When statistics gatherers can tell what station you were watching without having to ask (i.e. smart boxes that report back channel and time usage),
That one is easy. The same box that records stuff and makes it trivial to FF over commercials also reports back channel and time usage (unless you opt-out, which is both possible and free with TiVo, not sure about the others).
Station recognition has other benefits that I won't go into. It's not just about what the viewer cares about.
It would get the programming info from the same place that a VCR does, from the person running it.
Which will make it a whole lot less useful then the TiVo which once told "I like this show the most, and this one more then that one, and first runs of this one more then that one, and..." will just "do the right thing". Or at least pretty close. And it is surprisingly easy to set up. It handles schedule changes, and will frequently pick up things I didn't know were on.
That's not to say it is perfect. It would be nice if it could remember things I had seen for longer then 28 days, or if when the satalite box fails to change channels if I could tell it is hadn't recorded a show it thought it had (or better yet for it to OCR the channel number off the upper right of the screen and retry -- that is the first thing I would try to add...). Also the priority info is only used for local choices (X and Y are on now (and haven't been recorded recently, and...), X is more important, so I'll record X...not X and Y are on now, X is on again later Y isn't, so I should grab Y now and X later...)
A recorder without schedule info won't be worthless, but it just plain ain't as good.
That is unfair (because content-funders and content-enjoyers are not always the same), and also inefficient (because of the indirection and middlemen).
It isn't unfair to ad-buyers, since they know what they are paying for. It is inefficient though.
The part I dislike is since the advertisers actually pay for the shows, they have more influence over them then the people that watch them. That's scary with TV news. Frustrating with TV dramas (why can't they say "fuck"? for cable channels it's the advertisers...)
Didn't it piss you off that you had to sit through advertising before seeing a movie that you paid to get into.
Yes, but I do at least understand why. The theater chains (not the movie makers or distributors) are pretty much all bankrupt, close to bankrupt, or recently re-emerged from bankruptcy. They aren't making money on tickets, that just recoups the cost to rent the film. They don't even get the whole take on popcorn and overpriced soda, the film distributors are demanding a large percentage of that as well (plus I almost never buy the crap).
The commercials at the front of the movie (and the slideshows) are pretty much the only thing the theater owners get to keep!
It is still one of the big reasons I just watch most movies at home now (plus I finally have a nice sound system). Oh, and with the TiVo I'm not even watching as many movies. It's interesting how it has gone from I have 150 channels, and nothing is on half the time, to "Wow, I always have 60 hours of stuff to watch...",
TiVo 2.0 has a feature where you can tweak the start/end time for a program so that it'll start early or end late (or whatever combination you need), which helps if a channel is consistently early or late. If they're all over the map, though, you're still SOL.
The problem isn't if the channel is inconsistent, but if something follows (or runs before) the show you pad "just in case". I can't pad Sex and the City and still get the first showing (it will conflict with The Practice, and I don't want to miss the first minute or two of that).
Of corse it bugs me even more that it happens on HBO, after all that is one of the few channels I pay enough to that I'm not expected to support it by watching commercials, and they can't get the times in their schedules right!
I did find it surprising that folks watch 25% of the commercials. If the first commercial in a group is for a movie, or looks interesting I'll watch it, and sometimes same for the next, but the first irritating commercial, I skip the whole block (once in a great while I'll watch something out of the block). Or I'll skip the whole block if I'm really into the show (as opposed to having it on, and coding something on the laptop). I thought I would watch more then the average number of commercials, and I know I don't watch 20% of them...
How likely is it they'll use the "Not enough demand in region x" argument, when there would be enough global demand?
As far as I know the "expansion bay" for the USA PSX2 is different from the Japan PSX2, and since the "Linux Kit" uses the expansion bay, it does have to be built differently.
I don't know of the UK PSX2 (or France, or Germany, or...) uses the same bay as the USA or JP PSX2, or yet another variant.
I also don't know if the bay is different for brain dead artificial marketing reasons, or because the JP one came out first, and they came up with good engenering changes, or if there is a FCC regulation the JP one violated, or...
Even Palms are using more power nowadays. A year ago, it was common for a Palm (say IIIxe) to last a month or more on one set of batteries. Right now, I'm averaging 6 weeks between replacement, which is terrific. The newer m500 models are touted as lasting up to two weeks.
