This is or was under consideration in San Francisco. The idea was floated during the height of the energy crisis here in California, to put acres and acres of collectors around the city on roofs. However, the idea seems to have fallen by the wayside, in part because the cost, the energy crisis has eased considerably, and the other events in the country.
I already have fiber on my motherboard. Well, OK, technically it's cat fur sucked in through the vents, but that's got a lot of fiber. And it uses absolutely *no* power. The heat retention is a problem, though.
I don't think so:
"Shipment dates will be established after required certifications are obtained."
It's been 'near release' for several years now. As a photographer I've been watching it, but other than updates to the web site, there don't seem to have been any advances.
As another poster pointed out, lack of European approval and the bankruptcy won't help, either:-)
My 3 year old nephew loves 'em. And tries to play with (i.e., destroy) his big brother and big sister's creations with regular Lego. When they were visiting from Germany this summer, I hauled out my old Legos (thanks, Mom) and the two older ones played with them for hours. I even got the old Lego train to work.
All three of them love Lego. There are differences in how they play with them, but I think the differences are more to do with personality and age differences than gender. By all means...help stretch your niece's mind with toys that make her think. Lots of people will likely get her clothes and dolls...be the *fun* uncle instead:-) When she's a little older, you can take her to Legoland in Denmark or in California, which ever is closer. Or do other stuff she likes, like chase butterflies, look at tide pools or whatever.
Indeed. Here is a fine work of his that looks like sliced, multi-colored potatoes to me.
Re:emergency staircase
on
More WTC News
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· Score: 3, Interesting
The Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, CA used to have such a slide around the back. Alas, even when I saw it as a child in the 70's, it had been closed down for safety reasons. It looked very much like a funhouse slide as it looped its way down from the top floor. There was an entry on each floor, which even though they were pointed the right direction would seem to be a potential injury and sticking point.
A more flexible system is something like this. Not that I'd want to drop 110 floors in one of these, but that would beat the alternatives.
Both these have the same problem that stairs do: someone who's incapacitated or wheelchair bound is going to need help using them.
Yep. AOL started out as QuantumLink on the Commodore 64, so AOL and Geoworks (then Berkeley Softworks) had an existing relationship. As PCs became more popular, AOL and Geoworks co-developed an AOL client that ran under GEOS to go along with their Mac-based client. For many years, even after Windows had taken over, if you requested the "DOS version" of AOL they'd send you a stripped down version of GEOS and the AOL client.
Re:Anybody remember...
on
MenuetOS Debuts
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· Score: 5, Informative
Mostly correct.
GEOS pre-dated Windows by years. In fact, GEOS predated the Macintosh. It started on the Commodore 64.
Commodore GEOS pre-dated Windows. I'm not sure if it predated the Macintosh or not. However, the PC-based version didn't come out until 1990. The Commodore 64 version was pretty cool, though -- a graphical OS and app (one at a time) in 64K.
The entire word processor was only a few hundred kb
The current version is 114K. It hasn't been updated significantly in a while, and so is lacking indexing and some other key features, but it's a pretty amazing little app.
Development was done in "Graphical Object C".
The OS itself was in 80x86 assembly, as were the initial apps (WP, drawing, spreadsheet). Later libraries and some apps were done in GEOS Object C.
It started on the Commodore 64, from Berkeley Software (the After Dark folks)
GEOS (Commodore and otherwise) was from Berkeley Softworks. The company was later renamed GeoWorks, then Geoworks.
Today, GeoWorks exists by owning a lot of patents on various obtuse concepts and pretending to have a case to file suit.
AFAIK, Geoworks only has one patent, the flexible UI. It's not particularly obtuse; it's a fairly cool concept (the reactions from people seeing a demo with apps running under Motif, OpenLook and a CUA interface all on the same screen was pretty funny). What's potentially obtuse is enforcing the patent against WAP. But IANAL, so I don't know if it's a stretch or not. Hmm...strike that. They got a second patent that looks a little more WAP/HTML specific.
Re:Anybody remember...
on
MenuetOS Debuts
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Anybody remember GEOS?
That's another OS that was written entirely in assembly... by the time they finished, Windows had ALL of the marketshare...
