Actually, that "weird smell" may just be "old iBook smell" - the plastic used in the white iBooks will, after a few years, start to "offgas" or something. My G3-500 started to smell funny after 4 years, but it still worked fine.
I wanted to get my sister a gift card... went in the front door of the Michigan Ave. store in Chicago, asked the first 'droid I encountered whether there was a checkout upstairs, and if so, whether the line would be shorter. (Um, yeah. I've bought stuff in "flagship" Apple stores before.) They asked what I was after, I told them, and was directed to the express table. About 2 minutes later I was out the door with the gift card, and I found the receipt in my mail (via my Treo) within about 5 minutes.
Actually, spending even a little bit of time as a progammer generally means developing some analytical skills that can then be leverage into areas other than "pure IT." My wife did a little bit of HTML coding back in the last millennium, was pretty comfortable with Linux and vi despite a distinct lack of formal CS training, and is now nearly done her metamorphosis into psychology stats/research sort. Think there's a rather tenuous relationship between computer geeks and shrinks? Tell that to the statistics software she works with.
She's not a good example of a career programmer, though. I almost am. In her psychology terms, I'd be the one who has an abusive relationship with programming - it beats me, I leave it for a time and go do something else, but somehow I always come crawling back for more. But I, too, have come to leverage my background into other areas. There are a lot of programs, systems, and networks out there that aren't in code shops, that benefit from having people working on them - or even just using them - who know technology.
So... my theory is that the 40+ programmers (and in some cases the 30+ ones like us) are perhaps a little tired of trying to keep up with the latest versions of the 5-10 languages they use, and the shiny! new! language that springs forth from somewhere once a year, and are getting into positions where they still create, analyze, troubleshoot and fix things... but those things just aren't necessarily programs any more.
There are, after all, a lot of jobs for people who can think analytically.
There are still people out there creating applications that, by today's standards, are pretty darn small. Desktop (and to a lesser extent laptop) computers have tons of resources, sure, but PDAs and smartphones are still pretty limited, and the applications for them have to be smaller.
HST's instruments deal with several different portions of the spectrum. JWST is dedicated infrared. Those of us who actually work in astronomy keep pointing this out, but oh well.;)
Just like with the music store, the big money is in the back-catalog sales.
Yup. Borne out by the iTunes store's list of top videos, which is pretty consistently led by Michael Jackson's decades-old Thriller, with Fatboy Slim's 4-year-old Weapon of Choice (which I'm sure sells about 99 copies because of Christopher Walken for each copy it sells for all other reasons combined) also refusing to drop out of the top 5. And there are a lot of other catalog videos in the top 100, too. Old Jacko. Old U2. Oh, and everything Pixar is by definition catalog, I suppose.
Huh. Yep. They did. And it's actually smaller in 2 dimensions than (though almost twice as thick as) the iPod Nano. Apparently a little lighter too, even factoring in the weight of an AAA battery.
Strangely, Creative didn't give the Nano Plus its much-vaunted Zen interface (which was recently granted a patent that might affect the iPod interface), which all other Zen players appear to have. And it tops out at 1GB, so it's really more competing with the iPod Shuffle.
The iPod Nano, meanwhile, manages to put in a proper screen (color, no less) and user interface and iPod-style controls into a roughly "nano-sized" player. Evolutionary, not revolutionary, as someone said... but from the market sense, it may very well be revolutionary, since it's a flash-based iPod and new and shiny and will probably sell like crack-coated chocolate.
I still remember a 4 megapizel digital camera review he did where he picked the HP (big WSJ advertiser) model over the Kodak model because the HP came with a far superior 32MB CF card standard, whereas the Kodak only had 16MB of builtin memory as standard you had to purchase a card extra.
And, presuming that all other things were just about equal (i.e. neither a film manufacturer nor a printer manufacturer is likely to make a digital camera that's particularly good)... wouldn't you pick the one that came with more memory, too? I fail to see the problem with this approach.:)
Another very well-known family of dye-sublimation printers is the "Phasers" which used to be from Tektronix but are now from... Xerox, maybe. I think that's who bought Tek.
CDMA is widely deployed in Brazil, India, China, Russia, Australia, and dozens of other non-American countries. It has tens of millions of subscribers outside North America. [...] It works as long as your service provider has roaming arrangements with the one in the visiting country.
I have no doubt that all these things are true. However, I know - as you no doubt do, given your claimed expertise in the area - that the claims you are making are insignificant at best when looked at in relation to the actual needs of world travelers, the actual policies of service providers, and the actual deployment of GSM.
Yes, CDMA has tens of millions of subscribers... but that's compared to over a half-billion for GSM.
Yes, CDMA works in dozens of countries... but that's compared to almost 200 for GSM.
Yes, CDMA will work overseas if service providers have agreements... but the salesfolk at most US CDMA providers are quick to state that their phones will not work most places overseas.
