there's an effort to make an independent artist #1 on iTunes today http://bumrushthecharts.blogspot.com/ (dunno if it's a scam or not, but it's an interesting idea)
also, there was an interesting story on NPR a while back about recording technology, including some mention of the fact that some people were upset when it came along and changed the way people experienced music (from gathering around and playing/singing to just listening). Music will always be around. The Recording Industry won't. The Roots of Audio Recordings Turn at 78 RPM by Susan Stamberg http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=6645723 http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=1019
$12.99. Taxes, license fees, and the universal cost recovery fee extra. I figure $12.99 DSL probably costs at least $20. And let's not forget that SBC is evil;-)
I actually love my cube, as far as cubes go. It's in the back corner of the cube farm, so it was at the end of the "hallway" which went between the windows and the cubes. I took down the walls between me and the hallway so I could annex that space (the hallway went 1 cube section past my 'door' and into a wall) and get a view out the window. (Note: cube sections do not come apart anywhere near as easily as Office Space would have you believe.) Our facilities manager was surprised to find out that I wasn't joking when I asked if I could do that, but he knows better than to argue. However, I spend so little time in my cube that I probably would give it up for a small interior cube and few $k.
A friend of mine is setting up a company to provide a transparent and equal online trading system for CO2 emissions rights among companies in Spain, which is already on board (along with much of Europe). This moves the incentive for pollution reduction down to individual companies, which can trade their shares of their country's rights. So, there will clearly be economic advantages for companies to invest money (create jobs) in reducing their own emissions. Maybe once we see this working around the world, the US will get with the program.
Are there any boot-from-CD GPS navigation distros out there? I have an old PII laptop which would be great for navigaiton, except that the HD doesn't work relaibly. It'd be nice to be able to burn a cd with a bunch of maps and bootable distro that automatically logs in and brings up GPSDrive. Also, (ianal,b) in states where it's illegal for the driver to be able to see displays which are unrelated to vehicle operation or navigation, it might be useful to be able to show that the computer is running from a read-only filesystem with only navigation programs on it.
Noted this above, but NYT had an article about the locks, which said " Older Kryptonite locks made before 2002 appear to be less susceptible," and it says that "Kryptonite, which is based in Canton, Mass., and was bought by Ingersoll-Rand in 2001, is named for the only material that can defeat Superman. The company has been making locks since the 1970's and is recognized by most bicycle shops as the leading lockmaker."
So, yeah, it looks like they're trying to say that small good company made a quality product for ~20 years until it got taken over by big bad corporation and started producing crap. But that's probably best taken with a grain of salt, until we see tests on a few 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2001 model locks.
reference which i don't feel like linking again http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/nyregion/ 17lock. html?pagewanted=1&hp
According to the NYT, "Kryptonite locks made before 2002 appear to be less susceptible," so some of the locks you've bought over the past 5 years may be harder to open. Small solace, I know. But, if they want to avoid an even bigger PR black eye, I expect they'll be giving out replacements for anyone with a lock and the keys that go with it. On the other hand, NYT was saying that a padlock and chain is a good replacement- while decent picks are a little harder to come by than ballpoint pens, I can still open an average Master lock in less than a minute. Point being that if someone wants your stuff, there are ways they can get it.
The cost that a college actually pays for educating a student may be well above the tuition they charge (at least for equipment-dependent majors like CS and engineering. English may be cheaper.) The balance has to come out of things like endowments and sponsorships. So in some cases, it's worth it for the institution to 'buy' the best students it can in hopes of getting the ones who will be successful (and generous) after graduation.
A cheap hack would be to put a spare video card in the desktop machine. Then if you want more real estate, you enable that, and use the laptop to connect to that 'display' over VNC. If you don't need the desktops to connect, you could start new sessions in X or Windows Terminal Services, but that's probably not what you want.
