One answer. Quality Not Quantity(tm) At the very least this means lines of good code, but in actual practice don't we want efficiency? That is, with each block of code shouldn't we want to do as much as we can while still maintaining readability and stability? I think that people are getting confused about the appropriateness of the word 'productivity' in this discussion, since in essence as long as you are simply counting lines the word you are instead looking for is 'prolificity'.
What you're looking for is a VST host program. This could, possibly, come in all sorts of forms but the most common is usually a sequencer/editing program that supports the use of VST plugins within. Do NOT buy Cubase just for that. Cubase is overfeatured and expensive. There are a number of free or rather inexpensive host programs out there for the Mac platform. Two that come to mind are VSTi Host and Bias-Inc's Vbox. That one is more impresssive looking, which functions as a plugin managing system, and can function either integrated within a larger host(such as Cubase)or on its own. It retails for 99$.
I know that it can't hold as much music as a hypothetical tricked out one of these dealies with a 100 gigger. But in particular:
1. I can take it with me once I'm out of the car 2. It fits in my pocket 3. I can update the music contained within very quickly and easily.
That is a big one right there. My Mp3 collection is constantly changing, and is rarely the same 3 days in a row(probably like a lot of hip young people out there). With iTunes I don't even need to update anything manually as it will download/erase to match my computer files as needed. I love this functionality. I can see myself getting one of these car players and one day deciding that I'd really like to be able to listen to this new song that I downloaded/ripped. My only recourse with this particular player would be to take it out and hook the hard disk up to my PC as a slave drive? Am I grokking this right? I suppose with the Rio Car player one could either bring in a laptop to transfer over USB(slow!) or perhaps wire up their car for 802.11b connectivity with their house/appartment(!!!!)but that would ultimately be a huge pain in the ass.
Indeed. As did happen in Kuwait before the gulf war. As was the case in Afghanistan when Soviet troops invaded prior to the 1980 olympics. As was the case during WWII when hitler invaded europe. There is a difference between a war of dispute and a full on invasion of an otherwise peaceful populace that has not caused you any trouble other than living on land that you want. Perhaps you were asleep during your politics classes, but it is pretty much common political doctrine these days that use of uninitiated force is wrong. And if you'd like a philosophical doctrine to back it up, I suggest you read Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.
We did not treat the losers like they were equal or better than us, surprise surprise. No shit, really?
So the Native Americans lost a war, lets move on. They don't deserve reperations, apologies, or anything of the sort. They lost a war.
You're absolutely right. And while we're at it, why the hell don't we get rid of holocaust memorials, and the like. The Jews of WWII Europe lost a war with Nazi Germany, didn't they? Ooooh, now I've pissed you off. You see, that pushes your buttons because in this society it would be nearly impossible to show a lack of compassion towards the unspeakable evil and suffering of the holocaust without being labled a racist. And you, being such an enlightened individual, wouldn't stand for that. But let's be honest, Jack. There is no difference. Genocide is genocide. And when you compare the modern military cohesion, numbers, and firepower against that which the Native American populations had to defend themselves with, it is a really sickening thing indeed. Much like the holocaust, thank you very much.
It is unfortunate that people have this feeling today, since it allows for guilt, when no guilt is needed.
The only people who feel guilty are those who have guilt issues. The purpose of keeping a strong position or sentiment about an event from the past is to make sure that it doesn't happen again. I don't hold myself personally responsible for what happened in the past, but I damn well hold myself responsible for our future, as any conscious and responsible person should.
Yeah, they lost a war. And who ever said that all wars are virtuous? While were on the subject of all this, how do you feel about Osama bin Laden trying to destroy our country and our culture? Asshole.
Did YOU ever do anything so simple who's outcome was so useful? No, of course not. Otherwise you wouldn't be so damn pissed about it. Two lines of code it may be, but the results are what got people talking about it, and in the end that's all that matters. Except to people like you, of course.
But not in and of itself. The thing that is bugging me about windows is that there seems to be more and more spilled about spyware/spyware-type things in XP. Possible universal backdoors for encryption, for example. Nothing bad has ever come of any of it, but what bothers me is that as consumers we're getting used to hearing about this kind of shit regularly, and this is the stuff that Microsoft is willing to admit! I mean, lets be frank, if M$ wanted to lie about something evil in there, they'd more than willing. The question on my mind is can we trust Microsoft(or for that matter any proprietary operating system manufacturer)to not spy on us? There are a lot of people out there, Government/Marketing/et. al, who would be thrilled to get a piece of some secret evil.