Yep, I was one of the developers (fonts, help system, spreadsheet, DBCS version). GEOS is a pre-emptive multi-tasking, multi-threaded OS with a GUI, single imaging model, object-oriented (object-oriented assembly? MooOOoo!), and lots of other wizzy features. It originally ran on a 4.77 MHz, 640K IBM XT, and still uses less than 16MB of disk space (your video card probably has that much RAM now:-)
The OS and apps were done in a reasonable amount of time, but the big problems were:
the SDK wasn't available for too long
the SDK initially only ran on SPARCstations
Microsoft had a OEMs locked into using Windows if they wanted to use DOS. DR-DOS was an option at one point, but OEMs were scared off from it by the incompatabilites MS added
GEOS still lives on. Several companies worked with it until recently, NewDeal and MyTurn.com; both are, alas, now defunct. Nokia used GEOS for the 9000/9110 Communicator which is still alive and kicking. The OS still belongs to Geoworks where it was created, but lots of software is available at Två Katter.
This sounds very cool. I'd heard about for use in shock absorbers. Not for the toy potential (seems like it would be hard to get into toy form), but because of the other possibilities described:
Braille that can be scrolled and amended as easily as text on a monitor
creating molds that can be reconfigured to manufacture different machine parts in a pinch
stabilizing leg brace for the elderly or disabled
controlling the movement of remote-controlled suits
landing gear that adapt "automatically and instantaneously to the local geo-technical conditions of the landing site"
simulating the resistance of human flesh for VR practice of surgery
The weight of magnets is problematic for any space-based applications that have to be launched, but pretty cool earth-bound applications to start with.
Of course, for those who are looking for the pr0n angle:
there's even been a U.S. patent granted for an MR "penile prosthetic."
There are a lot of similarities, but there are some important differences.
Different people usually build the house than design it. The design by an architect can be done at a more sane pace, but once the building starts, it becomes very expensive to have delays or slow downs. In software, there's usually pressure from day one. Also, with a house as with software, you can have a great designer and a lousy builder/coder and end up with a less than optimal result. Or vice versa, though a really good builder/coder can sometimes save a bad design.
One significant difference is that houses have some standards they have to follow, the Uniform Building Code plus local building codes (such as for earthquake safety). Houses also have periodic inspections during building (framing, electrical, plumbing, etc.) to make sure those standards are followed. Sure, the inspections aren't ultra-detailed, but they do keep the builder somewhat honest.
Beautiful code usually has periodic inspections, too -- starting with reviewing the design. But too often such reviews are sacrificed in the name of the schedule. There was an interesting discussion about code reviews on/. a while back.
Another significant difference is that in building a house, it's agreed up front what the design is going to be. If there are changes, people know it costs time and money. If standard sizes for doors, windows, etc., are used, it's cheaper and faster than doing custom sizes. Those lessons don't seem to be universally understood in the software world, though.
Finally, the author notes that it isn't a perfect metaphore. But regarding his statement that:
Readability is the one area of software aesthetics that does not have an obvious parallel with physical construction.
There is a parallel: a good house requires a well-drawn design, and communication (written and spoken) between the architect and the builder. A good design includes a document with the things that standard architectual drawings doesn't include spelled out: what materials to use if they aren't standard, what colors, any thing to watch out for, etc. This is very similar to the need for clear, readable code.
All in all, an interesting article, with some good thoughts. Even if the metaphor isn't perfect.
At the last company I worked for (before it went south with much of the rest of the high tech sector), there were programmers in California, Washington and Germany. Plus we were looking at hiring some consultants from Russia, and I kept getting calls from a consulting group with programmers based in India (until I had to tell him the bad news about the company).
Re:These guys really thought this out!
on
Data Mining?
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· Score: 2
In theory, mines might be vulnerable to flooding or earthquakes, but these are geological rarities for inland Michigan.
Floods a "geological rarity" in Michigan? Not when I lived there. Every spring there are floods around the state on various rivers. I forget the name of the river that flows through Grand Rapids, but Grand Rapids wasn't named for fast-moving concert pianos...