Ethernet isn't really deterministic, but it gets more predictable as the traffic drops. So with a really fat pipe, you can send your pr0n or whatever and be reasonably confident they'll be finished by the time something else needs to be transmitted. Which simplifies things like machine control.
I first scanned that as "13 hours and 51 minutes a day" and I was like "nah, I don't think I use it for much more than 12 hours." Gotta take my eyes away from the screen for a bit...
One of my favorite things in grad school was the laser cutter in the mech E dept. I was happy when i found Pololu which does laser cutting for $2.50 per minute. Actually having a CAD system like this is brilliant, though.
How is this different from plugging my Treo into my windows laptop and selecting "Allow other computers to connect through this computer's network connection" under Properties:Advanced in the network setup?
I use capslock on at least a weekly basis to talk to simple microprocessor systems that use uppercase for commands and lowercase for variables. Granted, a clever terminal program which knew the language could probably figure out what I mean and capitalize commands for me, but I don't have one of those.
Less frequently, I use it for #IF statements and some constants and crap that we generally do in all caps. Generally, though, I wouldn't mind mapping Ctrl to that key, and then using a sequence like Ctrl-Shift to turn on caps lock if I wanted it. (Some typewriters and computers let you take off caps lock by hitting shift- there should be a similar way to put it on)
If you can touch type and aren't worried about seeing your notes until you get back, you could go with a small keyboard such as the Happy Hacking and a keylogger like KeyKatcher, or a combination like at Key Ghost. Just rig up a few batteries to power it. When you get back, dump the notes into a file.
if you are going to develop a system that's electronic, follow a system that is alread working: the online banking model.
Problem is that when someone using e-banking can't follow directions, it's their money that's at stake. Try doing that with e-voting, and it's our government that hangs in the balance.
Not to mention the total of like 6 hours of dicking around with the website and talking to bank employees that it took me to get set up with online banking...
20 minutes?!?! It would take me 2 hours to get caught up and comment on new stories when I got to school in the afternoon (could have been that whole 'reading the articles' thing). That's why I'd want a little custom client which just has a request button and maybe a combo box. Just runs in the corner, you click it when you want a coke.
While they're at it, they could mabye make a robot to go to the door and greet the pizza delivery guy...
I've used laptop displays (still attached to laptops) as polarized light sources in order to view optical rotation in stressed plastic. IIRC this is because the whole point of liquid crystals is that you can use electricity to change the way they polarize light, so you polarize it in the first place, then run it through the crystals, and either make them block it or not (because no light gets through perpendicular polarizers).
The upshot of this is that when you have a blank white screen (white wallpaper, empty text doc, whatever), it's a nice plane of polarized light. Put on some polarizing sunglasses (or use your photography filter), tilt until the screen blacks out, and then put some stressed plastic in between and groove to the pretty patterns. Or observe the stresses in the plastic. Your call.
The question, then, is whether you can get the same use out of it by just firing up a display with no data signal and just have it glow white, or if it will break or default to black.
google for stuff like optical rotation, plastic, strain, polarizer, and you should find things like this
Last night I was amused by the thought of some manager at Yahoo crapping their pants as they realize that they have no business model anymore, since their whole thing is to provide a small mailbox, shitty spam blocking (no whitelist even), and no forwarding or POP3, but have better services in all areas if you cough up. This morning I log in and see that they're trying to compete:
Don't wait! For a limited time, you can upgrade to Yahoo! Mail Plus and get more - for less. Learn more
Too little, too late. Unless Gmail is an April fools joke...
Hear hear. Like people have nothing better to do than watch TV. Drop the subscription all together, and read something. It may be painful at first, but at least the public library isn't in the business of dicking you over for as much money as they can get (unlike, say, any cable/dish/whatever companies).