You can completely replace the contents on your iPod in less than 15 minutes.
400Mb/sec / 8 = 50MB/sec
5000Mb/50Mb/sec = 100 sec
100 seconds actually. Not that this negates any of the good points you brought up in your post, but damn. Just a little over a minute and a half. You could replace an entire 20gb hard drive in a little over 6.5 minutes.
Unlike operating systems which require a completely separate computer to install, LindowsOS has the astonishing ability to install on an existing Windows computers with just a couple mouse clicks in a way which allows them to explore LindowsOS or continue to use their Windows® operating system and switch between the two.
Tee hee! Way to exploit the bootloader and make it look like an innovation! These guys rock!
Re:There Steve goes again..
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New iMac Announced
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· Score: 4, Flamebait
The reason why people like you can never appreciate the G4, or apple hardware, or pretty much anything apple ever does for that matter, is that you never actually use your computer to *do* much of anything. Quake? Please. Quit playing your little games and grow up. Photoshop is a real world application used by untold legions of graphics designers in professional situations. The software that is G4 optimized on the Mac platform is heaviliy optimized, and many are creative applications. So I think that the Photoshop benchmark is a fantastic one, because coming from the position of an artist:
I don't give a flying fuck how fast it compiles the linux kernel.
Conclusion? When I'm using a measly 667 MHZ G4 with my custom designed Audio DSP/Video processing patch in Max/MSP/Nato.0+55+3d (Macintosh Only), taking video input through a firewire digicam and distorting someone's face with realtime glycerin effects and filters and convolving the pixmap with a pvoc'ed sample of Mr. T's voice, all whilst controlling the whole thing with a Powerglove,
I fly, I've got an assload of CPU power to spare, and you've just fragged your millionth bot. Good for you. Buy an Xbox, loser.
Before you automatically hate me, I am not necessarily bashing KDE + GNOME. However, I am a former BEos user and I would love to see a window manager/system/full-on GUI that maintains an ideal balance between beauty, features, simplicity and small size. For those of you who never used BEos, its GUI was so incredibly fast an efficient it made even the most hardcore Windows/Mac/UNIX user drool uncontrollably. That, and it was really nice to look at, and packed with desktop features that even KDE in its advanced state has yet to implement entirely to my liking (e.g., 'drag and drop to the extreme'). GNOME looks nice and is definitely useable, but it's sluggish on my 400MHZ PII, and I've seen the Beos Tracker fly on 166MHZ pentiums. KDE is too much like Windows, and has also gotten much slower since v 2.0. On the sparse side of things, Blackbox is quick and nice looking but low on features, and pretty much everything else I've seen is outdated and ugly looking. Has anyone ever considered a project using the resources of OpenTracker?
What the hell kind of name is 'Iwalk'?
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Apple PDA?
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Does anyone else here wonder if Apple mixed up the project sheets for their respective products before release? I mean, if you think about it, 'Ipod' would be a great name for a PDA, and 'Iwalk' would be a kick ass name for a music player...you know, like 'WALKMAN'. Makes me wonder if they pulled a Capcom (For those of you who remember Street Fighter II), and switched the names at the last minute in threat of lawsuit instead of coming up with new ones. Hm.
In fact, they're lucky if they have taken a high-school-level algebra or "pre" calculus course for the entire math requirement and/or an astronomy-for-poets course as their science requirement.
Hah! You're kidding, right? At my University most Science/Math types are lucky if they've taken any humanities course with a reasonable level of difficulty, and/or a "Writing for Complete Literary Dunces course for their dreaded 'H' requirements. At our school, this is called 'Writing 001', which consists of such revolutionary topics as the 5 paragraph essay. These same people then graduate from college and wonder why readers on slashdot complain that they can't differentiate between its and it's, and that their spelling and syntax is abysmal. You think that a lack of Math experience is a joke? What I find funny is that a huge percentage of college graduates in the sciences can't even write a proper high school essay, let alone an elegant dissertation.
