... and the divide between them, as it does about NASA.
Sure, it's not *new* news (heck, I was watching this space walk on NASA TV on Sunday...), but it is news for nerds. My generation (I'm 30) of nerds grew up with the space program, and I still have a fondness for it.
Perhaps some of the posters that exhibit anti-NASA sentiment are a new generation of nerds who just don't care... in which case, this story is not just about a space walk, but the ripping divide between those who still have Space as a goal in their hearts, vs. those who don't give a damn.
Space is useful. We're using it. It's a good thing to be exploring it and building in it...
Handsprings are still way ahead of the Palm platform.
You're overlooking a serious feature in the Visors: Springboard expansion.
The basic system doesn't really need much more evolution - the color Visor is really about all you need in a platform, since Springboard gives you so many options.
Right now, you could turn your Visor into a cell phone, a GPS receiver, an MP3 player, a MIDI instrument, an Oscilloscope, a Data capture device (16 analog inputs), etc. All with Springboard modules.
Try to do *all* of that (not just some) with a Palm. Forget it.
Probably be a ton of other stuff there as well, after the mission completes.
Also, if you're interested, you should be watching NASA TV - live coverage of the entire mission (though this time around, there's no live TV courtesy of a malfunctioning shuttle antenna).
On previous missions, NASA TV has given me about all I can stand of video and pictures and details and information about the ongoing shuttle missions...
I've been watching the mission on NASA TV over the last few days, and the thing I was wondering about is why they can't use the Truss' Ku-band antenna to transmit video from the shuttle right now, to make up for the shuttles damaged antenna?
I guess the Truss isn't fully online yet, but if it was - would it be possible for them to re-route signals through the shuttle out onto the ISS' systems?
Heck, if they can do stuff like that in the movies...:)
I'm not so sure I'm concerned by the VAIO lettering - personally, I think the design of this laptop will warrant after-market (3rd party) accessories, such as a 'westsuit' like covering - so you can wrap the laptop up in a nice outer protective sleeve, condom-like, and still carry it around - so most likely the VAIO effect will be lessened.
Wrap one of these up in one of those wetsuit cover things, maybe use some nice rubber/latex design, and I'll make it my next laptop, for sure.
Take a look at the "material" closeup shots on the Sony site, and I think you'll find it looks really nice.
Having been a loyal Sony user for a few years (my current machine is an XG9) I'm quite intrigued by this new design. I wonder if it's a bit more rugged - that "PVC"ish outline seems to imply a bit more strength to me, which is a good thing. I've dropped my XG9 twice, and it's suffered minor damage as a result - if that rollbar on the new Sony will prevent that sort of damage, I'm all for it.
I like the inclusion of the handle, that's pretty slick - dunno why people say "its an iBook ripoff" just because of the handle. Laptops have had handles since before Apple even had a laptop design division - my old Grid machine had a great carrying system.
Generally, I think this new design is refreshing. The clean lines of the keys are really sexy - implies "Go"-style imagery, those keys, something I'd be happy to own. If the machine itself is fast, affordable, and available in the US, I may just upgrade.
Though, I have to say, I hope Sony fix their damned DVD drive manufacturing problems... this one on my XG9 just failed again.
There is *VERY* little mechanical dexterity required to build this thing - I don't know if you looked at the complete site, but about the most difficult part of building this thing is getting the double-sided sticky tape lined up on the plastic disc properly...
Really, I'm astounded at the simplicity of this project. It looks *extremely* easy to build, and I hope some enterprising capitalist puts together a parts kit for this thing and starts selling it.
Most certainly, these objects are *STILL* in use by NASA - mostly to study the effects of space radiation on equipment, and there are definite plans to come back to the landing sites at some point and do an analysis on the materials.
The last man on the moon left his Hasselblad camera lens pointing up at the stars on the lunar rover passenger seat. (Lunar astronauts were issued their own Hasselblads, and remained their property after the missions were completed)
He was thinking, as he was packing up, whether or not to retrieve it - but decided that leaving it there on the seat, facing the stars, would be a good way to collect cosmic particles - in the *lens* of the camera - for later analysis during some future mission.
That's how focused these guys and many of the other NASA moon hipsters were on the importance of the science they were working on.
So to assume that just because the gear up there is not being *used* does *NOT* mean that the equipment is not part of a further scientific mission. Modern-day standards for "junk propagation" do not apply when you're studying materials, space, etc.
