Energy Conversion Devices has developed a 30 Megawatt solar machine the size of a football field. The device produces nine miles of solar cell at a time. The amorphous solar cells are not great in terms of ultimate conversion efficiency, but they are unique in that they will put out much more power over their life time than the energy used to produce them. They are great on a watt per dollar basis.
Is anybody else worried that this might turn into another Corel?
Corel died because Microsoft wanted them to.
Corel had a great plan but, ultimately, management was bought out by Billy.
People don't seem to be picking up on this. The same thing happened with Apple and OSX right after Steve Jobs dumped every last share in the company (aside from the single "symbolic" share that he did keep).
Microsoft owns each and every one of us. If they didn't, we'd have seen them split up a long time ago...
We returned a new 19" monitor the other day because it was native 1600x1200. The text was unreadable at that resolution and lower resolutions simply looked like crap. We replaced it with a 1280x1024 bit but that is still on the small side.
The last time that this was brought up on slashdot, most of the arrogant jerks tried to point out that you can "simply adjust the font size in the control panel". This doesn't work for anyone who has tried it.
Longhorn will take a big step forward in this area. They will be rendering the window system and applying it as a texture so that the DPI of the monitor is irrelevant. X will be light years behind if it doesn't do this first.
I was working in the lab late one night When my eyes beheld an eerie sight For my monster from his slab began to rise And suddenly to my surprise
He did the MSH He did the Microsoft MSH The monster MSH It was a graveyard SSH He did the MSH It caught on in a flash He did the MSH He did the Microsoft MSH
It does not appear that Google is seriously considering merging into Microsoft.
I don't think that it would be up to google management. Since Microsoft has been recognized by the government, the matter would be up to the FTC. And I think that we all know that this would be an anti-competitive move.
That said, I'm sure Microsoft could pay someone off but we would all find a new search engine once Microsoft ruined google and the employees leave to start fresh.
Actually, many ISPs had blocked off stuff from Gator's networks so they needed a new non-gator DNS from which to generate pop-ups.
I build PCs for friends and family occasionally and now I will need to update the HOSTS file on all of them or this shit will get reinstalled.
I can't believe that open-source isn't addressing this issue and that we will have to wait for Microsoft to come up with a *real* solution (shudder). Is this the only use for trusted computing?
Seriously, there are some freeware programs out there but they are much too complex for users who don't know whether to click YES or NO when prompted with blatant spyware. If someone could just come up with a simple auto-loading, auto-updating piece of software that simply made these decisions for the user, we wouldn't be here today.
Actually, it is the other way around. Places like Best Buy and OfficeMax enjoy the healthier margins on the brand-name ink. Heck - they even get the printer makers to omit the USB cable so that they can charge $20 for a part.
A while ago (when USB printers first became the dominant style), I had some real fun. I loaded up a cart with thousands of dollars worth of computer stuff (that I was legitimately going to purchase) and a printer was part of it. When I found out that the *cheapest* USB cable in the store would cost me $20, I just left the salesmen standing there with their thumbs in their asses.
I ordered a *hundred* USB cables for a dollar and I keep them in my trunk. Now, Best Buy is a necessity for me at times because it is convenient. Whenever I go, I stop by the printer aisle and give a cable or two away to anyone who mich need one. It saves them $20 and makes me feel a little better about actually spending my money at such a crooked store.
The interesting thing is that Lexmarks are sold *with* a USB cable at places like RiteAid and other convenience stores.
1) WebShots started trickling other various spyware programs onto the host PC. If you install webshots, then you will get a number of other programs eventually. One of them involves a continuous stream of popups.
2) I forget the name of this particular gem but it modified the HOSTS file to redirect websites to *other* sites. One of them was google.com. It redirected the PC to a similar looking site. The only reason that this one was discovered in the first place is that it became too successful and DoS'ed its own website. The user came in with the complaint that he couldn't get to google.com. If you get something like this, you'll need to go into the \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts (or \winnt or whatever systemroot is) and delete the entries from the hosts file (use a text editor to open it). The problem here is that most Joe's don't know the difference.