The number of countries with meaningful CDMA infrastructure and user populations can be counted without taking one's shoes off. And the number of countries without meaningful GSM infrastructure or user populations can be counted on one hand.
I don't in any way want to play down your knowledge or expertise, but I'm involved in things that can result in me being sent to any city in the world... and CDMA just isn't going to cut it for me, sorry.
Actually, the weather problem wasn't significant. I was watching NASA TV all night, and before waving off the second landing opportunity, Mission Control stated quite clearly that:
1. The conditions at Kennedy at that moment were "go" 2. The forecast for Kennedy at the time of landing was "go" 3. Because things were unstable, they just didn't have the level of comfort they wanted.
To me, that says "the weather isn't bad, but since this is the Return To Flight mission, we're taking even fewer chances than usual."
As a general rule, GSM is usable places outside North America, while CDMA and iDEN aren't. A year ago, wandering around asking if phones worked anywhere else would result in three affirmative answers (from ATT Wireless, Cingular and T-Mobile), and three blank stares (from Verizon, Nextel and Sprint).
After the ATT-Cingular merger and the Nextel-Sprint merger, we'll only have two of each kind of answer. This will make shopping so much faster!
Ultimately we'll just have two monopolies: PhonesThatWork, Inc. and PhonesThatSuck, Inc. And they'll both charge an arm and a leg. Joy.
It uses a real laser (as opposed to a red LED and a camera) for tracking
Hmmm... it claims to use a laser that can't be seen by the human eye and can't harm the human eye. Nowhere on Logitech's site can I find any information on wavelength or power. That's not my idea of a "real" laser.;)
I do different kinds of support work at two astronomical observatories. Both are at 4200 meters, with air pressure of about 0.6 atmospheres - not quite the sort of place everyone can just hang around indefinitely, but most folks can handle it after acclimatizing.
At the larger of the two, basically the only people on the summit at night are operators and technical support staff - all the observers and other scientists are about 3000 meters lower, down at headquarters.
The smaller one's even worse in the hands-on sense - about seventy percent of the time, there's nobody in the facility during observing runs. It's totally remotely controllable; the operator is just above sea level, and the observer could be... well... anywhere. Typically about 200 miles away at the university's main campus, or on the other side of the planet entirely. We're only on the summit if an observer specifically requests it, or if there's some unusual instrument that we need to be around in case of problems.
Some might say it doesn't matter where we are, since astro support work typically gets explained as "long periods of nothing punctuated by brief bursts of absolute panic." But the sunsets are so much prettier at high altitude.:)
Yep. Intel announced EFI something like five years ago. The fact that other people seem to be finally getting onboard is nice and all that, but geez. Don't all rush in at once!
0.1", shiny! On the 2.2m where I work, we get all excited when we get 0.3-0.4" infrared or 0.6" visible. I think Keck is supposed to be able to get down to 0.2" or less, conditions permitting, but that might involve the use of AO and/or interferometry. I'm supposed to be up at Keck on Tuesday, so I'll see if I can find out.
Okay, so maybe it's 20 terrestrial scopes instead of 40.:)
"Hubble Class" is a dangerous phrase. The thing that made Hubble expensive wasn't that it was a certain size - it was that it, like every terrestrial telescope, allowed for upgrades, switching in new instruments, and so on.
All other space telescopes that I'm aware of - using the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope as an example - don't do that. They're non-upgradeable, with "no user-serviceable parts." They're not dependent on the Shuttle in any way. In some cases, like Webb, they're not even destined for orbit, but for a Lagrange point. (Others, like the current Spitzer scope, are in orbit, of course.) That makes them a lot cheaper than Hubble - but it also gives them a shorter mission life, less flexibility, and no option for upgrades down the road.
As for Hubble being the "first ever optical space telescope" (which it wasn't, if you count the OAO UV observatories NASA launched 20-25 years earlier) and Keck being "the 1,000th ever research class terrestrial telescopes" - keep in mind that the Kecks used that segmented mirror design, which was completely untested and radical at the time they came up with it, and had a 66% larger diameter than anything else out there (the Soviet BTA 6-meter was the largest out there before it). So while Keck may have been the 1,000th ever research class terrestrial telescopes, they were quite unlike those that came before them.
A single shuttle mission costs more than most of the largest optical telescopes in the world today.
Nice. I think there used to be a moon laser out here too, on Maui... LURE. I think it's gone now, though - the MAGNUM is in part of it, I think, and the Pan-STARRS prototype scope is supposed to be going somewhere around there too.
We play with lasers over on Mauna Kea, too... like this nice 20-watt sodium dye one. Which, for topicality, is located at the world's current largest optical telescope...
