When you meet your friends in the pub after your holiday, do you want to drag along your laptop to show them the pics, or do you want to hand round a set of 6x4 prints and laugh about how drunk you all were at the restaurant when the waiter took your photo?
No - I want to whip out my high-resolution PDA and use the thumbwheel to scroll through the images.
Do you want to buy an expensive LCD virtual picture frame for every room in the house, or do you just want to stick a 10x8 print in a clip frame?
Actually, yes, I would love to have LCD frames or plasma screens instead of real pictures, all networked into my fileserver and the web with touchscreen and other capability. Unfortunately it isn't cheap to do this, but prices are dropping rapidly like rocks - someday soon it will be easily affordable.
Do you enjoy the tactile sense of flicking through an album as opposed to scrolling through thumbnails?
I would enjoy being able to call up any photo image I wanted to from any screen in my home (or at work, or at a web terminal in Fiji, wherever) via a quick and easy to use search interface, rather than having to hunt around for a particular image in a particular photo album on a particular page. Then I could forward the link or a copy to someone via email or IM...
There are as many reasons for wanting physical prints as there are for wanting paper books and magazines - although if you have a stack of photos next to the toilet, it's probably not for the same reason;-)
If I could buy an e-ink "book", onto which I could upload and view any e-book I wanted to, all with a simple flick of button or scrollwheel, I would buy one in a heartbeat (I have given thought to a used rocketbook reader). Books have advantages for extended reading over current monitor display technology which make them easier on the eyes for extended periods of viewing time. One rarely stares at a picture for an extended period of time, which makes them a better suited for all-digital use. Even so, hopefully full color e-ink displays with high resolution and high refresh rates (and low power consumption) are created, as these types of display would be ideal for all sorts of digital media, and would eliminate a lot of eyestrain for all tasks.
By the way, am I the extreme minority of people that think the white meat chicken craze is insane?
Probably, but I agree with you.
What I found really humorous was when McD's went from having "dark meat" chicken nuggets to all "white meat" chicken nuggets. At the time of the "dark meat" variety, you could usually count on the "odd shaped" ones to be "dark" (and more tender and flavourful - for a McD nugget, I guess), and the round ones to be "white". Today, all nuggets are "white" - odd-shaped ones and round ones.
Strangely enough, when they did this, the nuggets themselves started tasting like a combo of the "white" nuggets and the former "dark" nuggets, but they were all "white meat". Here is my theory on this:
All the nuggets (past and present) are made from mechanically separated chicken meat in an industrial process (look it up if you are interested in how this kind of meat is made - you may not want to). Personally, what I think they are doing is taking this meat product, and in some FDA-approved process, the factory making the nuggets are bleaching the meat - so that all the meat is "white meat". Notice they never say "breast meat" or "white breast meat" - just "white meat" chicken nuggets.
If I am right, that is just wrong (McD's sucks - as if it could be any other way)...
I don't live in a small community (sitting here on the city border between Phoenix and Glendale in Arizona), nor do I avoid showers (except at Burning Man - although I still love to run behind the water truck).
I do wear tie-dye, and I have "a real job" as a software developer. I also own a house, but I know *exactly* where DogDude is coming from: American society is freaking nuts.
At one time my wife and I were just like everyone else, in a lot of ways. We shopped at the malls, we bought crap at Best Buy, had our new cars, etc. At some point, somewhere along the line, things changed. We were always on the "outside", never really mainstream, but we tended to buy the same crap as everyone else. Spending our money, etc.
I think what did it may have been having to save up money for our down payment on our house. To do so, we had to "live poor". After building up our savings to put the down payment, we decided we didn't want a cookie cutter house with an HOA, but nice block wall constructed house where I could work on my truck in the street if I wanted or needed to, without hassle from the neighbors. After getting that house, we continued to save our money. We continued to live cheaply. We started to see that all the crap that we were buying new, was just that: crap. With the exception of a few items, most everything we bought we could buy used if we shopped carefully. Sometimes, we could even get it free.
Once we stopped and really looked around, we were amazed, then delighted, with the amount of crap people give away, throw away, or donate away simply because it isn't this year's "new and shiny thing". Businesses who leave out old computers next to dumpsters. People who toss out perfectly good wood for burning in the winter, using in a chimnea, or building some shelving - on bulk trash pickup days. Goodwill has become a habit for buying all manner of stuff. We had long since bought most of our books at used bookstores. We had also bought a lot of things at other thriftstores. I guess, in a way, we were coming back to our roots.
One day, we took a trip around the area listed for bulk trash pickup to see what we could find: we ended up finding a bunch of scrap unfinished oak chunks (from a cabinet maker) for burning in our fireplace (instead of running our heater), plus a complete EZ-Up shelter missing only a simple PVC part that was an easily ordered replacement. I have seen more computers and other electronic crap than I have room for.
America is wasteful, wasteful to the ultimate extreme. Our ultimate goal in life is to save up enough money to buy a chunk of 40 acres out in the desert, drill a well, and live off the grid. I know people who do it already, both up around the Flagstaff area and down around Tuscon way. We figure that if we can get a cheap mobile home or something, we could easily build our real house using scrap wood and other crap that is REGULARLY landfilled by construction companies in town. Barring that, we have also given thought to a steel building of some sort, or possibly a custom shotcrete monolithic dome.
At any rate, we simply don't buy the retail consumerist crap much any more. The only time we buy "new" is if it is something we cannot get used or free, or in the condition we would like. Most of the time, though, we are able to find what we need, how we need it. We hardly watch TV anymore, the inanity of it is staggering. I could go on, but I think you get the picture...
I had heard great things about IKEA. I watched a special about them on TV (a documentary of sorts). It seemed right. It seemed well thought out. I browsed their website, saw some things that looked cool. I knew that they sold "cheap stuff" and "stuff cheap". I knew I wasn't going to get custom crafted anything, but I did like some of the designs, and how it all fit together well in an interesting "upscale boho style".
That was until I visited the store...
My wife had gone to the store in San Diego, and she said she had a good shopping experience. It was a little crowded, but other than that, an OK time, and she liked some of the things there, too. She wanted to see if we could get some small pieces of furniture there. It was announced that they would open an IKEA up in Tempe/Mesa, Arizona, around the year-end holidays. We weren't stupid, we weren't going to go to the grand opening of something like that. We decided to wait until after things settled down. We thought that going several months after they opened would be the right time.
We were wrong.
We ended up having to park in the parking lot of a "nearby" (about.25-.5 miles away) health club and walking. Not a big deal, but we were amazed at the number of people at the place. For some reason, we figured "well, we drove all the way out here and waited in line to find a parking spot (which we didn't)", so we decided to go in. We must have been out of our minds.
On the way in, we noticed some yuppie smiling and carrying a bundle of sticks - evidently you could buy sticks and twigs at IKEA, crap you could pick up off the forest floor for free if you wanted to drive a couple of hours north of Phoenix. Strange...
We get inside, and do some looking around. First off, those damn arrows and system they have for getting around seems like a good idea - until you realize that you must have a design already in your head, and you must not mix-and-match while in the store, because if you do, you must GO AGAINST THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC. Boy, was there traffic. It was like a tour of the store with throngs of people, rather than an actual shopping experience. Still, we were set on buying some stuff, after seeing what they had. So, we set out to find a shopping cart (we didn't see any on the way in)...
We couldn't find one - not even at the stalls where you supposedly could get one - the stalls were empty. We eventually found one lonely one with a few items in it just sitting around. We looked around, tried to see if an owner was nearby. Nobody seemed to be interested in the cart at all. We waited a little, then said "screw it", pulled the items out, then pushed it away. Nobody screamed "Hey! My cart!" so we thought it was truely an abandoned cart. We were to later figure out why...
We found some things we wanted, probably had about $200.00 worth of stuff in the cart (which was hell to aquire, because of all the people, and the damn cattle like guidelines and arrows on the floor, and the fact that everything seemed the same - getting lost in that store is VERY easy, it feels like a Las Vegas casino in a weird way), and we wanted to look at some of the furniture, which was upstairs. So - we tried to find a way upstairs.
And tried...and tried...and tried some more...
