About as depressing as walking into Consumer Electronics 'R' Us and realizing you already have one of everything they sell. (DVD player? check. Desktop computer? Check. Laptop? Check. Mp3 player? check. Gonzo huge T.V. check. Stereo with dozen speakers? check. Game console? check.)
It's so bad I actually spend time shopping in the APPLIANCES section! (Marg blender? Check. Rug Shampooer? check. CPU controlled toaster? check. Programmable dishwasher? check.)
I'm not, in any way, disagreeing with your assessment. But I think what will happen with the public at large is: If the financial burden is light enough, they'll go along with it. Microsoft just needs to find the threshhold of pain the public is willing to withstand and shoot just under it.
IMHO (and this jusy may be because I've got a good paying job) I have no problems paying DishNetwork for their protected access to AV content. How is THAT different from a Microsoft Cartel doing the same thing for the same (or less) money?
Sooner or later, you're going to want to jump over to that processor that's 5 times faster, and the drive that holds a TB or two, or your system will fail and you're stuck buying the stuff whether you want to or not.
It's _kind_ of like the Froenhofer(sp?) MP3 licensing...did you notice it when you bought your mp3 player? I'm fairly certain you DID pay for the priveledge of using mp3s.
As for buying stuff over and over, that's the primary tennet of 'planned obsolecense' economics.
Well, lessee, if ALL problems that take more than 15 mintues to troubleshoot can be fixed with a re-image...why WOULDN'T you? I dunno what YOUR hourly rate is, but mine's high enough that it's a waste of money to spend too much time on a box trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with it.
We've got 1200 workstations and another 250 servers. Moving to a managed XP/windows 2003 server environment with the usual seasonings (virus scanning, hotfix management) GREATLY improved our system stability and reduced Helpdesk calls.
Like the linux quotes often say, I only reboot my XP box for patches and hardware updates. (which usually means about once a month for the hot fix updates)
The only guy in our group bitching about XP is the token Mac dude, who screwed up the box doing SOMETHING about a year ago and refuses to reinstall the known good corporate image. (a 10-20 minute process)
Google is your friend, search for Bluetooth to serial dongle.
Bluetooth natively shows up as one of several com ports to the computer. If you got REALLY happy, you could have one for the pyro, one for the scale, one for the datalogger.
Then you leave the laptop in the shade, within 30 feet of the pits and it talks to the datalogger when the driver brings the car in.
Which got re-negotiated by the insurance company for Quite A Bit less money./me had a good Half-mil insurance claim with premie twins in the NICU. I _know_ the insurance Co. didn't pay that much.
I used my ipaq with the IR port pointed to my nokia phone in the Baggage terminal at Denver International Airport....Slashdot was the only 'news' site to be able to handle the load that morning.
While I'm sure plenty of people get slashdot that way now. That was the first plane trip I'd been taking in, like, four years.:(
Re:v6 could help solve some net problems
on
IPv6 is Here
·
· Score: 2, Funny
IPv6 is big enough to give a class C subnet to every living person on the planet...I don't think static addressing will be necessary.
Man, I don't think I'll be albe to rewire my brain to rember ssh 100.100.100.100.100
I upped the memory on my office workstation when I started using Virtual PC's for testing. I was suprised to see a performance jump in increasing ram above 512Mb...I added two 1 Gb sticks, but I wonder what memory level above 512Mb caused the performance increase.
IIRC, Windows 2000 had a memory floor of about 256 mb, after which performance didn't improve much...with Windows XP it jumped to 512....now with Office, and service packs, and virus scanners and what have you, it appears to have creeped upwards a bit.
Logitech had a '3d' mouse back around, oh, 1995 or so. It had a stationary base and a mouse shaped handle. The whole thing moved in an XY space, and you could roll-pitch-yaw the handle. It 'emulated a mouse' so that you could use it to replace one - or so the box said.
The REAL end result was hand pain the likse if which you've never seen. I had it back in the box and returned to the store in under 30 minutes.
Yeah and you're probably one half of one percent of all photographers.
When I was shooting Auto Racing, I would typically prefocus, preset shutterspeed and f.stop. It was hard enough stopping the motion of the cars, I wouldn't be farting around with _everything_ at once.
