I recently ordered a 4 CD set. It showed up in maybe three days. So that's something like 2.8 GB in 72 hours. That's about 10 KB/sec, which is about double the speed I used to get on a 56Kbps modem, which usually reported about 5 KB/s.
If you don't mind the latency, the USPS has pretty decent bandwidth.
My recommendation would be to see if you can use a handheld with external keyboard - you'll save weight and space and without a hard drive and such, it should hold up better to driving. Also the battery charging issue should be moot, provided you can get batteries easily. I get several weeks, maybe a couple of months, from a pair of AAA's in my Palm III. Even for a three-year trip, I suppose you could carry enough batteries with you and still be talking about less weight and space than a laptop and this mystery trickle charger.
The part I can't tell you about is whether you can update your blog from a handheld. I don't know what the blog interface is like - e.g. do you ftp an HTML file, or do you use a web-based form? There might be some Palm software for doing just this kind of thing. I never cease to be amazed at the kinds of software that people have written for these devices.
I have used my Palm III, a Stowaway folding keyboard, and an external modem on several trips for keeping a diary and doing email. I do it in batch mode which means, for those of us spoiled by always-on connections, connecting to send accumulated outgoing mail and retrieve waiting mail, then disconnecting and replying while off-line.
One of the fun parts is I'm epileptic. I still haven't figured that one out yet.
Good luck!
How Math is Done vs. How Math is Presented
on
Imagining Numbers
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Much of modern mathematical literature is structured with crisp, scripted precision. First there is theorem one, then theorem two, which leads to theorem three, which could only be followed by theorem four, and so on until we reach theorem n.
I was a math PhD student some years back (but bailed with my Masters), so this review held particular interest for me. One professor I had at some point, probably in college, once compared doing math to cooking. The kitchen might be a mess afterwards, but the finished product looks great.
He was trying to make the point to us that as we sought to prove the various exercises, we shouldn't expect to go from point A (the hypothesis) to point B (the conclusion) but should instead expect to make several wrong turns and, in effect, make a mess along the way. When we finally got there, though, we should clean things up to make a better presentation. Hence the "crisp, structured precision" of most math texts. A good instructor will, while going over such a proof, offer insight into what thought processes led to each decision along the way.
These were relatively difficult, but still low-level exercises, since they had both hypothesis and conclusion.
One (humbling) thing to remember about reading math is that someone was the first to prove these theorems. Not only did this person not know the direction the proof would take in advance, but he/she didn't know either the hypothesis or conclusion either!
My brother and I had this debate over what to put on our mother's PC but I won since I live in the same city. I chose Slackware since it's what I use most, so I figured I'd have a better time explaining to her exactly where to click to do anything. When you're not really used to (and pretty terrified by) computers, most icons look identical.
I figured that there wouldn't really be an un-learning curve for her, since she have very limited experience using computers at the public library, where you get about half an hour at a time. (Frankly, I'm amazed she was able to get to her web mail, read any of it, and/or compose/reply to an email in half an hour.)
In the end, as people like to say about Macintosh, "it just works." Sure there were tons of questions, but they weren't really Linux (or even Slackware) specific. Here's my favorite:
She called to say her mouse had hit the end of the mouse pad but the cursor hadn't gotten to where she was trying to put it. (I'm being merciful for you, the reader, and her, by summarizing.) So I told her to pick the mouse up and move it over, then put it down and continue moving it. It turns out that she picked up the mouse and mouse pad together, so she didn't get very far.
Bolt action surplus rifles tend not to be priced too high on the "desirable" lists.
About ten years ago, when I lived in North Carolina, I got a circular for a local department store that included what to the best of my recollection were some early 20th century bolt action Eastern European military rifles, going for something like $50. May have even been $20.
As self-evident as it seems, note paper has stayed around way longer than I expected it to.
Wow, you're that old?
Seriously, I was looking at all the mentions of cars, planes, computers, etc. and thinking about movable type.
I have no idea what the expectations were about either paper or movable type, but both independently (you can write on paper without a printing press, or print on other media besides paper) and inextricably (metal type on paper is a huge use of both), they have become irreplacable in our society.
If you dl the Windows codecs available on the download page and set it up as a plugin (use this [sourceforge.net] to do so) and you're viewing QT files, no sweat.