Consulting the maps didn't help, asking store personnel didn't help, wandering around didn't help, either - about the only way we could figure on getting to the upper floor was to somehow get back to the front of the store and take the escalator up with the rest of the drones (and I swear, that is what all of the people in this store looked like - a bunch of bored and scared drones looking to buy sticks). Despite all of our efforts, there didn't seem to be any way for us to take our cart and go upstairs with it (despite the fact that somewhere in the building there had to be an elevator - they were even advertised for those with carts and baby strollers on the maps - though we never could find them).
We got sick of the whole charade. We were prepared
This is very true - back in the mid-1990's, something that was discovered about visual perception and immersion in VR environments was that stereoscopic depth cues from an HMD wasn't as important for determining depth (and thus improving immersion) as for other factors, one of which was proper shadow placement. It is interesting to hear that this is still an issue for games (I am not a big game player)...
In a bone-headed move, I might add - but it is something worth checking out to see if this is part of the issue:
I am in the process of re-doing my website using PHP and MySQL. My new site will be complete DB driven, to the point that the page content is driven and built from PHP stored in the DB. My goal is to be able to update the website from anywhere in the world with a web connection. I am custom writing this system, rather than use a pre-existing CMS or other blogging system (and there were quite a few that were tempting) - because I wanted to learn PHP and MySQL by doing, rather than by observing.
Anyhow, one of my editors was slowing down on an update - that is, when I clicked "update" to update the site, it was taking a long time to update the database. Various tests indicated that it wasn't PHP with the issue, but running 'top' on my dev box indicated that the apache process was thrashing on these updates. I checked the code, and here is what I discovered:
In my update code, I was issuing a SQL insert for each field in a record, where I was updating multiple fields on the same record, rather than doing an insert with all the fields to be updated in the SQL statement. If I had 10 fields to update, that was 10 INSERTS, instead of the single I should have been doing. As I said, this was a bone-headed move I won't be doing again in the future. Once I corrected the issue, my performance shot up immediately on the update.
I would imagine that the same could be true of any simple SELECT - select out all the fields (and only those fields) you need at one shot, then loop thru the records building your output (whatever it is). Optimize the queries well, too (a misplaced pair of parentheses can make a WORLD of difference in some cases).
In short, keep the number of queries to the backend as short and sweet as possible, reducing the load (and thrashing) on the backend. This should be common sense design, but sometimes in the thrill and rush to build something, programmers forget this, and it can easily cause issues down the line (I was lucky in that I caught it very early in my design of the system).
First off, let me say that I can appreciate a photographic work of art that was shot and developed in the "standard method", much the same as I can appreciate a painting or a sculpture, or the outline of a cliff against the setting sun.
Of these items though, I don't understand this need by humans to continue seeing the photographic process as something that can only be appreciated in an analog, on-paper format. I would never suggest the others be strictly digital - a painting can have texture and depth, depending on the medium used to render it, a sculpture is inherently tactile, and seeing a sunset in a beautiful environment, breathing the air, hearing the insects/birds - can't currently be replicated.
Photos, though - are flat. One could argue that viewing a photo on paper has a different color dynamic than seeing it on a monitor or from a projector, and I would agree that this is currently the case, but is not likely to be the case forever. I am not saying that artists and aspiring artists shouldn't try to find cameras and printers capable of allowing them to do proofs or better, which they might want to hang in a gallery.
Ordinary photos, though? Why do so many people insist on taking a digital photograph and then having it printed? Perhaps for grandma who might not have an internet connection (though this is becoming more rare over time) - but if you have a digital camera, you likely have a computer, and you have a way to view those images forever, if you so choose.
As long as you create backups of your collection periodically (even negatives can be damaged, and are more difficult to make backups of - especially at home - though labs can do it), you will always have a copy. The digital images can be easily emailed. They can be viewed on a TV (via a media computer or DVD player), they can be uploaded to a website to be viewed anywhere in the world that has internet access. Portable viewing isn't completely here yet (although I have seen on Ebay keychain thumbnail flash-based viewers sold) - but if you have a color pda it is possible, or with a laptop. We also have tablet computers (though for some reason, not as popular). You can't carry around your entire analog photo collection, but this is possible to do with your digital photo collection...
So why the fascination, for the ordinary person, to have paper photos? Ok - maybe if the power goes out, there might be problem - but most people don't break out the photo album on an extended power outage - they tend to be more concerned with the refrigerator and freezer, among other things.
Can anyone tell me why, in our very networked and digital age, why we continue to hang on to these other methods (for ordinary people - not professionals and artists, I can see their needs and wants, and digital isn't there yet for color reproduction or resolution)? When is the ordinary joe going to quit beating his Model-T with a buggy whip to urge it forward?
My point is that the contract in all probability does NOT state that. Rather, it probably says "IE support only," which is a much different thing.
I agree with you there, it likely doesn't state "IE-only" - but if it did, and after I (if I was a contractor) told them why it was a bad idea, they still insisted on IE-only - then they will get what they want. That is their spec, and I could be fired (at best) or sued (at worst) for not designing and coding to the spec (they could claim that I was doing extra work not coding to the spec to pad my hours).
It might be because you're not giving your clients that extra effort (work for free).
If the spec was open-ended enough, I would give my clients the best that I had - for the spec they provide. Anything beyond the spec takes up my time and could get me into hot water. It also leads to feature-creep, which every coder deals with. If they want to revise the spec (and pay me accordingly), I will be glad to make the needed changes (I would even be willing, and want to, sit in on and help spec out those changes, if needed). But I am not willing to just give things away for free. I can guarantee that they wouldn't extend this kind of courtesy to me.
If I was a contractor building a room addition based on plans from the owner, I would be crazy to start adding windows and such whereever I thought they may be needed. I would be doubly stupid to do this for free because the owner asked me to. Strangely enough, there are many home owners who treat building contractors like this...
Second, have you stopped to consider that making a site IE-only might be MORE WORK that making it standards compliant?
Yes, it might - but what I am saying is that if that is what the client wants, and is willing to pay for, that is what they will get. If it takes longer and is more difficult, that is just more gravy for me. If it takes longer for me to rip it out and replace it later, that is just more gravy (again) for me (or whomever comes after me).
If I have repeatedly told them not to do it, and why, and even after all of that, they still insist on it and sign the contract agreement stating that they understand this and are willing to pay more for a non-standard site that takes longer to create and possibly maintain, then that is their problem, not mine. If they have a problem with it later, and come back to me for help or advice, I will simply show them the contract they signed, with the section voicing my concerns and showing they signed off on it, highlighted in red. I won't be responsible for their stupidity - they can either pay up, or shut up and let me do my job.
Probably how every other cop (we can agree that Decker, though retired, was acting as a cop) "pays" for their midnight meal at Denny's - they don't.
In many (most?) municipalities, cops get free food while on the job - there aren't many restaurants that force cops to pay, the ones that do don't usually get frequented by the boys in blue. Some restaurants go so far as to have special telephones and jacks for the cops if they have to call out or something (this isn't as prevalent today as it was say 10 years ago).
Even if this wasn't the case, while it wasn't shown in the movie, there may have been some form of biometric or "verichip" like system that auto-debited his account for food and such. In a way, one could say that BR was precient in this manner, in that they showed a "cashless" society where payment "just happened" (the audience could assume), and no physical exchange of anything was needed (other than to order your meal, and if you were known, even that isn't needed). Interestingly, we are quickly heading in that direction, with VeriChips and other RFID payment systems catching on...
Yeah - but try adding a footer at the bottom of those two columns - or expand it to three columns with a footer - and keep the lengths of *all three* columns the same regardless of what content is being displayed in any one of the three columns.
I am a recent CSS convert, and this problem popped up on me almost immediately because I am redoing my site. I ended up going with a different layout (though it breaks in different, but not unuasable, way under IE) - because all the hacks I found where you encapsulate all three columns in a background container div with a background image that repeats vertically just wasn't cutting it for me.
I still don't understand why you can't have divs "linked" to each other (oh, wait - you can in some manner, that I haven't explored - in CSS2 or something there is a way to get divs to emulate tables to do just what I wanted it to do - but IE it doesn't work at all!)...
Gah - why can't all the browsers properly use standards the way they were defined and meant to be used!!!
The delivery system is just plain dirty. It's that simple.
It's only this way because marijuana is illegal. If it were a legal substance like alcohol, then it would be cheap. With it being illegal and pricey, one can't use it to make brownies or other food items as much because it takes a lot to sautee to make the oil/butter for the food.
There are also vaporizer systems, which are supposed to be better - but if there was a choice over inhaling something all the time or eating it, many would choose eating it (although smoking it or otherwise would still be an option people would indulge in for social and other purposes)...
