I have a friend at work, who would not be considered the most computer-saavy. Older, knows enough to surf eBay and plink out AutoCAD drawings. Yet duplicating a CD is so easy, he's not even aware there might be a problem copying his CD for a friend, or vice versa. In his words, why would they all buy CDs for $15-$20 each, when one of them can buy it and copy it for the rest?
This is what scares the RIAA most. CD duplication and MP3 sharing are so easy to use, that the average person can do it without a second thought. The act of copying a CD is viewed like a right that came with buying a CD burner and stack of CD-Rs.
This controversy, until now, has not been widespread outside the computer enthusiast scene. For the average person who got a computer with a CD-RW drive, it would be like telling them their toaster is only allowed to toast one type of bread.
The point is that YES, copying a CD for a friend IS FAIR USE. And THAT is what the RIAA is gunning for. Because...really, why would you and all your friends pay $20 for every CD, instead of one buying and distributing to a few others? The RIAA wants to hint to everyone that this is wrong, and then come in with legislation to back up "public opinion."
I have heard good things about the Dallas DS80C400 controller. It's an 8051 core which is great 'cuz you can take advantage of the huge 8051 experience base out there, it's got 10/100 Ethernet with TCP/IP, DHCP, even IPv4 and IPv6. It has a direct memory access mode which makes it really nice for moving good-sized chunks of data without bottlenecking in a microcontroller's tiny RAM area.
So you don't get 100mbps speeds, more like 5mbps. But for an all-in-one microcontroller, it's ripe for some really neat little devices. You! Give your toaster, microwave, breadmaker, washing machine, garbage disposal, TV, stereo system, and coffee maker IP addresses. Now!
Hit a secret little button, and the stereo switches to slow music, the lights dim, annoying rackety appliances shut down, the TV turns off, and the warm smell of toasting cinnamon-rasin bread fills the room...wait, that was for breakfast. Oh well.
Better hope you can fit into a wiring closet, if you think cheap bandwidth is a good reason to move to Japan. Even the smallest of basic one-person apartments, in the areas where this kind of bandwidth is available, cost upwards of $800/month. Not to mention the six month deposit.
Basically, everything but bandwidth is expensive.
In contrast I get a large kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms in a quiet neighborhood for $440/month. I have more space than I can use, fairly reliable 2mbps cable modem for $40 a month, room to park my car and money to put in my savings account. I'm not even home to use my bandwidth for ten hours of the day, and cable modem is more than fast enough. Ain't America great?
Grimaldi is a professor at my alma mater. I can understand how the book might be a bit tough to crack.
Never really had to take his discrete math class, since I was an EE major. But if you're having problems with the book, maybe you could shoot him an email about it. Rose-Hulman professors are busy, but it's not like they have 350 students in each class.
He may be interested in knowing what you found difficult about the book, to perhaps improve the next edition. Also he might give you a few hints on how to understand the book's perspective, and maybe even recommend some good discrete math book from his own experience.
Just be straighforward and avoid excessively detailed problems and explanations. Maybe ask him, first, if it would be okay to consult with him about his book. If you have trouble finding his email address, let me know and I can try to help you get in touch with him.
I always wondered if they ever got that minisub out from inside that cave behind the waterfall. Arguably the largest-scale escapade in the books, especially considering how they got it in the first place, for about three dollars. Since they were going to use it to explore the bottom of the lake, maybe it plays a part in this book?
Anyway, these books were an inspiration for many early experiments involving batteries, wires, nails, motors, and light bulbs. I am sure they helped convert me from taking things apart, to wondering how things are put together.
You never hear about this one. Christian Bale had difficulty acheiving "suspense of disbelief" with his human actors, but the dragons and fire were some of the most beautiful CG work I've ever seen.
A few weeks ago I killed my Ortek keyboard. It wasn't a great keyboard; it had the "silent" mushy-keys and plenty of useless "internet" and "media" chiclet buttons. The Enter key broke and I'd fastend it with a small screw (which surprisingly didn't interfere with typing). It died in the most cliched way possible: direct coffee spillage.
The same day I drove down to Office Max to get an emergency keyboard. Everything was pretty much worthless, even compared to my old keyboard. I finally settled on a Logitech media keyboard solely on the feel of it.
