Its going to take a standards body and government to resolve this issue. There is already legislation to require standby mode for unused wall adapters. It certainly not in the interest of manufacturers to standardize on connectors and voltages.
Using USB to power devices reminds me of people who used to use free power from their phone line (maybe they still do?).
Absolutely correct. Its the rewarding of ignorance over intelligence. Perhaps this is inevitable. Wealthy societies (empires?) start shunning intelligence because it requires hard work, and hard work is, um, hard. Their entrenched, comfortable position allows them to coast on past successes. So those societies who have less and are motivated to work harder eventually supplant the ones who have got lazy and therefore ignorant.
I'm suprised noone has mentioned Docbook. Is there a descent front-end out there that people like? I only know of oXygen, but don't know how well it works.
The point is that high intelligence is not a pre-requisite as long as the qualities are present. It is great folly to think creating some artificial dorkubator at U of Woo will result in anything other than more mediocrity (already in high abundance at most institutions of higher learning). Being a janitor never necessitated a college level education, however, one has to wonder why its not a requirement for the captains of high tech.
The point that most people miss is that indeed, many corporate patents would not stand up to scrutiny when challenged, but that's not their purpose. The purpose of many of these patents is defensive. The intent is to prevent others from stopping sale of their product. Instead, big corporations get together behind closed doors and start signing cross-licensing agreements to mutual benefit based on patent portfolios that likely could never be defended in court. That is the exact opposite of what MS is trying to do here, using FUD on a patent porfolio that is likely inherently defensive which they know they could neven go to court with successfully.
If there is a resource available for making lectures widely available to students, why limit its distribution? Trying to shape student's behaviour by raising barriers to information distribution is futile and counterproductive and will only hinder the "good" students access. The "bad" students will not only skip class, they will not watch the podcasts or read from a textbook or learn the material. The more free the information, the better chance students who want to learn the material will benefit.
In the old days it used to be that learning was a serious endeavor, between a professor and a student, a master and an apprentice. Now with the mass production going on at universities with stadium seating, the student needs the benefit of any technological aid that is available. Lecturing (as it used to be) is dead. If podcasts can help even marginally, bring it on without restriction.
It is the reason I only consider buying ASUS notebooks/laptops, becaue they come without an OS pre-installed. They also happen to run Linux pretty well.
But the problem for vendors is not the issue of offering to install Linux, but of not pre-installing MS. Once they can free themselves from MS, then they can offer Linux distros, FreeBSD, or no OS at all without problems.
It seems that as soon as they offer MS, that action locks out everyone else. How that doesn't qualify as anti-competitive behaviour in the marketplace I have no idea.
It is a design flaw, and UPS's are a hardware patch.
I remember reading about a OS that they demo'ed by kicking the plug out of the wall. After plugging it back in, the machine would replay its "journal", and continue as if nothing had happened.
If someone remembers the name of this system, or has a link, that would help.
I vote for jpilot as well. As well as the obvious organizer functions and syncing with Palm devices, I find myself keeping miscellaneous notes and records in the memo pad. The app is light so the startup time is snappy, which makes it more useable than other calendar-like tools.
A lot has been done in coming up with good general purpose utilities for compressing files (for efficient transfer over communications links). For archiving, though, you want the opposite. You want a good expanding algorithm (error correction coder). If you are interested in archiving on a media that may slowly degrade, you may be willing to give up capacity for error free recovery. And here is the key point - what form do the errors take on a degrading CD? Are they random errors sprinkled over the disk, or block errors, where an entire sector may be lost at a time? (Of course if the entire CD fades out, you're screwed no matter what coding you do.) It would be useful to have a general purpose utility like gzip (say, gecc and gunecc) that applies a variable rate convolutional coder to files that need to be recovered in the face of bit errors. The CD medium inherent has coding, but you certainly could use more if your data is important to you.
A software engineer is to a programmer as a civil engineer is to a builder. Although a software engineer may program (just as an civil engineer may lay bricks), it is not his primary job.
A computer science degree has traditionally been granted by mathematics departments, and more recently has been gradually migrating to computer engineering departments (where it probably belongs). Some universities now grant separate software engineering degrees, so one shouldn't mix these terms.
Another point is the term "engineer" has been diluted by the ever present inflationary tendencies of our popular culture. It should be the cause of professional engineering associations to enforce its correct use, but companies also have an interest in diluting the value of the term in order to save on engineering wages. When was the last time you heard a health worker technician calling himself a doctor? The medical profession wouldn't allow it, but somehow this type of dilution is allowed by the engineering profession.
It used to be that learning was a serious endeavor, between a professor and a student, a master and an apprentice. Your final exam was an oral one, and the purpose was for the professor to determine whether you had absorbed the material sufficiently, and the result was a pass or fail for the student.
As testing becomes more mechanized and impersonal, it opens the door for fraud of all sorts. You can try to stem the fraud with technology, but nothing can stop a student from hiring an expert to write an original essay for them, or even a thesis.
