Yeah, you can meter battery power. However, it runs on standard AA batteries, so you can't really recharge it unless you could build a 'bot that disassembled itself. ~luge
Yeah, the price is pretty fixed at around $199. On the other hand, if you already have a ton of technic pieces (gears and such) and don't mind not having the official lego software (which is lose95/98 anyway) you may be able to save a little bit by getting the RCX unit and sensors separately. Try the lego world shop. I'm pretty sure they have them separately. As for software, well, with Linux you are pretty much stuck with PBForth or legOS. Both of those are going to require a language (forth or C, respectively) but are going to be much more powerful than the standard software. ~luge
This has to be quick, but- for anyone who uses Linux, legOS is not at all difficult to setup or maintain. John Knudsen is a good guy, but he (and the target audience) are windows users. If you can get RH running, you can get legOS running. It is easily the best way to use the Mindstorms from Linux. Check out the homepage or my HOWTO. ~luge (use it before you criticize, guys...)
1) Does anyone know of a list of "supported" cards; i.e. cards that with some (any) ridiculous combos of drivers, X servers, whatever, can run this thing? 2) If no such list exists, any idea whether or not a g400 will be able to support it? As I understand it, the matroxes have better accelerated X scores than anyone else, and since I use X a hell of a lot more than I'd ever play Quake, I'm probably going to buy one of them soon. Any thoughts? ~tieguy
Really? I'm using it right now on a P200/32meg RAM, and it is quite usable. Not quite as nice as on my other box (PIII450/256meg) but still pretty usable. I'm sure when debug is off and optimization is on, it'll be quite usable. ~luge
While the law is obscure, the NYT (for one) reported on this months and months ago, shortly after the trial started. You can be sure that lawyers on both sides have been well aware of it, whether or not it has been mentioned publicly- neither side would benefit by publicizising something that the other side has a chance (however slight) of not knowing. ~luge
When you boil it down, what we as private citizens get is the right to appeal to the Supreme Court. This is exactly what MS is getting- except they get to skip all the intermediate crap. While this may not actually be of benefit to MS, the point of the appeals system is to find "truth." They do have the right to that-and since the Supremes are the ultimate arbiter of "truth," that right is being provided in full. Though we take it for granted, no one has the right to delay and obfuscate- so they aren't losing anything.
When you boil it down, what we as private citizens get is the right to appeal to the Supreme Court. This is exactly what MS is getting- except they get to skip all the intermediate crap. While this may not actually be of benefit to MS, the point of the appeals system is to find "truth." They do have the right to that-and since the Supremes are the ultimate arbiter of "truth," that right is being provided in full. Though we take it for granted, no one has the right to delay and obfuscate- so they aren't losing anything. ~luge
I'm as much of a free software proponent as anyone, but your claims are ludicrous. Free software works because people write software that benefits them. Crypto stuff like GPG and Apache-SSL have been written because the authors can use them to keep their own data safe and secure. No one- except the MPAA- has gigabytes worth of data that need to be encrypted in this way. Sure- open source it- see if a single soul helps out. Ditto distribution- none of us have gigs worth of data that need to be distributed in ways that either aren't already available or would be helped by this project. Ditto for graphics- why should I help MGM or Disney render their graphics? The technology is already there- let them buy huge farms of servers to do it themselves. I guess my point is that open source is not a cure-all. It works for Linux and Apache because there are large communities who code because they want to "scratch their itch" and help the community. There is no personal itch here, and there is no community to assist. So- no chance for open source to help. ~luge P.S. Of course, there is a huge community of people who would love to play DVDs... and plenty of coders who can "scratch the itch" by cracking the encryption. Thus, CSS. ("CSS is dead... long live CSS!")
