might it be published if the publisher could not reasonably expect to retain some exclusive right, and therefore the monopoly grant is useful in maximizing the dissemination of such useful ideas to the public.
However, this grant must be by intent and by law the least necessary to provide generally adequate incentive for these efforts. In the 1800's, when type was cast in lead, this was found to be 14 years. Today the cost of publishing is far lower and the period of protection should fall commensurately. I would propose an automatic 5 year copyright grant, with a 5 year extension which is not automatically granted but must be granted only on review and only when deemed necessary to meet the goal of maximum dissemination.
4) When patents were first devised, it was determined that 17 years was sufficient monopoly for the inventor to reasonably recoup the cost of invention and sufficient profit to serve as incentive to future invention. Patents are currently granted in a far wider array of fields than at the outset, providing a useful, broad, but broadly limited service to invention and dissemination.
The problem is that the current system does not differentiate between quickly and slowly changing technologies, yet the term of protection may be ineffectual as incentive for fields slow to adopt new technologies (such as materials science) and a tremendous hindrance to quickly changing fields where the patent protection far outlasts the utility of the invention (such as computer science).
Therefore the patent office should provide tiers of protection. I would suggest 2 years for software, 5 years for electronic hardware, 10 years for genetics and drugs, 20 years for mechanics, and 30 years for materials and basic science. These terms may be adjusted as necessary to provide a period of useful protection for the inventor sufficient to serve as invention but not to constrain the wide adoption of the invention past its useful lifespan.
5) Patents and copyrights should be subject to judicial review on the grounds of serving the original intent of the law. There should be a mechanism whereby the just nature of the granted monopoly may be challenged and overturned if it is found on review that the monopoly does not serve the interests of maximal dissemination. Grounds for overturning a granted monopoly would include hindrance of invention, disuse, inappropriate use. For example, technologies incorporated into standards, and later asserted by the holder against adopters of the standard could be overturned and the invention taken by the public domain by eminent domain.
But the most important step is to re-calibrate the public discourse, to make laughable the claims we hear so often that patent and copyright law is about protecting property and ensuring fair rewards and other such patently false arguments. The proponents of these ridiculous ideas must be roundly rebuked and the arguments put firmly to rest. Once everyone understands the purpose of intellectual property law is to maximize the good to society and may be done or undone at the whim of society without complaint by anyone, I believe we will be well on our way to a working and workable legal framework.
I enjoyed the first 3 star wars movies. Lame, goofy, immature, weak story, poor acting... they were excellent "B" movies. Some of the best of the genre. And, best of all, they were fun to watch.
The last one was so horrible, so poorly constructed, so poorly written, so self-important, Jar Jar so flabbergastingly offensive... I half expected that it would be the end of the series. But tell people "it's the biggest movie event of the decade" and they line up to see it. Fortunately for the economy, people are morons.
A review I read not too long ago gave the best praise possible to this movie "Spielberg is too good a director to release two horrible movies in a row."
Well, some reviewers disagree; I'll definitely be taking my time thanks to this review (reg. required, blah blah).
Of course if it was legal to check out a crappy preview on-line at some fan's expense and the review turned out to be wrong, I'd be in line on opening day. I guess that epitomizes the MPAA's fears: we might see the crap for the hype before they get their cash... better put those pirates in jail - they're threatening the whole economy!
Please consider the constitutional basis for copyright law: the founders thought the "monopoly" granted the inventor "embarrassing" (Thomas Jefferson, 1813) and sought a minimized harm method of achieving the actual constitutional goal: "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts." The question which lawmakers should ask being: what is the least grant of monopoly necessary to achieve the maximal dissemination of invention?
It's informative to remember that while Fair Use is not a constitutional right, neither is a monopoly on copyright. The exclusive assignment of copyright is a temporary monopoly to the profits granted the inventor as incentive and "may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody." (ibid)
The right answer is not necessarily obvious; reasonable people might disagree on the utility of the DMCA, CDA, CTEA, SSSCA, etc. in furthering the net progress of science and the useful arts.
It would seem beyond rational argument that the monopolies granted have generated profits which have been used to promote and distribute arts, as they have also acted as incentive to inventors.
It is also beyond reasonable argument that these laws have in-effect and by intent retarded the progress of the science and the useful arts, particularly encryption and digital media technologies from DAT to digital television.
The correct discussion is an informed debate on the necessity of each embarrassing monopoly granted to meet the goal of furthering progress in net balance. Society's usual, customary, and regular practices must likewise be considered: if society as a whole is unwilling to yield their right to casual, non-commercial copying there is no constitutional or natural law mandate which forces it to. The brand of "pirate" is just as validly applied to those who, seemingly by legislative purchase, defend a monopoly against nearly uniform de facto social dissent.
I would argue that the DMCA already, and far more so the SSSCA, impose astonishing and intolerable restraint on the most important areas of development and invention in all of society and that these restraints are far more onerous a burden on progress than would be the demise of the entire entertainment industry.
I would further argue that society has little empathy for the losses suffered by the wealthy corporations fighting for extension of their monopoly grants and that social refusal to honor those monopolies is of a nature and prevalence that effective enforcement will require such invasive methods of investigation that political speech itself will be chilled, thereby undermining the very validity of government and it's right to rule. And this consequence outweighs the value of all progress.
The entertainment industry's legislative demands have uniformly been destructive to progress, stymieing the development of critical technologies in the US and handing the advantage to our overseas competitors, from digital music to HDTV. Their prophecies have, similarly, been entirely at odds with fact; from the terror of DAT to predictions of the collapse of the movie industry at the hands of home video, the impending calamities have come to naught or proven boon.