If society really cares about the quality of the output of universities, then funding should be improved, class sizes reduced, and a more personal approach taken to teaching. Automated fraud detection is not going to save the university, in fact, it just shows how much in trouble it really is.
I have to disagree that CUPS has good documentation. The organization of it is confusing, some of it is out of date, and many terms aren't defined. It assumes you know what "foomatic" means and what the gimp-print provides. It took me three tries before I could install it successfully from source code, and I still don't have it working completely correctly (my printer configuration disappears when I reboot my server?). Although its great when it works, I think it could use a clear and up-to-date HOWTO-CUPS.
The syntax is close to Matlab, but has slight differences. In some ways much more powerful, and its free.
Another good commerical package is IDL (PV-Wave was another version of the same thing, I believe its owned by IMSL now). Although IDL is not as strong on signal processing as Matlab, it is very strong in image processing. It also has the ability to work with various data types (byte, short, long, float, double, comlex float,...). This makes it very efficient to use to process raw data. You use to be able to download a complete working version with timed 7 minute demo mode. Lets you run the demos and try it out before buying. Highly recommended.
The D2730 works with either a PCMCIA Ethernet Adapter (included) or an optional PCMCIA 802.11b Wireless Network Card and can stream MPEG1 and MPEG2 video files that are compressed at bitrates up to 3 Mbps.
So, it will work on a good 802.11b wireless link,
as long as the connection speed doesn't fall back
to below 3 Mbps (the 802.11b standard says the
fallback rates are 5.5, 2, and 1 Mbps). WEP, if
its there, can lower the rate as well by 20-50%.
There is no mention of DivX or other formats
in the press release, so you can assume anything
other than MPEG1/2 is not supported. I would
assume that even the MPEG file has to be
VCD/SVCD/XVCD compliant.
Slashdot Mirror
More information on the Sea-Tac avian radar system is available at the Accipiter Radar Technologies Inc. web page http://www.sicomsystems.com/prod_accipiter_avian.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_wart
Its going to take a standards body and government to resolve this issue. There is already legislation to require standby mode for unused wall adapters. It certainly not in the interest of manufacturers to standardize on connectors and voltages.
Using USB to power devices reminds me of people who used to use free power from their phone line (maybe they still do?).
Absolutely correct. Its the rewarding of ignorance over intelligence. Perhaps this is inevitable. Wealthy societies (empires?) start shunning intelligence because it requires hard work, and hard work is, um, hard. Their entrenched, comfortable position allows them to coast on past successes. So those societies who have less and are motivated to work harder eventually supplant the ones who have got lazy and therefore ignorant.
I'm suprised noone has mentioned Docbook. Is there a descent front-end out there that people like? I only know of oXygen, but don't know how well it works.
The point is that high intelligence is not a pre-requisite as long as the qualities are present. It is great folly to think creating some artificial dorkubator at U of Woo will result in anything other than more mediocrity (already in high abundance at most institutions of higher learning). Being a janitor never necessitated a college level education, however, one has to wonder why its not a requirement for the captains of high tech.
Oh yeah, Steve Jobs - college dropout
Bill Gates - college drop out
Michael Dell - college drop out
Larry Ellison - college drop out
All tech billionaires. Thus ends the lesson.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=234609&ci
Please shower me with gifts, thank you.
The point that most people miss is that indeed, many corporate patents would not stand up to scrutiny when challenged, but that's not their purpose. The purpose of many of these patents is defensive. The intent is to prevent others from stopping sale of their product. Instead, big corporations get together behind closed doors and start signing cross-licensing agreements to mutual benefit based on patent portfolios that likely could never be defended in court. That is the exact opposite of what MS is trying to do here, using FUD on a patent porfolio that is likely inherently defensive which they know they could neven go to court with successfully.
Sad thing is noone seems to find the fact that there is a matress in a subway suprising.
If there is a resource available for making lectures widely available to students, why limit its distribution? Trying to shape student's behaviour by raising barriers to information distribution is futile and counterproductive and will only hinder the "good" students access. The "bad" students will not only skip class, they will not watch the podcasts or read from a textbook or learn the material. The more free the information, the better chance students who want to learn the material will benefit.
In the old days it used to be that learning was a serious endeavor, between a professor and a student, a master and an apprentice. Now with the mass production going on at universities with stadium seating, the student needs the benefit of any technological aid that is available. Lecturing (as it used to be) is dead. If podcasts can help even marginally, bring it on without restriction.
People either consciously know or instinctively feel that there is no career there. And the real reason why there aren't there?
July 15, 2005
Economic Treason
What Kind of Country Destroys the Job Market for Its Own Citizens?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts07162005.html
I agree completely. Its a tax.
It is the reason I only consider buying ASUS notebooks/laptops, becaue they come without an OS pre-installed. They also happen to run Linux pretty well.