I'd literally like to shoot some of these software companies in the back of the head. This is criminal activity. It is probably microsoft's "trusted computing marketing department" at work. (sarcasm) Seriously, this will cause huge sales for Microsoft's trusted computing platform if open source doesn't address it on a free basis.
And yes - I've tried all of the blockers out there. None of them are seamless and usuable by Joe User (i.e. - they do not maintain themselves quietly). What is required is a program that will go resident upon bootup and update it self continuously without user input. Anytime a spyware program is encountered, then it needs to block it. If the home page/search function is hijacked, then it needs to be reset without prompting the user. I had been installing spyware blockers on some of the PCs that I maintain but it resulted in too many calls from the users - itis easier to let this shit happen then fix it after it builds up for a while. Answering trivial questions every 5 minutes is not worth it.
Microsoft's antivirus is going to kill the rest of the AV industry if it addresses the number of unethical bits of software floating around out there. I can't wait.
Right, but the moral of the story is that they don't need to be pressurized - the movement of the ink through the ball should provide a vaccum sufficient enough to draw the ink through the pen in zero gravity. Kinda like how you can hold fluid in a straw with a finger on top.
I mean, there is no reason for google to go public other than greed. They are making plenty of money on their own right now and I doubt that they are in need of cash for business purposes.
There is so much legalized criminal activity involved with public companies. For example, Netgear just went public and the underwriter (Lehman Brothers) had the option of printing up an extra *million* shares to "cover additional costs".
I build systems for various people and there are some things that has prevented mozilla from becoming the default browser on these systems. For mozilla to become mainstream, it needs (but not limited to):
1) Favorites - in Win2K or XP, why can't it just use my IE favorites? It isn't like they are hidden... they are there in plain sight in their own folder under %USERPROFILE%\%USERNAME%\FAVORITES. If people are to "migrate" they might have to occasionally use "that other browser". Consolidated favorites helps that along...
2) Feel - face it - mozilla just doesn't "feel" like a Windows program. I can't drag and drop the toolbars around and then lock them down like I can in IE (there might be a way to do it, but I haven't found it). If someone could just make mozilla "feel" like IE, we'd have infinitely more users out there. Not only because it would be one less thing to learn, but because people simply wouldn't notice that they were using "something different" which is generally a no-no for non-techies. Heck, I'm a techie and I've found that I don't like using mozilla for this reason. I just don't have the time anymore....
Bah... I could go on but mozilla is for geeks right now. The DOJ has blessed system builders with the complete ability to hide IE as an internet browser. If someone could just make something similar to IE but without all the monopoly shit, millions of PCs could be deployed with a real browser. Until then, I'll keep letting IE fly on the systems that I build.
PS - a really cool unrelated idea that I have thought of would be a spyware/adware/scumware blocker for non-techies who don't know when to click yes/no. If mozilla implemented such a feature, a flock of elected geeks could vote on which software/applets could get installed and which ones would not (or which ones make it to a user prompt). Non-techie end-users could have the option to turn on this "geek wall" and prevent their systems from being infiltrated by the world's best scum. Until then, I'm happy to charge $50/hr to remove this stuff.
The new Lexus Hybrids (lexus-hybrid.com temporarily down) will have up to an extra 1000 newton-meters of electrical torque available. The RX400H is being sold as an *upgrade* to the RX330. "V8 power with compact car fuel efficiency".
Hybrid isn't the rinky-dink compact car anymore. It is profitable.
where the other fossil-friendly alternative - namely hydroelectric power - is not an option.
What about solar?
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. just built a 30 Megawatt solar facility in Auburn Hills, MI for $67 million dollars. That is, the facility has the capacity to produce 30MW of solar fabric (it is not the conventional solar panel that we've all come to know... and it is much cheaper, too) every year. The stuff is guaranteed for 20 years.
With solar like this, I'm not sure why nuclear would need to be brought into the picture.
When I bought my own house some two years ago, I had to clean out the crap that I had accumulated at the old residence. One of those pieces was a keyboard that I had originally purchased with a Packard-Bell 386SX-16 Mhz PC (80 meg RLL hard drive w/ 2 megs of RAM).