Yeah, there's an ongoing mirror DSW. Mostly in the "largest monolithic mirror" category, which was at 8.3m with Subaru, then went to 8.4 with the LBT and now GMT. Now we need someone to do 8.5m.
Keck held the "largest segmented mirror" one for quite a while. Still does, depending who you ask. I think Hobby's (in Texas) may be a larger mirror, but Hobby only rotates and doesn't tilt; they move the secondary instead, and thus they end up using less of the primary mirror at a time than Keck does.
(can't do ir/uv in atmosphere, but some radio could help)
Eh? You're right about UV, but the folks I've been operating the scope for lately would be pretty upset if I told them that all that stuff they were doing with our IR cameras... well, we were just faking it!;)
Most of the Mauna Kea Observatories - basically all the ones on the ridges - are either visible-optimized with infrared capabilities, infrared-optimized with visible light capabilities, or dedicated infrared.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, that "weird smell" may just be "old iBook smell" - the plastic used in the white iBooks will, after a few years, start to "offgas" or something. My G3-500 started to smell funny after 4 years, but it still worked fine.
I wanted to get my sister a gift card... went in the front door of the Michigan Ave. store in Chicago, asked the first 'droid I encountered whether there was a checkout upstairs, and if so, whether the line would be shorter. (Um, yeah. I've bought stuff in "flagship" Apple stores before.) They asked what I was after, I told them, and was directed to the express table. About 2 minutes later I was out the door with the gift card, and I found the receipt in my mail (via my Treo) within about 5 minutes.
Actually, spending even a little bit of time as a progammer generally means developing some analytical skills that can then be leverage into areas other than "pure IT." My wife did a little bit of HTML coding back in the last millennium, was pretty comfortable with Linux and vi despite a distinct lack of formal CS training, and is now nearly done her metamorphosis into psychology stats/research sort. Think there's a rather tenuous relationship between computer geeks and shrinks? Tell that to the statistics software she works with.
She's not a good example of a career programmer, though. I almost am. In her psychology terms, I'd be the one who has an abusive relationship with programming - it beats me, I leave it for a time and go do something else, but somehow I always come crawling back for more. But I, too, have come to leverage my background into other areas. There are a lot of programs, systems, and networks out there that aren't in code shops, that benefit from having people working on them - or even just using them - who know technology.
So... my theory is that the 40+ programmers (and in some cases the 30+ ones like us) are perhaps a little tired of trying to keep up with the latest versions of the 5-10 languages they use, and the shiny! new! language that springs forth from somewhere once a year, and are getting into positions where they still create, analyze, troubleshoot and fix things... but those things just aren't necessarily programs any more.
There are, after all, a lot of jobs for people who can think analytically.
There are still people out there creating applications that, by today's standards, are pretty darn small. Desktop (and to a lesser extent laptop) computers have tons of resources, sure, but PDAs and smartphones are still pretty limited, and the applications for them have to be smaller.
(had to be said, sorry)
...but I thought he said he was using a D2H? ;)
*rimshot*
HST's instruments deal with several different portions of the spectrum. JWST is dedicated infrared. Those of us who actually work in astronomy keep pointing this out, but oh well. ;)
Huh. Yep. They did. And it's actually smaller in 2 dimensions than (though almost twice as thick as) the iPod Nano. Apparently a little lighter too, even factoring in the weight of an AAA battery.
Strangely, Creative didn't give the Nano Plus its much-vaunted Zen interface (which was recently granted a patent that might affect the iPod interface), which all other Zen players appear to have. And it tops out at 1GB, so it's really more competing with the iPod Shuffle.
The iPod Nano, meanwhile, manages to put in a proper screen (color, no less) and user interface and iPod-style controls into a roughly "nano-sized" player. Evolutionary, not revolutionary, as someone said... but from the market sense, it may very well be revolutionary, since it's a flash-based iPod and new and shiny and will probably sell like crack-coated chocolate.
Another very well-known family of dye-sublimation printers is the "Phasers" which used to be from Tektronix but are now from... Xerox, maybe. I think that's who bought Tek.
I have no doubt that all these things are true. However, I know - as you no doubt do, given your claimed expertise in the area - that the claims you are making are insignificant at best when looked at in relation to the actual needs of world travelers, the actual policies of service providers, and the actual deployment of GSM.
Yes, CDMA has tens of millions of subscribers... but that's compared to over a half-billion for GSM.
Yes, CDMA works in dozens of countries... but that's compared to almost 200 for GSM.
Yes, CDMA will work overseas if service providers have agreements... but the salesfolk at most US CDMA providers are quick to state that their phones will not work most places overseas.
The number of countries with meaningful CDMA infrastructure and user populations can be counted without taking one's shoes off. And the number of countries without meaningful GSM infrastructure or user populations can be counted on one hand.
