I think their main challenger is the CE operating system rather than RIM. J2ME is available for the platform. The current hardware (Treo for example) comes with a thumb-board - hardware, by the way, is what PalmOne and their other hardware partners do, not PalmSource. It seems to me that inclusion of Linux will leapfrog them over anyone else who doesn't have Linux.
You know, multisync on Linux handles the Palm fine, and the Palm protocols are standards-based. It seems to me the problem is on the Windows side, possibly in Palm's sync software on that side but definitely on the Windows side.
They are very conscious of the GPL and will make sure they are in compliance. I thought I had noticed a GPL violation and got two people there in a panic, only then to realize it was a false alarm. I am satisfied that they understand the problem.
Regarding their software, it looks to me as if their software didn't grow to fit the ARM hardware as fast as it should have, due to the extent of 68K assembler programming in their original platform. Linux is part of their path out of that.
The release says the sodium borate is used to produce, not store, the hydrogen, but you might be right. Sort of like a carbide lamp, then. What else comes from the reaction?
The problem is not efficiency, it's storage. Liquid hydrogen lives in a dewar at cryogenic temperatures and high pressure, and will outgas right through the walls of its container. The most effective storage strategy might be to synthesize a liquid fuel with the hydrogen and then burn that.
Efficiency is not as important as the fact the fuel won't be depleted and burns cleanly. There is lots of energy in inconvenient places like deserts, if you can figure out how to make the fuel there and ship it elsewhere, it's a win.
There are lots of ways to make hydrogen. Probably the best is to electrolyze it from water using electricity provided by solar power or another clean means of power.
I suspect that an internal-combustion engine such as one already used in production motorcycles could be tuned to burn a hydrogen mix, and that 6 liters (at what pressure? liquid?) for that mileage is not really news. Indeed, there may not be much new science here and the release mostly propoganda.
I echo the advice of others: do not worry about being a "GOMER".
I was sick, and if I did not drive my own health care would probably be much sicker today and I would not have been able to father my son. I actually found the leading researcher in my condition (who happened to be at Mayo), read his papers, and asked him to see me. He did, and as a result of my work the doctor in my home town entirely changed the way he was treating other folks who had the same thing.
I've been to Mayo. If I hadn't gone there, I would probably have been on chemotherapy for a long time for something that turns out not to be malignant. I might not have been able to father little Stanley (chemo can make you sterile). And three other patients in Berkeley would have been on chemo for too long, as well. They went off after my doctor at Mayo corresponded with my doctor in Berkeley.
This is how I got there: I asked my doctor in Berkeley for a paper by the leading researcher on what I was suffering. I could also have found this at a library, or perhaps today on the web (not then), but the doctor did the work for me. The paper was by the doctor at Mayo. I called up and asked if he'd see me, and he agreed. It wasn't a lot of trouble to fly there. It was more trouble getting my insurance to pay, I think at the time I got 80% paid for and perhaps today I'd get less or nothing. But it was worth it. I got a lot of testing an an evaluation by the most experienced physician in the field. He gave me the benefit of research that wouldn't be published for another year. He convinced my own doctor to change his treatement not only for me but for his other patients with the same disorder.
I shiver to think of what happens to people who have a bit less money, and who are tied to their desks at work all day. They would not be able to drive their own health care as I have.
Oops, the 94-day machine is running 2.6.7-1. Until it's rebooted:-)
Debian unstable is a very stable distribution
on
Updates From Debian
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· Score: 1
I just checked one of my web-facing servers running Debian unstable. It's been up 94 days, since I last upgraded the kernel to 2.6.8.1 . It doesn't have a firewall and doesn't need one. I am running about 10 systems in all on unstable. Another is at a colocation site and has served 15 megabits per second of CD downloads when demand is high. It's been up for 31 days, since I last rebooted it to change the kernel. I have an AMD64 desktop, a number of laptops. The last time an upgrade brought the system down was 2 years ago.
If I have to employ the sort of legal parasite that is, to a great extent, causing the problem, I won't be much more than a parasite myself. And this strikes me as at most sufficient to establish a detente' rather than solve the problem.