Are you sure they are using more power, as opposed to storing less? The IIIxe takes normal AAA batts, the m500's have a built in rechargable. Rechargables tend to be more costly, and store less power per unit volume. The m500 most likely lasts 30% as long because it only has 30% of the power! (well, it may consume a little more power to run the CPU at 33Mhz vs. 25Mhz, but probably not much since the CPU on a Palm spends most of it's time "executing" the HALT instruction).
My "new" Visor edge has more then 50% of it's battery after 2 weeks of use (with the power not connected to the cradle). My old Visor Deluxe (anyone want to buy it?) has rechargable NiMH AAA's in it. It lasts about 5 weeks between charges. It doesn't look to me like the Edge eats it's power noticeably faster (and I use the backlight more on the edge because the lighting is more even, and also it's far louder speaker sucks more power, and my new headphones keep me from hearing the alarm a lot of the time, so it frequently has to ring a lot more...)
Why does it need to get faster. More memory I understand, color and backlighting and better batteries also, but are people really feeling the lag when looking up phone numbers or appointments?
More memory means more stuff for "find" to search (for those that don't know find runs every app and asks it to look at all the data it knows how to search). More pixels (and more bits per pixel) means more stuff to manipulate on the screen, again requiring more CPU to keep up.
Is the Palm slow? I had a Visor Delux until a month or so ago, it never felt all that slow. I broke (and later repaired -- any one want to buy a Delux?) it, and got an Edge. It feels a whole whole whole lot faster. So did I need it? I don't think so. Now that I have it, will I give it up? No, I don't think so.
Besides, it could allow other kinds of applications. Ever wonder why it costs $200 for a MP3 playing module? If you had a 200Mhz ARM you wouldn't need $200 worth of hardware to play MP3's (you may still need an external module for stereo output).
Plus...maybe better games. Civ would be fun...And if MicroProse won't do it, maybe someone will port OpenCiv, but it just isn't any fun porting things to a non-memory protected OS (and the DragonBall doesn't have a MMU, the ARM does...hopefully the ARM version of PalmOS will use it)
Well, except for the video, which I think is done similarly to how other Unixish systems handle X11. Handing off close to raw access to the video device to anything that asks to be the window system:-)
Darwin does not include Apple's windowing system. So your clone will have to include video hardware that OS X's windowing system knows how to talk to, or it ain't going to be all that apple compatible...
If Appple can sell the iBook for $1299, it should easily be able to sell a flat screen iMac for LESS, like $999. (Bigger, easier to manufacture form factor,
Are we sure the bigger form factor is easier to manufacture? I mean you will have to do some styling, which will eat up some of the savings of not having hinges. Also bigger is more material, not less. You might be able to save a little by using less rugged plastic/rubber bits.
no custom laptop motherboard and component engineering,
But you get custom motherboard engineering anyway, it is a Mac after all, it's not like they can call 15 shops in Asia and ask to see completed designs (granted that is Steve's fault for killing the clones).
cheaper video, sound, and network bits.) Where is it?
How is the video cheaper? Or the sound? Or the network? I thought they were the same between the iMac and iBook (actually better speakers on the iMac). I know the network is the same (built in 10/100, and 56K modem, both have a slot for the 802.11, and an antenna for the 802.11, but neither have a 802.11 in the base cost).
So I don't see $299 of savings. Unless the battery itself costs almost $200! Plus I really think if you bring out a iMac with a LCD about the same size as the iBook it it has to cost a lot lot less because the iBook will be so much more tempting... (same expendability on both systems, same smallish screen, why not go for the one that can play movies on the airplane?)
The GIMP still has a ways to go to compete feature-wise with any of Adobe's "consumer" image-editing apps, never mind Photoshop.
Actually I find the GIMP much better to use then Adobe's PhotoDelux. The only thing PhotoDelux has that GIMP lacks is a usable smart selection (auto trace) tool. GIMP has one, but last time I tried to use it it didn't work very well. There are several touch up jobs I have done almost identical work on similar pictures under each tool, and the GIMP was much better, in part because GIMP has multiple levels of undo while Adobe saves that feature for the professional products.
I will admit that GIMP lacks any of the "guided tour" items like the step-by-step "trick perspective" or "make a lame-o frame" items that PhotoDelux has, but all the real features are there.