Also, marihuana/Hash does not make you do and forget horrible acts like the ones you spoke of. LSD could make you do that...[snip]
First off, I have never taken LSD. Right now I am reading Tom Wolfe's "Electric Koolaid Acid Test", a very fun and surreal read, straight from the heydey of the 60's - and the descriptions of the "LSD experience" doesn't match up to what "they" want you to believe. I mean, Kesey and the rest of the gang drove the Furthur bus across America blitzed out on this stuff without accident. That isn't to say that was the right thing (personally, I think driving under the influence of anything including a cell phone conversation should be illegal), but the fact that it was possible seems to indicate that it isn't as messy of a drug as "they" want you to think it is.
Now, let me say that the experience does seem to heavily depend on what is in the mind of the user and their surroundings. There have been numerous citations in the book of first timers getting whigged, and Kesey would direct everyone else to "focus Attention" on the individual - show them love, affection, attention, tell them it would be ok, etc - and the user comes out the end of it a VERY CHANGED PERSON. They even had Hell's Angels members changed on that stuff - from rowdey dudes to "frolicking in the woods" - when they got together at Kesey's place in La Honda - crazy shit.
There has been a lot of mention though of dose - go much beyond 250 mikes and you start getting into "heavy doses" - which really could change you mentally. Kesey at one point was doing 1500 mikes. I have never read of an LSD death, but I would say that a hallucinagenic like LCD at high doses could cause problems (although descriptions of DMT in the book makes LSD seem like nothing). However, so does drinking a lot of water all at once, too.
I don't think LSD can turn you into a baby-raping-killer any more than eating a tomato will - you would have to already be screwed up in that way for it to encourage it, and based on what I have read in Tom Wolfe's book, LSD seems to pacify and cause wonderment, more than anything else...
And the rotting brain thing? well sure THC (the chemical in marihuana that gets you high or stoned) does kill of braincells but IIRC less then alcohol or a punch in the head do.
I am not sure where you are getting your information, but I don't think THC kills brain cells. Unlike heroin, which mimics (IIRC) the properties of endorphines, and thus can "jack in" to the receptors in brain cells meant for endorphines (and thus take over the function of and cause chemical dependency), THC doesn't do this - we actually have cannabanoid receptors in our brain cells that have no internal natural source (unlike endorphine) - but there is a plant that provides such chemicals for the receptors. Or, at least that is the way I have understood it to be.
If anyone has information or links that could educate me further, that is unbiased and honest research (not anti-drug propaganda), I am very interested in reading about it. The true facts are, for a lot of the "scary" illegal drugs, and by that I mean the "horrendously-suppressed-because-hippies-use-them" , like marijuana and LSD - we have no true data on what and how they work - especially LSD - because so much research into them has been surpressed by our misguided "War On (some) Drugs". I am not even sure if anyone still makes (or knows how to) LSM precursor, or how to turn that into LSD - anymore. I imagine someone does - but LSD is so far underground it isn't even funny. Based on what I have read, LSD (and in combo with marijuana), seemed poised to make us peaceful and insightful as people - rather than warmongering haters.
Whether that is true or not (seems too simplistic an explanation), or whether that is why LSD had such a downfall (powers that be don't want a peaceful people - they want hate and fear for profit!) - who knows...
But it might just be too expensive to drive, if gas prices keep increasing like they are. I just recently heard that gas prices in northern Nevada are likely to peak at near $3.00/gal in the coming weeks (whether this is due to gas prices going up or a certain festival taking place in the area is anyone's guess - the cynic in me says the latter).
A couple of years back I purchased a 1979 Full-Size Bronco with a 400M-block engine (400ci, or 6.6L) - the thing sucks gas down like there is no tommorow, you can watch the gauge drop as you drive. I suppose when it was made, this wasn't a big issue. It has a 25 gallon tank on it, gets maybe 10-12mpg on a good day. The thing runs solid - I bought it for the four-wheel drive capability. I sit here wondering if I am going to be able to get the rest of it fixed and actually do some four-wheelin' (it needs a ton of suspension work, plus some steering issues need to be corrected, before I am willing to take it out on a trail) - or whether by the time I do get it done, it will cost me over $100.00 to fill the tank up...
Even if it does, I bought it for occasional off-road fun only, so gas would have to get up to about $8.00 a gallon before I would really be jittery on fueling it up...
If you are a contractor, and your contract states to make it IE-only, then you should do as you are told and contracted to. Voice your opinion on why this is a bad thing, why you are against it, and why it should be cross-browser, but don't hurl yourself overboard.
Don't, under any circumstance, deviate from what your contract states - if it states IE-only, make it IE-only. Do an insanely supurb job on making it IE-only. Make them remember you for it, but provide commentary in the code where IE-only stuff is on how to make it cross-browser (general ideas - don't spend a ton of time on it, just note it). Tell them when the job is complete and they are happy with it that it isn't cross-browser, that it is IE-only, per contracted specification. Re-iterate that it should have been made cross-browser, that you could have made it cross-browser, but that you were obligated by contract and spec not to.
In the future, if they get enough complaints, perhaps they will remember your name, and call you up again, allowing you to bill them again for work you could have easily done the first time around. Your previous comments will help you get back up to speed for the changes. Worse case scenario, if you aren't hired, the comments will be an "I told you so" to the next shlub who has to mod it, and they will probably bring them up to your former employer as to why they didn't pay attention to you in the first place - one way or the other, it will be pounded into their heads that you knew what you were talking about.
If you are a contractor, never do work for free unless you are clearly getting something in return.
I figured anybody actually doing this would realize this, perhaps I should have noted it. For the homebrew builder, though, such lens would be very pricey. In that instance, there have been software-based distortion lens effects created, though typically only for certain game engines (I think Quake 2 had such a mod available for CAVE-like displays that were curved). Perhaps some code like this could be hacked into a display driver filter in some manner...
While I doubt you will do this, if anyone here does, please post to/. about it:
Combine it all into one extreme setup: Twin DLP projectors mounted on the ceiling, projecting onto a custom curved surface ultra-wide screen (like a section from a huge torus - there is a company that makes these for theaters, but you could probably custom build it as well). The screen should extend from the ceiling down to around.5 meters or so off the ground. Build a dual-head video card media server to drive the projectors. Add an HDTV/video capture card to view and capture TV video with. Add surround sound.
For watching TV or working/playing, build some custom neutral posture reclined chairs with headrests. These should be placed near, but not uncomfortably near, the screen. Add a panel between the armrests that can be placed to allow the user type on a wireless keyboard and use the wireless mouse, or mount the halves of a wireless split keyboard on each armrest. A wireless remote and joysticks complete the system.
There is your system, on which you and your friends can work, play games, surf the internet, and watch/record TV in any way you want, on a huge dual projected screen that surrounds your senses in near media immersion. You could probably build this for under $10-15k. If you homebrewed everything (projectors, screen, everything), you could probably do it for under $2k (and a hella lot of work!)...
I want to answer your final question first: there is likely nothing you can do to help change the situation. One could say "write your representatives", but it feels like any more these days that "we the people" are not the represented citizens, that we are just the slaves to the corporate entity citizens, who are in fact the ones represented in Congress and elsewhere. I often wonder if the real citizens of the United States (and of the world) will ever wake up and realize what is going on, how corporations have usurped the power of the people, and are basically turning the people into slaves. We don't vote, no one really owns property any more (and the right to vote was originally based on whether you were a free citizen who owned land, remember?) - considering that governments can now just impose eminent domain on supposed individual landowners to give said land to a private corporation, for the supposed "public good" - bah!
Now, as to why software patents are bad:
Software patents are bad because they mock the intent of the patent system, namely a system which was designed to protect and give a monopoly to the inventor, for a limited time, and actual physical device or process. Not a natural system or discovery. Thus, mathematical algorithms are not allowed to be patented, but a physical machine or system that implements the algorithm can be. "Inventors" began tacking on, more or less, the words "on a computer" to common ideas and/or natural algorithms, to get around this issue "legally".
Software is a weird thing, though. It can represent a process, it can represent a machine, but in the end, it is nothing more than a really large number, and thus natural. Technically, putting it on a computer does nothing to change this fact. Because a computer can be represented in software. In fact, the simplest conceptual computer of all, a UTM (Universal Turing Machine), can emulate all known computers,a nd thus software - this was mathematically proven. A computer is software embodied in a hardware form. In theory, it should be possible to run software without needing hardware, provided conditions are right (anyone who understands Stephen Wolfram's conclusions in ANKOS will know what I am talking about).