(Too lazy for tags)
http://www.handspring.com/products/visorphone/
says that it's got a built-in 14.4k modem that youc an use to dialup if you want... not super fast, but adequate for most email situations, I'd imagine...
Sounds to me like MS has put the techniques used by the ILOVEYOU virus to use in 'protecting consumers' from having bad (read: non-MS controlled) email services...
Hmm... freaky. What I want to know, is *how* did they do this, technically? Can other spammers use this same technique as well, or is it a Microsoft-only hidden technique? Because if it is, thats monopolistic.
Everyone should be able to use all the MS Outlook users out there to send spam, you know... not just Microsoft!
.. or has it? I guess they're not a sovereign nation, are they... which I suppose makes it perfectly acceptable for the US government to make a treaty with it, without the will of the people, to control the US economy.
(Hint: The Federal Reserve Bank is a privately held organization...)
The dispatch is clean and direct. There are no ugly switch statements to write, no casting of message arguments, no constructors that do reams of "pOKButton = new TButton( pDialog, ID_MY_OK_BUTTON );" just to get pointers to your controls, etc. I don't know how close Delphi comes to this level of convenience, but the whole setup is very, very elegant. It's amazing how much tedious hand-coding it eliminates. Basically your UI code boils down to just what is needed to get things to behave the way you want them to.
This is *very* similar to the way Delphi does things, in fact I think there's a lot of similarity to these tools. Delphi takes all of Windows message-passing cruftiness and wraps it up in a nice event-driven model, tying events to various controls very easily. You need not maintain large case statements, do loads of the GUI yourself, etc - Delphi takes care of all of that.
Need to write some code for when the user hits a button? Just double click the button in the Delphi interface, and start writing your code - Delphi will take care of all the plumbing.
This also results in a very, very moderate performance hit - but as you said, this is totally neglible for most of the apps out there, and its my view that Delphi is the best kept Windows development secret out there. It's such an amazing platform, and if Kylix on Linux and IB on MacOSX are similar in scope and feel, then I'm looking forward to developing my apps on both of those platforms in the near future...
Hope to see you on macosx-dev!:-)
Soon as I can afford the $400, and have gotten my G4 up and running with all the cool tools, I'll be over there! I'm seriously looking forward to moving to the G4/MacOSX from my existing Laptop/Win98 setup for all my email and general administrative software needs...
Does it work with the linuxdedicated server, tho?
on
New Q3A Patch And Mods
·
· Score: 2
I've got a Mac G4 and an AMD750 PC that I want to upgrade to v1.7 (well, when I can finally find a 1.7 point release installer for the Mac that doesn't hang, but that's a different story), but the problem is, I've done the upgrade on my PC to 1.7 and it no longer talks to the linuxdedicated server I set up on my local LAN for private deathmatch games...
So is there a new version of linuxdedicated server for 1.25 that will work with this point release, or should I wait a while?
C'mon guys, what're you talking about? I want to know what happens and what you can do when you tweak your system to get 125fps... I've got an AMD750, and I've been trying to tweak the crap out of it, and I don't see any differences...
What sort of tricky jumps are you talking about? BFG creep, and stuff like that?
Thanks for the excellent response - I've downloaded a lot of those pages for offline viewing, and will devour rapidly...
Just curious if you've ever had a chance to compare Interface Builder/OpenStep with something like Delphi? Delphi was a godsend for me, and the degree of power it gave me as a Windows developer was astounding - it sounds like something similar occurs with InterfaceBuilder.
If there's anyone that's used both Delphi and IB, and can give a fairly constructive comparison of the differences/similarities, I'd love to hear it. I've recently become a Delphi zealot, and avidly awate the arrival of Kylix on Linux...
I have NextStep 4.0 still, from the good old days, but I never had an opportunity to really explore the dev tools that came with it because the project I purchased it for moved over to Windows as the target platform... unfortunately.
Where do we get details on what it's like to develop GUI apps for Mac OS X? What're the tools like?
Details! I want details, before I go out and spend $400 on an ADC Select membership... I'm *REALLY* looking forward to the possible switch away from Win32 as my client OS to Mac OS X for everything... (still using Linux as my server and web platform)
Here's a test: On a *snap* basis, figure out what the difference is between acceleration and speed.
Most people won't think about the difference, as most folks think speed=acceleration.
Try it out - go around and ask 5 average folks (you may have a few around) what 'acceleration' means... betcha they all say 'how fast something is going'.