According to the American Intellectual Property Law Association, it now costs $3 Million to either prosecute or defend a patent infringement case to completion. For this reason, an offensive portfolio might not be much help. Without the funds to prosecute it, it becomes a hollow threat. I think it's much better to attempt to overturn bad patents administratively, as Dan Ravicher of pubpat.org recently did with Microsoft's patent on the FAT filesystem.
Did anyone notice that moments after the FAT patent was invalidated, we started to hear of a Microsoft-specific format for USB "disk" devices? I think they still would like to close out that path of interoperability for us.
The Novell policy notice is a step in the right direction. I'd like the next revision of the document to state that they won't use their own patents against software licensed as Open Source. I'm told that Novell PR person Bruce Lowry has been telling that to reporters, so let's please see it in writing.
Also, I should point out, so that people can understand how far the document goes, that Novell's threat is not useful against companies with which they have already executed a patent cross-license. These could include most of the large companies in the computer industry and might include Microsoft. And of course the document is not a promise to act against anyone. Novell still gets to decide who they sue.
This is the "discovery". I did a wire test earlier, and it seemed to handle a bunch of loops of shielded 4-pair ethernet wire OK. It ran over them without getting tangled up. It has a cage of 4 steel wires that keeps them from getting tangled in the brushes. But I think I will put in some time on dressing wires under tables, to be off the floor. And since I own the house, a lot of what might otherwise be on the floor runs through the wall.
If we did not have a dishwasher in 1964, it arrived soon afterward. But I hesitate to call it "robotic". Technically a robot is a machine that does a job that a human would otherwise, do, so that definition could be applied. But the washing machine and dishwasher had a big cam to provide their logic and their only sensors measured water level, door closure, and temperature. The Roomba has all of its logic in a lowly 8051, but it's smart enough to negotiate an environment with obstacles, stairs, and plug itself in to recharge at the end of its task.
When there is bad news about the Free Software community, and it's true, we should admit it, rather than resort to knee-jerk denials. This time it's true.
When I worked at HP in 2000, this strategy was already in use. We sold, way back in 2000, a Linux desktop in China. We'd reduced the price of everything else in the system to meet the China price point, and then we reduced the operating system price too. But HP never publicized that it was selling a Linux workstation way back then. I never heard an official statement to this effect, but of course the lack of publicity was because they suspected that a bootleg copy of Windows would be installed on most of those systems.
You and I make Linux for people who really use it. But we need to admit to ourselves that there are people out there who use our work to pass off a system as having an operating system installed when they know full well that the computer is going to get a bootleg copy of Windows.
It's better to admit this, deplore the people who do it, and go on with our lives than it is to simply deny that it happens. Sure, a system with no OS can have any OS put on it, as can one that is assembled from parts. But sometimes Linux is the fig leaf applied by people who would facilitate Windows bootlegging.
It's really funny how it happened, too. The hardware guy found this person with a pickup truck who agreed to take our old computer away for scrap metal. And he must have thought he was getting a big PC or something, because his eyes really goggled out when he realized he'd have to move that VAX.
I am no Star Wars expert. There is some wireframe CGI in the movie. I guess of the Death Star.
In Wrath of Kahn, watch the Genesis Effect scene in slow motion. One month into rendering, they realized that they had set it up to fly through a mountain. And they could not re-render much of the scene without delaying the film. So, they kludged it. A notch grows in the mountain as you approach it.
I have, in my office, the console of ILM's VAX 780 which subsequently became Pixar's VAX. Just the top part with the lights, logo, and the key, the rest was junked. I know for sure it was used to render original effects in Star Wars and the Genesis Effect scene in Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn. Maybe I should put it on eBay.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, multisync on Linux handles the Palm fine, and the Palm protocols are standards-based. It seems to me the problem is on the Windows side, possibly in Palm's sync software on that side but definitely on the Windows side.