So then are they going to host their own mirrors of the central servers, mirroring only what they choose? Hmm. I guess that makes sense, but... awful lot of duplication there too, and seems that it would lead to lots of problems like the one you are citing. Not to mention that they could be devoting that energy to helping Debian out. Oh well... ~luge
As long as developers are interested (which they clearly are- Debian has a horrible backlog of developer registrations) there will be continued Debian releases. No need to fret on that count. And while these releases are slow, stable is perfectly usable for the vast majority of serious work- and for those who have stability as only priority one and not priority 1, 2, and 3, there is always potato, which has died on me only once in several months of usage on two machines. Remember, apt-get dist-upgrade is your friend, and can give you a 2.2.x system within the hour if you are on a fast connection, and overnight otherwise. ~luge (BTW, methinks the release date for 2.4 is pretty optimistic too:)
The Debian process is unwieldy and slow, but it produces a really good distribution. I for one am willing to wait. I'm curious, though, what Corel thinks of this- assuming that they are working from slink, they are already working with a very dated distribution, and I wonder how they are going to try to keep themselves current while working within the Debian framework. ~luge
like the score 0 AC below me mentioned, Sun books can be very critical of Java. Core Java is on the desk right in front of me, and there are several passages where the author basically says "What the hell were they thinking?" Instances of poor design, poor implementation, and areas where some Sun employees clearly didn't know what the hell the other employees were doing. My point? You can trust Sun books- if Core Java is any indication, they are very blunt about the shortcomings in Java. As far as the language itself, I agree that implementation may be completely screwy- that is why the performance stinks. And I'd much prefer it to be GPL'd. But Java is pretty much ubiquitous- and I can compile it on my box and know that it will run on virtually every machine in the universe. That is what Sun advertised, and particularly with Swing, that is what they have delivered. Until something else delivers the ease of programming and the complete and utter portability, I'll stick with Java. ~luge P.S. Moderators, don't knock me as redundant unless you knock up the AC who said this first.
Yeah. I dread moving to 56K- I've seen transfer rates spike at 4-5 meg/s to metalab/sunsite.unc.edu from my room, and consistent rates of 800K/s. At that speed, I easily beat CD. But not for long:( ~luge
I see all these rantings and ravings about how Spielberg is too commercial, or how he is a lousy director, or whatever... to you I say: b******t. As far as commercialism, well, he is bad, but I think you are letting your disappointment with Lucas's destruction of Star Wars get to you. Spielberg is very capable of making non-commercial movies- Schindler's List? Surely, you didn't see any T-shirts for that. Amistad? Saving Private Ryan? These are not commercially oriented movies. Yes, they have their sappy edges- but they are also deadly serious movies about serious topics. Even his more commercial movies are still damn good- Jurassic Park and Hook, while both completely changing the original stories around to be more commercially presentable, are each works of art in their own ways- unlike 99% of modern movies, Lucas understands that special effects and big stars have to be subordinate to the story. Plot- plot! Yes, we'll see Wallace and Gromit dolls. But I think Spielberg is also the kind of guy who intuitively understands what is important, and will know that you can't tinker much with the W&G formula without destroying it. Give the man a chance. ~luge P.S. How can you not like a guy who accepted cash from the Blues Brothers to pay off the taxes for the orphanage?
Yup. Agree completely. As further evidence, notice that they haven't lowered the prices on the low-end stuff, like they usually do with a full-blown product release. When those prices drop, we'll know that the high-end stuff is really there.
The good: Two companies which nearly define "deep pockets" are going to fight it out here. Instead of the little guy being picked on by the big guy, two evenly sized competitors will be going at it- which means that maybe something other than money will determine the outcome of the case.
The bad: It will still be IP lawyers determining the outcome. What do you think the odds are of B&N's guys saying "all software patents are crap!"? That tack might lead to a useful outcome, but no... they'll be arguing that "this particular patent is crap... of course, all of ours are brilliant and original, so don't touch those." They'd never jeopardize their incomes by pushing for a ruling that would have expansive and much needed impact.
My conclusion: While this case might be interesting, it won't change anything, because of the vested interests of the lawyers who will end up controlling the case. Patents won't really fall in the courts until a little guy is attacked by a big guy, and defended by a lawyer who does pro bono work and is thus willing to attack the system from within. Until that time, corporate IP lawyers will continue fighting small battles while making very sure they don't win the war.
For those of you wondering about Mrs. Cowpland, you may want to take a look at canoe's slide show. Click back a couple to see the famous $1 million dollar outfit. Also, take in this piece about her personal designer- the one who suggested the whole gold breastplate/15K diamond thing. Wow... ~luge
If you can't get it from Amazon or the normal sources (which, as far as I can tell, all list November as the issue date) order it direct from O'Reilly- they've got it in stock. I just filed mine. ~luge
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, you can meter battery power. However, it runs on standard AA batteries, so you can't really recharge it unless you could build a 'bot that disassembled itself.
~luge
I see DeMaagd and instantly think Dave. Oops...
