The cost may not be directly related to the cost of the chips and jacks...integrated peripherals also require additional board complexity and thus more quality failures, additional assembly process time, board-specific drivers and BIOS programming, and of course the manpower required to implement the above and keep everything current. I doubt the additional cost is as low as you believe.
It is cheaper than individual cards, mainly because of packaging, and Dell or "Compaq" (HP) don't have to open up the computer and put cards in, make sure they work, negotiate with different vendors, and stock a myriad of parts.
We also need someone in China to clue us in on the local TV.
I want to know if they have wacky processor commercials with some bald guys painted all red.
Or maybe they do that one commercial, "wooo-HOOO!" I mean "Wu-hu!" and some stylized video of extreme stunts like washing ragged clothes in a sewage/chemical-polluted river, children gathering sticks for heat, and morning marches to forced labor.
Next up is People's OS. To quote User Friendly, "This is where you will go today."
If you can't tell, I'm not a huge fan of communism. It always ends up making everyone equal, but a few of them much more equal (thank you Orwell). I also dislike the notion that having rich people makes more poor people. Zero-sum is so infantile, motivated more by personal greed than by love of humanity. Mmm, get me some 'o that rich people money. Wealth can be added to the economy. To abstract it to the highest level, the earth is not a closed system. We take energy from the sun before it is radiated back into space, as the plants did before they turned to oil, and as we can gather from hydroelectric and solar cell power. Until the sun burns out, we can continue to grab as much of the energy as possible, and add that energy to our economy. As we grow more successful at this, the overall quality of life on this planet will continue to increase.
Hey, I rambled.
Time to go to bed, and turn off this sun-absorbing Athlon.
He forgot to mention that, at his president's request, the bathroom already bears the well-deserved title "Fortress of Solitude."
With enough unnecessary drooping wires, flat panel displays, and strategically placed green cold cathode lamps, you could easily call it "The Nebuchadnezzar (or The Core thereof)" and the office would be called The City of Zion. The same decor would work for a Borg Cube theme, and all the "message from the sysadmin" letters would start with "We Are The Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."
I always wanted to do that. "Umm, my computer is broken, I can't do my work..." "YOUR COMPUTER IS IRRELEVANT. WORK IS IRRELEVANT. YOU WILL SURRENDER...Oh, sorry, permissions were set wrong, you should be ok now."
No, the people broadcasting the kernel for 600 days sound like they're on the MS payroll. It's stupid, and won't help Linux's claim for being a solid alternative OS, just the OS of people who want to waste time and resources....
I use Linux, and have used it for years. I enjoy its flexibilty and the ease I can "open the hood" and see how things are working.
But something like this.... Does this make people think "Wow, Linux is Free Speech and Good" or "Wow, Linux users are a bunch of loonies with a religious bent and more concerned with ideals rather than developing a serious OS my business can depend on."
I don't see how this is useful or good in any way. 600 days? I just say, "Why?"
Ok...I'm not using a 486 for a desktop. They do make handy dns/dhcp/web/ftp/nfs servers though. And Mandrake486 was just to throw on one of the real computers, do a net install, and forget it. So I have one of the 486's in an old HP scanner network box (about 6 inches tall and no wider/longer than the motherboard itself). All I have to do is add it to my xhosts, pull up a terminal and run DrakConf. I get one GUI panel to configure most of the machine, and it really does run quickly; even xjewel or xfishtank run fine over the network (purely as a test of course).
I don't have top of the line hardware (1.2GHz Athlon, 1.8Ghz P4, 233Mhz PII, 133MHz 5x86 SBC, 100Mhz Pentium, 486DX2-66, 486DX-50, 486SX-33, and a CoCo). While it may be fun to play with the faster computers, sometimes it's good to grab a 486 laptop and code around. Optimization is not a concern anymore, it seems. If you can get something working pretty well on a 486, it will scream on anything faster. I remember using Windows 3.1 on a 386, and playing side-scroller games or even a 3D flightsim like MiG-29 (or a shooter like Wolfenstein 3D), and thought that was pretty cool.
The problem wasn't that Mandrake wouldn't support their 486 distribution. It was that they took the effort to wipe it out.