Clearly the article's main point is slamming democrats and the SSSCA is merely a tool to do that; entirely in keeping with FOX News' basic ultra-conservative viewpoint butt... The points are still basically correct. I'm a resident of CA and the most effective way I can figure to make my point is to send Rick Boucher a few bucks and then tell Barbara Boxer he got her money and if she wants it back she needs to get a clue.
Fine point: specs are pretty much useless. Though advertising specs marginally compare to advertising specs and never to real world applications.
I'll also grant that IRIX is a truly wonderful OS. I loved using it... (But OSX is a real competitor, some might even think superior).
Right now I've got a PC laptop under my fingers and right on the desk is an Indigo II Extreme last turned on to retrieve files a year ago. Cost my company $20,000. We switched to PCs for CAD because we could get 5 PC cycles for the price of an SGI and the performance advantage had evaporated (we run Pro/E and the benchmark specs are both inarguable and push even big iron workstations under well equipped PCs). Real numbers? http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/ocorten/BENCH30/bfu ll.htm
I've also got a similar vintage door stop Micron PII and an 8300 cluttering my cube. Obsolescence strikes all computers equally, but price and product cycle don't. Used to be that the "new" SGI on the block was inarguably the only "real" choice for graphics--even if it cost 5x what a top-of-the-line PC cost. And it held that position for almost an entire SGI product cycle.
Today the new SGI is arguably inferior to the new Mac (an easy comparison due to concurrent announcements), or arguably superior, depending on religion, but at least no longer inarguably superior.
The GF4 does hardware T&L as well, the display output is 24bit for both (and apple traditionally has industry leading color calibration tools), etc; though the VPro V12 may indeed be superior in meaningful ways... today... even if that's true, the GF5 will be out long before the next generation of SGI graphic hardware.
Note the corrections to your assumptions on the G4 FP Ops; but even given MIPS 64bit ops vs. G4's 32 (see other posts), the G4 is faster (in this arguably meaningless weenie joust) to the _future_ R1800 let alone the lesser R1400A currently shipping.
The point isn't an absolute comparison - there are many reasons one might want an SGI (and system bandwidth is probably more important than the other specs). The real point is that the relentless cycle of commodity hardware wins over the old guard, not just eventually but these days before it even ships.
If one is looking for the real bargain in a graphics workstation, get the Linux kit for PS2. As Crazy Eddie used to say: "volume volume volume...."
Looking at their roadmap SGI intends to achieve a peak per processor perforamance of 3.2GFlop with the R18000 using a 2nd load store and FPU over the R14000A.
Apple is claiming 7.5GFlop per processor, 15GFlop total for the new dual 1GHz G4.
In fact, I bought two: one for my gf and one for me (to avoid those relationship damaging techno jealousy issues). The reviewer was right on target I think in every strength and weakness.
I've used mine with a W2K laptop as music depot and find that for reasons that may be generic to W2K or specific to my laptop, it bluescreens rather than properly dismounting the USB drive feature, but I have a CF-PCMICA adapter that works fine and is a lot faster.
I also get a lot more than 12 hours from a set of batteries: a lightly used set just lasted a 14.5 hour plane trip and are still going strong. This with the NCP 64MB flash card that came from dataviz.com (total price $99 incl. card).
Similarly I bought this player for it's CF+ (or CF type II) compatibility, and wouldn't consider any other media format.
An additional complaint I would raise is that there's no headroom to the amplifier. If you exceed the output it makes a very loud pop (for example on every drum beat). Use it with high db/mw (high efficiency) headphones if you like loud music. They should soft limit the output or use a better output amp.
Another feature would be to add a "resume play" mode so it picks up where it left off. I used it skiing and in some long lift lines it turned itself off from pause meaning I heard the first few songs of the card over and over. (Yeah, yeah, you can index through pretty easily but that's hard to do with gloves on.)
I also find the battery cover disturbingly dainty, and the case around the batteries frighteningly flexible. I'd suggest that they install a charge pump and let the thing recharge NiMh AA's off the USB source, which would take overnight.
All potential energy on earth is either the result of past accumulation and storage of solar energy (fossil fuel, biomass, etc.) or the consequence of the structural creation itself (nuclear, geothermal, etc.). All of these stored energy reserves will run out, some much sooner than others; almost certainly the ones we're using most and most cheaply first.
Once they're gone the earth, if it's still livable after all the biomass ever acculated is loosed into the atmosphere, will operate in steady state where the energy available is the energy incident on it (or nearby).
Might as well start learning to live within 164 watts/sq meter now.
The media is generally supportive of the government thesis that more surveillance is necessary to protect citizens from terrorism, 9-11 being used as the catch-all excuse; after all, who would be so unpatriotic as to refuse Ashcroft or Bush anything they want... Especially since Ashcroft made clear that he considers any such dissent tantamount to treason.
This despite any effort to show that these invasions of our privacy will have any value in fighting terrorism or other crime: we must take for granted that if The Government asks for it, it must be for a good reason, and good citizens keep their damn mouths shut.
When pesky civil libertarians (either from the right or left) dare question the value of shredding the constitution to save it, the only response they deign give us is that if we don't commit any crimes, we have nothing to fear: this is the FBI, the CIA, DOJ... They don't make mistakes. DOH! except for that damn Chinese embassy, those 93 people since 1973 released from Death Row, Countelpro... Trust them, they're there to help.
Even so, even granting that these mistakes are in the past, at least yesterday, and today's law enforcement etc. is completely error free and will never wrongly punish the innocent, or at least not more so given greater reach, we are occasionally reminded that there are some laws that really shouldn't be enforced.