Why it is that geeks can't see behind the curtain for things like this continues to befuddle me.
It's a simple matter of business economy, and careful planning.
It costs Palm about another 30% more to make the magalloy Palm V than it did for them to make the earlier plastic-shell Palms. There are some that say that the only reason magalloy was possible with the Palm V line was because of strategic partnerships made with companies such as IBM, who have sufficient weight to pull this off, economically.
Because the manufacturing costs are higher, and Handspring is still a relatively young company trying very hard to capture market share (and thus, they put more into marketing expenses than the the extremely expensive tool-up required for manufacturing magalloy cases), it makes total sense that they're using the injection-mold plastic cases for the existing Visor line.
This plastic also has physical limitations such as strength, flexibility, etc. that have to be accounted for in design - and thus, the case is designed the way it is. I personally don't find it terribly unattractive - certainly, it fits well in my pocket, follows the 'bar of soap' design philosophy for personal consumer electronics devices, and it functions well.
Tooling up a custom manufacturing plant to produce magnesium-alloy cases which can thus be smaller and thinner (due to increased strengths) is not something that I would expect a new company such as Handspring to do, not at all.
They are doing exactly what they need to do, which is produce good quality devices, at an affordable price, which captures market share and creates happy, satisfied consumers, while also reducing the investment in expensive manufacturing toolup processes.
Give them a year, and I would say that they'll release smaller, thinner, more fashionable-looking versions of the Visor - because by then they'll have the capital to invest in the tooling facilities for new case materials, and they'll also have the market share to warrant the investment.
I know for sure that, as a loyal, happy Visor user (been a Palm user since Day One of the PalmPilot track) I will be more than happy to upgrade to a magalloy Visor next year some time, because I trust this company...
Slashdot Mirror
... and the divide between them, as it does about NASA.
... in which case, this story is not just about a space walk, but the ripping divide between those who still have Space as a goal in their hearts, vs. those who don't give a damn.
Sure, it's not *new* news (heck, I was watching this space walk on NASA TV on Sunday...), but it is news for nerds. My generation (I'm 30) of nerds grew up with the space program, and I still have a fondness for it.
Perhaps some of the posters that exhibit anti-NASA sentiment are a new generation of nerds who just don't care
Space is useful. We're using it. It's a good thing to be exploring it and building in it...
Handsprings are still way ahead of the Palm platform.
You're overlooking a serious feature in the Visors: Springboard expansion.
The basic system doesn't really need much more evolution - the color Visor is really about all you need in a platform, since Springboard gives you so many options.
Right now, you could turn your Visor into a cell phone, a GPS receiver, an MP3 player, a MIDI instrument, an Oscilloscope, a Data capture device (16 analog inputs), etc. All with Springboard modules.
Try to do *all* of that (not just some) with a Palm. Forget it.
Start here:
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/st
Probably be a ton of other stuff there as well, after the mission completes.
Also, if you're interested, you should be watching NASA TV - live coverage of the entire mission (though this time around, there's no live TV courtesy of a malfunctioning shuttle antenna).
On previous missions, NASA TV has given me about all I can stand of video and pictures and details and information about the ongoing shuttle missions
I've been watching the mission on NASA TV over the last few days, and the thing I was wondering about is why they can't use the Truss' Ku-band antenna to transmit video from the shuttle right now, to make up for the shuttles damaged antenna?
... :)
I guess the Truss isn't fully online yet, but if it was - would it be possible for them to re-route signals through the shuttle out onto the ISS' systems?
Heck, if they can do stuff like that in the movies
I'm not so sure I'm concerned by the VAIO lettering - personally, I think the design of this laptop will warrant after-market (3rd party) accessories, such as a 'westsuit' like covering - so you can wrap the laptop up in a nice outer protective sleeve, condom-like, and still carry it around - so most likely the VAIO effect will be lessened.
Wrap one of these up in one of those wetsuit cover things, maybe use some nice rubber/latex design, and I'll make it my next laptop, for sure.
Take a look at the "material" closeup shots on the Sony site, and I think you'll find it looks really nice.
Having been a loyal Sony user for a few years (my current machine is an XG9) I'm quite intrigued by this new design. I wonder if it's a bit more rugged - that "PVC"ish outline seems to imply a bit more strength to me, which is a good thing. I've dropped my XG9 twice, and it's suffered minor damage as a result - if that rollbar on the new Sony will prevent that sort of damage, I'm all for it.