I'm about to quit bothering with Mandrake anymore. They removed their 486 distribution from the mirrors! It's nearly impossible to find now. I burned a CD of the 486 7.0 distro, and the next month it was gone. I use it as a simple way to put moderate functionality into some of these 486 boxes I have lying around. It runs ok on 486's around 50MHz+. However, I tried to go find txt_bootnet.img for it, and everything had vanished. Redhat 6.0 bootnet disks nearly work, and I did find something on a mandrake-CLE server in Taiwan. Don't know if it works yet.
If Mandrake wants people to like and buy their distribution, they shouldn't actually go through the effort of wiping their old distributions out of existence. I though some of the ideas were pretty neat, but won't buy a distro that not only completely drops support for older systems, but makes sure you can never get the old distro again.
Anyone want a mandrake486 cd? I'll burn you a CD free and send it for price of Priority Mail postage ($3.20). I'll only send out ten total, just want to make sure other people have it, so it won't completely vanish.
Also, how do they know that goldfish only have a three-second memory span? Do they observe goldfish watching MTV all the time?!
Anyone who had MOPY knows goldfish can remember much longer than three seconds. Mine eventually developed an intense combination of grudge-holding and fear.
As the previous poster pointed out, RFID is relatively easy to snoop on.
One of my major peeves is the RFID card that gets me into work every morning. In certain stores, my RFID card returns a code that sets off their RF tag detectors at the door. Usually I remember, pull out my wallet, and hold it over my head while walking through. Once I forgot at Fleet Farm (basically a giant general store, like Home Depot with tractor parts) and I set off the alarm. Of course someone came to visit me, and it was especially embarrassing because I was wearing a big coat and didn't buy anything. She handed me a little piece of cardboard called a "Schlage Shield" and said to put it in my wallet. No more alarm.
Worked great, except that opening the door at work involved putting down my coffee, laptop, and lunch to get out the RF card (instead of conveniently pressing my butt against the door). So I took it out, and promptly set off a Barnes & Noble alarm. No one seemed to care, so I just pulled out my wallet and walked through with the wallet over my head again.
ANYWAY...the point is that RFID tags are barely more secure than keeping a post-it note with an access code.
I am curious exactly what my card claims to be on the store scanners....
You can simply put 5V on the USB power line if necessary. Add a battery pack and regulator, maybe one of those nice InfoLithium batteries that seem to last forever. BTW, serial does not carry power.
Remember this puzzle? Find the answer, and then start moving your servers!
The farmer (you) is taking his fox (servers), duck (DNS) and corn (customer web space) to market (colocation provider). He is currently stuck on the left bank of a major river (highway). The good news is that he has a boat available (pickup truck). The bad news is that the boat will only hold him and one other item for each crossing (changing over servers without service loss).
He dare not leave the duck alone with the corn as the corn would get eaten (no servers for DNS), or the duck alone with the fox as the duck would get eaten (no customer web space while swapping drives?). Also the farmer knows from prior experience that he cannot leave the corn alone on the right bank of the river (old location) since a large flock of crows (customers) is waiting to devour it (and you).
Can you help the farmer get everything across the river safely? (Ask Slashdot can!)
Re:This is about 5Ghz technology
on
DOD vs. 802.11b
·
· Score: 2
I'm pretty familiar with the concept of antenna gain and the fact that we're talking about a proportion rather than exactly 1/r^2.
I grabbed my own book from a wireless communications class a while back (Wireless Communications, Principles and Practice, Theodore S. Rappaport).
It states that for large, distant objects that induce scattering, that analysis based on diffraction and physical optics can be used to find the scattered field strength. It then goes on to describe the bistatic radar equation which I believe simplifies to something like your formula:
Obviously T and R are for transmitter and receiver, and RCS is the radar cross section, and G is the antenna gain (and Rappaport did like those logarithms). The book says this equation describes the propagation of a wave traveling in free space which impinges on a distant scattering object, and is then reradiated in the direction of the receiver. Which means my secondary "ok, that's why" explanation is pretty close. Yeah, I was thinking in terms of the particle behavior of light, because I was tired and didn't want to visualize a giant EM wave wrapping around an airplane....;-)
Thanks for staying with me on this, so that I finally had to dust off my old book and lose the 6th grade physics reasoning.
Re:This is about 5Ghz technology
on
DOD vs. 802.11b
·
· Score: 2
There's one thing about that I can't swallow just yet.
