Anybody have any more substantial links to the information contained in the article? I'm curious to understand how they are planning to map the individual motor functions from the brain to the chip.
Maybe I'm remembering too much of "The Terminal Man", but you can't stick this chip into somebody's brain and then expect it to hit a useful nerve bundle that is either surplus/redundant (I guess not a big concern with a quadraplegic) and, because of loss, the "normal" connections to it have not been rerouted/atrophied.
Even with something like an MRI and telling a person to lift a (useless) leg and mapping the brain areas that respond would probably be horribly imprecise.
I suspect that Steve Ausin's limbs are still very very far away.
The diskette drive doors on the original IBM PC and Apple ][s. They would break (flimsy design) and the drive would not latch closed properly for the diskette.
In the early '80s, somebody came up with the idea of buying a whole bunch of the doors and selling them, along with a few other "frequently broken parts" for around $50. Sounds like a lot, but it was a lot cheaper than a $400 diskette drive.
As I remember, a number of companies (IBM and RS come to mind) started selling similar kits.
Best Buy sells iRiver products - it's amazing because I've never seen one on the shelf there. They get sold basically as soon as they are received at the stores.
I have had a '395 for a year now and I'm amazed at how many people recognize it (it was a bitch to get, by the way). It is by far the best of the three MP3 players I've ever owned.
I've always felt that iRiver's biggest problem was production; it would be interesting to see how popular they would be if they had the manufacturing resources of Apple.
I always thought it was a reference to Wilhem Podunk, the aspiring 1940s star of the never released MGM epic "The Romans". Playing Julius Caesar, Podunk was expected to perform on his horse along two thousand extras, each one holding a pike aimed at the Hun army in front of them. The scene required Caesar to command his men to prepare for an attack, turn left and then charge toward the enemy.
Podunk reportedly strode down the line of pikers majestically, presented his lines heroically and, unfortunately, turned right before spurring his horse on.
The clip of the resulting scream is all that remains of "The Romans", even the recording of Louis B. Mayer's shout, "Your Other Left!", has been lost; leaving a sad legacy for a man that could have been a bigger star than Cooper, if only he had a better sense of direction.
I suspect the article got cut down for size and the non-technical editor left in the explanation for "compiler" after reading both it and the explanation of "open-source".
This is interesting because you could probably ask yourself if the concept of "open source" is so simple and obvious to a non-technical editor that they would delete it from an article then why is it so difficult for some many companies to understand?
I'm asking this question because of my conversations with a senior technical manager at work. He seems to interpret "open source" as there being an army of coders out there waiting to work on his projects as soon as he gets around to putting up some example code and the final requirements on sourceforge.
I'm of two minds regarding Lost in Translation - having found myself in a very similar situation to Bill Murray's character, stuck in the Tokyo Dome Hotel unable to sleep at night, during the day being dragged around to incomprehensible meetings during the day and expected to party into the wee hours, I could totally relate.
Murray's acting was perfect and Coppola's direction really gave me a feeling of being back there.
The problem is, the movie's boring - cut out 75% of the shots staring at the Tokyo skyline and Murray looking angst (the viewer gets it already) and it would probably be hands down, the best film of the year.
I saw it with my wife and never being in this situation she just couldn't relate to what was being portrayed and how it was done. She ended up just being bored by the movie and I think that's reason why people either are amazed by it or hate it.
Following the lead of the US Army in Iraq, Slashdot has announced that a deck of cards with the pictures of various spammers and other malcontents villified by Slashdotters has been produced.
Being #3, Scotty Richter's face has been put on the Queen of Spades.
It has been suggested that Darl McBride's likeness be used for the deck's joker.
The companies that sell the ink-cartridge refilling kits?
Somehow I don't believe that these fuel-cells will be designed to be customer refillable. Following HP, Lexmark and other printer manufacturers, I would expect the fuel-cells to be designed for just one use (return to place of purchase and buy a factory new one).
Along with this, I'm sure there will be warnings/campaigns stating that home refilling solutions will be dangerous, ruin the fuel cell because of improper chemical ingrediants, have significantly less operating time, void your laptop/PDA's warranty or cause you to grow hair on the palms of your hands.