Further, learning the ins and outs of a Nikon doesn't prepare you for a Canon or Minolta. How long does it take to muddle through learning an iPod?
Golly, what was I _thinking_? My last film camera did all of this with, hmm, three buttons and three knobs. (shoot, DOF preview, timer, focus, zoom, f.stop.)
On a digital unit, there's more stuff to control, but the controls can also do more than one thing.
Mostly because the iPod didn't have a whole lotta butotns in the FIRST place. How many devices do you have with buttons EVERYWHERE? (Digital Cameras come to mind...with cellphones a close second.)
The fact the ipod's hitting it's 4th (5th if you count the mini) generation without a major overhaul of the ui shows how well designed it was in the first place.
So how will they make this fit with the Classic Trek episode Balance of Terror, in which we learned that no human ever saw the face of a Romulan during the Romulan Wars?"
I've built a good half dozen computers over the last (good god) 15 years. This last one kicked my butt.
Never EVER go cheap on the motherboard.
Had the system up and running perfectly, plugged in the iPod a week later. zzzt. magic smoke escaped. Turned out the case wasn't providing adequate grounding/ backplane support.
Do you know how FUN it is trying to find the dead parts when you just dropped $900 on them and you DON'T have an identical system to swap parts into to check?
I think the overlying job of technology is to completely overturn old technology, say 'heh, that was easy, wonder what we can steamroller next?'
Currently, Digital photography and portable music players have a bullseye painted on 'em, but the same happened with keyboards, mice, cellphones, PDA's, laser printers, video cards, etc.
There's a period of churn, where the vendors fight for every last scrap, then move on leaving one or two large players and razor-thin margins.
I predict flat screens will be the next big target, what with DLP, LCD, and LCoS technologies falling under the economy of scale.
Slashdot Mirror
I read a great article on the future of petroleum consumption:
The stone age didn't end due to a lack of rocks, it ended due to bronze.
About as depressing as walking into Consumer Electronics 'R' Us and realizing you already have one of everything they sell. (DVD player? check. Desktop computer? Check. Laptop? Check. Mp3 player? check. Gonzo huge T.V. check. Stereo with dozen speakers? check. Game console? check.)
It's so bad I actually spend time shopping in the APPLIANCES section! (Marg blender? Check. Rug Shampooer? check. CPU controlled toaster? check. Programmable dishwasher? check.)
{sob}
I'm not, in any way, disagreeing with your assessment. But I think what will happen with the public at large is: If the financial burden is light enough, they'll go along with it. Microsoft just needs to find the threshhold of pain the public is willing to withstand and shoot just under it.
IMHO (and this jusy may be because I've got a good paying job) I have no problems paying DishNetwork for their protected access to AV content. How is THAT different from a Microsoft Cartel doing the same thing for the same (or less) money?
Sooner or later, you're going to want to jump over to that processor that's 5 times faster, and the drive that holds a TB or two, or your system will fail and you're stuck buying the stuff whether you want to or not.
It's _kind_ of like the Froenhofer(sp?) MP3 licensing...did you notice it when you bought your mp3 player? I'm fairly certain you DID pay for the priveledge of using mp3s.
As for buying stuff over and over, that's the primary tennet of 'planned obsolecense' economics.
Well, lessee, if ALL problems that take more than 15 mintues to troubleshoot can be fixed with a re-image...why WOULDN'T you? I dunno what YOUR hourly rate is, but mine's high enough that it's a waste of money to spend too much time on a box trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with it.
We've got 1200 workstations and another 250 servers. Moving to a managed XP/windows 2003 server environment with the usual seasonings (virus scanning, hotfix management) GREATLY improved our system stability and reduced Helpdesk calls.
Like the linux quotes often say, I only reboot my XP box for patches and hardware updates. (which usually means about once a month for the hot fix updates)
The only guy in our group bitching about XP is the token Mac dude, who screwed up the box doing SOMETHING about a year ago and refuses to reinstall the known good corporate image. (a 10-20 minute process)
Yes. Apparently.
It's a working quantum encrypted mumble mumble?