Bruce
Regarding their software, it looks to me as if their software didn't grow to fit the ARM hardware as fast as it should have, due to the extent of 68K assembler programming in their original platform. Linux is part of their path out of that.
Bruce
That's lye.
Bruce
Efficiency is not as important as the fact the fuel won't be depleted and burns cleanly. There is lots of energy in inconvenient places like deserts, if you can figure out how to make the fuel there and ship it elsewhere, it's a win.
Bruce
I suspect that an internal-combustion engine such as one already used in production motorcycles could be tuned to burn a hydrogen mix, and that 6 liters (at what pressure? liquid?) for that mileage is not really news. Indeed, there may not be much new science here and the release mostly propoganda.
Bruce
Bruce
I echo the advice of others: do not worry about being a "GOMER".
I was sick, and if I did not drive my own health care would probably be much sicker today and I would not have been able to father my son. I actually found the leading researcher in my condition (who happened to be at Mayo), read his papers, and asked him to see me. He did, and as a result of my work the doctor in my home town entirely changed the way he was treating other folks who had the same thing.
Take charge.
Bruce
This is how I got there: I asked my doctor in Berkeley for a paper by the leading researcher on what I was suffering. I could also have found this at a library, or perhaps today on the web (not then), but the doctor did the work for me. The paper was by the doctor at Mayo. I called up and asked if he'd see me, and he agreed. It wasn't a lot of trouble to fly there. It was more trouble getting my insurance to pay, I think at the time I got 80% paid for and perhaps today I'd get less or nothing. But it was worth it. I got a lot of testing an an evaluation by the most experienced physician in the field. He gave me the benefit of research that wouldn't be published for another year. He convinced my own doctor to change his treatement not only for me but for his other patients with the same disorder.
I shiver to think of what happens to people who have a bit less money, and who are tied to their desks at work all day. They would not be able to drive their own health care as I have.
Bruce
Oops, the 94-day machine is running 2.6.7-1. Until it's rebooted :-)
Bruce
If I have to employ the sort of legal parasite that is, to a great extent, causing the problem, I won't be much more than a parasite myself. And this strikes me as at most sufficient to establish a detente' rather than solve the problem.
I'd rather look for another solution.Bruce
It's funny to see an AC who is not himself reading at 0.
Bruce
Did anyone notice that moments after the FAT patent was invalidated, we started to hear of a Microsoft-specific format for USB "disk" devices? I think they still would like to close out that path of interoperability for us.
Bruce
Also, I should point out, so that people can understand how far the document goes, that Novell's threat is not useful against companies with which they have already executed a patent cross-license. These could include most of the large companies in the computer industry and might include Microsoft. And of course the document is not a promise to act against anyone. Novell still gets to decide who they sue.
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
My robotic vaccumm cleaner arrived today.
Bruce
When there is bad news about the Free Software community, and it's true, we should admit it, rather than resort to knee-jerk denials. This time it's true.
When I worked at HP in 2000, this strategy was already in use. We sold, way back in 2000, a Linux desktop in China. We'd reduced the price of everything else in the system to meet the China price point, and then we reduced the operating system price too. But HP never publicized that it was selling a Linux workstation way back then. I never heard an official statement to this effect, but of course the lack of publicity was because they suspected that a bootleg copy of Windows would be installed on most of those systems.
You and I make Linux for people who really use it. But we need to admit to ourselves that there are people out there who use our work to pass off a system as having an operating system installed when they know full well that the computer is going to get a bootleg copy of Windows.
It's better to admit this, deplore the people who do it, and go on with our lives than it is to simply deny that it happens. Sure, a system with no OS can have any OS put on it, as can one that is assembled from parts. But sometimes Linux is the fig leaf applied by people who would facilitate Windows bootlegging.
Bruce Perens
Nuke Tewksbury!
(KL-10 in-jokes)
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
In Wrath of Kahn, watch the Genesis Effect scene in slow motion. One month into rendering, they realized that they had set it up to fly through a mountain. And they could not re-render much of the scene without delaying the film. So, they kludged it. A notch grows in the mountain as you approach it.
Bruce
Bruce