Slashdot Mirror
there's an effort to make an independent artist #1 on iTunes today
y Id=6645723
http://bumrushthecharts.blogspot.com/
(dunno if it's a scam or not, but it's an interesting idea)
also, there was an interesting story on NPR a while back about recording technology, including some mention of the fact that some people were upset when it came along and changed the way people experienced music (from gathering around and playing/singing to just listening). Music will always be around. The Recording Industry won't.
The Roots of Audio Recordings Turn at 78 RPM by Susan Stamberg
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=1019
tools whereby the computer automatically did as much of the work as possible
Yes. Because to err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer...
$12.99. Taxes, license fees, and the universal cost recovery fee extra. I figure $12.99 DSL probably costs at least $20. And let's not forget that SBC is evil ;-)
I actually love my cube, as far as cubes go. It's in the back corner of the cube farm, so it was at the end of the "hallway" which went between the windows and the cubes. I took down the walls between me and the hallway so I could annex that space (the hallway went 1 cube section past my 'door' and into a wall) and get a view out the window. (Note: cube sections do not come apart anywhere near as easily as Office Space would have you believe.) Our facilities manager was surprised to find out that I wasn't joking when I asked if I could do that, but he knows better than to argue.
However, I spend so little time in my cube that I probably would give it up for a small interior cube and few $k.
A friend of mine is setting up a company to provide a transparent and equal online trading system for CO2 emissions rights among companies in Spain, which is already on board (along with much of Europe). This moves the incentive for pollution reduction down to individual companies, which can trade their shares of their country's rights. So, there will clearly be economic advantages for companies to invest money (create jobs) in reducing their own emissions. Maybe once we see this working around the world, the US will get with the program.
If you break it down by counties, you can see blue enclaves along rivers and lakes too, not just the coast.
Are there any boot-from-CD GPS navigation distros out there? I have an old PII laptop which would be great for navigaiton, except that the HD doesn't work relaibly. It'd be nice to be able to burn a cd with a bunch of maps and bootable distro that automatically logs in and brings up GPSDrive. Also, (ianal,b) in states where it's illegal for the driver to be able to see displays which are unrelated to vehicle operation or navigation, it might be useful to be able to show that the computer is running from a read-only filesystem with only navigation programs on it.
God vs Bush
Noted this above, but NYT had an article about the locks, which said " Older Kryptonite locks made before 2002 appear to be less susceptible," and it says that "Kryptonite, which is based in Canton, Mass., and was bought by Ingersoll-Rand in 2001, is named for the only material that can defeat Superman. The company has been making locks since the 1970's and is recognized by most bicycle shops as the leading lockmaker."
/ 17lock. html?pagewanted=1&hp
So, yeah, it looks like they're trying to say that small good company made a quality product for ~20 years until it got taken over by big bad corporation and started producing crap. But that's probably best taken with a grain of salt, until we see tests on a few 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2001 model locks.
reference which i don't feel like linking again
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/nyregion
According to the NYT, "Kryptonite locks made before 2002 appear to be less susceptible," so some of the locks you've bought over the past 5 years may be harder to open. Small solace, I know. But, if they want to avoid an even bigger PR black eye, I expect they'll be giving out replacements for anyone with a lock and the keys that go with it.
On the other hand, NYT was saying that a padlock and chain is a good replacement- while decent picks are a little harder to come by than ballpoint pens, I can still open an average Master lock in less than a minute. Point being that if someone wants your stuff, there are ways they can get it.
The cost that a college actually pays for educating a student may be well above the tuition they charge (at least for equipment-dependent majors like CS and engineering. English may be cheaper.) The balance has to come out of things like endowments and sponsorships. So in some cases, it's worth it for the institution to 'buy' the best students it can in hopes of getting the ones who will be successful (and generous) after graduation.
A cheap hack would be to put a spare video card in the desktop machine. Then if you want more real estate, you enable that, and use the laptop to connect to that 'display' over VNC. If you don't need the desktops to connect, you could start new sessions in X or Windows Terminal Services, but that's probably not what you want.