I used it for about a day, then heard someone commenting on IBM Model M and Northgate keyboards. I remembered the little worthless 486 test server I had sitting in my closet, and remembered the keyboard attached to it was a Northgate. I walked over and pressed the keys...click click. Smiled, grabbed AT-to-PS/2 adapter, and replaced the new Logitech.
I'll never go back. In fact, I surprised I used anything else, because that old keyboard used to be my main keyboard back in the day. When it dies, I'll get an Avant Stellar, which is a remake of the original Northgate using the original design documents and manufacturing processes.
Every key has a perfectly balanced snap action. It provides just the right amount of force before the key clicks in, and once you hear the click you know the key has been pressed. It might sound like someone with a clicky keyboard is really pounding on it, but ideally it allows you to flit over the keyboard without having to mash every key down to the bottom to ensure it was pressed. You learn to hear each keypress, and can often catch an accidental extra letter by ear.
And now you know why all the old laptops had a "key-click" noisemaking feature, sometimes in the BIOS.
I thought the hopping mines story was the most interesting today.
A minefield full of networked anti-tank mines that can leap up to 30 yards per hop (and up to 100 hops per mine). You can't lay down a strip of C4 and clear a path. The mines decide as a group what configuration is best and then move to fill the gap. It would be incredible to watch.
You aren't doing anything by running SETI@home. All that childish wonder just went to waste, I would have expected you to end up an astronomer or scientist or something.
The odds are you'll never leave this planet, ever. If you'd played your cards right you could have at least had a chance to set foot on the moon, or do a few loops on the ISS.
I'm fine here on Earth, thank you very much. When our technical ability reaches the point of making space travel universally available, then I'll look at it with some interest. If I'm around by then....
About the 6-in-1 adapters: I use a Sandisk Imagemate SDDR-86. It works fine in Linux, if you have multiple LUNs in SCSI support set up.
It didn't work right out of the box. I had some older 64MB Viking CompactFlash cards that wouldn't work. Apparently Sandisk is aware of the problem, but there really isn't a fix yet. Supposedly they have a firmware update that solves the problem for some cards.
I took a hardware approach...it looked like the CF card was really only going to work at 5 volts, so I wired directly from the USB port power pin to the VCC pins on the CompactFlash socket. It works perfectly now (in both WinXP and Linux).
Until last month, the 3D accelerated Linux drivers for 9500/9700 were on the website. However I couldn't use them because I was running XFree86 4.3.0. I was just waiting a little bit until they got new drivers out....
Apparently the FGLX driver is supposed to work with all Radeon cards. But I have heard that the FireGL drivers only work with "built by ATI" cards and not "powered by ATI" cards.
I will have to try this tonight, so I can find out if I should be righteously indignant about this.
Hydrogen DOES turn CowboyNeal on! All he could talk about, with the Mars ice cap article, was how the test only detected hydrogen and how much he hopes it's just a big bubble of hydrogen under there.
Works with biomass and common metals, eh?
*visualizes CowboyNeal trying to make hydrogen by combining leftover pizza with some spare change*
His argument, from what I can remember, involved the fact that the overwhelming number of eyewitnesses were on the opposite side from where the fire started. It could have been burning for a little bit before the hydrogen lit off, after which things happened pretty fast. Upon which the Hindenberg was totally engulfed in flames and it was evident to everyone that it was burning. The appearance would be that of the Hindenberg just suddenly bursting into flames.
That would only work if, like the Hindenberg, Mars was placed in Earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere.
By the way the whole Hindenberg disaster was caused by the compounds infused into the outer covering: powdered aluminum and iron. Was supposed to eliminate static. Actually caught fire itself in a static discharge and...well, read up on thermite.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a friend at work, who would not be considered the most computer-saavy. Older, knows enough to surf eBay and plink out AutoCAD drawings. Yet duplicating a CD is so easy, he's not even aware there might be a problem copying his CD for a friend, or vice versa. In his words, why would they all buy CDs for $15-$20 each, when one of them can buy it and copy it for the rest?
This is what scares the RIAA most. CD duplication and MP3 sharing are so easy to use, that the average person can do it without a second thought. The act of copying a CD is viewed like a right that came with buying a CD burner and stack of CD-Rs.
This controversy, until now, has not been widespread outside the computer enthusiast scene. For the average person who got a computer with a CD-RW drive, it would be like telling them their toaster is only allowed to toast one type of bread.