My reasoning is that the radar transmitter is essentially a point source, therefore the radiaton will follow the inverse-square rule. When it hits a surface, the beam has already diverged, and the rays will reflect opposite the angle of incedence. This means that the rays of the reflected radiation still follow the same path, only reflected a certain angle from the original path. This means that the rays diverge at the same angle as before, which is simply a continuance of the 1/r^2 divergence from the original point source. For the return path to tack on another 1/r^2, it's like throwing a rubber ball at a wall, and it bounces back at 45 degrees.
Of course, if radar junkies treat the object as if it absorbs the radar energy and *then* re-emits it as a point source, I can see the r^4. Does the EM wavefront actually enter the conductor and then do transmission/reflection within the metal of the object before coming back? It's been a while since electromagnetics, and we never really focused on radar (and I've been stuck doing a mechanical engineering job, but that's another story). If you can explain why the reflection object becomes another point source, I'm glad to learn all the useful facts I can (especially if they contradict my intuition).
Re:This is about 5Ghz technology
on
DOD vs. 802.11b
·
· Score: 2
Ummm...wouldn't that be 1/(2r)^2? Since you're doubling the radiation path? It's not like the reflected wave is going to dissipate in five-dimensional space....
I actually have a pretty decent idea, not revolutionary, but fills a good-sized niche (two million units at last calculation). It's an idea I've had and documented since late 1999. Also, I've already done most of the work, as a working prototype existed earlier this year. I'm working on a refined version now (soldering a circuit board I had professionally made).
I once hacked together a movable webcam out of junk parts. My cam was soon accounting for 12% of the school's web hits. Then I had the idea to refine the device, and make it available at a low cost. Cheap webcams are everywhere; if I could build a working system with an hour of two of lashing junk parts together, then mass production should take the cost down to nothing. The device I built is controlled over USB, and has a USB hub controller integrated with three open ports. This allows you to plug in the pan/tilt base, then plug your camera into the base: only one wire to the pan/tilt cam, and two extra ports open up! Another thing I built, and am considering making available as a kit, is a really simple pan/tilt unit. Only three heat formed plastic parts, and it looks a lot better than two servos lashed together. I estimate total cost, if you bought the parts retail, about $25.
Anyway, the problem is not having the ideas, but doing something about them. And after that, the problem is getting the courage to take that next step. I have not been able to do it. I graduated from school this spring, and have been unable to find a job except for one that is purely mechanical design and pays temp office worker wages. I have to live with my parents still, as otherwise I would have barely enough money to live on and pay my student loans. And I can feel everything I knew about electrical engineering slipping away, as I sit in safety meetings and draw sheet metal parts in AutoCAD. Still, I'm trying to work on a few interesting projects and beef up my C++.
If you are in the position to start a new business, and you find some good ideas, go for it. I would do it in a heartbeat, if I could.
"...the RIAA recently declared MP3 music sharing led to the failure of the International Space Station, as reduced CD sales left Lance Bass unable to purchase his flight to the orbiting rathole."
Re:"Taken" from other shows and movies...
on
Taken?
·
· Score: 2
It was actually done in The Next Generation. The same episode as the Traveler, where Wesley Crusher and the Traveler send the Enterprise bazillions of light years away, and everyone started seeing what they were thinking. It was pretty funny, especially when they guy thought he was burning up so Piccard was yelling at him to get a hold of himself. And then there was the scene where Piccard sat down to a cup of tea with his long-dead mother.
I remembered it as one of the more cheesy episodes of ST:TNG, actually...so Taken must be pretty bad.
I think it's just you. Demonstrable E-Ink displays already exist, how long do you think it will take to refine them?
And, why do we have exactly duplicate the feel of paper? E-Ink is supposed to duplicate the flexibility and static display capabilities of paper, while adding digital versatility. The feel of writing on paper is learned, not instinctive.
Finally, why does it have to be as cheap as paper? It's much better than paper, it has many more uses, but it makes no sense to feed E-Ink into a laser printer or to hang it next your toilet. Digital ink keeps you from having to buy paper all the time.
"I think the great thing about tree-sitters using 802.11 is how they can post on the Internet without wires. That way, they can type 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!' while falling out of a tree, and click 'Submit' right before they hit the ground."
Slashdot Mirror
The cost may not be directly related to the cost of the chips and jacks...integrated peripherals also require additional board complexity and thus more quality failures, additional assembly process time, board-specific drivers and BIOS programming, and of course the manpower required to implement the above and keep everything current. I doubt the additional cost is as low as you believe.