Lots of them really.
It is said that the Ion Mobility Spectrographs they use to sniff for explosives at the airport also detect trace amounts of drugs. They've been used in England to sniff (and arrest) clubgoers. The United States has a Zero Tolerance policy for illegal drugs crossing borders - that is even a single molecule is a crime. While it's not illegal to smoke marijuana in Holland, it's criminal to return to the US after having done so, and new technology will help law enforcement punish violators.
Enter the Republic of Texas and if the x-ray machine sees more than 6 dildos in your luggage you're guilty of a felony.
There's a nearly endless list of ridiculous laws, and I haven't even got into the bizarre and disturbing world of sodomy laws or IP laws; but if it's OK to use magic lantern to hunt for terrorists, why not also those evil criminals who violate the DMCA?
If you don't fight when they come for your neighbor, who will be left to fight when they come for you?
At least two major reformations in law are long overdue: we must return to the pre DMCA definition of criminal copyright violations. And we need a new amendment: (not that the constitution holds much weight anymore)
Congress shall make no law respecting the private actions of consenting adults.
The guy is obviously not a prime candidate for employment. Apparently his spelling would rule him out for most potential employers, but some might rely on doing a web search. The page doesn't show up in most search engines. I've submitted it as I think it's important that such information be available to potential employers. Others might consider doing the same.
A full delphion search of zeosync and Piotr Blass turns up no patents at all, issued or applied.
There is a reference to Kolmogorov which is so hyperbolic (as is the rest of their "technical" text) as to be nearly incomprehensible. It may be obfuscatory or it may have been written by a mathematician unfamiliar with human communication.
Kolmogorov is a relevant reference, but possibly a trivial one: for example to compress a pseudo random stream of arbitrary length one need know only the length of the stream, the algorithm, and seed. This is obviously not generally applicable; though, indeed, it is not addressed by Shannon's theorem.
Piotr Blass appears to be an actual mathematician at Palm Beach Atlantic College and apparently edits the Ulam Quarterly, an on-line mathematics journal.
2.70 is the famous "robot competition" that started it all. It's now called 2.007 and is taught to freshmen. Students get a box of parts, learn engineering, documentation, design, and test their designs in competition. The winner gets an A.
Professor Alexander Slocum currently teaches it, Prof. Woody Flowers taught it previously.
Slashdot Mirror
I use pro/e all the time on a dell inspiron 7500 with the UXGA+ screen; it was the ne plus ultra of it's day. It's still very nice, but the graphics card is starting to be a bit dated.
I don't really chafe at the 700mhz processor, plenty quick for almost everything, and 512MB is enough for most regular web surfing, and it'll always take overnight to run a FEA optimization.
But with FEA, 512MB isn't enough. 1 gig is a lot better for the models I use - which are always simplified. And as one can never be too rich or to thin, one can never have too many pixels (or too fast a graphics card). I dream of the day when multi terabyte main memories and terahertz processors make intractive FEA a reality...
Until then, my next laptop is likely to be the current ne plus ultra of the laptop world, and it isn't the sony in this article, but the Fujitsu Siemens Mobile H. Check it out: 1 Gig main memory, 64MB Quadro4 to go, encrypted HD and boot!, bluetooth detachable keyboard (!), 1.9Ghz P4, 1600x1200 pixel display (!!) (+ dual head a 2nd UXGA display), S/PDIF out (!!!!) AND certified for Linux!!!!!
Michael Pollan wrote an editorial in the 7/19/02 NYT (reg req blah) that supports just the points I made above.
Michael Pollan is the brilliant botanist who's fresh air interview made a hero out of marajuana.
Both Low Carb Dieters and Healthy Eaters will probably find support for their beliefs in the article, but I would posit that the gist of the article supports my contention that refined sugar, vilified by both Atkins and The Health Establishment, is Bad rather than the Atkins/Seal claim that a "Healthy" diet high in complex carbohydrates is to blame for obesity and the cure is eschew that false saint and pray instead to the great god of well-marbled beef, deep fried and basted in butter.
To clarify, I don't object to the concept that reducing sugared foods will help people cut weight - that seems tautological - but I do object to the contention that fat doesn't cause weight gain and the villain is the vegetable. That just violates thermodynamics and all available data.
But simple physics also dictates that if someone finds that they, personally, are more satisfied with fewer calories of fat rather than more calories worth complex carbohydrates (times the 97% bioavailiblity of fat calories vs. the 85% bioavailibility of complex carbohydrate calories), then the fat will result in less net weight gain. Note that there is no long term study to suggest that it is safe to do so, and the suggestion that it is contradicts all studies so far done. But what the hell, if you look good who cares?
Anyway, to dump another steaming load of reason into the middle of the debate, one which fits the established view of diet, Pollan points out:
The problem in corn's case is that we're sacrificing the health of both our bodies and the environment by growing and eating so much of it. Though we're only beginning to understand what our cornified food system is doing to our health, there's cause for concern. It's probably no coincidence that the wholesale switch to corn sweeteners in the 1980's marks the beginning of the epidemic of obesity and Type 2 diabetes in this country. Sweetness became so cheap that soft drink makers, rather than lower their prices, super-sized their serving portions and marketing budgets. Thousands of new sweetened snack foods hit the market, and the amount of fructose in our diets soared.