Most of the posts I've seen in this thread make the assumption that the cells can be refilled by the user. I would be very surprised if this was the case.
those that base their religion/philosophies on Science Fiction books.
Probably the biggest recent purported example of this is Osama Bin Laden's fascination with Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy. When it was translated to arabic, it was titled "Al-Qaida".
For reference, take a look at All Your Base... or War of the worlds. The original story was in the Ottawa Citizen (I couldn't find a link to the article).
Scary stuff when a 50 year old Sci-Fi novel could be considered as the base for a terrorist philosophy.
I just did a quick scan for Pournell on Amazon.com and essentially everything listed for him is "out of print" and only available through "zshops". I haven't seen anything from him in years (I always liked his stuff more than the people he recommended).
Just a quick look at Chaos Manor says that he is finishing up a sequel to the burning tower.
I was with you until the final paragraph. I think groups like Nickleback or Allannis Morrisette would have something to say to your assertion that nobody can reach the sales of Elvis, et al. As for movies, I can think of a few in the past years where special effects have been necessary to create a great movie (Forrest Gump, Gladiator, the Matrix, LOTR).
There have always been crappy albums and movies that have made huge amounts of money but have been lost over the years. I have always loved the line from the '40s movie mogul (Sorry I can't remember which one it was, probably Mayer) who said "We're here to make money, produce a few stars and, if everything works out, art.
There's really no difference between the record and movie executives of today compared to the past in their approach to providing product to consumers. Unfortunately, instead of taking advantage of new markets and opportunities, they are choosing to litigate and congressate (for lack of a better term) to protect their old sources of revenue.
This is the idea behind Sun's thin client - essentially going back to the old mainframe days, but with considerably more powerful terminals.
BTW, if you suggest a common computer language that can be used from anything from a cell phone to a server, then MacNealy has some big guys in black leather that would like to discuss your ideas out back.
I got the Rokenbok starter set about two weeks ago, had so much fun with it got the "garage kit", ordered a few other parts on "special" from the website.
Helluva fun product and something you can do with the kids as well...
Remember "Marge vs. Itchy and Scratchy"? When the kids lost the cartoon, they discovered all the wonderful things they could do outside and together...
Being adults, we should be proud of ourselves if we can remember this example and at least keep from sitting in a corner, rocking and drooling.
After being a) grossed out or b) screaming, do you think that they will stop you from walking out with the purchase?
Few people would have the gumption to say to someone that went to the trouble of getting somebody else's finger that they can't take the items because it wasn't their finger.
I remember a Harrison Ford interview saying that the reason why it took so long for the Indy Jones series to get onto DVD was due to the difficulty in all the owners (ie Spieldberg, Lucas, Ford and the producers couldn't agree on how to release the set). My understanding is that the current release was due to them just agreeing because they felt they were loosing money.
Right now, most chips have the aluminum (interconnect) to Silicon (gate) interconnect, but if the gate was metal, couldn't you replace the need to put down these two materials with a single metal deposition? I am not intimately familiar with the different steps of chip manufacturing, but even if the metal used for the gate was somewhat unusual (ie nickle), wouldn't it make sense to work towards eliminating one of these steps to reduce the overall manufacturing cost?
Somebody will come up with something with a web site that shows Darl McBride with Hitler, Stalin, Bill Gates, etc. in a parody of the "Evil Bert" campaign of a few years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
Anybody have any more substantial links to the information contained in the article? I'm curious to understand how they are planning to map the individual motor functions from the brain to the chip.
Maybe I'm remembering too much of "The Terminal Man", but you can't stick this chip into somebody's brain and then expect it to hit a useful nerve bundle that is either surplus/redundant (I guess not a big concern with a quadraplegic) and, because of loss, the "normal" connections to it have not been rerouted/atrophied.
Even with something like an MRI and telling a person to lift a (useless) leg and mapping the brain areas that respond would probably be horribly imprecise.
I suspect that Steve Ausin's limbs are still very very far away.
myke
The diskette drive doors on the original IBM PC and Apple ][s. They would break (flimsy design) and the drive would not latch closed properly for the diskette.