The point is that YES, copying a CD for a friend IS FAIR USE. And THAT is what the RIAA is gunning for. Because...really, why would you and all your friends pay $20 for every CD, instead of one buying and distributing to a few others? The RIAA wants to hint to everyone that this is wrong, and then come in with legislation to back up "public opinion."
Then of course you have the energy from a nuclear power plant.
With the toys discussed in the previous Slashdot article, that's not a problem for handguns either.
I have heard good things about the Dallas DS80C400 controller. It's an 8051 core which is great 'cuz you can take advantage of the huge 8051 experience base out there, it's got 10/100 Ethernet with TCP/IP, DHCP, even IPv4 and IPv6 . It has a direct memory access mode which makes it really nice for moving good-sized chunks of data without bottlenecking in a microcontroller's tiny RAM area.
So you don't get 100mbps speeds, more like 5mbps. But for an all-in-one microcontroller, it's ripe for some really neat little devices. You! Give your toaster, microwave, breadmaker, washing machine, garbage disposal, TV, stereo system, and coffee maker IP addresses. Now!
Hit a secret little button, and the stereo switches to slow music, the lights dim, annoying rackety appliances shut down, the TV turns off, and the warm smell of toasting cinnamon-rasin bread fills the room...wait, that was for breakfast. Oh well.
You people all need to move out to a nice little city, say 75,000 to 150,000 and the largest city for 50 miles.
When I say "basic" I'm not talking about the same thing you are. I'm talking about approx. 180 square feet, no furniture, no appliances, no bathroom.
Please note that "2mbps" should actually be "2Mbps." Though some might claim their cable modem is in the millibits-per-second range....
Better hope you can fit into a wiring closet, if you think cheap bandwidth is a good reason to move to Japan. Even the smallest of basic one-person apartments, in the areas where this kind of bandwidth is available, cost upwards of $800/month. Not to mention the six month deposit.
Basically, everything but bandwidth is expensive.
In contrast I get a large kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms in a quiet neighborhood for $440/month. I have more space than I can use, fairly reliable 2mbps cable modem for $40 a month, room to park my car and money to put in my savings account. I'm not even home to use my bandwidth for ten hours of the day, and cable modem is more than fast enough. Ain't America great?
Grimaldi is a professor at my alma mater. I can understand how the book might be a bit tough to crack.
Never really had to take his discrete math class, since I was an EE major. But if you're having problems with the book, maybe you could shoot him an email about it. Rose-Hulman professors are busy, but it's not like they have 350 students in each class.
He may be interested in knowing what you found difficult about the book, to perhaps improve the next edition. Also he might give you a few hints on how to understand the book's perspective, and maybe even recommend some good discrete math book from his own experience.
Just be straighforward and avoid excessively detailed problems and explanations. Maybe ask him, first, if it would be okay to consult with him about his book. If you have trouble finding his email address, let me know and I can try to help you get in touch with him.
I always wondered if they ever got that minisub out from inside that cave behind the waterfall. Arguably the largest-scale escapade in the books, especially considering how they got it in the first place, for about three dollars. Since they were going to use it to explore the bottom of the lake, maybe it plays a part in this book?
Anyway, these books were an inspiration for many early experiments involving batteries, wires, nails, motors, and light bulbs. I am sure they helped convert me from taking things apart, to wondering how things are put together.
If you'd actually do your work instead of slacking around on Slashdot all day, maybe you could go home at 5:00 like everyone else.
When was the last time you were home? 1998?
Now they're getting somewhere. John Carmack finally quit trying to win the prize by running at brick walls and firing a Stinger missile at the ground.
You never hear about this one. Christian Bale had difficulty acheiving "suspense of disbelief" with his human actors, but the dragons and fire were some of the most beautiful CG work I've ever seen.
By the way I'm typing this on a Compaq keyboard, which explains the typos. ;-)
Compaq keyboards are somewhat better than the average breed of new-generation keyboards, though.
Ah yes, the benefits of an ad-hop network... /late, I know
A few weeks ago I killed my Ortek keyboard. It wasn't a great keyboard; it had the "silent" mushy-keys and plenty of useless "internet" and "media" chiclet buttons. The Enter key broke and I'd fastend it with a small screw (which surprisingly didn't interfere with typing). It died in the most cliched way possible: direct coffee spillage.