I thought IT was a Segway? (a.k.a. Ginger, A.k.a. self balancing hype-machine)
Google is your friend, search for Bluetooth to serial dongle.
Bluetooth natively shows up as one of several com ports to the computer. If you got REALLY happy, you could have one for the pyro, one for the scale, one for the datalogger.
Then you leave the laptop in the shade, within 30 feet of the pits and it talks to the datalogger when the driver brings the car in.
Serial connectivity with no add'l cables!
and goes 'wha?'
Is this a floor wax? A Dessert topping?
If it's brute force, I'm not worried. If it's a cryptologically trivial computation, I'll have to go back to ROT26.
Which got re-negotiated by the insurance company for Quite A Bit less money. /me had a good Half-mil insurance claim with premie twins in the NICU. I _know_ the insurance Co. didn't pay that much.
I used my ipaq with the IR port pointed to my nokia phone in the Baggage terminal at Denver International Airport....Slashdot was the only 'news' site to be able to handle the load that morning.
:(
While I'm sure plenty of people get slashdot that way now. That was the first plane trip I'd been taking in, like, four years.
IPv6 is big enough to give a class C subnet to every living person on the planet...I don't think static addressing will be necessary. Man, I don't think I'll be albe to rewire my brain to rember ssh 100.100.100.100.100
What are the system requirements for the Xbox version?
{ya, I'm being funny}
I upped the memory on my office workstation when I started using Virtual PC's for testing. I was suprised to see a performance jump in increasing ram above 512Mb...I added two 1 Gb sticks, but I wonder what memory level above 512Mb caused the performance increase.
IIRC, Windows 2000 had a memory floor of about 256 mb, after which performance didn't improve much...with Windows XP it jumped to 512....now with Office, and service packs, and virus scanners and what have you, it appears to have creeped upwards a bit.
Logitech had a '3d' mouse back around, oh, 1995 or so. It had a stationary base and a mouse shaped handle. The whole thing moved in an XY space, and you could roll-pitch-yaw the handle. It 'emulated a mouse' so that you could use it to replace one - or so the box said.
The REAL end result was hand pain the likse if which you've never seen. I had it back in the box and returned to the store in under 30 minutes.
Precisely my point.
Yeah and you're probably one half of one percent of all photographers.
When I was shooting Auto Racing, I would typically prefocus, preset shutterspeed and f.stop. It was hard enough stopping the motion of the cars, I wouldn't be farting around with _everything_ at once.
Further, learning the ins and outs of a Nikon doesn't prepare you for a Canon or Minolta. How long does it take to muddle through learning an iPod?
Golly, what was I _thinking_? My last film camera did all of this with, hmm, three buttons and three knobs. (shoot, DOF preview, timer, focus, zoom, f.stop.) On a digital unit, there's more stuff to control, but the controls can also do more than one thing.
Mostly because the iPod didn't have a whole lotta butotns in the FIRST place. How many devices do you have with buttons EVERYWHERE? (Digital Cameras come to mind...with cellphones a close second.)
The fact the ipod's hitting it's 4th (5th if you count the mini) generation without a major overhaul of the ui shows how well designed it was in the first place.
And does algae drastically reduce cooling performance?
I've built a good half dozen computers over the last (good god) 15 years. This last one kicked my butt.
Never EVER go cheap on the motherboard.
Had the system up and running perfectly, plugged in the iPod a week later. zzzt. magic smoke escaped. Turned out the case wasn't providing adequate grounding/ backplane support.
Do you know how FUN it is trying to find the dead parts when you just dropped $900 on them and you DON'T have an identical system to swap parts into to check?
Watched Fight Club Lately?
(I guess I wasn't supposed to talk about it...)
I think the overlying job of technology is to completely overturn old technology, say 'heh, that was easy, wonder what we can steamroller next?'
Currently, Digital photography and portable music players have a bullseye painted on 'em, but the same happened with keyboards, mice, cellphones, PDA's, laser printers, video cards, etc.
There's a period of churn, where the vendors fight for every last scrap, then move on leaving one or two large players and razor-thin margins.
I predict flat screens will be the next big target, what with DLP, LCD, and LCoS technologies falling under the economy of scale.