This would be bad enough for the American waistline, but there's also preliminary research suggesting that high-fructose corn syrup is metabolized differently than other sugars, making it potentially more harmful. A recent study at the University of Minnesota found that a diet high in fructose (as compared to glucose) elevates triglyceride levels in men shortly after eating, a phenomenon that has been linked to an increased risk of obesity and heart disease. Little is known about the health effects of eating animals that have themselves eaten so much corn, but in the case of cattle, researchers have found that corn-fed beef is higher in saturated fats than grass-fed beef.
It's the damn corn syrup kids - no matter what diet religion you pledge fealty to, it's the source of your Satan: fructose and saturated fat.
If only we need fear from technology merely totalitarianism and not extinction.
I think you're replying to my post, in which case the answer is "I did," of course. I have also read a good chunk of Barry Sears book, an excellent text book on sports nutrition (Sports Nutrition), a well written popular book on sports nutrition (Optimal Sports Nutrition - gotta love creative titles), and I've been a competitive athlete, run 3 marathons (3:18 in the Boston Marathon, though that was years ago), was a nationals level wrestler (PAPSWIT) in high school, competed in the (div 3) nationals in gymnastics in college, etc...
And I eat about 50-75 grams of protein/day when I'm exercising, as little LDL heavy fat as possible, a good dose of HDL heavy fat (vegetable sources such as rape seed oil), fish when I can, occasionally red meat, and LOTS of carbohydrate.
Yeah - it's slashdot and when I answer people I carefully research my answers - usually on the web (though I use my texts when they're at hand). I'm careful to get data from what appear to be reasonable, responsible sources. Now in this case the proponents have no meaningful studies to back up their claims so it's hard to refute, but Sears in particular argues that the nutrition world has been bought by the Vegetable Cartel! so of course all those heart/weight/diet studies have been bought... can't argue with that.
"Lots and lots of vegetables"
"as much of the cuisine as vegetables and rice"
"vegetables and fruit dishes"
That's exactly the point. Umm, that big marbled slab of beef on the plate.... I think you're missing the point. The high fat diets are typified by the cover of the NYT article - butter on a pork chop.
If you're a cook, you should become familiar with the nutritional information for common foods; this might help:
Rice (white 1/2 cup): 2g protein, 20g carbohydrate, 0 fat
Pepper (green or red 1/2 cup): 0.4g protein, 3.2g carbohydrate, 0.1g fat
Green Beans (1/2 cup): 1.2g protein, 4.9g carbohydrate, 0.2g fat
Peas (1/2 cup): 4.3g protein, 12.5g carbohydrate, 0.2g fat
Green Beans (1/2 cup): 1.2g protein, 4.9g carbohydrate, 0.2g fat
Broccoli (1/2 cup, fresh, raw): 1.3g protein, 2.3g carbohydrate, 0.2g fat
Asparagus (4 spears, fresh, raw): 1.8g protein, 2.1g carbohydrate, 0.1g fat
Banana: 1.2g protein, 26.7g carbohydrate, 0.6g fat
Apple: 0.3g protein, 21.1g carbohydrate, 0.5g fat
vs.
Butter (1 Tablespoon): 0.1g protein, 0 carbohydrate, 11.4g fat
Pork (4 oz.): 31.1g protein, 0 carbohydrate, 25.1g fat
Butter and pork = high fat, high protein.
Rice and vegetables = high carbohydrate, low fat, moderate protein.
Carbohydrate = 4.1 C/gm, Proteins = 5.7 C/gm, Fat = 9.3 C/gm.
Your expert evaluation of the ingredients proves the point, thank you.
Please site the reference which quantifies satiety...
Both complex carbohydrates and fats are considered "high satiety" foods. Simple sugars aren't. I doubt you'll find any diet promoting simple sugars as the foundation of a good diet.
The "gram for gram" statement is poorly constructed as you attempt to conflate an accurately quantifiable and objective measure (grams) with a subjective, non-quantifiable measure (satiety).
Now here's the simple bit: energy in = energy out + energy retained.
Note that I spoke of energy, not mass. The mass equation is, indeed, more complex: though energy is neither created nor destroyed.
Fact the bio-available energy in fat is about 93%, proteins yield about 70%, complex carbohydrates yield about 85% as about 15% cannot be digested before reaching the small intestine (anal exit mode); unless you eat too much carbohydrate for your liver to store as glucose, in which case approximately 23% of the energy available is consumed (thermogenesis) and the rest is stored as fat. (W.P.T. James, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1987)
Now a bit more protein is probably wont hurt (though it can be hard on your liver, but that takes decades and you can always get a new one), and less refined sugar is definitely a good thing (preserve that pancreas). But substituting complex carbohydrates such as grains for fats is a quick prescription for heart disease.
They're not "new," we used Anorad linear motors back in college too many years ago to remember, back mapping the EMF using a sub-nanometer resolution laser interferometer to improve the velocity and position accuracy (they've been around since the '50s).
Currently I help design machines that use a mixture of linear motors and ball screws as appropriate. In applications with high linear speed, short/medium stroke, and no static hold requirement, linear motors are a good choice.
If you move slowly, that long chain of rare earth magnets isn't a good investment compared to a ball screw (but the ones that came out of a linear motor we broke that are on my refrigerator really impress people.)
If you need a long stroke, that chain of magnets gets very expensive ( though they're used for elevators sometimes.) On the other hand, ball screws can be limiting in applications requiring long length as the driven mass increases linearly with the length of the drive, not the case with a linear motor.
If your application requires extended static holds, then a ball screw is a lot easier to integrate.
For most machine tool applications they aren't really a good choice (since machine tools typically have feed rates and target accelerations well suited to ball screws) but a number of companies do build machines with linear motors for one or more axis, and they tend to dominante the "ultra-high speed machining market."