Yeah, the price is pretty fixed at around $199. On the other hand, if you already have a ton of technic pieces (gears and such) and don't mind not having the official lego software (which is lose95/98 anyway) you may be able to save a little bit by getting the RCX unit and sensors separately. Try the lego world shop. I'm pretty sure they have them separately.
As for software, well, with Linux you are pretty much stuck with PBForth or legOS. Both of those are going to require a language (forth or C, respectively) but are going to be much more powerful than the standard software.
~luge
It's by the author of the system, Markus Noga. A very sharp cookie, I'd say :)
~luge
This has to be quick, but- for anyone who uses Linux, legOS is not at all difficult to setup or maintain. John Knudsen is a good guy, but he (and the target audience) are windows users. If you can get RH running, you can get legOS running. It is easily the best way to use the Mindstorms from Linux. Check out the homepage or my HOWTO.
~luge (use it before you criticize, guys...)
1) Does anyone know of a list of "supported" cards; i.e. cards that with some (any) ridiculous combos of drivers, X servers, whatever, can run this thing?
2) If no such list exists, any idea whether or not a g400 will be able to support it? As I understand it, the matroxes have better accelerated X scores than anyone else, and since I use X a hell of a lot more than I'd ever play Quake, I'm probably going to buy one of them soon. Any thoughts?
~tieguy
The funny thing is that they really think they are k001...
~luge
Really? I'm using it right now on a P200/32meg RAM, and it is quite usable. Not quite as nice as on my other box (PIII450/256meg) but still pretty usable. I'm sure when debug is off and optimization is on, it'll be quite usable.
~luge
While the law is obscure, the NYT (for one) reported on this months and months ago, shortly after the trial started. You can be sure that lawyers on both sides have been well aware of it, whether or not it has been mentioned publicly- neither side would benefit by publicizising something that the other side has a chance (however slight) of not knowing.
~luge
When you boil it down, what we as private citizens get is the right to appeal to the Supreme Court. This is exactly what MS is getting- except they get to skip all the intermediate crap. While this may not actually be of benefit to MS, the point of the appeals system is to find "truth." They do have the right to that-and since the Supremes are the ultimate arbiter of "truth," that right is being provided in full. Though we take it for granted, no one has the right to delay and obfuscate- so they aren't losing anything.
~luge
When you boil it down, what we as private citizens get is the right to appeal to the Supreme Court. This is exactly what MS is getting- except they get to skip all the intermediate crap. While this may not actually be of benefit to MS, the point of the appeals system is to find "truth." They do have the right to that-and since the Supremes are the ultimate arbiter of "truth," that right is being provided in full. Though we take it for granted, no one has the right to delay and obfuscate- so they aren't losing anything.
~luge
I'm as much of a free software proponent as anyone, but your claims are ludicrous. Free software works because people write software that benefits them. Crypto stuff like GPG and Apache-SSL have been written because the authors can use them to keep their own data safe and secure. No one- except the MPAA- has gigabytes worth of data that need to be encrypted in this way. Sure- open source it- see if a single soul helps out. Ditto distribution- none of us have gigs worth of data that need to be distributed in ways that either aren't already available or would be helped by this project. Ditto for graphics- why should I help MGM or Disney render their graphics? The technology is already there- let them buy huge farms of servers to do it themselves.
I guess my point is that open source is not a cure-all. It works for Linux and Apache because there are large communities who code because they want to "scratch their itch" and help the community. There is no personal itch here, and there is no community to assist. So- no chance for open source to help.
~luge
P.S. Of course, there is a huge community of people who would love to play DVDs... and plenty of coders who can "scratch the itch" by cracking the encryption. Thus, CSS. ("CSS is dead... long live CSS!")
So then are they going to host their own mirrors of the central servers, mirroring only what they choose? Hmm. I guess that makes sense, but... awful lot of duplication there too, and seems that it would lead to lots of problems like the one you are citing. Not to mention that they could be devoting that energy to helping Debian out. Oh well...
~luge
As long as developers are interested (which they clearly are- Debian has a horrible backlog of developer registrations) there will be continued Debian releases. No need to fret on that count. And while these releases are slow, stable is perfectly usable for the vast majority of serious work- and for those who have stability as only priority one and not priority 1, 2, and 3, there is always potato, which has died on me only once in several months of usage on two machines. Remember, apt-get dist-upgrade is your friend, and can give you a 2.2.x system within the hour if you are on a fast connection, and overnight otherwise. :)
~luge
(BTW, methinks the release date for 2.4 is pretty optimistic too
The Debian process is unwieldy and slow, but it produces a really good distribution. I for one am willing to wait. I'm curious, though, what Corel thinks of this- assuming that they are working from slink, they are already working with a very dated distribution, and I wonder how they are going to try to keep themselves current while working within the Debian framework.