Plus I can tell you 100% for sure, GIMP is way easier to use then doing the equivalent tricks in a wet lab. It really sucks to not only have no undo, but for it to take 4 to 10 minutes per try at dodging, plus costing you $0.50 of paper each time you try (or more for good fiber prints...).
I doubt GIMP can stand up to PhotoShop Elements let alone the full-strength PhotoShop though.
Don't delude yourself into thinking that anyone is using it for real work, though.
Professional print layout and design
You do know that there are professionals that couldn't give a squat about print work, don't you? Some people do web work, even now after the Great Crash. Some people do video work (well, they would be mad to use the gimp frame by frame, but...).
There are even professionals that don't do color balancing for their prints, they may take and touch up someone's picture, but then they send it out for printing just like they did for wet prints. Go look at the digital photographers forums if you doubt me, many are saying it is more economical to let a regular color lab do that part of the work (granted, that is a item of perpetual debate, much like vi vs. emacs is for Unix programmers...)
I thought MacGimp was an X-Windows application, not cocoa
There is a Cocoa (or maybe Carbon) version sort of limping along. There doesn't seem to be much info on it though, which is too bad because while I don't really need the GIMP I have written some GTK+ apps that I would like to port to OSX... and if the GIMP was ported by re-targeting the GTK+ toolkit (which seems reasonable) then that would help me a whole whole lot...
Ripping CD's has more to do with media speed than the CPU.
That depends a lot. Does "ripping" include encoding as mp3 or ogg/vorbis? Is a fast encoder, or a super high quality VBR encoder? Oh, and does your actual reading program just suck data off the drive once, or does it do it multiple times (like CD paranoia) to make sure there are no skips (or to get a good shot at correcting them at least)?
Oh, and how many CD readers do you have?
How fast does each machine compile the same program using gcc? (Mac OS X and pretty much all distro's of Linux ship with it, so it is an easy test to run).
Make sure you use the same version of gcc. For example the OSX version will use pre-compiled headers (possibly slowing it down the first time you run it on something with a lot of headers...or maybe speeding it up as the system headers are precompiled). The mainline gcc hasn't picked these changes up for various reasons (the large one being it only works for C and Objective C, not C++, not Java, nor...)
I figure you could get one of these, plug in some sort of storage (say, a laptop hard drive) and a wireless LAN, and bam! Very small robot brain. This might be powerful enough to do some of the stuff (like vision processing) that results in people sticking a laptop on the back of their robot.
I'm not sure a 100Mhz 68000 can do great machine vision algos, but it would be pretty good for less intensive tasks. (Yes, it isn't a 68000, but despite them advertising it as a "RISC" CPU, the instruction set is very very similar to the 68000...and I don't imagine the performance will be any better...)
With 8MB SDRAM and 2MB Flash memory, these chips could be running your next souped-up GPS device, your next smart (landline) phone,
Those need low power systems. I don't think this has been designed to be a low power system. They also need cheep, my last GPS was $120, replacing the DragonBallEX ($25) with this would bump the price, and lose the LCD display...and none of them need a ethernet nearly as much as a 802.11 wireless net...
your internet-savvy fridge, your second generation PVR
Those would be a better place. However I'm not sure it would be ideal for the PVR, that needs a drive controller, and an interface to the MPEG encoder(s), or at least the decoder and tuner devices...
I don't know exactly where I would use one. I assume they are already in web cameras though. Actually it might be decent for use in a stereo with a dedicated MP3 decoder (however if you do it all in software you could switch to Ogg/Vorbis later, so there is something to be said for faster CPUs there).
It is a safe bet that they pretty much designed this for themselves, and are selling it to anyone that has a use for it. Not a bad way to go, as long as the people buying it don't cut into your web cam market:-)
As far as I can tell, the only proprietary ports on the iBook are [...] the airport card slot, and the power adapter port..
The airport slot is a standard PCMCIA slot *inside* the machine (I tested it, it recognized my flash card adaptor when I put it in there), and an antenna connector that fits the Lucent 802.11 cards.
As far as power connectors go they aren't exactly standard on PC laptops either, but this one is a little more bizarre then just a randomly sized normal DC power connector. They use what looks like an audio phono plug. I'm not sure why. It is a little easier to plug in in the dark then the connector on the Sony, but it isn't a big deal.