This is a decent comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of the two dominant linear motion technologies for the curious.
Now if you want a really new technology for linear motion appropriate to high accuracy machining, then what you really want is hydrostatic leadscrews and bearings.
You rock. Keep it up.
A few notes for those hoping for a miracle:
You're eating less and therefore losing weight, not claiming some thermodynamic miracle from what you do eat.
You're taking fiber and vitamins to replace important bits that are missing from an otherwise incomplete diet.
You're keeping track of your LDL:HDL.
All excellent diet plans, no matter what one were to choose as a diet base. I'm repeating your points to amplify them because I think if anyone else bothers to read this far, and should they be looking for a good example of the right way to experiment with a reduced carbohydrate diet plan that might work for them, you've got it.
My problem is with the more extreme proponents of the high fat diets - such as the original times piece which is bizarrely partisan and biased - that suggest (as the text and particularly the accompanying photograph did) that butter on pork is the foundation of a good weight loss program and a healthy, heart smart diet somehow in synchrony with our cattle-ranching, vegitable-eschewing, pre-agrarian proto-humans.
Perhaps for some people... And if your argument is that in full knowledge of your cholesterol level and having evaluated your vitamin and mineral intake and sodium/potassium balance etc etc you'd rather eat 2000 calories of fat than 2000 calories of vegetables.... well... enjoy!
If your argument is that you'll somehow magically shed those pounds if you stuff yourself with butter and beef, well you'll make grand and exquisite corpse.
The primary gist of my earlier statement was not to dis the atkins diet as written, my (shallow) analysis finds it not nearly so extreme, nor so remarkable, as most of the most vociferous partisans (on each side) seem to believe.
But I do strongly counter the arguments that somehow one can eat as much fat and protein as one wants so long as one avoids carbs and still lose weight. That's just a big fat lump of lard. (Not that you were making this argument, but many proponents seem to.)
And I find ludicrous the notion that it is a "better" diet (not in the losing weight sense but in the general nutrition sense). That is that fat is somehow more healthy than grains, (though this interpretation misstates the diets, which do not suggest forgoing all grains and vegetables, simply taking them in moderation).
Now, the argument that one who is already given in to snacking and accepted that the ready availability of junk food and the endless barrage of food advertising has overwhelmed whatever self control they may ever have possessed and there is no hope for moderation, then should the choice be between a snack of fat and protein and an equally caloric snack of refined sugar... the winner of that Hobson's choice is probably the fat and protein. (Of course if you really want to win snackers, you sell crunchy salty sugared fat chunks!)
Anecdotal evidence is intrinsically weak, but it's about all there is. Cultures that eat low fat, high carbohydrate diets (Asians especially, but also most third world countries) have low incidences of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, etc. The US eats more fat than anyone as a percentage of diet (and more refined sugar) and wins the wealthy death disease competition hands down. Vegetarians tend to be thin and relatively healthy, meat eaters tend to be fat.
One can argue (and Atkins et al would) that there are other causes at work - and certainly there are, but the health of the peoples of the world does not lend credence to a high fat diet.
Obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay are strongly associated with eating lots of sugar. Obesity and heart disease are statistically associated with eating a diet high in fat. Choose your poison. But you want to stay thin, eat less of it.
You've summarized the real concept well, and I don't really argue with it - some people might find its easier to get full with net callorically equal chunk-o-fat than a twinkie, and might not have any access to vegetables or lean meats.
But many proponents suggest that carbohydrates are the cause of obesity and heart disease. This is just bunk.
If so vegetarians should be HUGE, but their BMI (body mass index) is on average 1Kg/m2 less than meat eaters.
If so vegetarians should die of heart disease more frequently but the rate of ischaemic heart disease is 34% less in vegetarians.
If so vegetarians should have higher LDL:HDL ratios, but vegetarians have mean LDLs of 2.29 mmol/l vs meat eaters LDL of 3.17.
And consuming a diet high in animal fat vs. being a vegetarian yields a death rate ratio of 3.29 (95% CI).
Maybe it's easier to have one steak than one cake for some people, but a diet high in fat is not, compared to a "balanced diet" or vegetarian diet, in any way healthy. It is only - possibly - a good choice against the straw man argument of being better than eating a diet of refined sugar products.
First law of thermodynamics: energy cannot be created or destroyed. 2nd law, everything becomes heat.
Body temp is 98.6 - to a first approximation this sets energy consumption by the body (exercise and you... anyone? anyone? get hot). 2000 calories/day. 1lb of human fat = 3500 Calories.
Now here's the simple bit: energy in = energy out + energy retained.
Put in 3500 calories eating a pound of butter--or 2.5 pounds of pasta--and it will either come out as heat (eg run 35 miles if you weigh 150 lbs to burn it off, or wait 2 days without eating anything else...)
OR it will stay on your body (=1 lb of fat)
OR it will come out your anus (eg anal leakage from olestra.).
THERE IS NO OTHER OPTION.
There is no magic diet. Zone, Atkins, it's all a bunch of crap... well almost. The real deal is that the difference between a "zone" diet and a NIH diet is relatively trivial. Perhaps a bit too much fat for most hearts, but not really that big a deal. Eating a little more fat and a little less carbohydrate comes out a wash... which is to say the argument is a bunch of crap, the diets don't matter that much.
One good bit of advice from Atkins et al - avoid sugar. If we all skipped the soda at the PC, and the junk food (oooohhh carboyhdrates.... NAW! just 200 calories a can, 400 for a soda and candy bar = 1/8 of a pound of fat you gain that day).