A housemate of mine and I decided that we wanted to build a pathetic little Supercomputer out of the various PCs laying around in our little Geek House. We've decided to give MOSIX a run. It sounds like a fairy tale solution...especially when it comes to automatic process migration node to node. Anybody here have any positive experiences or harsh words regarding this?
You can dislike illicit software copying if you like. You can think that the participants are morally suspect, you can say that it does harm to the industry...you can say quite a lot of things. But lets get something very clear here: Comparing Software Piracy to theft is a stupid analogy!
Meriam Webter defines theft as
1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
1)..When someone illegally copies a piece of software, a physical piece of merchandise that existed in a warehouse does not just magically disappear. Unlike in the real world, the proprieter of a business (Say COMPUSA, or MICROSOFT) does not have to spend extra money on recovering lost inventory. 2)..You can argue against it all you want, but the vast majority of pirated software on many people's PCs would not have been bought in the first place. I know there are exceptions, as always. But seriously, look at the Start menu on your average (artist I suppose since I went to school with art students)College Student's PC: Photoshop, Premiere, AfterEffects, Office, 3D STUDIO MAX, an assortment of expensive 3D games (Not to mention about 10 GB of Mp3s, which is a different but incredibly related discussion). Oh Good Lord, this one student has cost the industry thousands of dollars in software, and has cost the music industry nearly $2000-$3000 in revenue! What a load of carp. Apparently most people have forgotten that college students are poor!
Yeah, I suppose you could argue that through pirated software one is stealing profit--depriving the company of the profit it deserves. That is a dangerous argument to make. Because then how would you like it if a company had the right to sue you over persuading a fellow citizen that it would be unnecessary to even wrong to buy a specific product. Would that then mean that you have stolen what would have otherwise been a positive cashflow from said company? I think not. A corporation does not have the right to determine what a consumer should or would have done under their ideal circumstances. That right lies solely within an individual. If we want to crack down, lets crack down on real piracy, where a piracy group sells contraband copies of another person's material. That's what copyrights are all about in the first place.
Plus, Bill Gates really kind of needs to suck my wang, a little bit.
Has no one here heard of the Electric Bicycle?
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This is IT?
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I think this thing looks pretty awesome. But, if the 3k$ pricetag is a bit daunting you should look at the electric bikes by Electric Sierra Cycles. I've had one for a few months and love it. Here in Santa Cruz we've got a subsidy program set up by the local transportation beaureu that cuts about 500$ off of the list price. Ah, liberal towns.
I recall hearing something once about the homebrew computer club @ Cal back in the 70's doing something like this using an Altair and a radio to play The Beatles' classic, "Fool on the Hill". It was judged the most interesting and useful thing anyone had managed to do with an Altair yet. I am glad that over 20 years later programmers are dedicated to making our computers just as useful and practical.
I'm not even going to go into all the terms, theories and concepts that you sort of muushed over. You obviously don't know a thing about audio or audio technology. So, that's why you need to keep your mouth shut when you don't know what you're talking about.
Digital doesn't signify a single format or technique in audio encoding, it is a paradigm. You are correct that CDs more properly represent the audio spectrum. But compared to (high end) analog recording mediums the actual accuracy is pretty laughable because 16b is not a high enough resolution to avoid the audio version of what you might know as the 'jaggies'. The quality that most audiophiles crave in analog recordings is known vernacularly as 'warmth'. Current technology used in CDs and such can't get the clarity to a sampled wave the same as 3/4" tape running at 35 "/sec gets with an analog pattern because it isn't a smooth wave, its just a lot of chopped up samples. When you put these together you get a good sound but it is nowhere near as 'warm'. It is a similar quality that guitarists prize in tube amps.
Interestingly enough the SACD is really really good at getting this sort of quality and as such is slowly being used to remaster some of the better preserved original studio master tapes. The reason it sounds so good is that it encodes the wave as a mathematical function and not as a string of sample points. You should give it a listen and see what you've been missing.
Typically(as I understand it) in a lawsuit the whole idea is restitution of damages. I love the idea of Microsoft giving technology to underprivilaged schools, and if they want to do it then full steam ahead. But... their donation of resources shouldn't have any bearing on the actual civil litigation going on. Companies donate money and services to charity all the time. In marketing that's called PR. Make the rest of the world think that you're allright. I'm from Southern California and I remember that when the Indian Gaming tribes went under fire during Proposition 5, they were donating money to charities left and right. Still do as a matter of fact.