In a way, software is hardware is software - ALL OF IT IS A NATURAL PROCESS, AN ALGORITHM, A NUMBER. However, because most people have no real concept of what a computer really is or how it really works, they continually fail to see the mistake in allowing software patents, and this madness continues. Not that it isn't in the "citizen's" best interests for it to continue this way (and I am not talking you and me, here, mind you).
I wonder whether a monkey wrench could be thrown into the whole thing if you could somehow patent the idea/concept of the basic UTM concept. In a way, this might have already been done or was a case in the whole patent morass around the ENIAC and UNIVAC era. Maybe this all stems from that time - in a way, it seems too. The shocking and sad part is, most of the people involved were highly intelligent and/or mathematicians - who should have known better...
I think in the end, all of this software patent nonsense is going to grind true non-commercial innovation (at least here in the US, but probably elsewhere as well) into the ground. Of course, since we are slaves and not citizens, perhaps it doesn't really matter...
So what's up with the new generation of cheap-ass sub-$100 laser printers? Will the cartridges essentially last forever since there is no ink to dry up and clog? At 5 pages per month I'd be replaceing a toner cart like once every 10 years.
Don't buy a new laser printer, some of them are as cheapo as the inkjets. If you have to buy a new laser printer, shop the business models - so at least you have a shot at getting a model that will last a while.
If you don't need color, though (and for fed ex labels, you shouldn't), consider a used HP LaserJet 5 or 6. If you use *nix, you will need a PostScript SIMM or run it through GhostScript or something, otherwise you can get away with standard PCL drivers. Try to find a low page count (under 50,000 pages). The 5 and 6 are near identical machines, though the 6 seems to have a faster processor in it (plus I think it comes with more memory standard - 3 meg instead of 2?). Both are 600 DPI printers, with straight paper paths. Toner cartridges are cheap (refills are $70.00 or less with exchange at many shops).
Best of all, a used HP LaserJet 5/6 is a cheap machine - even on Ebay they go for less than what a new ink jet plus refill cartridge(s) would run. I once picked up a perfectly good LaserJet 5 with 32 meg and the PostScript SIMM for around $20.00 at Goodwill not too long ago. Came with paper and a "full" toner cartridge, and cables.
Honestly - check out Ebay and Goodwill - you will be surprised what people donate nowadays...
No, they most certainly are powered, by RF. Like I said, the RF powers the device, wakes it up (and maybe sends commands over the RF), then the device transmits the data requested back wirelessly (but on a different frequency from the power RF). It works basically the same as an AM crystal radio, except with a very low-power transmitter and cpu grafted on, and at different frequencies from AM radio, of course.
What I was describing was an interference pattern radar-like bounceback system, where the returned signal would look much like "noise", with data buried in the interference pattern generated in the reflection. It would be a passive device only (basically a very high resolution bar-code), thus it might be cheaper to manufacture and deploy while retaining much of the value of current RFID tags.
Even so, the likelyhood that it is an idea that is currently patented by other individual(s) is rather high...
RFID chips are easy to replicate. You bounce a signal off it, it bounces a unique signal back.
They don't really bounce a signal back, but rather they detect the presence of a power signal (they are powered up), and then start broadcasting on a different frequency their information. The signal/frequency used for power may also act as a carrier wave for commands to the chip as well.
But your statement got me to thinking...
What if, similar to a hologram, you could encode useful data into an interference pattern. I am certain this can and has been done before. You can probably encode a ton of information. So, in a "barcode" like situation, a laser is shown on a reflection interference pattern "sticker", and the laser is reflected and information is relayed back to the receiver via the interference pattern, for further decoding into useful information.
On a silicon chip size device, perhaps the interference pattern is generated via some special pattern etched on the silicon which combines informational content with effective reflective RF antenna design (possibly etched via x-ray lithography or something?) to generate the interference pattern as "noise" which can then be processed by the receiver to extract the data...
Not sure if any of this would be feasible, but the concept of storing a ton of information onto a simple sticker or chip, which doesn't require an external or internal power source, which utilizes simple reflection (either laser or RF) similar to radar, might be an interesting and marketable invention for certain industries.
Too bad I don't have a ton of cash to patent this (although, knowing today's world, it had probably already been patented in a ton of forms and uses)...
The following is for educational purposes only and should not be attempted. The author accepts no legal or fiscal responsibility for the use or misue of the information or any device built with said information which results in injury, fire, damage, or death, to the experimentor, bystanders, or property. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, DO NOT ATTEMPT!!!
----
Google around a bit on the terms "hydro boost" and "hydrogen injection", in relationship to automobiles. Basically, it is an attempt (perhaps even a scam?) to increase the octane of the gasoline being used in your automobile by injecting hydrogen (actually, Brown's gas - more on that later) into the intake airstream, where it is supposed to later combine with the fuel-air mixture and boost the octane before it is burned, thus lowering your fuel emmisions, increasing your mileage, etc. Which is why it sounds like a scam. Basically, an attempt to get a cheap form of nitrous/propane injection (with the knowledge that it doesn't give as much of a boost, but is cheaper to build/install).
Ok - well, from these "plans", which you can find without paying for (a lot of people are selling "hydro boost" stuff, just check ebay), you can get the idea of how to generate the hydrogen and oxygen. Most of these systems use steel threaded rod as the electrodes, and car battery systems for the high current DC needed (since they are in a car, no problem). Furthermore, since most of the designs are inside a single cylindrical water chamber, they generate Brown's gas (discovered in the 1800's by a man named "Brown" for industrial usage, a purpose to which it is still put today, mostly for welding), which is just the mixture of the generated hydrogen and oxygen (which doesn't recombine into water immediately because you need the chemical reaction energy of rapid oxidization - ie, burning - to get them to combine), which is then fed into the air stream (with a little help from engine vacuum). For a simple system like this, it is easy to build. However, you can't regulate the oxygen feed. I would expand upon the previous systems by creating a "W" chamber - where you have PVC T-joint at the bottom of a larger "water fill chamber", and the two ends of the T-joint are connected to 90 degree elbows which are in turn connected to the gas generation chambers, which are larger pieces of PVC pipe with caps at the ends thru which the threaded rod electrodes are passed (thru threaded removable end caps). The upper ends of the generation chambers should also be fitted with nylon or similar barbed tubing fittings, to attach tubing to use the generated gases. This device thus forms a "W" shape.
Sit the device upright vertically with the ends pointing up (attach it to a secure wooden base using pipe clamps or something), fill the central column with water (perhaps with a little salt - sodium chloride - in it to help the electrolysis), until the water level is about an inch below the end caps on the generation chambers. Cap off the filling chamber, and attach hoses to the generation chambers. On the end of each hose securely attach two differently colored rubber balloons (I would choose red/orange for hydrogen, and blue for oxygen). Attach a source of high current DC to the ends of the threaded rod electrodes (the best way to get such a source is thru use of a high current AC/DC welding rig. Another way is thru the use of charged car/marine/rv deep-cycle batteries). The positive side of the DC source should be connected to the electrode on the chamber connected to the balloon color coded to hold oxygen, the negative (ground) side should be connected to other side to collect hydrogen.
----
!!! DANGER !!! !!! DANGER !!! !!! DANGER !!!
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU CONTINUE IN THE PRESENCE OF OPEN FLAME. EXTINGUISH ALL SOURCES OF FLAME IN THE VICINITY OF THE DEVICE. FAILURE TO DO SO PRIOR TO THE OPERATION OF THE DEVICE CAN PROVE TO BE UNSAFE AND POSSIBLY DEADLY.
----
Connect and turn on your DC source. You should shortly see your balloons
Of course, this depends on the language and the compiler, and in the instance of assembly, the cpu as well - but loop unrolling is actually a method of increasing performance, rather than decreasing it.
Now, granted, if your application is compiled in any sort of fashion, typically the compiler will unroll loops as needed or requested, and "pre-unrolling" loops can cause problems in performance in these kind of situations. Likely, your situation fell into normal application development using either a scripting language or a compiled one, and your programmer was just brain dead.
