The bad thing for the consumer is that the life of the car will not rival a car made out of galvanized steel. They may claim that the plastic coating will last forever. Eventually the coating will fade, chip, scratch, etc. And the car will look horrible sometime down the road.
Actually, the older Saturns that I have seen have almost always looked pretty good. The only part that tends to look bad on them after 8 years or so is the matte bumpers.
I wouldn't have any problems buying a car made with plastic panels. Just not a Saturn -- I'm more of a BMW person.
Which brings up another subject - that of auto recycling. Right now autos and large home appliances are among the most recycled products we have (in the US, anyway), because they're made of steel. While marking the plastic parts in autos for recycling has advanced (the Europeans are ahead of the US & Japanese mfrs in that regard), much of the plastic is not recyclable, or simply doesn't get recycled.
Better power supplies put out less ripple, which means there's less heat generated inside these sub-standard capacitors. So even if your board has these things mounted to it, you might not see the problem for months or years.
Yet another reason not to cheap-out when building a system.
Chip H.
BTW, probably the world's best Tantalum capacitors are made by Kemet. Their products have been in everything from the original IBM System 360 to the International Space Station.
Back when I did some work for BofA (when they had just become NationsBank), they were using SNA for running their ATM network. While I'm sure SNA is as vulnerable to worms/attacks as any other protocol, there's something to be said about running an obscure networking OS.
Chip H.
3) Prime Directive gets violated (but in a good way)
4) Time travel paradox is narrowly avoided
5) Combination of the above
So, Rick, if you want the next movie to be better attended, avoid all of the above.
A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
on
Infinite Games?
·
· Score: 1
Sure, you can use this technology for a FPS or RPG game, but a more interesting use would be for self-guided instructional material.
Neal Stephenson showed the way in his Snowcrash -- just imagine an interactive zoology lab, where you could ask a spider to find out why he finds flies so tasty, or talk to a zebra about what his stripes are for.
Or you could have an interactive music partner that allowed you to practice duets, or maybe a virtual ZZ Top to jam with (subject to RIAA synthTexan® licensing requirements).
What will be more interesting is in what manner the.mil admins will request the cached pages to be dropped. From Google's webmaster page, it sounds like a simple e-mail request will be sufficient. However, going by recent events in the web world, a cease & desist letter is more likely.
{Sigh} An excess of lawyers is a sign of the forthcoming end of civility.
RIAA et al keep going on about the large numbers of people illegally sharing copyrighted content. Wired Magazine (dead tree edition) said that on a recent Monday morning there were 3.1 million people on Kazaa. Of those millions of people, how many were Overpeer clients masquerading as users?
Hiring Overpeer in this respect is a win-win for the record companys. They get to increase the noise-to-signal ratio by posting nasty 8-track quality rips out there, *and* go to Congress with inflated P2P usage figures!
Here's some ideas I've had:
1) Code purposely (have a specific goal for the function you're writing)
2) Acquire good habits from better coders (study their code)
3) Avoid interruptions (the "Man from Porlock" effect)
4) Write a lot of code, and be willing to throw it away when it isn't good enough.
5) Adapt the woodworker's saw: "Design twice, code once".
6) Be willing to work hard. Good software development isn't easy.
The big-box stores (Best Buy, WalMart, etc) sell CDs at cost or below in order to get you in the door. Afterwards, they hope that you'll also pick up a big screen TV or two.
Wired Magazine is reporting that CD sales slipped 11% in the 4th quarter of 2002. What makes the record companies think they can reverse this trend?
After all, they haven't been too successful to date, dishing out the same old stale, derivative, and uninspired music that they've been pushing for the past 2-4 years.
Well, it's obvious that I won't be buying any Chamberlain ("Liftmaster" brand) products -- not only because of their tactics, but also because their security stinks.
The next question to ask is: Have they licensed their rolling-code technology to any other garage door manufacturers? Would I be safer/more secure by buying a Craftsman or a Genie opener?
Anyone know of a brand that is cryptographically secure? (quick geek test: In what scene in Cryptonomicon was a similar phrase used?)