So what you're saying is "The image translators work for the player program. But there's way too much information to decode the Animatrix episode. You get used to it. I, I don't even see the code. All I see is blonde, brunette, redhead. Hey, you eh, want a drink?"
A long time ago... I bought myself a Fat Mac with 512K memory and two floppy disk drives... [pain and suffering ensued]... Twenty years later, I never complain about X Windows.
Cool story, but let's be honest guys (and gals), it's too technical for a "Switch" ad.
It seems "internet time" causes stuff to get played out faster than ever, but it doesn't seem to speed up the rate at which stuff gets a second life as nostalgia.
So it'll still take about 20 years or so before "All your base" is hip again.
That's no joke. I find that I tend to do just about all arithmetic on the bash command line. On the off chance that someone else wants to know how to do this and can't be bothered poring over the bash man page, here's two simple examples:
echo $((1+2))
echo $((1+(2*3)))
Note there are normally two pairs of parentheses and that you can use more parentheses inside for order of operations.
It uses integer division, so if I want more decimal places, I just multiply by some power of 10 inside the expression, then count off that many places from the result.
In addition to the laziness factor of not having to start (or switch to) another program, I like that I can see my entire expression this way.
People are supposedly selling virtual gear for online adventure games. I wonder how long before we see mod points up for sale on Ebay.
If the US Marines Used These ...
on
Potato Bazookas
·
· Score: 1, Funny
THIS IS MY SPUD GUN. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My spud gun is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I master my life.
My spud gun, without me is useless. Without my spud gun, I am useless. I must fire my spud gun true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will....
My spud gun and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count.
We will hit...
My spud gun is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weakness, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights, and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage. I will keep my spud gun clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...
Before God I swear this creed. My spud gun and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.
I can't believe I haven't seen this mentioned yet. Read the liner notes and familiarize yourself with the artists on an album you like. Other people, like the producer, sound engineer, etc. may be relevant, or even the label itself. I've bought albums because they were on the same small label as a band that I liked.
If your user has to scroll around the page... then you've introduced a UI problem
That's exactly what I'm talking about - I can't stand web pages that make assumptions about the browser window width and have a horizontal scroll bar - often at all but very large window sizes (didn't this come up again and again in the discussion of the Top Ten Web-Design Mistakes of 2002 article?)
To me, one of the great things about HTML is that it's a markup language, not a layout language. Hence, browswers will automatically word-wrap basic HTML. However, I appreciate the problem of web designers who are saddled with this legacy when they're trying to implement layout on top of a language that doesn't really support it except through brutish hacks like 1x1 invisible images and fixed-width tables.
99% of the internet users are either on it or above it
I guess it sucks when the client is in that other 1%, eh? My favorite in a related category would have to be the Netscape 4.77 preferences dialog, which was bigger than 640x480, or at least so big that the buttons hung below the visible area, and not resizable.
Granted I don't design web pages (I'm a programmer), but am I the only one here who thinks this is just wrong to design for a particular screen resolution?
I got a SuperMicro P6DGE a few years back. One reason I got it was that there was very little built-in and I was trying to save some money at first, but still get a working, upgradable system. It came with dual CPU slots, but no onboard SCSI, video, sound, or NIC. I had most of those lying around already, and upgraded them over time. Onboard was the usual dual IDE and floppy controllers, dual serial ports, parallel port, USB, PS/2 keyboard and mouse.
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to find out the current specs for this board. At the time I got mine, it took up to two 550 MHz PIII's and 2 GB RAM. I've been satisfied with it.
There is much talking-out-of-asses here. (Imagine that!)
I was a math student (ABD) and turned computer programmer in the financial industry - pretty geeky credentials. A year and a half ago I was interviewed for the jury on a securities fraud case. I thought for sure I'd be rejected when they found out my line of work, but that didn't seem to faze the lawyers.
In fact I was selected, and it turned out that the government used as evidence my company's data and graphs of stock prices of some of the securities in question. I found this somewhat surprising because I had told them that I work on the code that displays those types of graphs. All they asked me about that in the interview was whether I thought it would interfere with my ability to make a fair decision. I said that no, it wouldn't
On the other hand, some years before, I was rejected from a case when, in the interview, I raised what I thought was something relevant. (Nothing work-related.) A lawyer asked the same question - if I thought my experience would interfere with my ability to make a fair decision. I think that saying "I hope not" was probably what caused them to reject me.