In the early '80s, somebody came up with the idea of buying a whole bunch of the doors and selling them, along with a few other "frequently broken parts" for around $50. Sounds like a lot, but it was a lot cheaper than a $400 diskette drive.
As I remember, a number of companies (IBM and RS come to mind) started selling similar kits.
myke
I thought Darl's brother was lead attorney?
So at least if SCO looses, the billable hours stays within the family.
myke
Best Buy sells iRiver products - it's amazing because I've never seen one on the shelf there. They get sold basically as soon as they are received at the stores.
I have had a '395 for a year now and I'm amazed at how many people recognize it (it was a bitch to get, by the way). It is by far the best of the three MP3 players I've ever owned.
I've always felt that iRiver's biggest problem was production; it would be interesting to see how popular they would be if they had the manufacturing resources of Apple.
myke
IBM, Hitachi, Fujitsu and Siemens. IBM offers 32 bit systems based on EFI as well (I believe written by AMI).
I've been working with EFI based systems for three years now. Nicer than BIOS/MS-DOS for test weenies like me to develop code for.
Have a Happy New Year!
myke
Great subject line set up with an infinite number of follow ups, none of which are as funny.
Or, rather they are, but I'm sure none would enhance my reputation.
Merry Christmas everybody!
myke
I always thought it was a reference to Wilhem Podunk, the aspiring 1940s star of the never released MGM epic "The Romans". Playing Julius Caesar, Podunk was expected to perform on his horse along two thousand extras, each one holding a pike aimed at the Hun army in front of them. The scene required Caesar to command his men to prepare for an attack, turn left and then charge toward the enemy.
Podunk reportedly strode down the line of pikers majestically, presented his lines heroically and, unfortunately, turned right before spurring his horse on.
The clip of the resulting scream is all that remains of "The Romans", even the recording of Louis B. Mayer's shout, "Your Other Left!", has been lost; leaving a sad legacy for a man that could have been a bigger star than Cooper, if only he had a better sense of direction.
myke (last day of work for 2003)
I suspect the article got cut down for size and the non-technical editor left in the explanation for "compiler" after reading both it and the explanation of "open-source".
This is interesting because you could probably ask yourself if the concept of "open source" is so simple and obvious to a non-technical editor that they would delete it from an article then why is it so difficult for some many companies to understand?
I'm asking this question because of my conversations with a senior technical manager at work. He seems to interpret "open source" as there being an army of coders out there waiting to work on his projects as soon as he gets around to putting up some example code and the final requirements on sourceforge.
Sigh.
myke
I'm of two minds regarding Lost in Translation - having found myself in a very similar situation to Bill Murray's character, stuck in the Tokyo Dome Hotel unable to sleep at night, during the day being dragged around to incomprehensible meetings during the day and expected to party into the wee hours, I could totally relate.
Murray's acting was perfect and Coppola's direction really gave me a feeling of being back there.
The problem is, the movie's boring - cut out 75% of the shots staring at the Tokyo skyline and Murray looking angst (the viewer gets it already) and it would probably be hands down, the best film of the year.
I saw it with my wife and never being in this situation she just couldn't relate to what was being portrayed and how it was done. She ended up just being bored by the movie and I think that's reason why people either are amazed by it or hate it.
myke
Following the lead of the US Army in Iraq, Slashdot has announced that a deck of cards with the pictures of various spammers and other malcontents villified by Slashdotters has been produced.
Being #3, Scotty Richter's face has been put on the Queen of Spades.
It has been suggested that Darl McBride's likeness be used for the deck's joker.
myke
You Decide:
d =7885 and http://linux.omnipotent.net/article.php?article_id =7885.
The original article: http://qrxx.4t.com/barbieOS.htm along with http://g0re.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=6586, http://linux.omnipotent.net/article.php?article_i
Be nice if my daughter was on the same OS as her old man.
myke
The companies that sell the ink-cartridge refilling kits?
Somehow I don't believe that these fuel-cells will be designed to be customer refillable. Following HP, Lexmark and other printer manufacturers, I would expect the fuel-cells to be designed for just one use (return to place of purchase and buy a factory new one).