~luge
like the score 0 AC below me mentioned, Sun books can be very critical of Java. Core Java is on the desk right in front of me, and there are several passages where the author basically says "What the hell were they thinking?" Instances of poor design, poor implementation, and areas where some Sun employees clearly didn't know what the hell the other employees were doing. My point? You can trust Sun books- if Core Java is any indication, they are very blunt about the shortcomings in Java. As far as the language itself, I agree that implementation may be completely screwy- that is why the performance stinks. And I'd much prefer it to be GPL'd. But Java is pretty much ubiquitous- and I can compile it on my box and know that it will run on virtually every machine in the universe. That is what Sun advertised, and particularly with Swing, that is what they have delivered. Until something else delivers the ease of programming and the complete and utter portability, I'll stick with Java. ~luge
P.S. Moderators, don't knock me as redundant unless you knock up the AC who said this first.
That's right- just the findings. It could be several more months before an actual judgement comes out.
~luge
Yeah. I dread moving to 56K- I've seen transfer rates spike at 4-5 meg/s to metalab/sunsite.unc.edu from my room, and consistent rates of 800K/s. At that speed, I easily beat CD. But not for long :(
~luge
I see all these rantings and ravings about how Spielberg is too commercial, or how he is a lousy director, or whatever... to you I say: b******t.
As far as commercialism, well, he is bad, but I think you are letting your disappointment with Lucas's destruction of Star Wars get to you. Spielberg is very capable of making non-commercial movies- Schindler's List? Surely, you didn't see any T-shirts for that. Amistad? Saving Private Ryan? These are not commercially oriented movies.
Yes, they have their sappy edges- but they are also deadly serious movies about serious topics. Even his more commercial movies are still damn good- Jurassic Park and Hook, while both completely changing the original stories around to be more commercially presentable, are each works of art in their own ways- unlike 99% of modern movies, Lucas understands that special effects and big stars have to be subordinate to the story. Plot- plot! Yes, we'll see Wallace and Gromit dolls. But I think Spielberg is also the kind of guy who intuitively understands what is important, and will know that you can't tinker much with the W&G formula without destroying it. Give the man a chance.
~luge
P.S. How can you not like a guy who accepted cash from the Blues Brothers to pay off the taxes for the orphanage?
Yup. Agree completely. As further evidence, notice that they haven't lowered the prices on the low-end stuff, like they usually do with a full-blown product release. When those prices drop, we'll know that the high-end stuff is really there.
The good:
Two companies which nearly define "deep pockets" are going to fight it out here. Instead of the little guy being picked on by the big guy, two evenly sized competitors will be going at it- which means that maybe something other than money will determine the outcome of the case.
The bad:
It will still be IP lawyers determining the outcome. What do you think the odds are of B&N's guys saying "all software patents are crap!"? That tack might lead to a useful outcome, but no... they'll be arguing that "this particular patent is crap... of course, all of ours are brilliant and original, so don't touch those." They'd never jeopardize their incomes by pushing for a ruling that would have expansive and much needed impact.
My conclusion:
While this case might be interesting, it won't change anything, because of the vested interests of the lawyers who will end up controlling the case. Patents won't really fall in the courts until a little guy is attacked by a big guy, and defended by a lawyer who does pro bono work and is thus willing to attack the system from within. Until that time, corporate IP lawyers will continue fighting small battles while making very sure they don't win the war.
Isn't quake1 code coming out soon/just released?
Or (duh) check out marlencowpland.com to see how *truly* tacky the famous outfit is.
~luge
For those of you wondering about Mrs. Cowpland, you may want to take a look at canoe's slide show. Click back a couple to see the famous $1 million dollar outfit. Also, take in this piece about her personal designer- the one who suggested the whole gold breastplate/15K diamond thing. Wow...
~luge
If you can't get it from Amazon or the normal sources (which, as far as I can tell, all list November as the issue date) order it direct from O'Reilly- they've got it in stock. I just filed mine.
~luge