Now, as for the carbodhydrate diets: asians eat some of the most carbohydrate rich diets in the world, and have the lowest obesity and heart disease. They come to the US and they get fat. The ratio of fat goes up, which may be significant for heart disease, but the amount of refined sugar explodes, as does the fat... and everything else. Mmmmm BK double and a giant size coke!
Eat a well balanced diet, get plenty of exercise and forget the Nietzschean crap. Skip the soda, take a walk.
Compare the Fujitsu Siemens Celsius Mobile H which has more pixels (1600x1200 vs. 1536x1024), a killer GPU (64MB Quadro4 to go with twinview for a 2nd external UXGA screen), and wins or ties every other spec + bluetooth removable keyboard and fingerprint authentication to decrypt the harddrive on boot.
s ta tions/mobile/celsiusmobile/celsiusmobile_h.html#
Not available in US, so get your euro friends to send you one or hassle Fujitsu into putting it into the US market.
http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/rl/products/work
It's quite simple really: the intent of copyright law is, and never has truly been, to protect the "right" to profit of the inventor. The purpose is explicitly and solely to maximize the production and dissemination of invention and the useful arts. It should be considered, as Thomas Jefferson did, an embarrassing monopoly that is granted only begrudgingly as necessary to maximize the greatest public good.
That much is simple fact, easily gleaned from the original sources. How to implement that simple fact is a matter of opinion, but when the core purpose is obscured in a fog of "property rights" and "contractual obligations" the real purpose can never be realized, much to the detriment of society and the rule of law.
The first step must be to refute once and for all the "right" to profit as a purpose or goal of intellectual property law and to annul the contractual obligations entangling the free dissemination of ideas and inventions.
In my inexpert analysis I would suggest a few changes to the standing law immediately:
1) Purely artistic works (useless arts) should be denied all copyright protection. That was a later invention, originally intended to provide incentive for publishers who, at then great expense, tooled up to produce physical artifacts necessary to enable the propagation of such works.
These efforts and expenses are no longer required and the embarrassing monopoly granted to publishers of such works is no longer necessary to ensure the dissemination of these works.
There is an argument that artists would not create without some financial incentive protected by copyright, but that argument is proven false by a quick trip to the local museum, wherein one will find halls filled with great works, almost all created without any copyright protection at all.
This would challenge some of the protected revenue streams currently enjoyed by the music industry and rational people might argue that the industry has such tremendous value to society that such protections are necessary. I do not believe that they are, nor that music nor movies require these protections and that they serve unnecessary to restrain the freedom of individuals, and that--indeed--their existence and enforcement have become a cudgel against innovation critically restraining the computer industry and are therefore in explicit contravention of the intent and purpose of copyright and patent law.
2) No "discovered" concept should be patentable. This applies to algorithms and to genes, as well as to mechanisms that are copied from nature. It is an offense against humanity that the information contained within our very bodies might be owned by another. All algorithmic patents derived from mathematics should be revoked, as well as all patents on discovered entities.
It is argued that the only incentive to undertake massive sequencing efforts is for the reward of exploiting the information thereby discovered. I find that argument weak and would counter that the discovery is a critical step in the invention of useful exploitations of the information (cures for diseases rather than the disease sequence itself) that are patentable. We would not, for example, let an explorer patent an oil well, though we would not contend the ownership of the oil usefully extracted therefrom.
3) Copyright for "useful" arts, which may be broadly and loosely interpreted and might well reasonably embody both works of music or movies in addition to non-fiction and reference, should be protected by the least monopoly necessary to ensure their continued production and dissemination.
It can be argued reasonably that the work undertaken to create a dictionary or a treatise on mathematics might not be undertaken if the author could not reasonably expect to derive some income therefrom, nor might it be published if the publisher could not reasonably expect to retain some exclusive right, and therefore the monopoly grant is useful in maximizing the dissemination of such useful ideas to the public.
However, this grant must be by intent and by law the least necessary to provide generally adequate incentive for these efforts. In the 1800's, when type was cast in lead, this was found to be 14 years. Today the cost of publishing is far lower and the period of protection should fall commensurately. I would propose an automatic 5 year copyright grant, with a 5 year extension which is not automatically granted but must be granted only on review and only when deemed necessary to meet the goal of maximum dissemination.
4) When patents were first devised, it was determined that 17 years was sufficient monopoly for the inventor to reasonably recoup the cost of invention and sufficient profit to serve as incentive to future invention. Patents are currently granted in a far wider array of fields than at the outset, providing a useful, broad, but broadly limited service to invention and dissemination.
The problem is that the current system does not differentiate between quickly and slowly changing technologies, yet the term of protection may be ineffectual as incentive for fields slow to adopt new technologies (such as materials science) and a tremendous hindrance to quickly changing fields where the patent protection far outlasts the utility of the invention (such as computer science).
Therefore the patent office should provide tiers of protection. I would suggest 2 years for software, 5 years for electronic hardware, 10 years for genetics and drugs, 20 years for mechanics, and 30 years for materials and basic science. These terms may be adjusted as necessary to provide a period of useful protection for the inventor sufficient to serve as invention but not to constrain the wide adoption of the invention past its useful lifespan.
5) Patents and copyrights should be subject to judicial review on the grounds of serving the original intent of the law. There should be a mechanism whereby the just nature of the granted monopoly may be challenged and overturned if it is found on review that the monopoly does not serve the interests of maximal dissemination. Grounds for overturning a granted monopoly would include hindrance of invention, disuse, inappropriate use. For example, technologies incorporated into standards, and later asserted by the holder against adopters of the standard could be overturned and the invention taken by the public domain by eminent domain.