Ordinarily I don't like to post to repeat stories, but since I didn't post to the first one...
Here's a similar story which might shed some light on where these might be useful. I admit that I'm a cheap bastard when it comes to my hobbies and my computer collection, much of which is scavenged, is no exception. For example, my current best PC has a dual-proc mobo that started out with a single Celeron CPU. Later I bought special adapters to allow me to run dual Celerons without soldering fine wires and taping over pins - my cheapness is dampened by my unease at monkeying with a soldering iron.
I have no doubt that I'm not getting the performance I would have gotten from buying a couple of PIII's, but that wasn't the point for me. After all, I'm not doing "real work" on this box. So I could see the appeal to something like this. It would let me play around with SCSI on a more modest budget, just as my adapters let me enjoy some of the benefits of a dual CPU PC on a hobbyist budget. (Like seeing two penguins when I boot!)
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't mind the latency, the USPS has pretty decent bandwidth.
My recommendation would be to see if you can use a handheld with external keyboard - you'll save weight and space and without a hard drive and such, it should hold up better to driving. Also the battery charging issue should be moot, provided you can get batteries easily. I get several weeks, maybe a couple of months, from a pair of AAA's in my Palm III. Even for a three-year trip, I suppose you could carry enough batteries with you and still be talking about less weight and space than a laptop and this mystery trickle charger.
The part I can't tell you about is whether you can update your blog from a handheld. I don't know what the blog interface is like - e.g. do you ftp an HTML file, or do you use a web-based form? There might be some Palm software for doing just this kind of thing. I never cease to be amazed at the kinds of software that people have written for these devices.
I have used my Palm III, a Stowaway folding keyboard, and an external modem on several trips for keeping a diary and doing email. I do it in batch mode which means, for those of us spoiled by always-on connections, connecting to send accumulated outgoing mail and retrieve waiting mail, then disconnecting and replying while off-line.
One of the fun parts is I'm epileptic. I still haven't figured that one out yet.
Good luck!
I was a math PhD student some years back (but bailed with my Masters), so this review held particular interest for me. One professor I had at some point, probably in college, once compared doing math to cooking. The kitchen might be a mess afterwards, but the finished product looks great.
He was trying to make the point to us that as we sought to prove the various exercises, we shouldn't expect to go from point A (the hypothesis) to point B (the conclusion) but should instead expect to make several wrong turns and, in effect, make a mess along the way. When we finally got there, though, we should clean things up to make a better presentation. Hence the "crisp, structured precision" of most math texts. A good instructor will, while going over such a proof, offer insight into what thought processes led to each decision along the way.
These were relatively difficult, but still low-level exercises, since they had both hypothesis and conclusion. One (humbling) thing to remember about reading math is that someone was the first to prove these theorems. Not only did this person not know the direction the proof would take in advance, but he/she didn't know either the hypothesis or conclusion either!
I figured that there wouldn't really be an un-learning curve for her, since she have very limited experience using computers at the public library, where you get about half an hour at a time. (Frankly, I'm amazed she was able to get to her web mail, read any of it, and/or compose/reply to an email in half an hour.)
In the end, as people like to say about Macintosh, "it just works." Sure there were tons of questions, but they weren't really Linux (or even Slackware) specific. Here's my favorite:
She called to say her mouse had hit the end of the mouse pad but the cursor hadn't gotten to where she was trying to put it. (I'm being merciful for you, the reader, and her, by summarizing.) So I told her to pick the mouse up and move it over, then put it down and continue moving it. It turns out that she picked up the mouse and mouse pad together, so she didn't get very far.
Whew. I just got through reading the original question. I think I will refer to the poster as "The Fourth Little Pig."
About ten years ago, when I lived in North Carolina, I got a circular for a local department store that included what to the best of my recollection were some early 20th century bolt action Eastern European military rifles, going for something like $50. May have even been $20.
Wow, you're that old?
Seriously, I was looking at all the mentions of cars, planes, computers, etc. and thinking about movable type.
I have no idea what the expectations were about either paper or movable type, but both independently (you can write on paper without a printing press, or print on other media besides paper) and inextricably (metal type on paper is a huge use of both), they have become irreplacable in our society.
Damn, I have to do something about this dyslexia. I thought you said "I'm happier than a bishop in amsterdam with three thumbs up my ASS."