Does anyone *really* think that the poor school districts are the ones who were hurt by Microsoft's Monopolistic(tm) practices? No, of course not. They wouldn't have been buying computers either way, it's the hardware that's too expensive for them--not Microsoft's inflated prices and crappy software. So after years of bullshit the average consumer has put up with by dealing with Microsoft's business tactics, as a settlement we get a company donating to an unrelated charity. Well, sign me up Frank.
There isn't any need to debate whether this sort of thing is going to extend Microsoft's monopoly or not. They do that kind of stuff all the time. It's the fact that people are willing to accept it as a term of a lawsuit settlement that pisses me off. Give'm hell boys.
And the russian Czars were completely responsible for the Bolshevik Revolution. Funny though--Microsoft acts all non chalant about it but in a few years they're going to be really sorry about their open source illegitimate love child. Then again, I doubt those french speaking Russian Imperialist jerks were too fond of the Bolsheviks. Oh wait, nevermind...they were dead! Har.
Or is it more of an attempt to latch on to something that they can demonize to make voters feel more at ease? I mean seriously, it seems it would be absurd for them to tell us we couldn't say on the street anything that was deemed unsuitable for children. What about swearing in a room with kids? Bad manners perhaps but not a legislative matter at all, most would agree.
The internet is treated differently because it is a new thing that most politicians don't understand. People have been talking with their mouths for years. But look... "Big internet new and scary. Ugh. The internet is power-mad. She want take moral perogative away from parents." It is a lot easier for people to blame what's new and mysterious (to some anyway). I can't stand it when people go off about kids being exposed to internet porn. Kids have been swiping their parents' stag flicks and magazines for such a long time it may as well have become herreditary tradition. And the pipe bombs? Please. Apparently legislators never went to school (at least not a public one).
Perhaps this is because I'm not a physics person, but maybe someone could enlighten me.
I'm under the impression that when you run a fuel cell the output is H2O. Has anyone considered the numerous possible environmental risks involved with such a process? I mean, not polluting the air is quite nice, but we have a pretty clean balance of elements on Earth, and it does worry me a bit when I imagine a world where everyone is using a fuel cell for energy. After a while, wouldn't we end up with lots of excess water and a deficit of oxygen? Personally I'm a big fan of breathing and not having the oceans overflow. Opinions from someone who actually knows something?
I for one have been rather worried that eventually the US government is going to get greedy/stifling and attempt to regulate the internet more and more. And unfortunately it seems obvious that this is a rather growing trend. Of course one country can only do so much to a global network, although that isn't quite the most powerful argument when applied to the United States considering how it thrusts its foreign policy all over the map.
So the big question is what is going to happen when it goes too far? How are the internet masses going to respond? I know that already groups of Universities are conspiring to build their own 'internet sequel' which has faster connections and better planning (but that is quite smaller in scale). What about the rest of the world? Hackers? Can anyone actually envision a scenario where a large enough segment of the internet population revolts to the effect that it can persuade the governments of the world to act otherwise?
The internet is in many ways(not factoring in the commercial backbones but instead focusing on content, lack of ownership, networking)a rare expression of anarchy in our world. All governments are by definition the antithesis of anarchy and thus diametrically opposed. It is no surprise then that governments are constantly trying to find ways to limit, tax and otherwise regulate it. Anarchy almost always falls apart at the seams. But cyberspace is a successful anarchy because it came into being and matured when no overseeing government existed to regulate it, and its very fabric is weaved of complete and utter interdependance. I wonder whether this will in the long run make a difference.
Actually, it was an idea that my housemate and I dreamed up when we were thinking about realistic ways to interface with a wearable computer when using a HMD. We figured that having a virtual keyboard would be nice except for the problem of not being able to see keys, so the gloves/sensors would track the hands vertically/horizontally and display a pair of virtual hands floating over a virtual keyboard in your virtual reality head display. Pheyw. You would have to select a standard position to keep your hands in, but that probably would be a good idea, for comfort's sake. I don't know if the above-mentioned product does that or not, but it would be cool if something did. Personally we weren't thinking too seriously, we just thought it would be a gas to see modern businessmen standing on streetcorners typing on invisible keyboards. Har Har.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it lines of code per day? Lines of good code?