Now, the PC had been recycled years prior, but, for some reason, I still had the keyboard - AT plug and all. When I picked up the keyboard, I immediately noticed the *heft* involved - this was no ordinary keyboard. This thing had to weigh about 3 or 4 pounds. After recognizing this, I sat down and examined the construction of this beast. The bulk of the weight came from the backplate which seemed to be made of 1/8" thick sheet metal - not anything that you'd see today.
In any event, I used the product at work a few weeks ago. I was called in on a Sunday (non-business) to reboot a wall-mounted, touch-screen kiosk that was running Win95. Generally, the thing has no problem rebooting by itself but, in this case, Win95 ran a scandisk automatically and found some lost clusters. This required keyboard input to comlpete the boot process. I quickly scavenged a PS2 keyboard from a nearby desktop only to find that I needed a unit with an AT connector.
After a trip home, I found that the old Packard-Bell heavyweight worked out just fine. Call me romantic, but I don't think that I will ever throw that tank away... I suppose that I can't criticize the secretaries at work for keeping their old IBM typewriters.
The mass of colors ends up so busy that its irritating to look at.
FWIW, the new bill has strategic color such that it becomes difficult for an ink-jet to reproduce without obvious dithering. Consider the new color a safe-guard against anyone devaluating that ugly mess of bills in your pocket.
Slashdot Mirror
As I have said many time... Microsoft is very borg-like!
And how is this different than, say, GM sitting by the wayside while other automakers figure out what works?
Chrysler introduces PT Cruiser (2000) / GM introduces HHR (2005).
Toyota introduces gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle (1997) / GM annouces plan for hybrids in 2007.
It is common for the larger companies to let the smaller ones take the risks.
Energy Conversion Devices has developed a 30 Megawatt solar machine the size of a football field. The device produces nine miles of solar cell at a time. The amorphous solar cells are not great in terms of ultimate conversion efficiency, but they are unique in that they will put out much more power over their life time than the energy used to produce them. They are great on a watt per dollar basis.
They've gone to plaid.
Is anybody else worried that this might turn into another Corel?
Corel died because Microsoft wanted them to.
Corel had a great plan but, ultimately, management was bought out by Billy.
People don't seem to be picking up on this. The same thing happened with Apple and OSX right after Steve Jobs dumped every last share in the company (aside from the single "symbolic" share that he did keep).
Microsoft owns each and every one of us. If they didn't, we'd have seen them split up a long time ago...
sigh...
We returned a new 19" monitor the other day because it was native 1600x1200. The text was unreadable at that resolution and lower resolutions simply looked like crap. We replaced it with a 1280x1024 bit but that is still on the small side.
The last time that this was brought up on slashdot, most of the arrogant jerks tried to point out that you can "simply adjust the font size in the control panel". This doesn't work for anyone who has tried it.
Longhorn will take a big step forward in this area. They will be rendering the window system and applying it as a texture so that the DPI of the monitor is irrelevant. X will be light years behind if it doesn't do this first.
I wonder why that is?
I'm taking a similar approach to employment independence. For only a few dollars a month, you could help me sit on the couch every day.
No code is perfect, especially at the OS level.
Perfect code is approached asymptotically. That is, you'll never fix all of the bugs/holes/etc.
But an OS that has been refined for 20 years is further along the curve than a brand new OS that has just been released.
This will bite Microsoft sooner or later.
Its Halloween - lets make a song:
I was working in the lab late one night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
For my monster from his slab began to rise
And suddenly to my surprise
He did the MSH
He did the Microsoft MSH
The monster MSH
It was a graveyard SSH
He did the MSH
It caught on in a flash
He did the MSH
He did the Microsoft MSH
It does not appear that Google is seriously considering merging into Microsoft.
I don't think that it would be up to google management. Since Microsoft has been recognized by the government, the matter would be up to the FTC. And I think that we all know that this would be an anti-competitive move.
That said, I'm sure Microsoft could pay someone off but we would all find a new search engine once Microsoft ruined google and the employees leave to start fresh.
Actually, many ISPs had blocked off stuff from Gator's networks so they needed a new non-gator DNS from which to generate pop-ups.
