When my wife's powerbook arrived, we plugged it in and got it on with the extreme basestation. My older powerbook connected through it in mixed mode (or whatever that is). Her old Dell laptop couldn't connect to it. Later we were able to get the dell connected by switching to 802.11b-only mode, but that's lame.
Anyhow, while it was in b/g mode, her laptop was able to connect and copy files (via AFP) much faster than my powerbook. The "server" was an iMac with 100mbit ethernet connected to the extreme basestation via a switch. I didn't do any throughput testing, but it was noticably faster.
As for achieving "maxiumum speed of 54Mbps, all users must use Airport Extreme Cards", i think it makes sense. Lets say you have 5 participants in the wireless network (4 clients and a base, or whatever... its not terribly important in this high level example). Lets say one of the clients has an 11b card and the rest have 11g cards. Then lets start transferring lots of data to and from each of them.
At equilibrium, I would expect that each client will be using about 1/5 of the available spectrum. So the 11b client can get about 1/5 of 11mbps, or 2.2mbps. The others could theoretically split up the remaining spectrum and achieve about 4/5 of 54mbps maximum, or about 41mbps. Even though the 11b client is only sending 2mbps, it takes up 10mbps-worth of spectrum to do it, so the network as a whole can only achieve about 43mbps, not 54.
When I said "answer them", I wasn't really specific. My point was more that if they broadcasted using some technology that we couldn't even hear/intercept/whatever, we would have no way to acknowledge their existance. So the reason they would be sending on radio frequencies is so we could hear them.
As for answering them, according to the "scientists" at the UFO mag, there's aliens flying around nearby right now, so once we pick up their signals we can just call them up on their cell phones. Bwahahahahaha!!!!
There are links. If you click on the words "High Speed" or "Low Speed" in the interview pics, it gives you some WMV. I didn't feel like waiting for the download, so I don't actually know what the video is.
I think the best reason for space-travelling aliens to communicate with radio is that a primitive society like ourselves might be able to hear them.
Assuming they're not just cruising around stealthily, looking for planets to wipe out, and are in fact searching for other societies, sending primitive beacons would be a good way to find them, since we would be more likely to be able to answer them. Using their latest communications technology would go right over our heads.
Obviously they would use something more advanced for their own communications (assuming they've figured out space travel, they've probably figured out lots of other neat stuff).
On the other hand, they could be using SETI's approach and just cruise around listening for signals with their AM/FM/8-track stereos in their pimped out rides.
This repeat wasn't so annoying. The really annoying ones are when CmdrTaco and Hemos start tag-teaming duplicates. Maybe it some sort of competition to see who can get the same article on the front page the most times?
For a minute there I thought the original poster was being ironic, perhaps even funny. But thanks to you, I now understand that he's in fact an utter moron thinking his mac-related post (a reply to a mac post!) would get modded down.
I'm glad someone is keeping us informed.
Thanks man!
(Now watch this get modded down because I'm a dick;)
Was Parker Lewis NOT one of the best shows on TV?!?!?
Seriously. Maybe just one of the best of its time, but no one seems to hav syndicated it, so there's no good way to compare.
But it was a kickass show.
In the meantime, I still like cargo shorts (damned winter! cuz cargo pants just look silly). the huge knee-side pockets rock for carrying just about anything. Right now I mainly just carry my danger/t-mobile sidekick. But I carried my Libretto in my cargo shorts on many occasions.
I had a friend in college who used to carry a pair of pruning shears in his backpack. If he was walking along a path and a tree branch was hanging in his way, he'd stop, pull them out, and trim it off. I thought he was crazy, but it was obstructing him! Right on!
Software update once a minute...
on
10.2.2 Is Coming
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Remember, its UNIX underneath:
#!/bin/bash
while true; do/usr/sbin/softwareupdate
sleep 60 done;)
A perl wrapper to parse the output of "softwareupdate" is probably more useful, as it could email you that there's new updates, or maybe do the installation itself.