In any event, near a river or not, most mines (don't know about gypsum mines) have some ground water seepage, and as a result have sumps and electrically powered pumps to keep the water at bay. I'd be a bit worried about losing power for an extended periods. Of course you have short-term data issues then, but it could easily lead to long-term...er...damage issues.
My main concern, though, is the reliability of the tape measure in question. I know I've had several tape measures that would never regain their rigidness once bent out of shape. This has happenes with even the reliable brands that don't typically have such problems.
Actually, contractor-grade tape measures are quite durable. They're wider and a bit thicker than the ones you get in regular hardware stores, and usually come with extended guarantees. But said guarantees are likely void off the planet Earth:-) Well, that and if you cut a piece off to use as an antenna...
The lawyers sent out a support engineer to investigate, and determined that the monitors are fine, it's the users' brains that were damaged. But they couldn't conclusively prove that said users' brains weren't damaged already, so the lawsuit has been dropped:-)
Is it just me, or does it sound a little bit like "a rappa ho".
It's just you:-)
'Arapahoe' is likely named for where the engineers wish they were instead of slaving over design terminals in fluorescent lit rooms. The Arapahoe Basin is a ski area in Colorado: http://arapahoebasin.com/contact/content.shtml#map.
Researchers are also targeting the insects that carry other vaccines. One possible way to fight malaria is to develop vaccines that "do harm" to mosquitos that suck them up in human blood, says Filip Dubovsky of the Malaria Vaccine Initiative in Washington DC. As yet, there are no candidate malaria vaccines that exploit mosquito saliva.
At present, malaria kills 2-3 million people a year. I don't know number of infections to compare with 12 million for Leishmania, or the relative rates of fatality. Any body know the numbers?. I guess getting rid of both would be good.
The existing treatments have adverse side-effects like creating resistant strains of malaria, are 'incompatable' with many users (a friend who lived in Kenya for a year called the weekly dosage "Friday night at the movies" because many people got hallucinations), or because they are just plain poisonous (e.g., painting the walls around an infected person with DDT).
...celebrated 30 days of survival on the AbioCor artificial heart by eating ice cream and cheesecake
A heart patient eating ice cream and cheesecake?
His kidney and liver functions are stable and his lungs are clear, the doctor said.
Or at least they were...
Still, it's pretty cool this thing seems to be working so well. He sounds like a much happier camper than Barney Clark was on the Jarvik 7.
Slashdot Mirror
...have the "terror" emotion, for that brief moment before its little shell is crushed by an oncoming SUV or semi?
This is or was under consideration in San Francisco. The idea was floated during the height of the energy crisis here in California, to put acres and acres of collectors around the city on roofs. However, the idea seems to have fallen by the wayside, in part because the cost, the energy crisis has eased considerably, and the other events in the country.
I already have fiber on my motherboard. Well, OK, technically it's cat fur sucked in through the vents, but that's got a lot of fiber. And it uses absolutely *no* power. The heat retention is a problem, though.
I see where he's going with this...he wants an interface where stuff blows up! Oh, wait, it's already been done
Ah, yes. An actual fortune cookie a friend received some years back:
Words to live by, that
I don't think so: "Shipment dates will be established after required certifications are obtained." It's been 'near release' for several years now. As a photographer I've been watching it, but other than updates to the web site, there don't seem to have been any advances.
As another poster pointed out, lack of European approval and the bankruptcy won't help, either :-)
Duplo, of course :-)
:-) When she's a little older, you can take her to Legoland in Denmark or in California, which ever is closer. Or do other stuff she likes, like chase butterflies, look at tide pools or whatever.
My 3 year old nephew loves 'em. And tries to play with (i.e., destroy) his big brother and big sister's creations with regular Lego. When they were visiting from Germany this summer, I hauled out my old Legos (thanks, Mom) and the two older ones played with them for hours. I even got the old Lego train to work.
All three of them love Lego. There are differences in how they play with them, but I think the differences are more to do with personality and age differences than gender. By all means...help stretch your niece's mind with toys that make her think. Lots of people will likely get her clothes and dolls...be the *fun* uncle instead
Indeed. Here is a fine work of his that looks like sliced, multi-colored potatoes to me.
The Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, CA used to have such a slide around the back. Alas, even when I saw it as a child in the 70's, it had been closed down for safety reasons. It looked very much like a funhouse slide as it looped its way down from the top floor. There was an entry on each floor, which even though they were pointed the right direction would seem to be a potential injury and sticking point.
A more flexible system is something like this. Not that I'd want to drop 110 floors in one of these, but that would beat the alternatives.
Both these have the same problem that stairs do: someone who's incapacitated or wheelchair bound is going to need help using them.
At least with only black fluid and white particles, you'll never see the blue screen of death :-)
Yep. AOL started out as QuantumLink on the Commodore 64, so AOL and Geoworks (then Berkeley Softworks) had an existing relationship. As PCs became more popular, AOL and Geoworks co-developed an AOL client that ran under GEOS to go along with their Mac-based client. For many years, even after Windows had taken over, if you requested the "DOS version" of AOL they'd send you a stripped down version of GEOS and the AOL client.
Mostly correct.
GEOS pre-dated Windows by years. In fact, GEOS predated the Macintosh. It started on the Commodore 64.
Commodore GEOS pre-dated Windows. I'm not sure if it predated the Macintosh or not. However, the PC-based version didn't come out until 1990. The Commodore 64 version was pretty cool, though -- a graphical OS and app (one at a time) in 64 K .
The entire word processor was only a few hundred kb
The current version is 114K. It hasn't been updated significantly in a while, and so is lacking indexing and some other key features, but it's a pretty amazing little app.
Development was done in "Graphical Object C".
The OS itself was in 80x86 assembly, as were the initial apps (WP, drawing, spreadsheet). Later libraries and some apps were done in GEOS Object C.
It started on the Commodore 64, from Berkeley Software (the After Dark folks)
After Dark was from Berkeley Systems.
GEOS (Commodore and otherwise) was from Berkeley Softworks. The company was later renamed GeoWorks, then Geoworks.
Today, GeoWorks exists by owning a lot of patents on various obtuse concepts and pretending to have a case to file suit.
AFAIK, Geoworks only has one patent, the flexible UI. It's not particularly obtuse; it's a fairly cool concept (the reactions from people seeing a demo with apps running under Motif, OpenLook and a CUA interface all on the same screen was pretty funny). What's potentially obtuse is enforcing the patent against WAP. But IANAL, so I don't know if it's a stretch or not. Hmm...strike that. They got a second patent that looks a little more WAP/HTML specific.
Anybody remember GEOS? That's another OS that was written entirely in assembly... by the time they finished, Windows had ALL of the marketshare...
Yep, I was one of the developers (fonts, help system, spreadsheet, DBCS version). GEOS is a pre-emptive multi-tasking, multi-threaded OS with a GUI, single imaging model, object-oriented (object-oriented assembly? MooOOoo!), and lots of other wizzy features. It originally ran on a 4.77 MHz, 640K IBM XT, and still uses less than 16MB of disk space (your video card probably has that much RAM now :-)
The OS and apps were done in a reasonable amount of time, but the big problems were:
GEOS still lives on. Several companies worked with it until recently, NewDeal and MyTurn.com; both are, alas, now defunct. Nokia used GEOS for the 9000/9110 Communicator which is still alive and kicking. The OS still belongs to Geoworks where it was created, but lots of software is available at Två Katter.
There was another article today on Reuters Health pointing out that coffee was chock full of antioxidants.
Yep. However, that study was funded by Nestlé, makers of Nescafé Coffee, as well as Dallmayr, Zoegas and Loumidis.
Both studies may be correct, but isn't there a small chance the one from the coffee maker is biased? :-)
In any event, I'm not giving up coffee any time soon, regardless.
The weight of magnets is problematic for any space-based applications that have to be launched, but pretty cool earth-bound applications to start with.
Of course, for those who are looking for the pr0n angle:
There are a lot of similarities, but there are some important differences.
Different people usually build the house than design it. The design by an architect can be done at a more sane pace, but once the building starts, it becomes very expensive to have delays or slow downs. In software, there's usually pressure from day one. Also, with a house as with software, you can have a great designer and a lousy builder/coder and end up with a less than optimal result. Or vice versa, though a really good builder/coder can sometimes save a bad design.