Is it just me or there some reason an iBook would make a better linux notebook than a G4 Powerbook?
The iBook is lighter, I think (I have held both, but not at the same time). The iBook is definitely less wide, so it would be more convent on an airplane, and will fit into backpacks and bags the PowerBook may not.
Plus the iBook is way way cheaper.
Of corse if cost is no issue, the size may not be a big deal. Except maybe not being able to fit on tray tables in coach. Of corse if cost was no issue, being "forced" to fly first class may not be so bad:-)
And who needs to burn CDs? Certainly not all those Apple customers who bought OSX!
Unless they are running 10.0.2 or newer...
How about the Open Source camp beating Apple to it?
You will need to invent time travel to do it. They got it out within two or 3 weeks of the release.
To be fair while they support a lot of CD-RW drives they don't have all of them. You could beat them to supporting some of the less common ones... they also still don't support DVD video (you can read DVD file systems though), so you can try to beat them to that also.
It seems like it's becoming harder and harder to get companies to disclose enough information to actually write proper hardware drivers
Well since Apple actually runs an open source kernel (and command line stuff) on these machines it does help them a lot to publish the specs for their hardware. Plus even if they don't, you could at least look at the source for the darwin drivers...
So far, it looks like Apple hasn't been all talk in their support of the community, and this may bode well.
So far they have been doing quite well at publishing up to date versions of source of what they said they would. I'm happy. Oddly they have been doing worse at getting the DVD video playback working then I expected.
I'm not sure how well they are doing on incorporating 3rd party changes to their OS though. For example I know people have darwin booting on very old macs, but I don't know if the release version will.
your CPU stays on at full power running an idle thread waiting for your OS to give it something to do.
Depends on the OS. Most modernish OSes on a single processor execute a HALT rather then spin in an idle loop. Not as many do that on multiple CPUs because getting the wakeup code right is harder.
CPUs in the halt state generally use less power, and generate less heat. It may wear the CPU out a bit slower too. A box with a thermal controlled fan will use less cooling power, and in the summer less AC will be used.
Those effects should be pretty small though. The heat generated by a CPU may be the same as two office lights, and a halted CPU won't put off no heat, just a bit less. Similar for the power used. So as far as heat and power goes it would be like suing a janitor for a half mil for leaving the lights on in a bunch of offices (for a few years).
Beats me on bandwidth, but I expect that is pretty low too.
Even if damages are called for these seem totally out of line. As far as damages go, I figure this would be the kind of thing worth a stern warning, or maybe a firing, but not a lawsuit. Apparently I'm not the Stare of Georgia.
Re:houston we have a problem...
on
Movies in Space?
·
· Score: 5
Wouldn't the vomit comit be a LOT cheaper than sending an entire crew into space? is there even room? Worked fine for Ron Howard and Apollo 13.
While it worked (the zero-g scenes are wonderful -- of corse I think the whole movie is), it was costly, and difficult.
The Apollo 13 crew has logged more vomit-comet time then any astronaut. More then anyone other then the people that fly the thing. That wasn't cheep (I don't know if the film company payed, or if it was done on our tax dollars).
You only get about 30 seconds of zero-g at once. That makes it hard to film long scenes. No, it makes it hard to film short ones, really really hard for long ones:-)
There is very little space to film there. The set on 13 was of a cramped space craft, so it wasn't impossible to film, but it was hard to fit cameras and lights in.
I'm sure there is some other stuff as well, but it has been a while since I watched the film, and even longer since I listened to the directors commentary...
Slashdot Mirror
That one is easy. The same box that records stuff and makes it trivial to FF over commercials also reports back channel and time usage (unless you opt-out, which is both possible and free with TiVo, not sure about the others).
Enlighten us (or at least me)...
Which will make it a whole lot less useful then the TiVo which once told "I like this show the most, and this one more then that one, and first runs of this one more then that one, and..." will just "do the right thing". Or at least pretty close. And it is surprisingly easy to set up. It handles schedule changes, and will frequently pick up things I didn't know were on.
That's not to say it is perfect. It would be nice if it could remember things I had seen for longer then 28 days, or if when the satalite box fails to change channels if I could tell it is hadn't recorded a show it thought it had (or better yet for it to OCR the channel number off the upper right of the screen and retry -- that is the first thing I would try to add...). Also the priority info is only used for local choices (X and Y are on now (and haven't been recorded recently, and...), X is more important, so I'll record X...not X and Y are on now, X is on again later Y isn't, so I should grab Y now and X later...)