It's going to be a while before I forget that thought.
So what you're saying is "The image translators work for the player program. But there's way too much information to decode the Animatrix episode. You get used to it. I, I don't even see the code. All I see is blonde, brunette, redhead. Hey, you eh, want a drink?"
Cool story, but let's be honest guys (and gals), it's too technical for a "Switch" ad.
So it'll still take about 20 years or so before "All your base" is hip again.
echo $((1+2))
echo $((1+(2*3)))
Note there are normally two pairs of parentheses and that you can use more parentheses inside for order of operations.
It uses integer division, so if I want more decimal places, I just multiply by some power of 10 inside the expression, then count off that many places from the result.
In addition to the laziness factor of not having to start (or switch to) another program, I like that I can see my entire expression this way.
People are supposedly selling virtual gear for online adventure games. I wonder how long before we see mod points up for sale on Ebay.
My spud gun, without me is useless. Without my spud gun, I am useless. I must fire my spud gun true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will....
My spud gun and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count.
We will hit...
My spud gun is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weakness, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights, and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage. I will keep my spud gun clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...
Before God I swear this creed. My spud gun and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.
"In AutoCAD, I can design an entire house using just the keyboard."
/-----\
Who needs AutoCAD? I did this in a Slashdot comment box. And best of all, it meets the Slashdot seal of approval, since it has no Windows!
| _ |
| | | |
| | | |
How about "OSXE"? Pronounced "Oh sexy."
Happy hunting.
Probably can't even run a spell-checker on it, either.
That's exactly what I'm talking about - I can't stand web pages that make assumptions about the browser window width and have a horizontal scroll bar - often at all but very large window sizes (didn't this come up again and again in the discussion of the Top Ten Web-Design Mistakes of 2002 article?)
To me, one of the great things about HTML is that it's a markup language, not a layout language. Hence, browswers will automatically word-wrap basic HTML. However, I appreciate the problem of web designers who are saddled with this legacy when they're trying to implement layout on top of a language that doesn't really support it except through brutish hacks like 1x1 invisible images and fixed-width tables.
I guess it sucks when the client is in that other 1%, eh? My favorite in a related category would have to be the Netscape 4.77 preferences dialog, which was bigger than 640x480, or at least so big that the buttons hung below the visible area, and not resizable.
Granted I don't design web pages (I'm a programmer), but am I the only one here who thinks this is just wrong to design for a particular screen resolution?
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to find out the current specs for this board. At the time I got mine, it took up to two 550 MHz PIII's and 2 GB RAM. I've been satisfied with it.
I was a math student (ABD) and turned computer programmer in the financial industry - pretty geeky credentials. A year and a half ago I was interviewed for the jury on a securities fraud case. I thought for sure I'd be rejected when they found out my line of work, but that didn't seem to faze the lawyers.
In fact I was selected, and it turned out that the government used as evidence my company's data and graphs of stock prices of some of the securities in question. I found this somewhat surprising because I had told them that I work on the code that displays those types of graphs. All they asked me about that in the interview was whether I thought it would interfere with my ability to make a fair decision. I said that no, it wouldn't
On the other hand, some years before, I was rejected from a case when, in the interview, I raised what I thought was something relevant. (Nothing work-related.) A lawyer asked the same question - if I thought my experience would interfere with my ability to make a fair decision. I think that saying "I hope not" was probably what caused them to reject me.
He wasn't talking about ham radio, he was talking about training pot-bellied pigs to carry the data back and forth. They're very smart, you know.
Here's a similar story which might shed some light on where these might be useful. I admit that I'm a cheap bastard when it comes to my hobbies and my computer collection, much of which is scavenged, is no exception. For example, my current best PC has a dual-proc mobo that started out with a single Celeron CPU. Later I bought special adapters to allow me to run dual Celerons without soldering fine wires and taping over pins - my cheapness is dampened by my unease at monkeying with a soldering iron.
I have no doubt that I'm not getting the performance I would have gotten from buying a couple of PIII's, but that wasn't the point for me. After all, I'm not doing "real work" on this box. So I could see the appeal to something like this. It would let me play around with SCSI on a more modest budget, just as my adapters let me enjoy some of the benefits of a dual CPU PC on a hobbyist budget. (Like seeing two penguins when I boot!)