One significant difference is that houses have some standards they have to follow, the Uniform Building Code plus local building codes (such as for earthquake safety). Houses also have periodic inspections during building (framing, electrical, plumbing, etc.) to make sure those standards are followed. Sure, the inspections aren't ultra-detailed, but they do keep the builder somewhat honest.
Beautiful code usually has periodic inspections, too -- starting with reviewing the design. But too often such reviews are sacrificed in the name of the schedule. There was an interesting discussion about code reviews on /. a while back.
Another significant difference is that in building a house, it's agreed up front what the design is going to be. If there are changes, people know it costs time and money. If standard sizes for doors, windows, etc., are used, it's cheaper and faster than doing custom sizes. Those lessons don't seem to be universally understood in the software world, though.
Finally, the author notes that it isn't a perfect metaphore. But regarding his statement that:
There is a parallel: a good house requires a well-drawn design, and communication (written and spoken) between the architect and the builder. A good design includes a document with the things that standard architectual drawings doesn't include spelled out: what materials to use if they aren't standard, what colors, any thing to watch out for, etc. This is very similar to the need for clear, readable code.
All in all, an interesting article, with some good thoughts. Even if the metaphor isn't perfect.
As most of you know, in any dispute over domains it's the money that wins.
Er...not always:
- Sting lost his bid to take over the gamer site, sting.com (WIPO ruling)
- The World Wrestling Federation recently lost a battle with the World Wildlife Fund over wwf.org (British court ruling)
Of course, Sting seems to have gotten his way eventually, as sting.com is now his site.At the last company I worked for (before it went south with much of the rest of the high tech sector), there were programmers in California, Washington and Germany. Plus we were looking at hiring some consultants from Russia, and I kept getting calls from a consulting group with programmers based in India (until I had to tell him the bad news about the company).
A quick search on Google suggests http://www.bcwireless.net/ as a good place to start.
Floods a "geological rarity" in Michigan? Not when I lived there. Every spring there are floods around the state on various rivers. I forget the name of the river that flows through Grand Rapids, but Grand Rapids wasn't named for fast-moving concert pianos...
In any event, near a river or not, most mines (don't know about gypsum mines) have some ground water seepage, and as a result have sumps and electrically powered pumps to keep the water at bay. I'd be a bit worried about losing power for an extended periods. Of course you have short-term data issues then, but it could easily lead to long-term...er...damage issues.
My main concern, though, is the reliability of the tape measure in question. I know I've had several tape measures that would never regain their rigidness once bent out of shape. This has happenes with even the reliable brands that don't typically have such problems.
:-) Well, that and if you cut a piece off to use as an antenna...
Actually, contractor-grade tape measures are quite durable. They're wider and a bit thicker than the ones you get in regular hardware stores, and usually come with extended guarantees. But said guarantees are likely void off the planet Earth
The lawyers sent out a support engineer to investigate, and determined that the monitors are fine, it's the users' brains that were damaged. But they couldn't conclusively prove that said users' brains weren't damaged already, so the lawsuit has been dropped :-)
It's just you :-)
'Arapahoe' is likely named for where the engineers wish they were instead of slaving over design terminals in fluorescent lit rooms. The Arapahoe Basin is a ski area in Colorado:p .
http://arapahoebasin.com/contact/content.shtml#ma
The existing treatments have adverse side-effects like creating resistant strains of malaria, are 'incompatable' with many users (a friend who lived in Kenya for a year called the weekly dosage "Friday night at the movies" because many people got hallucinations), or because they are just plain poisonous (e.g., painting the walls around an infected person with DDT).
There are other promising lines of attack on malaria as well, but this seems like it might be a good one.
...celebrated 30 days of survival on the AbioCor artificial heart by eating ice cream and cheesecake A heart patient eating ice cream and cheesecake? His kidney and liver functions are stable and his lungs are clear, the doctor said. Or at least they were... Still, it's pretty cool this thing seems to be working so well. He sounds like a much happier camper than Barney Clark was on the Jarvik 7.