A recorder without schedule info won't be worthless, but it just plain ain't as good.
It isn't unfair to ad-buyers, since they know what they are paying for. It is inefficient though.
The part I dislike is since the advertisers actually pay for the shows, they have more influence over them then the people that watch them. That's scary with TV news. Frustrating with TV dramas (why can't they say "fuck"? for cable channels it's the advertisers...)
Yes, but I do at least understand why. The theater chains (not the movie makers or distributors) are pretty much all bankrupt, close to bankrupt, or recently re-emerged from bankruptcy. They aren't making money on tickets, that just recoups the cost to rent the film. They don't even get the whole take on popcorn and overpriced soda, the film distributors are demanding a large percentage of that as well (plus I almost never buy the crap).
The commercials at the front of the movie (and the slideshows) are pretty much the only thing the theater owners get to keep!
It is still one of the big reasons I just watch most movies at home now (plus I finally have a nice sound system). Oh, and with the TiVo I'm not even watching as many movies. It's interesting how it has gone from I have 150 channels, and nothing is on half the time, to "Wow, I always have 60 hours of stuff to watch...",
The problem isn't if the channel is inconsistent, but if something follows (or runs before) the show you pad "just in case". I can't pad Sex and the City and still get the first showing (it will conflict with The Practice, and I don't want to miss the first minute or two of that).
Of corse it bugs me even more that it happens on HBO, after all that is one of the few channels I pay enough to that I'm not expected to support it by watching commercials, and they can't get the times in their schedules right!
I did find it surprising that folks watch 25% of the commercials. If the first commercial in a group is for a movie, or looks interesting I'll watch it, and sometimes same for the next, but the first irritating commercial, I skip the whole block (once in a great while I'll watch something out of the block). Or I'll skip the whole block if I'm really into the show (as opposed to having it on, and coding something on the laptop). I thought I would watch more then the average number of commercials, and I know I don't watch 20% of them...
As far as I know the "expansion bay" for the USA PSX2 is different from the Japan PSX2, and since the "Linux Kit" uses the expansion bay, it does have to be built differently.
I don't know of the UK PSX2 (or France, or Germany, or...) uses the same bay as the USA or JP PSX2, or yet another variant.
I also don't know if the bay is different for brain dead artificial marketing reasons, or because the JP one came out first, and they came up with good engenering changes, or if there is a FCC regulation the JP one violated, or...
Eh? Not only can the Palm do that, it can do that via SSH. Go look at TopGun SSH. Enjoy.
Are you sure they are using more power, as opposed to storing less? The IIIxe takes normal AAA batts, the m500's have a built in rechargable. Rechargables tend to be more costly, and store less power per unit volume. The m500 most likely lasts 30% as long because it only has 30% of the power! (well, it may consume a little more power to run the CPU at 33Mhz vs. 25Mhz, but probably not much since the CPU on a Palm spends most of it's time "executing" the HALT instruction).
My "new" Visor edge has more then 50% of it's battery after 2 weeks of use (with the power not connected to the cradle). My old Visor Deluxe (anyone want to buy it?) has rechargable NiMH AAA's in it. It lasts about 5 weeks between charges. It doesn't look to me like the Edge eats it's power noticeably faster (and I use the backlight more on the edge because the lighting is more even, and also it's far louder speaker sucks more power, and my new headphones keep me from hearing the alarm a lot of the time, so it frequently has to ring a lot more...)
More memory means more stuff for "find" to search (for those that don't know find runs every app and asks it to look at all the data it knows how to search). More pixels (and more bits per pixel) means more stuff to manipulate on the screen, again requiring more CPU to keep up.
Is the Palm slow? I had a Visor Delux until a month or so ago, it never felt all that slow. I broke (and later repaired -- any one want to buy a Delux?) it, and got an Edge. It feels a whole whole whole lot faster. So did I need it? I don't think so. Now that I have it, will I give it up? No, I don't think so.
Besides, it could allow other kinds of applications. Ever wonder why it costs $200 for a MP3 playing module? If you had a 200Mhz ARM you wouldn't need $200 worth of hardware to play MP3's (you may still need an external module for stereo output).