But the most important step is to re-calibrate the public discourse, to make laughable the claims we hear so often that patent and copyright law is about protecting property and ensuring fair rewards and other such patently false arguments. The proponents of these ridiculous ideas must be roundly rebuked and the arguments put firmly to rest. Once everyone understands the purpose of intellectual property law is to maximize the good to society and may be done or undone at the whim of society without complaint by anyone, I believe we will be well on our way to a working and workable legal framework.
I enjoyed the first 3 star wars movies. Lame, goofy, immature, weak story, poor acting... they were excellent "B" movies. Some of the best of the genre. And, best of all, they were fun to watch.
The last one was so horrible, so poorly constructed, so poorly written, so self-important, Jar Jar so flabbergastingly offensive... I half expected that it would be the end of the series. But tell people "it's the biggest movie event of the decade" and they line up to see it. Fortunately for the economy, people are morons.
A review I read not too long ago gave the best praise possible to this movie "Spielberg is too good a director to release two horrible movies in a row."
Well, some reviewers disagree; I'll definitely be taking my time thanks to this review (reg. required, blah blah).
Of course if it was legal to check out a crappy preview on-line at some fan's expense and the review turned out to be wrong, I'd be in line on opening day. I guess that epitomizes the MPAA's fears: we might see the crap for the hype before they get their cash... better put those pirates in jail - they're threatening the whole economy!
Please consider the constitutional basis for copyright law: the founders thought the "monopoly" granted the inventor "embarrassing" (Thomas Jefferson, 1813) and sought a minimized harm method of achieving the actual constitutional goal: "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts." The question which lawmakers should ask being: what is the least grant of monopoly necessary to achieve the maximal dissemination of invention?
It's informative to remember that while Fair Use is not a constitutional right, neither is a monopoly on copyright. The exclusive assignment of copyright is a temporary monopoly to the profits granted the inventor as incentive and "may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody." (ibid)
The right answer is not necessarily obvious; reasonable people might disagree on the utility of the DMCA, CDA, CTEA, SSSCA, etc. in furthering the net progress of science and the useful arts.
It would seem beyond rational argument that the monopolies granted have generated profits which have been used to promote and distribute arts, as they have also acted as incentive to inventors.
It is also beyond reasonable argument that these laws have in-effect and by intent retarded the progress of the science and the useful arts, particularly encryption and digital media technologies from DAT to digital television.
The correct discussion is an informed debate on the necessity of each embarrassing monopoly granted to meet the goal of furthering progress in net balance. Society's usual, customary, and regular practices must likewise be considered: if society as a whole is unwilling to yield their right to casual, non-commercial copying there is no constitutional or natural law mandate which forces it to. The brand of "pirate" is just as validly applied to those who, seemingly by legislative purchase, defend a monopoly against nearly uniform de facto social dissent.
I would argue that the DMCA already, and far more so the SSSCA, impose astonishing and intolerable restraint on the most important areas of development and invention in all of society and that these restraints are far more onerous a burden on progress than would be the demise of the entire entertainment industry.
I would further argue that society has little empathy for the losses suffered by the wealthy corporations fighting for extension of their monopoly grants and that social refusal to honor those monopolies is of a nature and prevalence that effective enforcement will require such invasive methods of investigation that political speech itself will be chilled, thereby undermining the very validity of government and it's right to rule. And this consequence outweighs the value of all progress.
The entertainment industry's legislative demands have uniformly been destructive to progress, stymieing the development of critical technologies in the US and handing the advantage to our overseas competitors, from digital music to HDTV. Their prophecies have, similarly, been entirely at odds with fact; from the terror of DAT to predictions of the collapse of the movie industry at the hands of home video, the impending calamities have come to naught or proven boon.
Clearly the article's main point is slamming democrats and the SSSCA is merely a tool to do that; entirely in keeping with FOX News' basic ultra-conservative viewpoint butt... The points are still basically correct. I'm a resident of CA and the most effective way I can figure to make my point is to send Rick Boucher a few bucks and then tell Barbara Boxer he got her money and if she wants it back she needs to get a clue.
Fine point: specs are pretty much useless. Though advertising specs marginally compare to advertising specs and never to real world applications.
u ll.htm
I'll also grant that IRIX is a truly wonderful OS. I loved using it... (But OSX is a real competitor, some might even think superior).
Right now I've got a PC laptop under my fingers and right on the desk is an Indigo II Extreme last turned on to retrieve files a year ago. Cost my company $20,000. We switched to PCs for CAD because we could get 5 PC cycles for the price of an SGI and the performance advantage had evaporated (we run Pro/E and the benchmark specs are both inarguable and push even big iron workstations under well equipped PCs). Real numbers? http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/ocorten/BENCH30/bf
I've also got a similar vintage door stop Micron PII and an 8300 cluttering my cube. Obsolescence strikes all computers equally, but price and product cycle don't. Used to be that the "new" SGI on the block was inarguably the only "real" choice for graphics--even if it cost 5x what a top-of-the-line PC cost. And it held that position for almost an entire SGI product cycle.
Today the new SGI is arguably inferior to the new Mac (an easy comparison due to concurrent announcements), or arguably superior, depending on religion, but at least no longer inarguably superior.
The GF4 does hardware T&L as well, the display output is 24bit for both (and apple traditionally has industry leading color calibration tools), etc; though the VPro V12 may indeed be superior in meaningful ways... today... even if that's true, the GF5 will be out long before the next generation of SGI graphic hardware.