One answer. Quality Not Quantity(tm)
At the very least this means lines of good code, but in actual practice don't we want efficiency? That is, with each block of code shouldn't we want to do as much as we can while still maintaining readability and stability? I think that people are getting confused about the appropriateness of the word 'productivity' in this discussion, since in essence as long as you are simply counting lines the word you are instead looking for is 'prolificity'.
What you're looking for is a VST host program. This could, possibly, come in all sorts of forms but the most common is usually a sequencer/editing program that supports the use of VST plugins within. Do NOT buy Cubase just for that. Cubase is overfeatured and expensive. There are a number of free or rather inexpensive host programs out there for the Mac platform. Two that come to mind are VSTi Host and Bias-Inc's Vbox. That one is more impresssive looking, which functions as a plugin managing system, and can function either integrated within a larger host(such as Cubase)or on its own. It retails for 99$.
I know that it can't hold as much music as a hypothetical tricked out one of these dealies with a 100 gigger. But in particular:
1. I can take it with me once I'm out of the car
2. It fits in my pocket
3. I can update the music contained within very quickly and easily.
That is a big one right there. My Mp3 collection is constantly changing, and is rarely the same 3 days in a row(probably like a lot of hip young people out there). With iTunes I don't even need to update anything manually as it will download/erase to match my computer files as needed. I love this functionality. I can see myself getting one of these car players and one day deciding that I'd really like to be able to listen to this new song that I downloaded/ripped. My only recourse with this particular player would be to take it out and hook the hard disk up to my PC as a slave drive? Am I grokking this right? I suppose with the Rio Car player one could either bring in a laptop to transfer over USB(slow!) or perhaps wire up their car for 802.11b connectivity with their house/appartment(!!!!)but that would ultimately be a huge pain in the ass.
Was just using the Photoshop 7 Beta the other day, interestingly enough.
Cake or Death!
Uhh, Cake please.
Well, we're all out of cake.
What do mean OR death?!!
Indeed. As did happen in Kuwait before the gulf war. As was the case in Afghanistan when Soviet troops invaded prior to the 1980 olympics. As was the case during WWII when hitler invaded europe. There is a difference between a war of dispute and a full on invasion of an otherwise peaceful populace that has not caused you any trouble other than living on land that you want. Perhaps you were asleep during your politics classes, but it is pretty much common political doctrine these days that use of uninitiated force is wrong. And if you'd like a philosophical doctrine to back it up, I suggest you read Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.
We did not treat the losers like they were equal or better than us, surprise surprise.
No shit, really?
So the Native Americans lost a war, lets move on. They don't deserve reperations, apologies, or anything of the sort. They lost a war.
You're absolutely right. And while we're at it, why the hell don't we get rid of holocaust memorials, and the like. The Jews of WWII Europe lost a war with Nazi Germany, didn't they? Ooooh, now I've pissed you off. You see, that pushes your buttons because in this society it would be nearly impossible to show a lack of compassion towards the unspeakable evil and suffering of the holocaust without being labled a racist. And you, being such an enlightened individual, wouldn't stand for that. But let's be honest, Jack. There is no difference. Genocide is genocide. And when you compare the modern military cohesion, numbers, and firepower against that which the Native American populations had to defend themselves with, it is a really sickening thing indeed. Much like the holocaust, thank you very much.
It is unfortunate that people have this feeling today, since it allows for guilt, when no guilt is needed.
The only people who feel guilty are those who have guilt issues. The purpose of keeping a strong position or sentiment about an event from the past is to make sure that it doesn't happen again. I don't hold myself personally responsible for what happened in the past, but I damn well hold myself responsible for our future, as any conscious and responsible person should.
Yeah, they lost a war. And who ever said that all wars are virtuous? While were on the subject of all this, how do you feel about Osama bin Laden trying to destroy our country and our culture? Asshole.
Did YOU ever do anything so simple who's outcome was so useful? No, of course not. Otherwise you wouldn't be so damn pissed about it. Two lines of code it may be, but the results are what got people talking about it, and in the end that's all that matters. Except to people like you, of course.