Plus...maybe better games. Civ would be fun...And if MicroProse won't do it, maybe someone will port OpenCiv, but it just isn't any fun porting things to a non-memory protected OS (and the DragonBall doesn't have a MMU, the ARM does...hopefully the ARM version of PalmOS will use it)
Well, except for the video, which I think is done similarly to how other Unixish systems handle X11. Handing off close to raw access to the video device to anything that asks to be the window system :-)
Darwin does not include Apple's windowing system. So your clone will have to include video hardware that OS X's windowing system knows how to talk to, or it ain't going to be all that apple compatible...
Are we sure the bigger form factor is easier to manufacture? I mean you will have to do some styling, which will eat up some of the savings of not having hinges. Also bigger is more material, not less. You might be able to save a little by using less rugged plastic/rubber bits.
But you get custom motherboard engineering anyway, it is a Mac after all, it's not like they can call 15 shops in Asia and ask to see completed designs (granted that is Steve's fault for killing the clones).
How is the video cheaper? Or the sound? Or the network? I thought they were the same between the iMac and iBook (actually better speakers on the iMac). I know the network is the same (built in 10/100, and 56K modem, both have a slot for the 802.11, and an antenna for the 802.11, but neither have a 802.11 in the base cost).
So I don't see $299 of savings. Unless the battery itself costs almost $200! Plus I really think if you bring out a iMac with a LCD about the same size as the iBook it it has to cost a lot lot less because the iBook will be so much more tempting... (same expendability on both systems, same smallish screen, why not go for the one that can play movies on the airplane?)
Actually I find the GIMP much better to use then Adobe's PhotoDelux. The only thing PhotoDelux has that GIMP lacks is a usable smart selection (auto trace) tool. GIMP has one, but last time I tried to use it it didn't work very well. There are several touch up jobs I have done almost identical work on similar pictures under each tool, and the GIMP was much better, in part because GIMP has multiple levels of undo while Adobe saves that feature for the professional products.
I will admit that GIMP lacks any of the "guided tour" items like the step-by-step "trick perspective" or "make a lame-o frame" items that PhotoDelux has, but all the real features are there.
Plus I can tell you 100% for sure, GIMP is way easier to use then doing the equivalent tricks in a wet lab. It really sucks to not only have no undo, but for it to take 4 to 10 minutes per try at dodging, plus costing you $0.50 of paper each time you try (or more for good fiber prints...).
I doubt GIMP can stand up to PhotoShop Elements let alone the full-strength PhotoShop though.
You do know that there are professionals that couldn't give a squat about print work, don't you? Some people do web work, even now after the Great Crash. Some people do video work (well, they would be mad to use the gimp frame by frame, but...).
There are even professionals that don't do color balancing for their prints, they may take and touch up someone's picture, but then they send it out for printing just like they did for wet prints. Go look at the digital photographers forums if you doubt me, many are saying it is more economical to let a regular color lab do that part of the work (granted, that is a item of perpetual debate, much like vi vs. emacs is for Unix programmers...)
There is a Cocoa (or maybe Carbon) version sort of limping along. There doesn't seem to be much info on it though, which is too bad because while I don't really need the GIMP I have written some GTK+ apps that I would like to port to OSX... and if the GIMP was ported by re-targeting the GTK+ toolkit (which seems reasonable) then that would help me a whole whole lot...
That depends a lot. Does "ripping" include encoding as mp3 or ogg/vorbis? Is a fast encoder, or a super high quality VBR encoder? Oh, and does your actual reading program just suck data off the drive once, or does it do it multiple times (like CD paranoia) to make sure there are no skips (or to get a good shot at correcting them at least)?
Oh, and how many CD readers do you have?
Make sure you use the same version of gcc. For example the OSX version will use pre-compiled headers (possibly slowing it down the first time you run it on something with a lot of headers...or maybe speeding it up as the system headers are precompiled). The mainline gcc hasn't picked these changes up for various reasons (the large one being it only works for C and Objective C, not C++, not Java, nor...)
I'm not sure a 100Mhz 68000 can do great machine vision algos, but it would be pretty good for less intensive tasks. (Yes, it isn't a 68000, but despite them advertising it as a "RISC" CPU, the instruction set is very very similar to the 68000...and I don't imagine the performance will be any better...)