For certain situations (low-level embedded or tight routines at the assembler level), loop unrolling can be a very valid and useful tool to know, especially if developing assembler code or doing other similar embedded CPU development. The trick is knowing when and where to do such loop unrolling, and knowing whether unrolling the loop will help or hurt matters (ie, you have to know the CPU you are developing for, how many clock cycles it takes to iterate a loop, push/pull from the stack, etc)...
AC, you are right, but at the same time, you contradict yourself: First, you say that a good coder writes modules to be reused by less experienced coders. Then you say a great coder writes something from the ground up, while the less experience uses already written modules.
I would say that a truely excellent programmer does not employ an NIH attitude towards projects, but rather leverages already developed code when and where he can. Time is wasted if world has to be rebuilt from scratch each and every time. You would never see a mechanical engineer designing a car say "these standard metric nuts and bolts just aren't good enough, I am going to design some new ones based on e" - he would be fired instantly.
It makes no sense that a better coder would write modules for lesser coders, but then turn around and not use those same modules himself. Indeed, what you see in real professional programmers is that they typically have a toolset of pre-built modules from past projects, built and refined over years of experience. Furthermore, what you also see is that in the case where a module may have a bug or not work up to the performance needed, the professional programmer will go in and fix that module. Provided the module is encapsulated as a "black box" environment, the calling code should not notice anything, other than a gain in performance.
In the case of CPAN and Perl (or PEAR and PHP, etc), this ultimately works to everyone's advantage, both professionals and average coders alike, simply because by including the improved versions of the modules they are using, everyone's applications become better. A rising tide raises all ships, or something to that effect...
He should submit that example and story to JB-Weld - he would probably get on the stories page no problem. That has to be one of the more extreme uses of JB-Weld I have heard. My brother-in-law fixed a cracked blower (alluminum) on the Detroit in his old Ford 10 wheel dump truck. Held for well over 5 years and was still there when he replaced it with a junkyard pull (the blower cracked in a DIFFERENT area!). I have used it to fix various things on my old '79 Bronco that have held a while. I love JB-Weld!
Slashdot Mirror
No - I want to whip out my high-resolution PDA and use the thumbwheel to scroll through the images.
Do you want to buy an expensive LCD virtual picture frame for every room in the house, or do you just want to stick a 10x8 print in a clip frame?
Actually, yes, I would love to have LCD frames or plasma screens instead of real pictures, all networked into my fileserver and the web with touchscreen and other capability. Unfortunately it isn't cheap to do this, but prices are dropping rapidly like rocks - someday soon it will be easily affordable.
Do you enjoy the tactile sense of flicking through an album as opposed to scrolling through thumbnails?
I would enjoy being able to call up any photo image I wanted to from any screen in my home (or at work, or at a web terminal in Fiji, wherever) via a quick and easy to use search interface, rather than having to hunt around for a particular image in a particular photo album on a particular page. Then I could forward the link or a copy to someone via email or IM...
There are as many reasons for wanting physical prints as there are for wanting paper books and magazines - although if you have a stack of photos next to the toilet, it's probably not for the same reason ;-)
If I could buy an e-ink "book", onto which I could upload and view any e-book I wanted to, all with a simple flick of button or scrollwheel, I would buy one in a heartbeat (I have given thought to a used rocketbook reader). Books have advantages for extended reading over current monitor display technology which make them easier on the eyes for extended periods of viewing time. One rarely stares at a picture for an extended period of time, which makes them a better suited for all-digital use. Even so, hopefully full color e-ink displays with high resolution and high refresh rates (and low power consumption) are created, as these types of display would be ideal for all sorts of digital media, and would eliminate a lot of eyestrain for all tasks.
Probably, but I agree with you.
What I found really humorous was when McD's went from having "dark meat" chicken nuggets to all "white meat" chicken nuggets. At the time of the "dark meat" variety, you could usually count on the "odd shaped" ones to be "dark" (and more tender and flavourful - for a McD nugget, I guess), and the round ones to be "white". Today, all nuggets are "white" - odd-shaped ones and round ones.
Strangely enough, when they did this, the nuggets themselves started tasting like a combo of the "white" nuggets and the former "dark" nuggets, but they were all "white meat". Here is my theory on this:
All the nuggets (past and present) are made from mechanically separated chicken meat in an industrial process (look it up if you are interested in how this kind of meat is made - you may not want to). Personally, what I think they are doing is taking this meat product, and in some FDA-approved process, the factory making the nuggets are bleaching the meat - so that all the meat is "white meat". Notice they never say "breast meat" or "white breast meat" - just "white meat" chicken nuggets.
If I am right, that is just wrong (McD's sucks - as if it could be any other way)...
I do wear tie-dye, and I have "a real job" as a software developer. I also own a house, but I know *exactly* where DogDude is coming from: American society is freaking nuts.
At one time my wife and I were just like everyone else, in a lot of ways. We shopped at the malls, we bought crap at Best Buy, had our new cars, etc. At some point, somewhere along the line, things changed. We were always on the "outside", never really mainstream, but we tended to buy the same crap as everyone else. Spending our money, etc.
I think what did it may have been having to save up money for our down payment on our house. To do so, we had to "live poor". After building up our savings to put the down payment, we decided we didn't want a cookie cutter house with an HOA, but nice block wall constructed house where I could work on my truck in the street if I wanted or needed to, without hassle from the neighbors. After getting that house, we continued to save our money. We continued to live cheaply. We started to see that all the crap that we were buying new, was just that: crap. With the exception of a few items, most everything we bought we could buy used if we shopped carefully. Sometimes, we could even get it free.
Once we stopped and really looked around, we were amazed, then delighted, with the amount of crap people give away, throw away, or donate away simply because it isn't this year's "new and shiny thing". Businesses who leave out old computers next to dumpsters. People who toss out perfectly good wood for burning in the winter, using in a chimnea, or building some shelving - on bulk trash pickup days. Goodwill has become a habit for buying all manner of stuff. We had long since bought most of our books at used bookstores. We had also bought a lot of things at other thriftstores. I guess, in a way, we were coming back to our roots.
One day, we took a trip around the area listed for bulk trash pickup to see what we could find: we ended up finding a bunch of scrap unfinished oak chunks (from a cabinet maker) for burning in our fireplace (instead of running our heater), plus a complete EZ-Up shelter missing only a simple PVC part that was an easily ordered replacement. I have seen more computers and other electronic crap than I have room for.
America is wasteful, wasteful to the ultimate extreme. Our ultimate goal in life is to save up enough money to buy a chunk of 40 acres out in the desert, drill a well, and live off the grid. I know people who do it already, both up around the Flagstaff area and down around Tuscon way. We figure that if we can get a cheap mobile home or something, we could easily build our real house using scrap wood and other crap that is REGULARLY landfilled by construction companies in town. Barring that, we have also given thought to a steel building of some sort, or possibly a custom shotcrete monolithic dome.
At any rate, we simply don't buy the retail consumerist crap much any more. The only time we buy "new" is if it is something we cannot get used or free, or in the condition we would like. Most of the time, though, we are able to find what we need, how we need it. We hardly watch TV anymore, the inanity of it is staggering. I could go on, but I think you get the picture...
That was until I visited the store...
My wife had gone to the store in San Diego, and she said she had a good shopping experience. It was a little crowded, but other than that, an OK time, and she liked some of the things there, too. She wanted to see if we could get some small pieces of furniture there. It was announced that they would open an IKEA up in Tempe/Mesa, Arizona, around the year-end holidays. We weren't stupid, we weren't going to go to the grand opening of something like that. We decided to wait until after things settled down. We thought that going several months after they opened would be the right time.
We were wrong.
We ended up having to park in the parking lot of a "nearby" (about .25-.5 miles away) health club and walking. Not a big deal, but we were amazed at the number of people at the place. For some reason, we figured "well, we drove all the way out here and waited in line to find a parking spot (which we didn't)", so we decided to go in. We must have been out of our minds.
On the way in, we noticed some yuppie smiling and carrying a bundle of sticks - evidently you could buy sticks and twigs at IKEA, crap you could pick up off the forest floor for free if you wanted to drive a couple of hours north of Phoenix. Strange...
We get inside, and do some looking around. First off, those damn arrows and system they have for getting around seems like a good idea - until you realize that you must have a design already in your head, and you must not mix-and-match while in the store, because if you do, you must GO AGAINST THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC. Boy, was there traffic. It was like a tour of the store with throngs of people, rather than an actual shopping experience. Still, we were set on buying some stuff, after seeing what they had. So, we set out to find a shopping cart (we didn't see any on the way in)...