It is cheaper than individual cards, mainly because of packaging, and Dell or "Compaq" (HP) don't have to open up the computer and put cards in, make sure they work, negotiate with different vendors, and stock a myriad of parts.
We also need someone in China to clue us in on the local TV.
I want to know if they have wacky processor commercials with some bald guys painted all red.
Or maybe they do that one commercial, "wooo-HOOO!" I mean "Wu-hu!" and some stylized video of extreme stunts like washing ragged clothes in a sewage/chemical-polluted river, children gathering sticks for heat, and morning marches to forced labor.
Next up is People's OS. To quote User Friendly, "This is where you will go today."
If you can't tell, I'm not a huge fan of communism. It always ends up making everyone equal, but a few of them much more equal (thank you Orwell). I also dislike the notion that having rich people makes more poor people. Zero-sum is so infantile, motivated more by personal greed than by love of humanity. Mmm, get me some 'o that rich people money. Wealth can be added to the economy. To abstract it to the highest level, the earth is not a closed system. We take energy from the sun before it is radiated back into space, as the plants did before they turned to oil, and as we can gather from hydroelectric and solar cell power. Until the sun burns out, we can continue to grab as much of the energy as possible, and add that energy to our economy. As we grow more successful at this, the overall quality of life on this planet will continue to increase.
Hey, I rambled.
Time to go to bed, and turn off this sun-absorbing Athlon.
He forgot to mention that, at his president's request, the bathroom already bears the well-deserved title "Fortress of Solitude."
With enough unnecessary drooping wires, flat panel displays, and strategically placed green cold cathode lamps, you could easily call it "The Nebuchadnezzar (or The Core thereof)" and the office would be called The City of Zion. The same decor would work for a Borg Cube theme, and all the "message from the sysadmin" letters would start with "We Are The Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."
I always wanted to do that. "Umm, my computer is broken, I can't do my work..." "YOUR COMPUTER IS IRRELEVANT. WORK IS IRRELEVANT. YOU WILL SURRENDER...Oh, sorry, permissions were set wrong, you should be ok now."
No, the people broadcasting the kernel for 600 days sound like they're on the MS payroll. It's stupid, and won't help Linux's claim for being a solid alternative OS, just the OS of people who want to waste time and resources....
I use Linux, and have used it for years. I enjoy its flexibilty and the ease I can "open the hood" and see how things are working.
But something like this.... Does this make people think "Wow, Linux is Free Speech and Good" or "Wow, Linux users are a bunch of loonies with a religious bent and more concerned with ideals rather than developing a serious OS my business can depend on."
I don't see how this is useful or good in any way. 600 days? I just say, "Why?"
Ok...I'm not using a 486 for a desktop. They do make handy dns/dhcp/web/ftp/nfs servers though. And Mandrake486 was just to throw on one of the real computers, do a net install, and forget it. So I have one of the 486's in an old HP scanner network box (about 6 inches tall and no wider/longer than the motherboard itself). All I have to do is add it to my xhosts, pull up a terminal and run DrakConf. I get one GUI panel to configure most of the machine, and it really does run quickly; even xjewel or xfishtank run fine over the network (purely as a test of course).
I don't have top of the line hardware (1.2GHz Athlon, 1.8Ghz P4, 233Mhz PII, 133MHz 5x86 SBC, 100Mhz Pentium, 486DX2-66, 486DX-50, 486SX-33, and a CoCo). While it may be fun to play with the faster computers, sometimes it's good to grab a 486 laptop and code around. Optimization is not a concern anymore, it seems. If you can get something working pretty well on a 486, it will scream on anything faster. I remember using Windows 3.1 on a 386, and playing side-scroller games or even a 3D flightsim like MiG-29 (or a shooter like Wolfenstein 3D), and thought that was pretty cool.
The problem wasn't that Mandrake wouldn't support their 486 distribution. It was that they took the effort to wipe it out.
I'm about to quit bothering with Mandrake anymore. They removed their 486 distribution from the mirrors! It's nearly impossible to find now. I burned a CD of the 486 7.0 distro, and the next month it was gone. I use it as a simple way to put moderate functionality into some of these 486 boxes I have lying around. It runs ok on 486's around 50MHz+. However, I tried to go find txt_bootnet.img for it, and everything had vanished. Redhat 6.0 bootnet disks nearly work, and I did find something on a mandrake-CLE server in Taiwan. Don't know if it works yet.