Note the corrections to your assumptions on the G4 FP Ops; but even given MIPS 64bit ops vs. G4's 32 (see other posts), the G4 is faster (in this arguably meaningless weenie joust) to the _future_ R1800 let alone the lesser R1400A currently shipping.
The point isn't an absolute comparison - there are many reasons one might want an SGI (and system bandwidth is probably more important than the other specs). The real point is that the relentless cycle of commodity hardware wins over the old guard, not just eventually but these days before it even ships.
If one is looking for the real bargain in a graphics workstation, get the Linux kit for PS2. As Crazy Eddie used to say: "volume volume volume...."
Apple is claiming 7.5GFlop per processor, 15GFlop total for the new dual 1GHz G4.
SGI's Vpro V12 can put out 448 Mpix/sec. But The Geforce 4 runs at 1000 Mpix/sec
I'd guess the prices are not exactly at parity either. It's not a big surprise that Apple is winning these accounts.
In fact, I bought two: one for my gf and one for me (to avoid those relationship damaging techno jealousy issues). The reviewer was right on target I think in every strength and weakness.
I've used mine with a W2K laptop as music depot and find that for reasons that may be generic to W2K or specific to my laptop, it bluescreens rather than properly dismounting the USB drive feature, but I have a CF-PCMICA adapter that works fine and is a lot faster.
I also get a lot more than 12 hours from a set of batteries: a lightly used set just lasted a 14.5 hour plane trip and are still going strong. This with the NCP 64MB flash card that came from dataviz.com (total price $99 incl. card).
Similarly I bought this player for it's CF+ (or CF type II) compatibility, and wouldn't consider any other media format.
An additional complaint I would raise is that there's no headroom to the amplifier. If you exceed the output it makes a very loud pop (for example on every drum beat). Use it with high db/mw (high efficiency) headphones if you like loud music. They should soft limit the output or use a better output amp.
Another feature would be to add a "resume play" mode so it picks up where it left off. I used it skiing and in some long lift lines it turned itself off from pause meaning I heard the first few songs of the card over and over. (Yeah, yeah, you can index through pretty easily but that's hard to do with gloves on.)
I also find the battery cover disturbingly dainty, and the case around the batteries frighteningly flexible. I'd suggest that they install a charge pump and let the thing recharge NiMh AA's off the USB source, which would take overnight.
PIRANHA
All potential energy on earth is either the result of past accumulation and storage of solar energy (fossil fuel, biomass, etc.) or the consequence of the structural creation itself (nuclear, geothermal, etc.). All of these stored energy reserves will run out, some much sooner than others; almost certainly the ones we're using most and most cheaply first.
Once they're gone the earth, if it's still livable after all the biomass ever acculated is loosed into the atmosphere, will operate in steady state where the energy available is the energy incident on it (or nearby).
Might as well start learning to live within 164 watts/sq meter now.
This despite any effort to show that these invasions of our privacy will have any value in fighting terrorism or other crime: we must take for granted that if The Government asks for it, it must be for a good reason, and good citizens keep their damn mouths shut.
When pesky civil libertarians (either from the right or left) dare question the value of shredding the constitution to save it, the only response they deign give us is that if we don't commit any crimes, we have nothing to fear: this is the FBI, the CIA, DOJ... They don't make mistakes. DOH! except for that damn Chinese embassy, those 93 people since 1973 released from Death Row, Countelpro... Trust them, they're there to help.
Even so, even granting that these mistakes are in the past, at least yesterday, and today's law enforcement etc. is completely error free and will never wrongly punish the innocent, or at least not more so given greater reach, we are occasionally reminded that there are some laws that really shouldn't be enforced.
Lots of them really.
It is said that the Ion Mobility Spectrographs they use to sniff for explosives at the airport also detect trace amounts of drugs. They've been used in England to sniff (and arrest) clubgoers. The United States has a Zero Tolerance policy for illegal drugs crossing borders - that is even a single molecule is a crime. While it's not illegal to smoke marijuana in Holland, it's criminal to return to the US after having done so, and new technology will help law enforcement punish violators.
Enter the Republic of Texas and if the x-ray machine sees more than 6 dildos in your luggage you're guilty of a felony.
There's a nearly endless list of ridiculous laws, and I haven't even got into the bizarre and disturbing world of sodomy laws or IP laws; but if it's OK to use magic lantern to hunt for terrorists, why not also those evil criminals who violate the DMCA?
If you don't fight when they come for your neighbor, who will be left to fight when they come for you?
At least two major reformations in law are long overdue: we must return to the pre DMCA definition of criminal copyright violations. And we need a new amendment: (not that the constitution holds much weight anymore)
Congress shall make no law respecting the private actions of consenting adults.
http://petemoss.com/spamflames/index.html
A full delphion search of zeosync and Piotr Blass turns up no patents at all, issued or applied.
There is a reference to Kolmogorov which is so hyperbolic (as is the rest of their "technical" text) as to be nearly incomprehensible. It may be obfuscatory or it may have been written by a mathematician unfamiliar with human communication.
Kolmogorov is a relevant reference, but possibly a trivial one: for example to compress a pseudo random stream of arbitrary length one need know only the length of the stream, the algorithm, and seed. This is obviously not generally applicable; though, indeed, it is not addressed by Shannon's theorem.
Piotr Blass appears to be an actual mathematician at Palm Beach Atlantic College and apparently edits the Ulam Quarterly, an on-line mathematics journal.
Professor Alexander Slocum currently teaches it, Prof. Woody Flowers taught it previously.
The finals are generally carried on PBS.