We couldn't find one - not even at the stalls where you supposedly could get one - the stalls were empty. We eventually found one lonely one with a few items in it just sitting around. We looked around, tried to see if an owner was nearby. Nobody seemed to be interested in the cart at all. We waited a little, then said "screw it", pulled the items out, then pushed it away. Nobody screamed "Hey! My cart!" so we thought it was truely an abandoned cart. We were to later figure out why...
We found some things we wanted, probably had about $200.00 worth of stuff in the cart (which was hell to aquire, because of all the people, and the damn cattle like guidelines and arrows on the floor, and the fact that everything seemed the same - getting lost in that store is VERY easy, it feels like a Las Vegas casino in a weird way), and we wanted to look at some of the furniture, which was upstairs. So - we tried to find a way upstairs.
And tried...and tried...and tried some more...
Consulting the maps didn't help, asking store personnel didn't help, wandering around didn't help, either - about the only way we could figure on getting to the upper floor was to somehow get back to the front of the store and take the escalator up with the rest of the drones (and I swear, that is what all of the people in this store looked like - a bunch of bored and scared drones looking to buy sticks). Despite all of our efforts, there didn't seem to be any way for us to take our cart and go upstairs with it (despite the fact that somewhere in the building there had to be an elevator - they were even advertised for those with carts and baby strollers on the maps - though we never could find them).
We got sick of the whole charade. We were prepared
This is very true - back in the mid-1990's, something that was discovered about visual perception and immersion in VR environments was that stereoscopic depth cues from an HMD wasn't as important for determining depth (and thus improving immersion) as for other factors, one of which was proper shadow placement. It is interesting to hear that this is still an issue for games (I am not a big game player)...
I am in the process of re-doing my website using PHP and MySQL. My new site will be complete DB driven, to the point that the page content is driven and built from PHP stored in the DB. My goal is to be able to update the website from anywhere in the world with a web connection. I am custom writing this system, rather than use a pre-existing CMS or other blogging system (and there were quite a few that were tempting) - because I wanted to learn PHP and MySQL by doing, rather than by observing.
Anyhow, one of my editors was slowing down on an update - that is, when I clicked "update" to update the site, it was taking a long time to update the database. Various tests indicated that it wasn't PHP with the issue, but running 'top' on my dev box indicated that the apache process was thrashing on these updates. I checked the code, and here is what I discovered:
In my update code, I was issuing a SQL insert for each field in a record, where I was updating multiple fields on the same record, rather than doing an insert with all the fields to be updated in the SQL statement. If I had 10 fields to update, that was 10 INSERTS, instead of the single I should have been doing. As I said, this was a bone-headed move I won't be doing again in the future. Once I corrected the issue, my performance shot up immediately on the update.
I would imagine that the same could be true of any simple SELECT - select out all the fields (and only those fields) you need at one shot, then loop thru the records building your output (whatever it is). Optimize the queries well, too (a misplaced pair of parentheses can make a WORLD of difference in some cases).
In short, keep the number of queries to the backend as short and sweet as possible, reducing the load (and thrashing) on the backend. This should be common sense design, but sometimes in the thrill and rush to build something, programmers forget this, and it can easily cause issues down the line (I was lucky in that I caught it very early in my design of the system).
Good luck, and I hope this helps...
Of these items though, I don't understand this need by humans to continue seeing the photographic process as something that can only be appreciated in an analog, on-paper format. I would never suggest the others be strictly digital - a painting can have texture and depth, depending on the medium used to render it, a sculpture is inherently tactile, and seeing a sunset in a beautiful environment, breathing the air, hearing the insects/birds - can't currently be replicated.
Photos, though - are flat. One could argue that viewing a photo on paper has a different color dynamic than seeing it on a monitor or from a projector, and I would agree that this is currently the case, but is not likely to be the case forever. I am not saying that artists and aspiring artists shouldn't try to find cameras and printers capable of allowing them to do proofs or better, which they might want to hang in a gallery.
Ordinary photos, though? Why do so many people insist on taking a digital photograph and then having it printed? Perhaps for grandma who might not have an internet connection (though this is becoming more rare over time) - but if you have a digital camera, you likely have a computer, and you have a way to view those images forever, if you so choose.
As long as you create backups of your collection periodically (even negatives can be damaged, and are more difficult to make backups of - especially at home - though labs can do it), you will always have a copy. The digital images can be easily emailed. They can be viewed on a TV (via a media computer or DVD player), they can be uploaded to a website to be viewed anywhere in the world that has internet access. Portable viewing isn't completely here yet (although I have seen on Ebay keychain thumbnail flash-based viewers sold) - but if you have a color pda it is possible, or with a laptop. We also have tablet computers (though for some reason, not as popular). You can't carry around your entire analog photo collection, but this is possible to do with your digital photo collection...
So why the fascination, for the ordinary person, to have paper photos? Ok - maybe if the power goes out, there might be problem - but most people don't break out the photo album on an extended power outage - they tend to be more concerned with the refrigerator and freezer, among other things.
Can anyone tell me why, in our very networked and digital age, why we continue to hang on to these other methods (for ordinary people - not professionals and artists, I can see their needs and wants, and digital isn't there yet for color reproduction or resolution)? When is the ordinary joe going to quit beating his Model-T with a buggy whip to urge it forward?
I agree with you there, it likely doesn't state "IE-only" - but if it did, and after I (if I was a contractor) told them why it was a bad idea, they still insisted on IE-only - then they will get what they want. That is their spec, and I could be fired (at best) or sued (at worst) for not designing and coding to the spec (they could claim that I was doing extra work not coding to the spec to pad my hours).
It might be because you're not giving your clients that extra effort (work for free).
If the spec was open-ended enough, I would give my clients the best that I had - for the spec they provide. Anything beyond the spec takes up my time and could get me into hot water. It also leads to feature-creep, which every coder deals with. If they want to revise the spec (and pay me accordingly), I will be glad to make the needed changes (I would even be willing, and want to, sit in on and help spec out those changes, if needed). But I am not willing to just give things away for free. I can guarantee that they wouldn't extend this kind of courtesy to me.
If I was a contractor building a room addition based on plans from the owner, I would be crazy to start adding windows and such whereever I thought they may be needed. I would be doubly stupid to do this for free because the owner asked me to. Strangely enough, there are many home owners who treat building contractors like this...
Second, have you stopped to consider that making a site IE-only might be MORE WORK that making it standards compliant?
Yes, it might - but what I am saying is that if that is what the client wants, and is willing to pay for, that is what they will get. If it takes longer and is more difficult, that is just more gravy for me. If it takes longer for me to rip it out and replace it later, that is just more gravy (again) for me (or whomever comes after me).
If I have repeatedly told them not to do it, and why, and even after all of that, they still insist on it and sign the contract agreement stating that they understand this and are willing to pay more for a non-standard site that takes longer to create and possibly maintain, then that is their problem, not mine. If they have a problem with it later, and come back to me for help or advice, I will simply show them the contract they signed, with the section voicing my concerns and showing they signed off on it, highlighted in red. I won't be responsible for their stupidity - they can either pay up, or shut up and let me do my job.
Some days I feel like I am village inhabitant on Easter Island many, many years ago, screaming at the dunderheads: "Stop cutting down the trees!!!"...
Probably how every other cop (we can agree that Decker, though retired, was acting as a cop) "pays" for their midnight meal at Denny's - they don't.
In many (most?) municipalities, cops get free food while on the job - there aren't many restaurants that force cops to pay, the ones that do don't usually get frequented by the boys in blue. Some restaurants go so far as to have special telephones and jacks for the cops if they have to call out or something (this isn't as prevalent today as it was say 10 years ago).
Even if this wasn't the case, while it wasn't shown in the movie, there may have been some form of biometric or "verichip" like system that auto-debited his account for food and such. In a way, one could say that BR was precient in this manner, in that they showed a "cashless" society where payment "just happened" (the audience could assume), and no physical exchange of anything was needed (other than to order your meal, and if you were known, even that isn't needed). Interestingly, we are quickly heading in that direction, with VeriChips and other RFID payment systems catching on...
I am a recent CSS convert, and this problem popped up on me almost immediately because I am redoing my site. I ended up going with a different layout (though it breaks in different, but not unuasable, way under IE) - because all the hacks I found where you encapsulate all three columns in a background container div with a background image that repeats vertically just wasn't cutting it for me.