But the problem for vendors is not the issue of offering to install Linux, but of not pre-installing MS. Once they can free themselves from MS, then they can offer Linux distros, FreeBSD, or no OS at all without problems.
It seems that as soon as they offer MS, that action locks out everyone else. How that doesn't qualify as anti-competitive behaviour in the marketplace I have no idea.
And what of LazarusOS,
Come from the dead?
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~KeyKOS/
It is a design flaw, and UPS's are a hardware patch.
I remember reading about a OS that they demo'ed
by kicking the plug out of the wall.
After plugging it back in, the machine would
replay its "journal", and continue as if nothing
had happened.
If someone remembers the name of this system, or
has a link, that would help.
I vote for jpilot as well. As well as the obvious organizer functions and syncing with Palm devices, I find myself keeping miscellaneous notes and records in the memo pad. The app is light so the startup time is snappy, which makes it more useable than other calendar-like tools.
A lot has been done in coming up with good general purpose utilities for compressing files (for efficient transfer over communications links). For archiving, though, you want the opposite. You want a good expanding algorithm (error correction coder). If you are interested in archiving on a media that may slowly degrade, you may be willing to give up capacity for error free recovery. And here is the key point - what form do the errors take on a degrading CD? Are they random errors sprinkled over the disk, or block errors, where an entire sector may be lost at a time? (Of course if the entire CD fades out, you're screwed no matter what coding you do.) It would be useful to have a general purpose utility like gzip (say, gecc and gunecc) that applies a variable rate convolutional coder to files that need to be recovered in the face of bit errors. The CD medium inherent has coding, but you certainly could use more if your data is important to you.
A software engineer is to a programmer as a civil engineer is to a builder. Although a software engineer may program (just as an civil engineer may lay bricks), it is not his primary job.
A computer science degree has traditionally been granted by mathematics departments, and more recently has been gradually migrating to computer engineering departments (where it probably belongs). Some universities now grant separate software engineering degrees, so one shouldn't mix these terms.
Another point is the term "engineer" has been diluted by the ever present inflationary tendencies of our popular culture. It should be the cause of professional engineering associations to enforce its correct use, but companies also have an interest in diluting the value of the term in order to save on engineering wages. When was the last time you heard a health worker technician calling himself a doctor? The medical profession wouldn't allow it, but somehow this type of dilution is allowed by the engineering profession.
It used to be that learning was a serious endeavor, between a professor and a student, a master and an apprentice. Your final exam was an oral one, and the purpose was for the professor to determine whether you had absorbed the material sufficiently, and the result was a pass or fail for the student.
As testing becomes more mechanized and impersonal, it opens the door for fraud of all sorts. You can try to stem the fraud with technology, but nothing can stop a student from hiring an expert to write an original essay for them, or even a thesis.
If society really cares about the quality of the output of universities, then funding should be improved, class sizes reduced, and a more personal approach taken to teaching. Automated fraud detection is not going to save the university, in fact, it just shows how much in trouble it really is.
I have to disagree that CUPS has good documentation.
The organization of it is confusing, some of it
is out of date, and many terms aren't defined.
It assumes you know what "foomatic" means
and what the gimp-print provides. It took me
three tries before I could install it successfully
from source code, and I still don't have it working
completely correctly (my printer configuration
disappears when I reboot my server?). Although its
great when it works, I think it could use a clear
and up-to-date HOWTO-CUPS.
I'm suprised noone has mentioned Scilab so far:
...). This makes it very efficient to use to process raw data. You use to be able to download a complete working version with timed 7 minute demo mode. Lets you run the demos and try it out before buying. Highly recommended.
http://www-rocq.inria.fr/scilab/
The syntax is close to Matlab, but has slight differences. In some ways much more powerful,
and its free.
Another good commerical package is IDL (PV-Wave was another version of the same thing, I believe its owned by IMSL now). Although IDL is not as strong on signal processing as Matlab, it is very strong in image processing. It also has the ability to work with various data types (byte, short, long, float, double, comlex float,
http://www.rsinc.com/
Check out the press release:
http://www.sonicblue.com/company/press.asp?ID=580The D2730 works with either a PCMCIA Ethernet Adapter (included) or an optional PCMCIA 802.11b Wireless Network Card and can stream MPEG1 and MPEG2 video files that are compressed at bitrates up to 3 Mbps.
So, it will work on a good 802.11b wireless link, as long as the connection speed doesn't fall back to below 3 Mbps (the 802.11b standard says the fallback rates are 5.5, 2, and 1 Mbps). WEP, if its there, can lower the rate as well by 20-50%.
There is no mention of DivX or other formats in the press release, so you can assume anything other than MPEG1/2 is not supported. I would assume that even the MPEG file has to be VCD/SVCD/XVCD compliant.
A well-recognized tactic of rogues and scoundrels
is to accuse their adversaries of the exact
crime they themselves are guilty of.
Note to BG: review film "Citizen Kane". Rewind,
and watch again.