But not in and of itself. The thing that is bugging me about windows is that there seems to be more and more spilled about spyware/spyware-type things in XP. Possible universal backdoors for encryption, for example. Nothing bad has ever come of any of it, but what bothers me is that as consumers we're getting used to hearing about this kind of shit regularly, and this is the stuff that Microsoft is willing to admit! I mean, lets be frank, if M$ wanted to lie about something evil in there, they'd more than willing. The question on my mind is can we trust Microsoft(or for that matter any proprietary operating system manufacturer)to not spy on us? There are a lot of people out there, Government/Marketing/et. al, who would be thrilled to get a piece of some secret evil.
You can completely replace the contents on your iPod in less than 15 minutes.
400Mb/sec / 8 = 50MB/sec 5000Mb/50Mb/sec = 100 sec 100 seconds actually. Not that this negates any of the good points you brought up in your post, but damn. Just a little over a minute and a half. You could replace an entire 20gb hard drive in a little over 6.5 minutes.
Unlike operating systems which require a completely separate computer to install, LindowsOS has the astonishing ability to install on an existing Windows computers with just a couple mouse clicks in a way which allows them to explore LindowsOS or continue to use their Windows® operating system and switch between the two.
Tee hee! Way to exploit the bootloader and make it look like an innovation! These guys rock!
The reason why people like you can never appreciate the G4, or apple hardware, or pretty much anything apple ever does for that matter, is that you never actually use your computer to *do* much of anything. Quake? Please. Quit playing your little games and grow up. Photoshop is a real world application used by untold legions of graphics designers in professional situations. The software that is G4 optimized on the Mac platform is heaviliy optimized, and many are creative applications. So I think that the Photoshop benchmark is a fantastic one, because coming from the position of an artist:
I don't give a flying fuck how fast it compiles the linux kernel.
Conclusion? When I'm using a measly 667 MHZ G4 with my custom designed Audio DSP/Video processing patch in Max/MSP/Nato
I fly, I've got an assload of CPU power to spare, and you've just fragged your millionth bot. Good for you. Buy an Xbox, loser.
Boring people use boring computers.
Before you automatically hate me, I am not necessarily bashing KDE + GNOME. However, I am a former BEos user and I would love to see a window manager/system/full-on GUI that maintains an ideal balance between beauty, features, simplicity and small size. For those of you who never used BEos, its GUI was so incredibly fast an efficient it made even the most hardcore Windows/Mac/UNIX user drool uncontrollably. That, and it was really nice to look at, and packed with desktop features that even KDE in its advanced state has yet to implement entirely to my liking (e.g., 'drag and drop to the extreme'). GNOME looks nice and is definitely useable, but it's sluggish on my 400MHZ PII, and I've seen the Beos Tracker fly on 166MHZ pentiums. KDE is too much like Windows, and has also gotten much slower since v 2.0. On the sparse side of things, Blackbox is quick and nice looking but low on features, and pretty much everything else I've seen is outdated and ugly looking. Has anyone ever considered a project using the resources of OpenTracker?
Does anyone else here wonder if Apple mixed up the project sheets for their respective products before release? I mean, if you think about it, 'Ipod' would be a great name for a PDA, and 'Iwalk' would be a kick ass name for a music player...you know, like 'WALKMAN'. Makes me wonder if they pulled a Capcom (For those of you who remember Street Fighter II), and switched the names at the last minute in threat of lawsuit instead of coming up with new ones. Hm.
In fact, they're lucky if they have taken a high-school-level algebra or "pre" calculus course for the entire math requirement and/or an astronomy-for-poets course as their science requirement.
Hah! You're kidding, right? At my University most Science/Math types are lucky if they've taken any humanities course with a reasonable level of difficulty, and/or a "Writing for Complete Literary Dunces course for their dreaded 'H' requirements. At our school, this is called 'Writing 001', which consists of such revolutionary topics as the 5 paragraph essay. These same people then graduate from college and wonder why readers on slashdot complain that they can't differentiate between its and it's, and that their spelling and syntax is abysmal. You think that a lack of Math experience is a joke? What I find funny is that a huge percentage of college graduates in the sciences can't even write a proper high school essay, let alone an elegant dissertation.