I still don't understand why you can't have divs "linked" to each other (oh, wait - you can in some manner, that I haven't explored - in CSS2 or something there is a way to get divs to emulate tables to do just what I wanted it to do - but IE it doesn't work at all!)...
Gah - why can't all the browsers properly use standards the way they were defined and meant to be used!!!
It's only this way because marijuana is illegal. If it were a legal substance like alcohol, then it would be cheap. With it being illegal and pricey, one can't use it to make brownies or other food items as much because it takes a lot to sautee to make the oil/butter for the food.
There are also vaporizer systems, which are supposed to be better - but if there was a choice over inhaling something all the time or eating it, many would choose eating it (although smoking it or otherwise would still be an option people would indulge in for social and other purposes)...
First off, I have never taken LSD. Right now I am reading Tom Wolfe's "Electric Koolaid Acid Test", a very fun and surreal read, straight from the heydey of the 60's - and the descriptions of the "LSD experience" doesn't match up to what "they" want you to believe. I mean, Kesey and the rest of the gang drove the Furthur bus across America blitzed out on this stuff without accident. That isn't to say that was the right thing (personally, I think driving under the influence of anything including a cell phone conversation should be illegal), but the fact that it was possible seems to indicate that it isn't as messy of a drug as "they" want you to think it is.
Now, let me say that the experience does seem to heavily depend on what is in the mind of the user and their surroundings. There have been numerous citations in the book of first timers getting whigged, and Kesey would direct everyone else to "focus Attention" on the individual - show them love, affection, attention, tell them it would be ok, etc - and the user comes out the end of it a VERY CHANGED PERSON. They even had Hell's Angels members changed on that stuff - from rowdey dudes to "frolicking in the woods" - when they got together at Kesey's place in La Honda - crazy shit.
There has been a lot of mention though of dose - go much beyond 250 mikes and you start getting into "heavy doses" - which really could change you mentally. Kesey at one point was doing 1500 mikes. I have never read of an LSD death, but I would say that a hallucinagenic like LCD at high doses could cause problems (although descriptions of DMT in the book makes LSD seem like nothing). However, so does drinking a lot of water all at once, too.
I don't think LSD can turn you into a baby-raping-killer any more than eating a tomato will - you would have to already be screwed up in that way for it to encourage it, and based on what I have read in Tom Wolfe's book, LSD seems to pacify and cause wonderment, more than anything else...
And the rotting brain thing? well sure THC (the chemical in marihuana that gets you high or stoned) does kill of braincells but IIRC less then alcohol or a punch in the head do.
I am not sure where you are getting your information, but I don't think THC kills brain cells. Unlike heroin, which mimics (IIRC) the properties of endorphines, and thus can "jack in" to the receptors in brain cells meant for endorphines (and thus take over the function of and cause chemical dependency), THC doesn't do this - we actually have cannabanoid receptors in our brain cells that have no internal natural source (unlike endorphine) - but there is a plant that provides such chemicals for the receptors. Or, at least that is the way I have understood it to be.
If anyone has information or links that could educate me further, that is unbiased and honest research (not anti-drug propaganda), I am very interested in reading about it. The true facts are, for a lot of the "scary" illegal drugs, and by that I mean the "horrendously-suppressed-because-hippies-use-them" , like marijuana and LSD - we have no true data on what and how they work - especially LSD - because so much research into them has been surpressed by our misguided "War On (some) Drugs". I am not even sure if anyone still makes (or knows how to) LSM precursor, or how to turn that into LSD - anymore. I imagine someone does - but LSD is so far underground it isn't even funny. Based on what I have read, LSD (and in combo with marijuana), seemed poised to make us peaceful and insightful as people - rather than warmongering haters.
Whether that is true or not (seems too simplistic an explanation), or whether that is why LSD had such a downfall (powers that be don't want a peaceful people - they want hate and fear for profit!) - who knows...
A couple of years back I purchased a 1979 Full-Size Bronco with a 400M-block engine (400ci, or 6.6L) - the thing sucks gas down like there is no tommorow, you can watch the gauge drop as you drive. I suppose when it was made, this wasn't a big issue. It has a 25 gallon tank on it, gets maybe 10-12mpg on a good day. The thing runs solid - I bought it for the four-wheel drive capability. I sit here wondering if I am going to be able to get the rest of it fixed and actually do some four-wheelin' (it needs a ton of suspension work, plus some steering issues need to be corrected, before I am willing to take it out on a trail) - or whether by the time I do get it done, it will cost me over $100.00 to fill the tank up...
Even if it does, I bought it for occasional off-road fun only, so gas would have to get up to about $8.00 a gallon before I would really be jittery on fueling it up...
Don't, under any circumstance, deviate from what your contract states - if it states IE-only, make it IE-only. Do an insanely supurb job on making it IE-only. Make them remember you for it, but provide commentary in the code where IE-only stuff is on how to make it cross-browser (general ideas - don't spend a ton of time on it, just note it). Tell them when the job is complete and they are happy with it that it isn't cross-browser, that it is IE-only, per contracted specification. Re-iterate that it should have been made cross-browser, that you could have made it cross-browser, but that you were obligated by contract and spec not to.
In the future, if they get enough complaints, perhaps they will remember your name, and call you up again, allowing you to bill them again for work you could have easily done the first time around. Your previous comments will help you get back up to speed for the changes. Worse case scenario, if you aren't hired, the comments will be an "I told you so" to the next shlub who has to mod it, and they will probably bring them up to your former employer as to why they didn't pay attention to you in the first place - one way or the other, it will be pounded into their heads that you knew what you were talking about.
If you are a contractor, never do work for free unless you are clearly getting something in return.
I figured anybody actually doing this would realize this, perhaps I should have noted it. For the homebrew builder, though, such lens would be very pricey. In that instance, there have been software-based distortion lens effects created, though typically only for certain game engines (I think Quake 2 had such a mod available for CAVE-like displays that were curved). Perhaps some code like this could be hacked into a display driver filter in some manner...
Combine it all into one extreme setup: Twin DLP projectors mounted on the ceiling, projecting onto a custom curved surface ultra-wide screen (like a section from a huge torus - there is a company that makes these for theaters, but you could probably custom build it as well). The screen should extend from the ceiling down to around .5 meters or so off the ground. Build a dual-head video card media server to drive the projectors. Add an HDTV/video capture card to view and capture TV video with. Add surround sound.
For watching TV or working/playing, build some custom neutral posture reclined chairs with headrests. These should be placed near, but not uncomfortably near, the screen. Add a panel between the armrests that can be placed to allow the user type on a wireless keyboard and use the wireless mouse, or mount the halves of a wireless split keyboard on each armrest. A wireless remote and joysticks complete the system.
There is your system, on which you and your friends can work, play games, surf the internet, and watch/record TV in any way you want, on a huge dual projected screen that surrounds your senses in near media immersion. You could probably build this for under $10-15k. If you homebrewed everything (projectors, screen, everything), you could probably do it for under $2k (and a hella lot of work!)...
Now, as to why software patents are bad:
Software patents are bad because they mock the intent of the patent system, namely a system which was designed to protect and give a monopoly to the inventor, for a limited time, and actual physical device or process. Not a natural system or discovery. Thus, mathematical algorithms are not allowed to be patented, but a physical machine or system that implements the algorithm can be. "Inventors" began tacking on, more or less, the words "on a computer" to common ideas and/or natural algorithms, to get around this issue "legally".
Software is a weird thing, though. It can represent a process, it can represent a machine, but in the end, it is nothing more than a really large number, and thus natural. Technically, putting it on a computer does nothing to change this fact. Because a computer can be represented in software. In fact, the simplest conceptual computer of all, a UTM (Universal Turing Machine), can emulate all known computers,a nd thus software - this was mathematically proven. A computer is software embodied in a hardware form. In theory, it should be possible to run software without needing hardware, provided conditions are right (anyone who understands Stephen Wolfram's conclusions in ANKOS will know what I am talking about).
In a way, software is hardware is software - ALL OF IT IS A NATURAL PROCESS, AN ALGORITHM, A NUMBER. However, because most people have no real concept of what a computer really is or how it really works, they continually fail to see the mistake in allowing software patents, and this madness continues. Not that it isn't in the "citizen's" best interests for it to continue this way (and I am not talking you and me, here, mind you).