Actually, that's not a bad idea for a server... set up a cron job to automatically update and reboot as needed. Hmm.
Totally! I mean, what market only has one option? There's room for PLENTY of competitors. Look at the rest of the consumer electronics market: Sony, JVC, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Toshiba... Competition is good.
When I bought my ReplayTV, my friends were all telling me "You should have gotten a Tivo. Tivo will win." Neither will "win". They'll both do just fine for as long as they can. I happened to like the Replay user interface better, so I got it.
In this case, since the whole DVR industry is under fire from the MPAA, and other like-minded nimrods, its a good idea for them to not fight with each other. I mean, what good will it do them to bankrupt the other on some patent if the whole industry gets shut down in the meantime.
I have successfully swapped batteries during sleep on my PB with 1G RAM in it, so I'm not convinced about your fine print.
The only issue I have with the two batteries is that I don't have an external charger. So in order to keep the spare fully charged, I have to swap batteries often. Usually I just let the spare sit for a while, then swap it the night before I go on a trip when I might need it.
So now all we need is someone to announce linux and macosx support, or maybe Anoto could open the protocol (bwahahahahahaha! I crack myself up! hooo ha!!!).
I mean, their big thing is a 60,000,000 sq km proprietary dot pattern. Obviously they can't give that up, or we'd all just start printing our own special paper with our $50 inkjet printers and then, i suppose, their renewable revenue stream goes to the toilet.
Maybe. Maybe not. But when was the last time you were in a paperless office? (ok, maybe YOU were in one, but when was the last time everyone else was?) There are still plenty of people who can "only work on paper". Others have mentioned it, but I remember at least one executive at my old company who's assistant would print out emails for them to read and mark up, then the assistant would type the responses. It was ludicrous (especially when the exec was out of town, so the assistant would print them out and fax them to the hotel).
This could be a good way to transition people who still think writing chicken-scratch on dead trees is the superior way to do things. Start them out on special notebooks with the pen.
Then in a couple years when the OLED stuff comes out and we have tablet computers with insane resolution, the tablets could generate the Anoto-like patters. Then the Anoto-converts can switch from using paper notebooks to using a tablet.
Yeah! And those damn horseless-carriages. They just don't have the same charm.
Fricken luddites...
50 years from now, who cares about finding an email. Most of my emails are along the lines of "hey wanna go to lunch?" and other trivial stuff.
On the other hand, in 50 years, if I need to find a particular email, I can use the IMAP search (or 50-year-from-now equivalent) to find it. Try that with a friggin wrinkled up letter in a box somewhere in your attic (which may or may not have been lost in a fire, or when you moved, or when the roof leaked, or...)
I have all of my email going back 11 years (I didn't save it all the first few years, since my university had a pretty strict quota policy). And with rudimentary text search tools, I can find interesting emails pretty quickly.
Sure, it may not be as pretty or wrinkled or whatever, but if I really cared that much, I could print it out on yellowed paper with some script font, crumble it up, run over it with my car, then read it with all the charm and glory of "the good old days."
Its actually 120x90. I have a sidekick and I'm dumping my sprint phone for it as soon as I get all the phone numbers onto the sidekick. The day after I got the sidekick, I made a quick email+php +mysql hack so I can post photos on the web from wherever I am (well, within T-Mobile's crappy coverage).
I wish the sidekick camera had better resolution, and now I'm a bit jealous that the sanyo phone does 640x480 and has a flash. However, with T-Mobile, I get unlimited data (for the first year) for $40/month. Sprint's data pricing would make things like my "photoblog" prohibitively expensive.
In a year, the Sidekick will have paid for itself by the difference between my current sprint plan and the t-mobile $40 plan. By then I expect the data plans from all providers to be more reasonably priced, as there should be many more users and much higher demand. So I'll shop around again next fall.
(The downside to the T-Mobile $40 plan, which is the ONLY one for the sidekick right now is that you get only 200 anytime + 1000 weekend minutes. That's fine for me, since I don't use my phone very much (maybe 150-200 minutes a month total), but heavy phone users are pretty much out of luck with the sidekick).