If Mandrake wants people to like and buy their distribution, they shouldn't actually go through the effort of wiping their old distributions out of existence. I though some of the ideas were pretty neat, but won't buy a distro that not only completely drops support for older systems, but makes sure you can never get the old distro again.
Anyone want a mandrake486 cd? I'll burn you a CD free and send it for price of Priority Mail postage ($3.20). I'll only send out ten total, just want to make sure other people have it, so it won't completely vanish.
Also, how do they know that goldfish only have a three-second memory span? Do they observe goldfish watching MTV all the time?!
Anyone who had MOPY knows goldfish can remember much longer than three seconds. Mine eventually developed an intense combination of grudge-holding and fear.
So...sit on the end of a robot arm while it shimmies like Shakira.
Sounds like these robots need something useful to do, like weld truck parts.
The kids will probably like it though. Hope the code is well-tested, so the arm doesn't do a maximum acceleration to -4.323 Z.
This is wonderful. Now, in addition to DDOS attacks and hacking by the RIAA, we can have wardriving by the MPAA!
As the previous poster pointed out, RFID is relatively easy to snoop on.
One of my major peeves is the RFID card that gets me into work every morning. In certain stores, my RFID card returns a code that sets off their RF tag detectors at the door. Usually I remember, pull out my wallet, and hold it over my head while walking through. Once I forgot at Fleet Farm (basically a giant general store, like Home Depot with tractor parts) and I set off the alarm. Of course someone came to visit me, and it was especially embarrassing because I was wearing a big coat and didn't buy anything. She handed me a little piece of cardboard called a "Schlage Shield" and said to put it in my wallet. No more alarm.
Worked great, except that opening the door at work involved putting down my coffee, laptop, and lunch to get out the RF card (instead of conveniently pressing my butt against the door). So I took it out, and promptly set off a Barnes & Noble alarm. No one seemed to care, so I just pulled out my wallet and walked through with the wallet over my head again.
ANYWAY...the point is that RFID tags are barely more secure than keeping a post-it note with an access code.
I am curious exactly what my card claims to be on the store scanners....
And the whole article is a duplicate.
You can simply put 5V on the USB power line if necessary. Add a battery pack and regulator, maybe one of those nice InfoLithium batteries that seem to last forever. BTW, serial does not carry power.
Except for the fact that Star Trek is set in the future.
Remember this puzzle? Find the answer, and then start moving your servers!
The farmer (you) is taking his fox (servers), duck (DNS) and corn (customer web space) to market (colocation provider). He is currently stuck on the left bank of a major river (highway). The good news is that he has a boat available (pickup truck). The bad news is that the boat will only hold him and one other item for each crossing (changing over servers without service loss).
He dare not leave the duck alone with the corn as the corn would get eaten (no servers for DNS), or the duck alone with the fox as the duck would get eaten (no customer web space while swapping drives?). Also the farmer knows from prior experience that he cannot leave the corn alone on the right bank of the river (old location) since a large flock of crows (customers) is waiting to devour it (and you).
Can you help the farmer get everything across the river safely? (Ask Slashdot can!)
I'm pretty familiar with the concept of antenna gain and the fact that we're talking about a proportion rather than exactly 1/r^2.
;-)
I grabbed my own book from a wireless communications class a while back (Wireless Communications, Principles and Practice, Theodore S. Rappaport).
It states that for large, distant objects that induce scattering, that analysis based on diffraction and physical optics can be used to find the scattered field strength. It then goes on to describe the bistatic radar equation which I believe simplifies to something like your formula:
P[R](dBm) = P[T](dBm) + G[T](dBi) + 20log(wavelength) + RCS[dB m^2] - 30log(4*Pi) - 20log(d[T]) - 20log(d[R])
Obviously T and R are for transmitter and receiver, and RCS is the radar cross section, and G is the antenna gain (and Rappaport did like those logarithms). The book says this equation describes the propagation of a wave traveling in free space which impinges on a distant scattering object, and is then reradiated in the direction of the receiver . Which means my secondary "ok, that's why" explanation is pretty close. Yeah, I was thinking in terms of the particle behavior of light, because I was tired and didn't want to visualize a giant EM wave wrapping around an airplane....
Thanks for staying with me on this, so that I finally had to dust off my old book and lose the 6th grade physics reasoning.
There's one thing about that I can't swallow just yet.