I like the inclusion of the handle, that's pretty slick - dunno why people say "its an iBook ripoff" just because of the handle. Laptops have had handles since before Apple even had a laptop design division - my old Grid machine had a great carrying system.
Generally, I think this new design is refreshing. The clean lines of the keys are really sexy - implies "Go"-style imagery, those keys, something I'd be happy to own. If the machine itself is fast, affordable, and available in the US, I may just upgrade.
Though, I have to say, I hope Sony fix their damned DVD drive manufacturing problems... this one on my XG9 just failed again.
http://www.freeboxen.com/dbconnect.inc
Not terribly fun.
Check this out, American Tax Slaves:
http://www.taxfreedom.ws
http://No1040s.com/secret
http://www.solgroup.com/notax
http://www.federaltax.net
True freedom awaits you.
There is *VERY* little mechanical dexterity required to build this thing - I don't know if you looked at the complete site, but about the most difficult part of building this thing is getting the double-sided sticky tape lined up on the plastic disc properly...
Really, I'm astounded at the simplicity of this project. It looks *extremely* easy to build, and I hope some enterprising capitalist puts together a parts kit for this thing and starts selling it.
It looks *super* easy.
Most certainly, these objects are *STILL* in use by NASA - mostly to study the effects of space radiation on equipment, and there are definite plans to come back to the landing sites at some point and do an analysis on the materials.
The last man on the moon left his Hasselblad camera lens pointing up at the stars on the lunar rover passenger seat. (Lunar astronauts were issued their own Hasselblads, and remained their property after the missions were completed)
He was thinking, as he was packing up, whether or not to retrieve it - but decided that leaving it there on the seat, facing the stars, would be a good way to collect cosmic particles - in the *lens* of the camera - for later analysis during some future mission.
That's how focused these guys and many of the other NASA moon hipsters were on the importance of the science they were working on.
So to assume that just because the gear up there is not being *used* does *NOT* mean that the equipment is not part of a further scientific mission. Modern-day standards for "junk propagation" do not apply when you're studying materials, space, etc.
Yes, the page on this link:
(Too lazy for tags)
http://www.handspring.com/products/visorphone/
says that it's got a built-in 14.4k modem that youc an use to dialup if you want... not super fast, but adequate for most email situations, I'd imagine...
Ok, didn't realize i was trolling, and posted before i finished reading the article... sorry to waste your time, mr. BFS.
Sounds to me like MS has put the techniques used by the ILOVEYOU virus to use in 'protecting consumers' from having bad (read: non-MS controlled) email services...
Hmm... freaky. What I want to know, is *how* did they do this, technically? Can other spammers use this same technique as well, or is it a Microsoft-only hidden technique? Because if it is, thats monopolistic.
Everyone should be able to use all the MS Outlook users out there to send spam, you know... not just Microsoft!
.. or has it? I guess they're not a sovereign nation, are they ... which I suppose makes it perfectly acceptable for the US government to make a treaty with it, without the will of the people, to control the US economy.
(Hint: The Federal Reserve Bank is a privately held organization...)
no, that won't do shit for the landfill.
the more aol cd's get burned up in this comp, in real big objects, the better...
Not any more. Seems to be busted.
Anyone make a mirror of that site, by chance? I guess we've been locked out of it...
Troy,
:-)
The dispatch is clean and direct. There are no ugly switch statements to write, no casting of message arguments, no constructors that do reams of "pOKButton = new TButton( pDialog, ID_MY_OK_BUTTON );" just to get pointers to your controls, etc. I don't know how close Delphi comes to this level of convenience, but the whole setup is very, very elegant. It's amazing how much tedious hand-coding it eliminates. Basically your UI code boils down to just what is needed to get things to behave the way you want them to.
This is *very* similar to the way Delphi does things, in fact I think there's a lot of similarity to these tools. Delphi takes all of Windows message-passing cruftiness and wraps it up in a nice event-driven model, tying events to various controls very easily. You need not maintain large case statements, do loads of the GUI yourself, etc - Delphi takes care of all of that.
Need to write some code for when the user hits a button? Just double click the button in the Delphi interface, and start writing your code - Delphi will take care of all the plumbing.
This also results in a very, very moderate performance hit - but as you said, this is totally neglible for most of the apps out there, and its my view that Delphi is the best kept Windows development secret out there. It's such an amazing platform, and if Kylix on Linux and IB on MacOSX are similar in scope and feel, then I'm looking forward to developing my apps on both of those platforms in the near future...