2600 was well aware of the double-standard when they decided not to appeal the decision in the trial. Knowing that they do not have a good PR record, the backed out rather than challenging further and getting a really bad precendent set (not based on the DMCA, but based on the fact that most people view 2600 as "evil hackers" that need to be stopped).
I don't think 2600.com actually lost the trial. They gave up the fight because they knew they would have lost if they pressed it. Their reputation as "evil haxorz" would have made it impossible to get a fair trial. And a loss would have set a bad precedence. 2600 decided to step aside and hope that someone more "legitimate" would pick up where they left off.
If C-Net were sued, they would probably do better, as they are a "legitimate" news site, and might be able to get support from others, like CNN, Fox, NBC, and other well-funded companies who don't want their first amendment rights taken away.
True, but it does mean that support for your machine instantly becomes subject to the DRM crap. You won't be able to get software updates. There won't be security fixes.
You will have the choice of upgrading to the DRM version, or become obsolete. Or switch to something that is unencumbered.
And, kidding aside, just because he puts it up on ebay, doesn't mean it will instantly disappear.:)
Slashdot Mirror
When my wife's powerbook arrived, we plugged it in and got it on with the extreme basestation. My older powerbook connected through it in mixed mode (or whatever that is). Her old Dell laptop couldn't connect to it. Later we were able to get the dell connected by switching to 802.11b-only mode, but that's lame.
:)
Anyhow, while it was in b/g mode, her laptop was able to connect and copy files (via AFP) much faster than my powerbook. The "server" was an iMac with 100mbit ethernet connected to the extreme basestation via a switch. I didn't do any throughput testing, but it was noticably faster.
As for achieving "maxiumum speed of 54Mbps, all users must use Airport Extreme Cards", i think it makes sense. Lets say you have 5 participants in the wireless network (4 clients and a base, or whatever... its not terribly important in this high level example). Lets say one of the clients has an 11b card and the rest have 11g cards. Then lets start transferring lots of data to and from each of them.
At equilibrium, I would expect that each client will be using about 1/5 of the available spectrum. So the 11b client can get about 1/5 of 11mbps, or 2.2mbps. The others could theoretically split up the remaining spectrum and achieve about 4/5 of 54mbps maximum, or about 41mbps. Even though the 11b client is only sending 2mbps, it takes up 10mbps-worth of spectrum to do it, so the network as a whole can only achieve about 43mbps, not 54.
Hopefully that makes sense...
When I said "answer them", I wasn't really specific. My point was more that if they broadcasted using some technology that we couldn't even hear/intercept/whatever, we would have no way to acknowledge their existance. So the reason they would be sending on radio frequencies is so we could hear them.
As for answering them, according to the "scientists" at the UFO mag, there's aliens flying around nearby right now, so once we pick up their signals we can just call them up on their cell phones. Bwahahahahaha!!!!
The profile of a sphere would always appear as a circle.
If the flying saucer were flying tangentially to the satellite, it would appear as a circle.
If it were flying with its edge towards the satellite, it would not appear as a circle.
But really it all just boils down to what the photoshop artist thinks it should look like.
There are links. If you click on the words "High Speed" or "Low Speed" in the interview pics, it gives you some WMV. I didn't feel like waiting for the download, so I don't actually know what the video is.
But I'm sure it's, you know, scientific and all.
I think the best reason for space-travelling aliens to communicate with radio is that a primitive society like ourselves might be able to hear them.
Assuming they're not just cruising around stealthily, looking for planets to wipe out, and are in fact searching for other societies, sending primitive beacons would be a good way to find them, since we would be more likely to be able to answer them. Using their latest communications technology would go right over our heads.
Obviously they would use something more advanced for their own communications (assuming they've figured out space travel, they've probably figured out lots of other neat stuff).
On the other hand, they could be using SETI's approach and just cruise around listening for signals with their AM/FM/8-track stereos in their pimped out rides.