Seems to me that management and conservatives (obviously not the same, but correlated) simply assume that "Anything which can go wrong, won't."
Ethernet isn't really deterministic, but it gets more predictable as the traffic drops. So with a really fat pipe, you can send your pr0n or whatever and be reasonably confident they'll be finished by the time something else needs to be transmitted. Which simplifies things like machine control.
I first scanned that as "13 hours and 51 minutes a day" and I was like "nah, I don't think I use it for much more than 12 hours."
Gotta take my eyes away from the screen for a bit...
One of my favorite things in grad school was the laser cutter in the mech E dept. I was happy when i found Pololu which does laser cutting for $2.50 per minute. Actually having a CAD system like this is brilliant, though.
How is this different from plugging my Treo into my windows laptop and selecting "Allow other computers to connect through this computer's network connection" under Properties:Advanced in the network setup?
They have the Internet in New Mexico?
I use capslock on at least a weekly basis to talk to simple microprocessor systems that use uppercase for commands and lowercase for variables. Granted, a clever terminal program which knew the language could probably figure out what I mean and capitalize commands for me, but I don't have one of those.
Less frequently, I use it for #IF statements and some constants and crap that we generally do in all caps. Generally, though, I wouldn't mind mapping Ctrl to that key, and then using a sequence like Ctrl-Shift to turn on caps lock if I wanted it. (Some typewriters and computers let you take off caps lock by hitting shift- there should be a similar way to put it on)
If you can touch type and aren't worried about seeing your notes until you get back, you could go with a small keyboard such as the Happy Hacking and a keylogger like KeyKatcher, or a combination like at Key Ghost. Just rig up a few batteries to power it. When you get back, dump the notes into a file.
if you are going to develop a system that's electronic, follow a system that is alread working: the online banking model.
Problem is that when someone using e-banking can't follow directions, it's their money that's at stake. Try doing that with e-voting, and it's our government that hangs in the balance.
Not to mention the total of like 6 hours of dicking around with the website and talking to bank employees that it took me to get set up with online banking...
20 minutes?!?! It would take me 2 hours to get caught up and comment on new stories when I got to school in the afternoon (could have been that whole 'reading the articles' thing). That's why I'd want a little custom client which just has a request button and maybe a combo box. Just runs in the corner, you click it when you want a coke.
While they're at it, they could mabye make a robot to go to the door and greet the pizza delivery guy...
I've used laptop displays (still attached to laptops) as polarized light sources in order to view optical rotation in stressed plastic. IIRC this is because the whole point of liquid crystals is that you can use electricity to change the way they polarize light, so you polarize it in the first place, then run it through the crystals, and either make them block it or not (because no light gets through perpendicular polarizers).
The upshot of this is that when you have a blank white screen (white wallpaper, empty text doc, whatever), it's a nice plane of polarized light. Put on some polarizing sunglasses (or use your photography filter), tilt until the screen blacks out, and then put some stressed plastic in between and groove to the pretty patterns. Or observe the stresses in the plastic. Your call.
The question, then, is whether you can get the same use out of it by just firing up a display with no data signal and just have it glow white, or if it will break or default to black.
google for stuff like optical rotation, plastic, strain, polarizer, and you should find things like this
Last night I was amused by the thought of some manager at Yahoo crapping their pants as they realize that they have no business model anymore, since their whole thing is to provide a small mailbox, shitty spam blocking (no whitelist even), and no forwarding or POP3, but have better services in all areas if you cough up. This morning I log in and see that they're trying to compete:
Don't wait! For a limited time, you can upgrade to Yahoo! Mail Plus and get more - for less. Learn more
Too little, too late. Unless Gmail is an April fools joke...
Hear hear. Like people have nothing better to do than watch TV. Drop the subscription all together, and read something. It may be painful at first, but at least the public library isn't in the business of dicking you over for as much money as they can get (unlike, say, any cable/dish/whatever companies).