I build PCs for friends and family occasionally and now I will need to update the HOSTS file on all of them or this shit will get reinstalled.
I can't believe that open-source isn't addressing this issue and that we will have to wait for Microsoft to come up with a *real* solution (shudder). Is this the only use for trusted computing?
Seriously, there are some freeware programs out there but they are much too complex for users who don't know whether to click YES or NO when prompted with blatant spyware. If someone could just come up with a simple auto-loading, auto-updating piece of software that simply made these decisions for the user, we wouldn't be here today.
Actually, it is the other way around. Places like Best Buy and OfficeMax enjoy the healthier margins on the brand-name ink. Heck - they even get the printer makers to omit the USB cable so that they can charge $20 for a part.
A while ago (when USB printers first became the dominant style), I had some real fun. I loaded up a cart with thousands of dollars worth of computer stuff (that I was legitimately going to purchase) and a printer was part of it. When I found out that the *cheapest* USB cable in the store would cost me $20, I just left the salesmen standing there with their thumbs in their asses.
I ordered a *hundred* USB cables for a dollar and I keep them in my trunk. Now, Best Buy is a necessity for me at times because it is convenient. Whenever I go, I stop by the printer aisle and give a cable or two away to anyone who mich need one. It saves them $20 and makes me feel a little better about actually spending my money at such a crooked store.
The interesting thing is that Lexmarks are sold *with* a USB cable at places like RiteAid and other convenience stores.
I thought that gator was the worst until:
1) WebShots started trickling other various spyware programs onto the host PC. If you install webshots, then you will get a number of other programs eventually. One of them involves a continuous stream of popups.
2) I forget the name of this particular gem but it modified the HOSTS file to redirect websites to *other* sites. One of them was google.com. It redirected the PC to a similar looking site. The only reason that this one was discovered in the first place is that it became too successful and DoS'ed its own website. The user came in with the complaint that he couldn't get to google.com. If you get something like this, you'll need to go into the \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts (or \winnt or whatever systemroot is) and delete the entries from the hosts file (use a text editor to open it). The problem here is that most Joe's don't know the difference.
I'd literally like to shoot some of these software companies in the back of the head. This is criminal activity. It is probably microsoft's "trusted computing marketing department" at work. (sarcasm) Seriously, this will cause huge sales for Microsoft's trusted computing platform if open source doesn't address it on a free basis.
And yes - I've tried all of the blockers out there. None of them are seamless and usuable by Joe User (i.e. - they do not maintain themselves quietly). What is required is a program that will go resident upon bootup and update it self continuously without user input. Anytime a spyware program is encountered, then it needs to block it. If the home page/search function is hijacked, then it needs to be reset without prompting the user. I had been installing spyware blockers on some of the PCs that I maintain but it resulted in too many calls from the users - itis easier to let this shit happen then fix it after it builds up for a while. Answering trivial questions every 5 minutes is not worth it.
Microsoft's antivirus is going to kill the rest of the AV industry if it addresses the number of unethical bits of software floating around out there. I can't wait.
SuSE is going for the Linux market?
Who woulda thunk?
I mean, what else are they going to do with it once eveyone starts driving fuel-cell powered cars?
Sell them the hydrogen to drive it and the fuel tanks to store it.
Right, but the moral of the story is that they don't need to be pressurized - the movement of the ink through the ball should provide a vaccum sufficient enough to draw the ink through the pen in zero gravity. Kinda like how you can hold fluid in a straw with a finger on top.
Didn't we learn anything from the '90s?
I mean, there is no reason for google to go public other than greed. They are making plenty of money on their own right now and I doubt that they are in need of cash for business purposes.
There is so much legalized criminal activity involved with public companies. For example, Netgear just went public and the underwriter (Lehman Brothers) had the option of printing up an extra *million* shares to "cover additional costs".
Additional costs like a big party...
But really, at this point, why bother?
...
I build systems for various people and there are some things that has prevented mozilla from becoming the default browser on these systems. For mozilla to become mainstream, it needs (but not limited to):
1) Favorites - in Win2K or XP, why can't it just use my IE favorites? It isn't like they are hidden... they are there in plain sight in their own folder under %USERPROFILE%\%USERNAME%\FAVORITES. If people are to "migrate" they might have to occasionally use "that other browser". Consolidated favorites helps that along...