Along with this, I'm sure there will be warnings/campaigns stating that home refilling solutions will be dangerous, ruin the fuel cell because of improper chemical ingrediants, have significantly less operating time, void your laptop/PDA's warranty or cause you to grow hair on the palms of your hands.
Most of the posts I've seen in this thread make the assumption that the cells can be refilled by the user. I would be very surprised if this was the case.
myke
those that base their religion/philosophies on Science Fiction books.
Probably the biggest recent purported example of this is Osama Bin Laden's fascination with Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy. When it was translated to arabic, it was titled "Al-Qaida".
For reference, take a look at All Your Base... or War of the worlds. The original story was in the Ottawa Citizen (I couldn't find a link to the article).
Scary stuff when a 50 year old Sci-Fi novel could be considered as the base for a terrorist philosophy.
myke
I just did a quick scan for Pournell on Amazon.com and essentially everything listed for him is "out of print" and only available through "zshops". I haven't seen anything from him in years (I always liked his stuff more than the people he recommended).
Just a quick look at Chaos Manor says that he is finishing up a sequel to the burning tower.
myke
How about the assumption that somebody can build a server architecture so that a page cannot be slashdotted?
myke
I was with you until the final paragraph. I think groups like Nickleback or Allannis Morrisette would have something to say to your assertion that nobody can reach the sales of Elvis, et al. As for movies, I can think of a few in the past years where special effects have been necessary to create a great movie (Forrest Gump, Gladiator, the Matrix, LOTR).
There have always been crappy albums and movies that have made huge amounts of money but have been lost over the years. I have always loved the line from the '40s movie mogul (Sorry I can't remember which one it was, probably Mayer) who said "We're here to make money, produce a few stars and, if everything works out, art.
There's really no difference between the record and movie executives of today compared to the past in their approach to providing product to consumers. Unfortunately, instead of taking advantage of new markets and opportunities, they are choosing to litigate and congressate (for lack of a better term) to protect their old sources of revenue.
myke
Been tried, failed big time.
This is the idea behind Sun's thin client - essentially going back to the old mainframe days, but with considerably more powerful terminals.
BTW, if you suggest a common computer language that can be used from anything from a cell phone to a server, then MacNealy has some big guys in black leather that would like to discuss your ideas out back.
myke
Interesting that we had this story that discussed what we would do on a network outage.
Should I be pulling my baseball glove out of the garage?
myke
I got the Rokenbok starter set about two weeks ago, had so much fun with it got the "garage kit", ordered a few other parts on "special" from the website.
Helluva fun product and something you can do with the kids as well...
myke
Remember "Marge vs. Itchy and Scratchy"? When the kids lost the cartoon, they discovered all the wonderful things they could do outside and together...
Being adults, we should be proud of ourselves if we can remember this example and at least keep from sitting in a corner, rocking and drooling.
myke
After being a) grossed out or b) screaming, do you think that they will stop you from walking out with the purchase?
Few people would have the gumption to say to someone that went to the trouble of getting somebody else's finger that they can't take the items because it wasn't their finger.
myke
I remember a Harrison Ford interview saying that the reason why it took so long for the Indy Jones series to get onto DVD was due to the difficulty in all the owners (ie Spieldberg, Lucas, Ford and the producers couldn't agree on how to release the set). My understanding is that the current release was due to them just agreeing because they felt they were loosing money.
myke
Right now, most chips have the aluminum (interconnect) to Silicon (gate) interconnect, but if the gate was metal, couldn't you replace the need to put down these two materials with a single metal deposition? I am not intimately familiar with the different steps of chip manufacturing, but even if the metal used for the gate was somewhat unusual (ie nickle), wouldn't it make sense to work towards eliminating one of these steps to reduce the overall manufacturing cost?
myke
Somebody will come up with something with a web site that shows Darl McBride with Hitler, Stalin, Bill Gates, etc. in a parody of the "Evil Bert" campaign of a few years ago.
myke
It's 127.0.0.1 - Method for Preventing Excessive Bandwidth Demand.
myke