This repeat wasn't so annoying. The really annoying ones are when CmdrTaco and Hemos start tag-teaming duplicates. Maybe it some sort of competition to see who can get the same article on the front page the most times?
Yeah. its definitely old. I think CmdrTaco has already posted it 5 times.
Wow! This is a mac section? Really? No way!
;)
I mean, is that what "apple" in the url means?
For a minute there I thought the original poster was being ironic, perhaps even funny. But thanks to you, I now understand that he's in fact an utter moron thinking his mac-related post (a reply to a mac post!) would get modded down.
I'm glad someone is keeping us informed.
Thanks man!
(Now watch this get modded down because I'm a dick
My guess is they'd hire a hundred or so people to go sit in the courtroom to speak on behalf of the important people.
Plus hire a lawyer to extensively argue that it should be ok for these stand ins to, well, stand in.
Yeah. cuz you know, being swiss he'd try to be neutral with everyone.
Or were you suggesting that someone nicknamed "the cliche jock asshole" would take him out faster than a freshman with a beanie?
Holy shit!
Was Parker Lewis NOT one of the best shows on TV?!?!?
Seriously. Maybe just one of the best of its time, but no one seems to hav syndicated it, so there's no good way to compare.
But it was a kickass show.
In the meantime, I still like cargo shorts (damned winter! cuz cargo pants just look silly). the huge knee-side pockets rock for carrying just about anything. Right now I mainly just carry my danger/t-mobile sidekick. But I carried my Libretto in my cargo shorts on many occasions.
I had a friend in college who used to carry a pair of pruning shears in his backpack. If he was walking along a path and a tree branch was hanging in his way, he'd stop, pull them out, and trim it off. I thought he was crazy, but it was obstructing him! Right on!
Remember, its UNIX underneath:
/usr/sbin/softwareupdate ;)
#!/bin/bash
while true; do
sleep 60
done
A perl wrapper to parse the output of "softwareupdate" is probably more useful, as it could email you that there's new updates, or maybe do the installation itself.
Actually, that's not a bad idea for a server... set up a cron job to automatically update and reboot as needed. Hmm.
Totally! I mean, what market only has one option? There's room for PLENTY of competitors. Look at the rest of the consumer electronics market: Sony, JVC, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Toshiba... Competition is good.
When I bought my ReplayTV, my friends were all telling me "You should have gotten a Tivo. Tivo will win." Neither will "win". They'll both do just fine for as long as they can. I happened to like the Replay user interface better, so I got it.
In this case, since the whole DVR industry is under fire from the MPAA, and other like-minded nimrods, its a good idea for them to not fight with each other. I mean, what good will it do them to bankrupt the other on some patent if the whole industry gets shut down in the meantime.
Yeah. I mean, we've been waiting 15 years (or whatever)... what's a few more in the grand scheme of things?
But how soon will IBM's pixie dust make possible disks with partitions larger than can be addressed in 64-bits?
When its asleep, its asleep. Cron jobs don't run.
I have successfully swapped batteries during sleep on my PB with 1G RAM in it, so I'm not convinced about your fine print.
The only issue I have with the two batteries is that I don't have an external charger. So in order to keep the spare fully charged, I have to swap batteries often. Usually I just let the spare sit for a while, then swap it the night before I go on a trip when I might need it.
So now all we need is someone to announce linux and macosx support, or maybe Anoto could open the protocol (bwahahahahahaha! I crack myself up! hooo ha!!!).
I mean, their big thing is a 60,000,000 sq km proprietary dot pattern. Obviously they can't give that up, or we'd all just start printing our own special paper with our $50 inkjet printers and then, i suppose, their renewable revenue stream goes to the toilet.
Maybe. Maybe not. But when was the last time you were in a paperless office? (ok, maybe YOU were in one, but when was the last time everyone else was?) There are still plenty of people who can "only work on paper". Others have mentioned it, but I remember at least one executive at my old company who's assistant would print out emails for them to read and mark up, then the assistant would type the responses. It was ludicrous (especially when the exec was out of town, so the assistant would print them out and fax them to the hotel).