I don't in any way want to play down your knowledge or expertise, but I'm involved in things that can result in me being sent to any city in the world... and CDMA just isn't going to cut it for me, sorry.
Actually, the weather problem wasn't significant. I was watching NASA TV all night, and before waving off the second landing opportunity, Mission Control stated quite clearly that:
1. The conditions at Kennedy at that moment were "go"
2. The forecast for Kennedy at the time of landing was "go"
3. Because things were unstable, they just didn't have the level of comfort they wanted.
To me, that says "the weather isn't bad, but since this is the Return To Flight mission, we're taking even fewer chances than usual."
As a general rule, GSM is usable places outside North America, while CDMA and iDEN aren't. A year ago, wandering around asking if phones worked anywhere else would result in three affirmative answers (from ATT Wireless, Cingular and T-Mobile), and three blank stares (from Verizon, Nextel and Sprint).
After the ATT-Cingular merger and the Nextel-Sprint merger, we'll only have two of each kind of answer. This will make shopping so much faster!
Ultimately we'll just have two monopolies: PhonesThatWork, Inc. and PhonesThatSuck, Inc. And they'll both charge an arm and a leg. Joy.
Sad but true, if you ask me.
:)
I do different kinds of support work at two astronomical observatories. Both are at 4200 meters, with air pressure of about 0.6 atmospheres - not quite the sort of place everyone can just hang around indefinitely, but most folks can handle it after acclimatizing.
At the larger of the two, basically the only people on the summit at night are operators and technical support staff - all the observers and other scientists are about 3000 meters lower, down at headquarters.
The smaller one's even worse in the hands-on sense - about seventy percent of the time, there's nobody in the facility during observing runs. It's totally remotely controllable; the operator is just above sea level, and the observer could be... well... anywhere. Typically about 200 miles away at the university's main campus, or on the other side of the planet entirely. We're only on the summit if an observer specifically requests it, or if there's some unusual instrument that we need to be around in case of problems.
Some might say it doesn't matter where we are, since astro support work typically gets explained as "long periods of nothing punctuated by brief bursts of absolute panic." But the sunsets are so much prettier at high altitude.
See, it's people like you who're waking me up! :)
Yep. Intel announced EFI something like five years ago. The fact that other people seem to be finally getting onboard is nice and all that, but geez. Don't all rush in at once!
It just means that I'll have a few more weeks each year of being woken up early by people calling from the mainland. Joy.
0.1", shiny! On the 2.2m where I work, we get all excited when we get 0.3-0.4" infrared or 0.6" visible. I think Keck is supposed to be able to get down to 0.2" or less, conditions permitting, but that might involve the use of AO and/or interferometry. I'm supposed to be up at Keck on Tuesday, so I'll see if I can find out.
"Hubble Class" is a dangerous phrase. The thing that made Hubble expensive wasn't that it was a certain size - it was that it, like every terrestrial telescope, allowed for upgrades, switching in new instruments, and so on.
All other space telescopes that I'm aware of - using the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope as an example - don't do that. They're non-upgradeable, with "no user-serviceable parts." They're not dependent on the Shuttle in any way. In some cases, like Webb, they're not even destined for orbit, but for a Lagrange point. (Others, like the current Spitzer scope, are in orbit, of course.) That makes them a lot cheaper than Hubble - but it also gives them a shorter mission life, less flexibility, and no option for upgrades down the road.
As for Hubble being the "first ever optical space telescope" (which it wasn't, if you count the OAO UV observatories NASA launched 20-25 years earlier) and Keck being "the 1,000th ever research class terrestrial telescopes" - keep in mind that the Kecks used that segmented mirror design, which was completely untested and radical at the time they came up with it, and had a 66% larger diameter than anything else out there (the Soviet BTA 6-meter was the largest out there before it). So while Keck may have been the 1,000th ever research class terrestrial telescopes, they were quite unlike those that came before them.
A single shuttle mission costs more than most of the largest optical telescopes in the world today.
Oh, and, um, by the way, I think you might mean mirrors, not lenses. Refractors don't really scale all that well. :(
We play with lasers over on Mauna Kea, too... like this nice 20-watt sodium dye one. Which, for topicality, is located at the world's current largest optical telescope...
Yeah, there's an ongoing mirror DSW. Mostly in the "largest monolithic mirror" category, which was at 8.3m with Subaru, then went to 8.4 with the LBT and now GMT. Now we need someone to do 8.5m.
Keck held the "largest segmented mirror" one for quite a while. Still does, depending who you ask. I think Hobby's (in Texas) may be a larger mirror, but Hobby only rotates and doesn't tilt; they move the secondary instead, and thus they end up using less of the primary mirror at a time than Keck does.
Most of the Mauna Kea Observatories - basically all the ones on the ridges - are either visible-optimized with infrared capabilities, infrared-optimized with visible light capabilities, or dedicated infrared.