The same day I drove down to Office Max to get an emergency keyboard. Everything was pretty much worthless, even compared to my old keyboard. I finally settled on a Logitech media keyboard solely on the feel of it.
I used it for about a day, then heard someone commenting on IBM Model M and Northgate keyboards. I remembered the little worthless 486 test server I had sitting in my closet, and remembered the keyboard attached to it was a Northgate. I walked over and pressed the keys...click click. Smiled, grabbed AT-to-PS/2 adapter, and replaced the new Logitech.
I'll never go back. In fact, I surprised I used anything else, because that old keyboard used to be my main keyboard back in the day. When it dies, I'll get an Avant Stellar, which is a remake of the original Northgate using the original design documents and manufacturing processes.
Every key has a perfectly balanced snap action. It provides just the right amount of force before the key clicks in, and once you hear the click you know the key has been pressed. It might sound like someone with a clicky keyboard is really pounding on it, but ideally it allows you to flit over the keyboard without having to mash every key down to the bottom to ensure it was pressed. You learn to hear each keypress, and can often catch an accidental extra letter by ear.
And now you know why all the old laptops had a "key-click" noisemaking feature, sometimes in the BIOS.
I thought the hopping mines story was the most interesting today.
A minefield full of networked anti-tank mines that can leap up to 30 yards per hop (and up to 100 hops per mine). You can't lay down a strip of C4 and clear a path. The mines decide as a group what configuration is best and then move to fill the gap. It would be incredible to watch.
...so what you're telling me is that the riced-out green iridescent Honda down the street is driven by a nanotechnologist?
Whoa.
You aren't doing anything by running SETI@home. All that childish wonder just went to waste, I would have expected you to end up an astronomer or scientist or something.
The odds are you'll never leave this planet, ever. If you'd played your cards right you could have at least had a chance to set foot on the moon, or do a few loops on the ISS.
I'm fine here on Earth, thank you very much. When our technical ability reaches the point of making space travel universally available, then I'll look at it with some interest. If I'm around by then....
About the 6-in-1 adapters: I use a Sandisk Imagemate SDDR-86. It works fine in Linux, if you have multiple LUNs in SCSI support set up.
It didn't work right out of the box. I had some older 64MB Viking CompactFlash cards that wouldn't work. Apparently Sandisk is aware of the problem, but there really isn't a fix yet. Supposedly they have a firmware update that solves the problem for some cards.
I took a hardware approach...it looked like the CF card was really only going to work at 5 volts, so I wired directly from the USB port power pin to the VCC pins on the CompactFlash socket. It works perfectly now (in both WinXP and Linux).
Until last month, the 3D accelerated Linux drivers for 9500/9700 were on the website. However I couldn't use them because I was running XFree86 4.3.0. I was just waiting a little bit until they got new drivers out....
Apparently the FGLX driver is supposed to work with all Radeon cards. But I have heard that the FireGL drivers only work with "built by ATI" cards and not "powered by ATI" cards.
I will have to try this tonight, so I can find out if I should be righteously indignant about this.
Hydrogen DOES turn CowboyNeal on! All he could talk about, with the Mars ice cap article, was how the test only detected hydrogen and how much he hopes it's just a big bubble of hydrogen under there.
Works with biomass and common metals, eh?
*visualizes CowboyNeal trying to make hydrogen by combining leftover pizza with some spare change*
His argument, from what I can remember, involved the fact that the overwhelming number of eyewitnesses were on the opposite side from where the fire started. It could have been burning for a little bit before the hydrogen lit off, after which things happened pretty fast. Upon which the Hindenberg was totally engulfed in flames and it was evident to everyone that it was burning. The appearance would be that of the Hindenberg just suddenly bursting into flames.
The perfect tool for even MORE lame Korean knockoffs of American pop music.
Actually, though...the cheaper the tools, the less lure there is for artists to sign their souls over to RIAA.
Sorry for bringing up RIAA again, just because the topic happens to involve sound.
Hmmmm...carbohydrates...could it be sugar?
;)
Maybe a thin layer of milk chocolate, covering a gooey layer of caramel and then nougat?
Well.
That would only work if, like the Hindenberg, Mars was placed in Earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere.
By the way the whole Hindenberg disaster was caused by the compounds infused into the outer covering: powdered aluminum and iron. Was supposed to eliminate static. Actually caught fire itself in a static discharge and...well, read up on thermite.