A housemate of mine and I decided that we wanted to build a pathetic little Supercomputer out of the various PCs laying around in our little Geek House. We've decided to give MOSIX a run. It sounds like a fairy tale solution...especially when it comes to automatic process migration node to node. Anybody here have any positive experiences or harsh words regarding this?
Let's set the record straight
You can dislike illicit software copying if you like. You can think that the participants are morally suspect, you can say that it does harm to the industry...you can say quite a lot of things. But lets get something very clear here:
Comparing Software Piracy to theft is a stupid analogy!
Meriam Webter defines theft as
1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it
b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
1)..When someone illegally copies a piece of software, a physical piece of merchandise that existed in a warehouse does not just magically disappear. Unlike in the real world, the proprieter of a business (Say COMPUSA, or MICROSOFT) does not have to spend extra money on recovering lost inventory.
2)..You can argue against it all you want, but the vast majority of pirated software on many people's PCs would not have been bought in the first place. I know there are exceptions, as always. But seriously, look at the Start menu on your average (artist I suppose since I went to school with art students)College Student's PC: Photoshop, Premiere, AfterEffects, Office, 3D STUDIO MAX, an assortment of expensive 3D games (Not to mention about 10 GB of Mp3s, which is a different but incredibly related discussion). Oh Good Lord, this one student has cost the industry thousands of dollars in software, and has cost the music industry nearly $2000-$3000 in revenue! What a load of carp. Apparently most people have forgotten that college students are poor!
Yeah, I suppose you could argue that through pirated software one is stealing profit--depriving the company of the profit it deserves. That is a dangerous argument to make. Because then how would you like it if a company had the right to sue you over persuading a fellow citizen that it would be unnecessary to even wrong to buy a specific product. Would that then mean that you have stolen what would have otherwise been a positive cashflow from said company? I think not. A corporation does not have the right to determine what a consumer should or would have done under their ideal circumstances. That right lies solely within an individual. If we want to crack down, lets crack down on real piracy, where a piracy group sells contraband copies of another person's material. That's what copyrights are all about in the first place.
Plus, Bill Gates really kind of needs to suck my wang, a little bit.
I think this thing looks pretty awesome. But, if the 3k$ pricetag is a bit daunting you should look at the electric bikes by Electric Sierra Cycles. I've had one for a few months and love it. Here in Santa Cruz we've got a subsidy program set up by the local transportation beaureu that cuts about 500$ off of the list price. Ah, liberal towns.
I recall hearing something once about the homebrew computer club @ Cal back in the 70's doing something like this using an Altair and a radio to play The Beatles' classic, "Fool on the Hill". It was judged the most interesting and useful thing anyone had managed to do with an Altair yet. I am glad that over 20 years later programmers are dedicated to making our computers just as useful and practical.
I'm not even going to go into all the terms, theories and concepts that you sort of muushed over. You obviously don't know a thing about audio or audio technology. So, that's why you need to keep your mouth shut when you don't know what you're talking about.
Digital doesn't signify a single format or technique in audio encoding, it is a paradigm. You are correct that CDs more properly represent the audio spectrum. But compared to (high end) analog recording mediums the actual accuracy is pretty laughable because 16b is not a high enough resolution to avoid the audio version of what you might know as the 'jaggies'. The quality that most audiophiles crave in analog recordings is known vernacularly as 'warmth'. Current technology used in CDs and such can't get the clarity to a sampled wave the same as 3/4" tape running at 35 "/sec gets with an analog pattern because it isn't a smooth wave, its just a lot of chopped up samples. When you put these together you get a good sound but it is nowhere near as 'warm'. It is a similar quality that guitarists prize in tube amps.
Interestingly enough the SACD is really really good at getting this sort of quality and as such is slowly being used to remaster some of the better preserved original studio master tapes. The reason it sounds so good is that it encodes the wave as a mathematical function and not as a string of sample points. You should give it a listen and see what you've been missing.
Typically(as I understand it) in a lawsuit the whole idea is restitution of damages. I love the idea of Microsoft giving technology to underprivilaged schools, and if they want to do it then full steam ahead. But... their donation of resources shouldn't have any bearing on the actual civil litigation going on.
Companies donate money and services to charity all the time. In marketing that's called PR. Make the rest of the world think that you're allright. I'm from Southern California and I remember that when the Indian Gaming tribes went under fire during Proposition 5, they were donating money to charities left and right. Still do as a matter of fact.