Hope to see you on macosx-dev!
Soon as I can afford the $400, and have gotten my G4 up and running with all the cool tools, I'll be over there! I'm seriously looking forward to moving to the G4/MacOSX from my existing Laptop/Win98 setup for all my email and general administrative software needs...
I've got a Mac G4 and an AMD750 PC that I want to upgrade to v1.7 (well, when I can finally find a 1.7 point release installer for the Mac that doesn't hang, but that's a different story), but the problem is, I've done the upgrade on my PC to 1.7 and it no longer talks to the linuxdedicated server I set up on my local LAN for private deathmatch games...
So is there a new version of linuxdedicated server for 1.25 that will work with this point release, or should I wait a while?
C'mon guys, what're you talking about? I want to know what happens and what you can do when you tweak your system to get 125fps ... I've got an AMD750, and I've been trying to tweak the crap out of it, and I don't see any differences...
What sort of tricky jumps are you talking about? BFG creep, and stuff like that?
C'mon, fill us in here, 'leet Quake Gods...
Thanks for the excellent response - I've downloaded a lot of those pages for offline viewing, and will devour rapidly...
... unfortunately.
Just curious if you've ever had a chance to compare Interface Builder/OpenStep with something like Delphi? Delphi was a godsend for me, and the degree of power it gave me as a Windows developer was astounding - it sounds like something similar occurs with InterfaceBuilder.
If there's anyone that's used both Delphi and IB, and can give a fairly constructive comparison of the differences/similarities, I'd love to hear it. I've recently become a Delphi zealot, and avidly awate the arrival of Kylix on Linux...
I have NextStep 4.0 still, from the good old days, but I never had an opportunity to really explore the dev tools that came with it because the project I purchased it for moved over to Windows as the target platform
Where do we get details on what it's like to develop GUI apps for Mac OS X? What're the tools like?
... (still using Linux as my server and web platform)
Details! I want details, before I go out and spend $400 on an ADC Select membership... I'm *REALLY* looking forward to the possible switch away from Win32 as my client OS to Mac OS X for everything
Yup.
Here's a test: On a *snap* basis, figure out what the difference is between acceleration and speed.
Most people won't think about the difference, as most folks think speed=acceleration.
Try it out - go around and ask 5 average folks (you may have a few around) what 'acceleration' means... betcha they all say 'how fast something is going'.
Yup, its a catch-22 situation ... welcome to the world of hardware development. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Economy.
...
That's why their strategy is a good one - they'll release better-looking and more solidly constructed gear within a year, I guarantee it
Yig-dra-sil. Not difficult at all.
They were my favourite distro until they stopped being a distro. Too bad, they always did neat stuff.
Why it is that geeks can't see behind the curtain for things like this continues to befuddle me.
It's a simple matter of business economy, and careful planning.
It costs Palm about another 30% more to make the magalloy Palm V than it did for them to make the earlier plastic-shell Palms. There are some that say that the only reason magalloy was possible with the Palm V line was because of strategic partnerships made with companies such as IBM, who have sufficient weight to pull this off, economically.
Because the manufacturing costs are higher, and Handspring is still a relatively young company trying very hard to capture market share (and thus, they put more into marketing expenses than the the extremely expensive tool-up required for manufacturing magalloy cases), it makes total sense that they're using the injection-mold plastic cases for the existing Visor line.
This plastic also has physical limitations such as strength, flexibility, etc. that have to be accounted for in design - and thus, the case is designed the way it is. I personally don't find it terribly unattractive - certainly, it fits well in my pocket, follows the 'bar of soap' design philosophy for personal consumer electronics devices, and it functions well.
Tooling up a custom manufacturing plant to produce magnesium-alloy cases which can thus be smaller and thinner (due to increased strengths) is not something that I would expect a new company such as Handspring to do, not at all.
They are doing exactly what they need to do, which is produce good quality devices, at an affordable price, which captures market share and creates happy, satisfied consumers, while also reducing the investment in expensive manufacturing toolup processes.
Give them a year, and I would say that they'll release smaller, thinner, more fashionable-looking versions of the Visor - because by then they'll have the capital to invest in the tooling facilities for new case materials, and they'll also have the market share to warrant the investment.
I know for sure that, as a loyal, happy Visor user (been a Palm user since Day One of the PalmPilot track) I will be more than happy to upgrade to a magalloy Visor next year some time, because I trust this company...