This could be a good way to transition people who still think writing chicken-scratch on dead trees is the superior way to do things. Start them out on special notebooks with the pen.
Then in a couple years when the OLED stuff comes out and we have tablet computers with insane resolution, the tablets could generate the Anoto-like patters. Then the Anoto-converts can switch from using paper notebooks to using a tablet.
Or something like that.
(oops... wrong button)
Yeah! And those damn horseless-carriages. They just don't have the same charm.
Fricken luddites...
50 years from now, who cares about finding an email. Most of my emails are along the lines of "hey wanna go to lunch?" and other trivial stuff.
On the other hand, in 50 years, if I need to find a particular email, I can use the IMAP search (or 50-year-from-now equivalent) to find it. Try that with a friggin wrinkled up letter in a box somewhere in your attic (which may or may not have been lost in a fire, or when you moved, or when the roof leaked, or...)
I have all of my email going back 11 years (I didn't save it all the first few years, since my university had a pretty strict quota policy). And with rudimentary text search tools, I can find interesting emails pretty quickly.
Sure, it may not be as pretty or wrinkled or whatever, but if I really cared that much, I could print it out on yellowed paper with some script font, crumble it up, run over it with my car, then read it with all the charm and glory of "the good old days."
Fricken luddites...
Ugh.
Yeah! And those damn horseless-carriages. They just don't have the charm the same charm.
Fricken luddites...
Its actually 120x90. I have a sidekick and I'm dumping my sprint phone for it as soon as I get all the phone numbers onto the sidekick. The day after I got the sidekick, I made a quick email+php +mysql hack so I can post photos on the web from wherever I am (well, within T-Mobile's crappy coverage).
I wish the sidekick camera had better resolution, and now I'm a bit jealous that the sanyo phone does 640x480 and has a flash. However, with T-Mobile, I get unlimited data (for the first year) for $40/month. Sprint's data pricing would make things like my "photoblog" prohibitively expensive.
In a year, the Sidekick will have paid for itself by the difference between my current sprint plan and the t-mobile $40 plan. By then I expect the data plans from all providers to be more reasonably priced, as there should be many more users and much higher demand. So I'll shop around again next fall.
(The downside to the T-Mobile $40 plan, which is the ONLY one for the sidekick right now is that you get only 200 anytime + 1000 weekend minutes. That's fine for me, since I don't use my phone very much (maybe 150-200 minutes a month total), but heavy phone users are pretty much out of luck with the sidekick).
2600 was well aware of the double-standard when they decided not to appeal the decision in the trial. Knowing that they do not have a good PR record, the backed out rather than challenging further and getting a really bad precendent set (not based on the DMCA, but based on the fact that most people view 2600 as "evil hackers" that need to be stopped).
I don't think 2600.com actually lost the trial. They gave up the fight because they knew they would have lost if they pressed it. Their reputation as "evil haxorz" would have made it impossible to get a fair trial. And a loss would have set a bad precedence. 2600 decided to step aside and hope that someone more "legitimate" would pick up where they left off.
If C-Net were sued, they would probably do better, as they are a "legitimate" news site, and might be able to get support from others, like CNN, Fox, NBC, and other well-funded companies who don't want their first amendment rights taken away.
You mean Radio Shack has been out of stock for months on their cars, too?
Neat!
True, but it does mean that support for your machine instantly becomes subject to the DRM crap. You won't be able to get software updates. There won't be security fixes.
:)
You will have the choice of upgrading to the DRM version, or become obsolete. Or switch to something that is unencumbered.
And, kidding aside, just because he puts it up on ebay, doesn't mean it will instantly disappear.
Yeah! Good thinking. I think this should be applied elsewhere. Maybe I can pay $29.95 and play against Tiger Woods in the US Open.
My guess is a newbie who pays $29.95 to get ahead, will just get their ass spanked when they get there.