Does anyone *really* think that the poor school districts are the ones who were hurt by Microsoft's Monopolistic(tm) practices? No, of course not. They wouldn't have been buying computers either way, it's the hardware that's too expensive for them--not Microsoft's inflated prices and crappy software. So after years of bullshit the average consumer has put up with by dealing with Microsoft's business tactics, as a settlement we get a company donating to an unrelated charity. Well, sign me up Frank.
There isn't any need to debate whether this sort of thing is going to extend Microsoft's monopoly or not. They do that kind of stuff all the time. It's the fact that people are willing to accept it as a term of a lawsuit settlement that pisses me off. Give'm hell boys.
And the russian Czars were completely responsible for the Bolshevik Revolution. Funny though--Microsoft acts all non chalant about it but in a few years they're going to be really sorry about their open source illegitimate love child. Then again, I doubt those french speaking Russian Imperialist jerks were too fond of the Bolsheviks. Oh wait, nevermind...they were dead! Har.
Or is it more of an attempt to latch on to something that they can demonize to make voters feel more at ease? I mean seriously, it seems it would be absurd for them to tell us we couldn't say on the street anything that was deemed unsuitable for children. What about swearing in a room with kids? Bad manners perhaps but not a legislative matter at all, most would agree.
The internet is treated differently because it is a new thing that most politicians don't understand. People have been talking with their mouths for years. But look... "Big internet new and scary. Ugh. The internet is power-mad. She want take moral perogative away from parents." It is a lot easier for people to blame what's new and mysterious (to some anyway). I can't stand it when people go off about kids being exposed to internet porn. Kids have been swiping their parents' stag flicks and magazines for such a long time it may as well have become herreditary tradition. And the pipe bombs? Please. Apparently legislators never went to school (at least not a public one).
Perhaps this is because I'm not a physics person, but maybe someone could enlighten me.
I'm under the impression that when you run a fuel cell the output is H2O. Has anyone considered the numerous possible environmental risks involved with such a process? I mean, not polluting the air is quite nice, but we have a pretty clean balance of elements on Earth, and it does worry me a bit when I imagine a world where everyone is using a fuel cell for energy. After a while, wouldn't we end up with lots of excess water and a deficit of oxygen? Personally I'm a big fan of breathing and not having the oceans overflow. Opinions from someone who actually knows something?
I for one have been rather worried that eventually the US government is going to get greedy/stifling and attempt to regulate the internet more and more. And unfortunately it seems obvious that this is a rather growing trend. Of course one country can only do so much to a global network, although that isn't quite the most powerful argument when applied to the United States considering how it thrusts its foreign policy all over the map.
So the big question is what is going to happen when it goes too far? How are the internet masses going to respond? I know that already groups of Universities are conspiring to build their own 'internet sequel' which has faster connections and better planning (but that is quite smaller in scale). What about the rest of the world? Hackers? Can anyone actually envision a scenario where a large enough segment of the internet population revolts to the effect that it can persuade the governments of the world to act otherwise?
The internet is in many ways(not factoring in the commercial backbones but instead focusing on content, lack of ownership, networking)a rare expression of anarchy in our world. All governments are by definition the antithesis of anarchy and thus diametrically opposed. It is no surprise then that governments are constantly trying to find ways to limit, tax and otherwise regulate it. Anarchy almost always falls apart at the seams. But cyberspace is a successful anarchy because it came into being and matured when no overseeing government existed to regulate it, and its very fabric is weaved of complete and utter interdependance. I wonder whether this will in the long run make a difference.
Actually, it was an idea that my housemate and I dreamed up when we were thinking about realistic ways to interface with a wearable computer when using a HMD. We figured that having a virtual keyboard would be nice except for the problem of not being able to see keys, so the gloves/sensors would track the hands vertically/horizontally and display a pair of virtual hands floating over a virtual keyboard in your virtual reality head display. Pheyw. You would have to select a standard position to keep your hands in, but that probably would be a good idea, for comfort's sake. I don't know if the above-mentioned product does that or not, but it would be cool if something did. Personally we weren't thinking too seriously, we just thought it would be a gas to see modern businessmen standing on streetcorners typing on invisible keyboards. Har Har.