2) Feel - face it - mozilla just doesn't "feel" like a Windows program. I can't drag and drop the toolbars around and then lock them down like I can in IE (there might be a way to do it, but I haven't found it). If someone could just make mozilla "feel" like IE, we'd have infinitely more users out there. Not only because it would be one less thing to learn, but because people simply wouldn't notice that they were using "something different" which is generally a no-no for non-techies. Heck, I'm a techie and I've found that I don't like using mozilla for this reason. I just don't have the time anymore.
Bah... I could go on but mozilla is for geeks right now. The DOJ has blessed system builders with the complete ability to hide IE as an internet browser. If someone could just make something similar to IE but without all the monopoly shit, millions of PCs could be deployed with a real browser. Until then, I'll keep letting IE fly on the systems that I build.
PS - a really cool unrelated idea that I have thought of would be a spyware/adware/scumware blocker for non-techies who don't know when to click yes/no. If mozilla implemented such a feature, a flock of elected geeks could vote on which software/applets could get installed and which ones would not (or which ones make it to a user prompt). Non-techie end-users could have the option to turn on this "geek wall" and prevent their systems from being infiltrated by the world's best scum. Until then, I'm happy to charge $50/hr to remove this stuff.
Don't laugh...
The new Lexus Hybrids (lexus-hybrid.com temporarily down) will have up to an extra 1000 newton-meters of electrical torque available. The RX400H is being sold as an *upgrade* to the RX330. "V8 power with compact car fuel efficiency".
Hybrid isn't the rinky-dink compact car anymore. It is profitable.
"Hey, smtp.xyz.com wants to exchange mail with me, but I've never heard of him. Do you know him? Do you trust him?"
Its a mail server... not a male server...
where the other fossil-friendly alternative - namely hydroelectric power - is not an option.
What about solar?
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. just built a 30 Megawatt solar facility in Auburn Hills, MI for $67 million dollars. That is, the facility has the capacity to produce 30MW of solar fabric (it is not the conventional solar panel that we've all come to know... and it is much cheaper, too) every year. The stuff is guaranteed for 20 years.
With solar like this, I'm not sure why nuclear would need to be brought into the picture.
Speaking of keyboards...
When I bought my own house some two years ago, I had to clean out the crap that I had accumulated at the old residence. One of those pieces was a keyboard that I had originally purchased with a Packard-Bell 386SX-16 Mhz PC (80 meg RLL hard drive w/ 2 megs of RAM).
Now, the PC had been recycled years prior, but, for some reason, I still had the keyboard - AT plug and all. When I picked up the keyboard, I immediately noticed the *heft* involved - this was no ordinary keyboard. This thing had to weigh about 3 or 4 pounds. After recognizing this, I sat down and examined the construction of this beast. The bulk of the weight came from the backplate which seemed to be made of 1/8" thick sheet metal - not anything that you'd see today.
In any event, I used the product at work a few weeks ago. I was called in on a Sunday (non-business) to reboot a wall-mounted, touch-screen kiosk that was running Win95. Generally, the thing has no problem rebooting by itself but, in this case, Win95 ran a scandisk automatically and found some lost clusters. This required keyboard input to comlpete the boot process. I quickly scavenged a PS2 keyboard from a nearby desktop only to find that I needed a unit with an AT connector.
After a trip home, I found that the old Packard-Bell heavyweight worked out just fine. Call me romantic, but I don't think that I will ever throw that tank away... I suppose that I can't criticize the secretaries at work for keeping their old IBM typewriters.
In fact, I might actually consider buying one.
An IBM *typewriter*...
Is there anyone else out there who is picturing the land shark as the pilot?
Customers... Money...
What's the difference?
The mass of colors ends up so busy that its irritating to look at.
FWIW, the new bill has strategic color such that it becomes difficult for an ink-jet to reproduce without obvious dithering. Consider the new color a safe-guard against anyone devaluating that ugly mess of bills in your pocket.