Here's what I do for ants, works better than any of those nerve agent poisons. Plain old diatomaceous earth (diatomite, silica powder, kisselgur, etc...) Some farmers use it to protect grain and stuff, but it works on ants and other crawly pests too. You put it in places where ants like to run around, like say, the base of a door, along a foundation or on top of an anthill. It kills some of them, injures others but they seem to hate it so much eventually the colony gives up and moves away from your house.
That's also about the only way to get rid of bedbugs.
It can't work like a sailboat does... steering partly into the wind, or changing the sail angle to alter the thrust exerted. There's no resistive force to work against, so it just kind of goes where it is taken.
However, tacking with the solar sail is still possible.
As an author, I'm still struggling with the question of whether to make electronic versions of my books available; but if were to do so, (and especially having carefully read the contract that Amazon makes you sign to make your work available for the Kindle) I wouldn't be inclined to insert another profit-making entity between me and my readers.
Cory Doctorow has managed to do fairly well selling books with free electronic versions available. I myself have bought paper editions of his works that I read first as a free download.
As for the DRM issue, I buy a lot of ebooks to read on my smartphone, including some that use eReader DRM, but it's a pretty light DRM in that the books are just encrypted using a key that I provide. I can transfer the books to any device, including my laptop, or any other computer, smartphone, etc., and just have to enter the key. That level of DRM is not crippling, and I don't mind it. That being said, I'd still rather have DRM-free editions, and buy them when available.
I read ebooks when I take the bus to work, on my Creative Zen MP3 player, even though the backlight is a huge cause of eye strain. My solution? Sunglasses!;) You might laugh, but it kills that awful blue-white glare.
That actually makes sense. I had a friend who had terrible eye strain to the point that his parents/educators thought he was dyslexic, until he started using a glare shield to read, and now he reads books recreationally.
not to mention the fact that backups are explicitly referenced in at least two episodes. Heck, that was a major plot point of the 2 part season finale. For one of the characters, the primary was destroyed, and the backup was stolen. Now, it would make sense to have offsite backups, and I would imagine that they do, but for purposes of the plot, it is not much of a stretch for them to need it right away.
Avoid using objects such as coins for scale, as they will require people unfamiliar with them to look up the dimensions or guess, both of which defeat the purpose of the object in the first place. Coins are particularly bad as they can reinforce a geographical bias.
Ideally, a slashdot post should include SI/metric units, as they are the most commonly used worldwide.
no, this is slashdot. We use units such as VW Beetles and Libraries of Congress.
Just to add, I remember the Video Toaster fondly. Granted, it was a niche platform; not something that would really propel the Amiga into homes in the '90s, but by '94-96 when I and many others were using 3D Studio (later 3DS Max) and Lightwave on the PC, there was less of a need to rely on the Amiga.
That is true, but not just because of the amiga. NewTek did some very good things, and are still around as a company, while there current line runs in XP.
indeed, streaming to http was our solution. For a company of less than 100 employees, straight unicast http was fine. We tested it by having every employee watch the stream, and having a bunch of test windows open, and it worked fine. I investigated multicast, and some of our switches supported it, and some didn't, and it seemed like it was overly complex. As for the transcoding, I didn't have that issue as the video capture cards do hardware mpeg 2 encoding, so we just streamed that directly.
American educational TV does exist, though much of it is distributed via VHS, DVD, internet, or filmstrip. It's far more convenient to allow teachers to decide when and where they want to show the film.
Also, much of the US has pitiful broadcast reception. Whereas I could receive 20+ channels of crystal-clear digital broadcasts in my middle-of-nowhere village in Scotland, I can barely receive 1 or 2 analogue networks from my house located barely an hour outside of New York City.
Most schools that I have been in have either cable tv or satellite. Especially with cable, signal strength is almost never an issue. A lot of educational programs are on cable, as part of the community access program.
Slashdot Mirror
One other way to increase efficiency of a ship is a Bulbous Bow
I wonder if it's using a Mecanum wheel. It allows travel in any direction, but only on very flat surfaces. It's used for fork lifts and the like, where extra maneuverability is needed.
Here's what I do for ants, works better than any of those nerve agent poisons. Plain old diatomaceous earth (diatomite, silica powder, kisselgur, etc...) Some farmers use it to protect grain and stuff, but it works on ants and other crawly pests too. You put it in places where ants like to run around, like say, the base of a door, along a foundation or on top of an anthill. It kills some of them, injures others but they seem to hate it so much eventually the colony gives up and moves away from your house.