My reasoning is that the radar transmitter is essentially a point source, therefore the radiaton will follow the inverse-square rule. When it hits a surface, the beam has already diverged, and the rays will reflect opposite the angle of incedence. This means that the rays of the reflected radiation still follow the same path, only reflected a certain angle from the original path. This means that the rays diverge at the same angle as before, which is simply a continuance of the 1/r^2 divergence from the original point source. For the return path to tack on another 1/r^2, it's like throwing a rubber ball at a wall, and it bounces back at 45 degrees.
Of course, if radar junkies treat the object as if it absorbs the radar energy and *then* re-emits it as a point source, I can see the r^4. Does the EM wavefront actually enter the conductor and then do transmission/reflection within the metal of the object before coming back? It's been a while since electromagnetics, and we never really focused on radar (and I've been stuck doing a mechanical engineering job, but that's another story). If you can explain why the reflection object becomes another point source, I'm glad to learn all the useful facts I can (especially if they contradict my intuition).
Ummm...wouldn't that be 1/(2r)^2? Since you're doubling the radiation path? It's not like the reflected wave is going to dissipate in five-dimensional space....
I actually have a pretty decent idea, not revolutionary, but fills a good-sized niche (two million units at last calculation). It's an idea I've had and documented since late 1999. Also, I've already done most of the work, as a working prototype existed earlier this year. I'm working on a refined version now (soldering a circuit board I had professionally made).
I once hacked together a movable webcam out of junk parts. My cam was soon accounting for 12% of the school's web hits. Then I had the idea to refine the device, and make it available at a low cost. Cheap webcams are everywhere; if I could build a working system with an hour of two of lashing junk parts together, then mass production should take the cost down to nothing. The device I built is controlled over USB, and has a USB hub controller integrated with three open ports. This allows you to plug in the pan/tilt base, then plug your camera into the base: only one wire to the pan/tilt cam, and two extra ports open up! Another thing I built, and am considering making available as a kit, is a really simple pan/tilt unit. Only three heat formed plastic parts, and it looks a lot better than two servos lashed together. I estimate total cost, if you bought the parts retail, about $25.
Anyway, the problem is not having the ideas, but doing something about them. And after that, the problem is getting the courage to take that next step. I have not been able to do it. I graduated from school this spring, and have been unable to find a job except for one that is purely mechanical design and pays temp office worker wages. I have to live with my parents still, as otherwise I would have barely enough money to live on and pay my student loans. And I can feel everything I knew about electrical engineering slipping away, as I sit in safety meetings and draw sheet metal parts in AutoCAD. Still, I'm trying to work on a few interesting projects and beef up my C++.
If you are in the position to start a new business, and you find some good ideas, go for it. I would do it in a heartbeat, if I could.
"...the RIAA recently declared MP3 music sharing led to the failure of the International Space Station, as reduced CD sales left Lance Bass unable to purchase his flight to the orbiting rathole."
It was actually done in The Next Generation. The same episode as the Traveler, where Wesley Crusher and the Traveler send the Enterprise bazillions of light years away, and everyone started seeing what they were thinking. It was pretty funny, especially when they guy thought he was burning up so Piccard was yelling at him to get a hold of himself. And then there was the scene where Piccard sat down to a cup of tea with his long-dead mother.
I remembered it as one of the more cheesy episodes of ST:TNG, actually...so Taken must be pretty bad.
And then it would proceed to EAT ALL LIVING THINGS before dying and leaving the planet barren, lifeless, and covered with a strange ooze.
What, so you can represent each possible codon as a single bit? Last I checked, you can represent 64 values with a measly six bits. (2^6 = 64).
I think it's just you. Demonstrable E-Ink displays already exist, how long do you think it will take to refine them?
And, why do we have exactly duplicate the feel of paper? E-Ink is supposed to duplicate the flexibility and static display capabilities of paper, while adding digital versatility. The feel of writing on paper is learned, not instinctive.
Finally, why does it have to be as cheap as paper? It's much better than paper, it has many more uses, but it makes no sense to feed E-Ink into a laser printer or to hang it next your toilet. Digital ink keeps you from having to buy paper all the time.
I tried to write something in Inuktitut on that page you linked, but I couldn't write "Hello World!" because there is no h!
"I think the great thing about tree-sitters using 802.11 is how they can post on the Internet without wires. That way, they can type 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!' while falling out of a tree, and click 'Submit' right before they hit the ground."