Those need low power systems. I don't think this has been designed to be a low power system. They also need cheep, my last GPS was $120, replacing the DragonBallEX ($25) with this would bump the price, and lose the LCD display...and none of them need a ethernet nearly as much as a 802.11 wireless net...
Those would be a better place. However I'm not sure it would be ideal for the PVR, that needs a drive controller, and an interface to the MPEG encoder(s), or at least the decoder and tuner devices...
I don't know exactly where I would use one. I assume they are already in web cameras though. Actually it might be decent for use in a stereo with a dedicated MP3 decoder (however if you do it all in software you could switch to Ogg/Vorbis later, so there is something to be said for faster CPUs there).
It is a safe bet that they pretty much designed this for themselves, and are selling it to anyone that has a use for it. Not a bad way to go, as long as the people buying it don't cut into your web cam market :-)
Is there a free rootless X server? I've been using VNC, but a rootless X would be nice...
The airport slot is a standard PCMCIA slot *inside* the machine (I tested it, it recognized my flash card adaptor when I put it in there), and an antenna connector that fits the Lucent 802.11 cards.
As far as power connectors go they aren't exactly standard on PC laptops either, but this one is a little more bizarre then just a randomly sized normal DC power connector. They use what looks like an audio phono plug. I'm not sure why. It is a little easier to plug in in the dark then the connector on the Sony, but it isn't a big deal.
The iBook is lighter, I think (I have held both, but not at the same time). The iBook is definitely less wide, so it would be more convent on an airplane, and will fit into backpacks and bags the PowerBook may not.
Plus the iBook is way way cheaper.
Of corse if cost is no issue, the size may not be a big deal. Except maybe not being able to fit on tray tables in coach. Of corse if cost was no issue, being "forced" to fly first class may not be so bad :-)
Unless they are running 10.0.2 or newer...
You will need to invent time travel to do it. They got it out within two or 3 weeks of the release.
To be fair while they support a lot of CD-RW drives they don't have all of them. You could beat them to supporting some of the less common ones... they also still don't support DVD video (you can read DVD file systems though), so you can try to beat them to that also.
Well since Apple actually runs an open source kernel (and command line stuff) on these machines it does help them a lot to publish the specs for their hardware. Plus even if they don't, you could at least look at the source for the darwin drivers...
So far they have been doing quite well at publishing up to date versions of source of what they said they would. I'm happy. Oddly they have been doing worse at getting the DVD video playback working then I expected.
I'm not sure how well they are doing on incorporating 3rd party changes to their OS though. For example I know people have darwin booting on very old macs, but I don't know if the release version will.
Because they suck in general, or because they don't halt rather then having an idle loop (plus sucking in general as an OS)?
Depends on the OS. Most modernish OSes on a single processor execute a HALT rather then spin in an idle loop. Not as many do that on multiple CPUs because getting the wakeup code right is harder.
CPUs in the halt state generally use less power, and generate less heat. It may wear the CPU out a bit slower too. A box with a thermal controlled fan will use less cooling power, and in the summer less AC will be used.
Those effects should be pretty small though. The heat generated by a CPU may be the same as two office lights, and a halted CPU won't put off no heat, just a bit less. Similar for the power used. So as far as heat and power goes it would be like suing a janitor for a half mil for leaving the lights on in a bunch of offices (for a few years).
Beats me on bandwidth, but I expect that is pretty low too.
Even if damages are called for these seem totally out of line. As far as damages go, I figure this would be the kind of thing worth a stern warning, or maybe a firing, but not a lawsuit. Apparently I'm not the Stare of Georgia.
While it worked (the zero-g scenes are wonderful -- of corse I think the whole movie is), it was costly, and difficult.
The Apollo 13 crew has logged more vomit-comet time then any astronaut. More then anyone other then the people that fly the thing. That wasn't cheep (I don't know if the film company payed, or if it was done on our tax dollars).
You only get about 30 seconds of zero-g at once. That makes it hard to film long scenes. No, it makes it hard to film short ones, really really hard for long ones :-)
There is very little space to film there. The set on 13 was of a cramped space craft, so it wasn't impossible to film, but it was hard to fit cameras and lights in.
I'm sure there is some other stuff as well, but it has been a while since I watched the film, and even longer since I listened to the directors commentary...