That's also about the only way to get rid of bedbugs.
It Rebelled.
It Evolved.
There are many Copies.
And it has a Plan.
I was going to suggest UMSDOS, but a quick google search shows that it hasn't been in the kernel since 2.6.11.
That was A Fire Upon the Deep. One of my favorite books of all time.
Buy an airline power adapter and quit whining
I have one, but in my experience, almost no planes actually have them.
It can't work like a sailboat does... steering partly into the wind, or changing the sail angle to alter the thrust exerted. There's no resistive force to work against, so it just kind of goes where it is taken.
However, tacking with the solar sail is still possible.
I think the idea is that they seize it while you are using it and logged in. Otherwise, like you said, there would be no point in keeping it on.
They don't unplug you, they keep the system powered. http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/22/hotplug-transport-a.html
(sorry for the bad pun)
Different Kinds of Darkness is still to this day one of my favorite stories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schneier's_Law
As an author, I'm still struggling with the question of whether to make electronic versions of my books available; but if were to do so, (and especially having carefully read the contract that Amazon makes you sign to make your work available for the Kindle) I wouldn't be inclined to insert another profit-making entity between me and my readers.
Cory Doctorow has managed to do fairly well selling books with free electronic versions available. I myself have bought paper editions of his works that I read first as a free download.
As for the DRM issue, I buy a lot of ebooks to read on my smartphone, including some that use eReader DRM, but it's a pretty light DRM in that the books are just encrypted using a key that I provide. I can transfer the books to any device, including my laptop, or any other computer, smartphone, etc., and just have to enter the key. That level of DRM is not crippling, and I don't mind it. That being said, I'd still rather have DRM-free editions, and buy them when available.
I read ebooks when I take the bus to work, on my Creative Zen MP3 player, even though the backlight is a huge cause of eye strain. My solution? Sunglasses! ;) You might laugh, but it kills that awful blue-white glare.
That actually makes sense. I had a friend who had terrible eye strain to the point that his parents/educators thought he was dyslexic, until he started using a glare shield to read, and now he reads books recreationally.
not to mention the fact that backups are explicitly referenced in at least two episodes. Heck, that was a major plot point of the 2 part season finale. For one of the characters, the primary was destroyed, and the backup was stolen. Now, it would make sense to have offsite backups, and I would imagine that they do, but for purposes of the plot, it is not much of a stretch for them to need it right away.
http://xkcd.com/380/
/me wonders how many other people post for the sake of racking up the "April Fool" achievement
Hmmm, slashdotters wouldn't be *that* shallow would we?
Yeah, but DOES IT RUN LINUX?
With implanted medical monitors, LINUX RUNS YOU!
http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2002/08/28/0wnz0red/print.html
moo
Actually, that's mu
Avoid using objects such as coins for scale, as they will require people unfamiliar with them to look up the dimensions or guess, both of which defeat the purpose of the object in the first place. Coins are particularly bad as they can reinforce a geographical bias.
Ideally, a slashdot post should include SI/metric units, as they are the most commonly used worldwide.
no, this is slashdot. We use units such as VW Beetles and Libraries of Congress.
There are many copies. And they have a plan.
yes, but they formerly had a Plan.
Just to add, I remember the Video Toaster fondly. Granted, it was a niche platform; not something that would really propel the Amiga into homes in the '90s, but by '94-96 when I and many others were using 3D Studio (later 3DS Max) and Lightwave on the PC, there was less of a need to rely on the Amiga.
That is true, but not just because of the amiga. NewTek did some very good things, and are still around as a company, while there current line runs in XP.
indeed, streaming to http was our solution. For a company of less than 100 employees, straight unicast http was fine. We tested it by having every employee watch the stream, and having a bunch of test windows open, and it worked fine. I investigated multicast, and some of our switches supported it, and some didn't, and it seemed like it was overly complex. As for the transcoding, I didn't have that issue as the video capture cards do hardware mpeg 2 encoding, so we just streamed that directly.
American educational TV does exist, though much of it is distributed via VHS, DVD, internet, or filmstrip. It's far more convenient to allow teachers to decide when and where they want to show the film.
Also, much of the US has pitiful broadcast reception. Whereas I could receive 20+ channels of crystal-clear digital broadcasts in my middle-of-nowhere village in Scotland, I can barely receive 1 or 2 analogue networks from my house located barely an hour outside of New York City.
Most schools that I have been in have either cable tv or satellite. Especially with cable, signal strength is almost never an issue. A lot of educational programs are on cable, as part of the community access program.