I wonder whether a monkey wrench could be thrown into the whole thing if you could somehow patent the idea/concept of the basic UTM concept. In a way, this might have already been done or was a case in the whole patent morass around the ENIAC and UNIVAC era. Maybe this all stems from that time - in a way, it seems too. The shocking and sad part is, most of the people involved were highly intelligent and/or mathematicians - who should have known better...
I think in the end, all of this software patent nonsense is going to grind true non-commercial innovation (at least here in the US, but probably elsewhere as well) into the ground. Of course, since we are slaves and not citizens, perhaps it doesn't really matter...
Don't buy a new laser printer, some of them are as cheapo as the inkjets. If you have to buy a new laser printer, shop the business models - so at least you have a shot at getting a model that will last a while.
If you don't need color, though (and for fed ex labels, you shouldn't), consider a used HP LaserJet 5 or 6. If you use *nix, you will need a PostScript SIMM or run it through GhostScript or something, otherwise you can get away with standard PCL drivers. Try to find a low page count (under 50,000 pages). The 5 and 6 are near identical machines, though the 6 seems to have a faster processor in it (plus I think it comes with more memory standard - 3 meg instead of 2?). Both are 600 DPI printers, with straight paper paths. Toner cartridges are cheap (refills are $70.00 or less with exchange at many shops).
Best of all, a used HP LaserJet 5/6 is a cheap machine - even on Ebay they go for less than what a new ink jet plus refill cartridge(s) would run. I once picked up a perfectly good LaserJet 5 with 32 meg and the PostScript SIMM for around $20.00 at Goodwill not too long ago. Came with paper and a "full" toner cartridge, and cables.
Honestly - check out Ebay and Goodwill - you will be surprised what people donate nowadays...
What I was describing was an interference pattern radar-like bounceback system, where the returned signal would look much like "noise", with data buried in the interference pattern generated in the reflection. It would be a passive device only (basically a very high resolution bar-code), thus it might be cheaper to manufacture and deploy while retaining much of the value of current RFID tags.
Even so, the likelyhood that it is an idea that is currently patented by other individual(s) is rather high...
They don't really bounce a signal back, but rather they detect the presence of a power signal (they are powered up), and then start broadcasting on a different frequency their information. The signal/frequency used for power may also act as a carrier wave for commands to the chip as well.
But your statement got me to thinking...
What if, similar to a hologram, you could encode useful data into an interference pattern. I am certain this can and has been done before. You can probably encode a ton of information. So, in a "barcode" like situation, a laser is shown on a reflection interference pattern "sticker", and the laser is reflected and information is relayed back to the receiver via the interference pattern, for further decoding into useful information.On a silicon chip size device, perhaps the interference pattern is generated via some special pattern etched on the silicon which combines informational content with effective reflective RF antenna design (possibly etched via x-ray lithography or something?) to generate the interference pattern as "noise" which can then be processed by the receiver to extract the data...
Not sure if any of this would be feasible, but the concept of storing a ton of information onto a simple sticker or chip, which doesn't require an external or internal power source, which utilizes simple reflection (either laser or RF) similar to radar, might be an interesting and marketable invention for certain industries.
Too bad I don't have a ton of cash to patent this (although, knowing today's world, it had probably already been patented in a ton of forms and uses)...
!!! NOTICE !!!
The following is for educational purposes only and should not be attempted. The author accepts no legal or fiscal responsibility for the use or misue of the information or any device built with said information which results in injury, fire, damage, or death, to the experimentor, bystanders, or property. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, DO NOT ATTEMPT!!!
----
Google around a bit on the terms "hydro boost" and "hydrogen injection", in relationship to automobiles. Basically, it is an attempt (perhaps even a scam?) to increase the octane of the gasoline being used in your automobile by injecting hydrogen (actually, Brown's gas - more on that later) into the intake airstream, where it is supposed to later combine with the fuel-air mixture and boost the octane before it is burned, thus lowering your fuel emmisions, increasing your mileage, etc. Which is why it sounds like a scam. Basically, an attempt to get a cheap form of nitrous/propane injection (with the knowledge that it doesn't give as much of a boost, but is cheaper to build/install).
Ok - well, from these "plans", which you can find without paying for (a lot of people are selling "hydro boost" stuff, just check ebay), you can get the idea of how to generate the hydrogen and oxygen. Most of these systems use steel threaded rod as the electrodes, and car battery systems for the high current DC needed (since they are in a car, no problem). Furthermore, since most of the designs are inside a single cylindrical water chamber, they generate Brown's gas (discovered in the 1800's by a man named "Brown" for industrial usage, a purpose to which it is still put today, mostly for welding), which is just the mixture of the generated hydrogen and oxygen (which doesn't recombine into water immediately because you need the chemical reaction energy of rapid oxidization - ie, burning - to get them to combine), which is then fed into the air stream (with a little help from engine vacuum). For a simple system like this, it is easy to build. However, you can't regulate the oxygen feed. I would expand upon the previous systems by creating a "W" chamber - where you have PVC T-joint at the bottom of a larger "water fill chamber", and the two ends of the T-joint are connected to 90 degree elbows which are in turn connected to the gas generation chambers, which are larger pieces of PVC pipe with caps at the ends thru which the threaded rod electrodes are passed (thru threaded removable end caps). The upper ends of the generation chambers should also be fitted with nylon or similar barbed tubing fittings, to attach tubing to use the generated gases. This device thus forms a "W" shape.
Sit the device upright vertically with the ends pointing up (attach it to a secure wooden base using pipe clamps or something), fill the central column with water (perhaps with a little salt - sodium chloride - in it to help the electrolysis), until the water level is about an inch below the end caps on the generation chambers. Cap off the filling chamber, and attach hoses to the generation chambers. On the end of each hose securely attach two differently colored rubber balloons (I would choose red/orange for hydrogen, and blue for oxygen). Attach a source of high current DC to the ends of the threaded rod electrodes (the best way to get such a source is thru use of a high current AC/DC welding rig. Another way is thru the use of charged car/marine/rv deep-cycle batteries). The positive side of the DC source should be connected to the electrode on the chamber connected to the balloon color coded to hold oxygen, the negative (ground) side should be connected to other side to collect hydrogen.
----
!!! DANGER !!! !!! DANGER !!! !!! DANGER !!!
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU CONTINUE IN THE PRESENCE OF OPEN FLAME. EXTINGUISH ALL SOURCES OF FLAME IN THE VICINITY OF THE DEVICE. FAILURE TO DO SO PRIOR TO THE OPERATION OF THE DEVICE CAN PROVE TO BE UNSAFE AND POSSIBLY DEADLY.
----
Connect and turn on your DC source. You should shortly see your balloons
Now, granted, if your application is compiled in any sort of fashion, typically the compiler will unroll loops as needed or requested, and "pre-unrolling" loops can cause problems in performance in these kind of situations. Likely, your situation fell into normal application development using either a scripting language or a compiled one, and your programmer was just brain dead.
For certain situations (low-level embedded or tight routines at the assembler level), loop unrolling can be a very valid and useful tool to know, especially if developing assembler code or doing other similar embedded CPU development. The trick is knowing when and where to do such loop unrolling, and knowing whether unrolling the loop will help or hurt matters (ie, you have to know the CPU you are developing for, how many clock cycles it takes to iterate a loop, push/pull from the stack, etc)...
I would say that a truely excellent programmer does not employ an NIH attitude towards projects, but rather leverages already developed code when and where he can. Time is wasted if world has to be rebuilt from scratch each and every time. You would never see a mechanical engineer designing a car say "these standard metric nuts and bolts just aren't good enough, I am going to design some new ones based on e" - he would be fired instantly.
It makes no sense that a better coder would write modules for lesser coders, but then turn around and not use those same modules himself. Indeed, what you see in real professional programmers is that they typically have a toolset of pre-built modules from past projects, built and refined over years of experience. Furthermore, what you also see is that in the case where a module may have a bug or not work up to the performance needed, the professional programmer will go in and fix that module. Provided the module is encapsulated as a "black box" environment, the calling code should not notice anything, other than a gain in performance.
In the case of CPAN and Perl (or PEAR and PHP, etc), this ultimately works to everyone's advantage, both professionals and average coders alike, simply because by including the improved versions of the modules they are using, everyone's applications become better. A rising tide raises all ships, or something to that effect...
JB-Weld, Duct Tape, WD-40 - gits it done!