FYI: Network Associates kept the rights to their eBusiness Server when they sold the rights to the desktop version of PGP to the new PGP Corporation. eBusiness Server is used by many corporations to automate their PGP encryption for batch processes, SOAP servers, etc.
Even when (If!) the Gnu GPG group decides to release a library/DLL version of their privacy tool, I suspect a fair number of companies will continue to use the NAI product in order to avoid having to deal with the Bureau of Industry and Security in the US Department of Commerce for exporting their own compiled encryption software.
Why not split the difference between these two alternatives? You could *loan* it to a museum.
a) You become a patron of the sciences, gaining valuable social contacts (and free dinners).
b) You get good feelings about sharing a piece of the family history with others.
c) Young people can learn and be inspired to choose a career in the sciences.
d) It's still yours, so if you decide to sell it later on eBay, you can.
The UK power plugs were obviously designed by a committee. Doesn't matter if you're just running an electric razor, the plug is capable of supplying enough juice for an arc-welder. I've got my UK adapter right here, and I suspect the sheer amount of brass in it is what caused my luggage to be overweight on my last trip to London. In a post-September 11th world, I doubt I could get it through airport security.
For a good design, look at the German plugs. The outlet is recessed, and the plug (like the UK one the author mentioned) has it's conductors exposed only at the tip. By the time the plug is started into the outlet, there's no way for your fingers to touch anything metal.
Now if we could get the Germans to put more than only one outlet in a room, they'd have the perfect system.
The cool thing about BBSes was that the other people on them *were* local (as opposed to today, where the person at the other end of IRC could be in New Zealand or Greece). After chatting with them for hours, you got to know them. But then you could arrange to meet them in person. No worries about being abducted, killed, whatever -- they were people like you, who liked computers and liked the thought that you could talk to other people via them.
Not truly random. This method has a spike at 60Hz (50Hz if you live in Europe) due to nearby power lines. Probably at harmonic multiples of 60/50Hz, too.
The FreeCharge should be in everyone's hurricane/earthquake/riot prepardness kit.
There's a much better chance of the cell-phone tower working (they have generators) than the 3 miles of cable between you and the CO still being in one piece. You'll still have trouble getting dial-tone, but that's just a matter of retrying until you do.
Slashdot Mirror
....But calling them "Temporary Economic Incentives" puts a much more positive light on it.
The bad thing for the consumer is that the life of the car will not rival a car made out of galvanized steel. They may claim that the plastic coating will last forever. Eventually the coating will fade, chip, scratch, etc. And the car will look horrible sometime down the road.
Actually, the older Saturns that I have seen have almost always looked pretty good. The only part that tends to look bad on them after 8 years or so is the matte bumpers.
I wouldn't have any problems buying a car made with plastic panels. Just not a Saturn -- I'm more of a BMW person.
Which brings up another subject - that of auto recycling. Right now autos and large home appliances are among the most recycled products we have (in the US, anyway), because they're made of steel. While marking the plastic parts in autos for recycling has advanced (the Europeans are ahead of the US & Japanese mfrs in that regard), much of the plastic is not recyclable, or simply doesn't get recycled.
Chip H.
Better power supplies put out less ripple, which means there's less heat generated inside these sub-standard capacitors. So even if your board has these things mounted to it, you might not see the problem for months or years.
Yet another reason not to cheap-out when building a system.
Chip H.
BTW, probably the world's best Tantalum capacitors are made by Kemet. Their products have been in everything from the original IBM System 360 to the International Space Station.
Back when I did some work for BofA (when they had just become NationsBank), they were using SNA for running their ATM network. While I'm sure SNA is as vulnerable to worms/attacks as any other protocol, there's something to be said about running an obscure networking OS. Chip H.
Recent Star Trek storylines seem to boil down to:
1) Someone tries to steal the ship
2) Crewmember goes bad
3) Prime Directive gets violated (but in a good way)
4) Time travel paradox is narrowly avoided
5) Combination of the above
So, Rick, if you want the next movie to be better attended, avoid all of the above.
Sure, you can use this technology for a FPS or RPG game, but a more interesting use would be for self-guided instructional material.
Neal Stephenson showed the way in his Snowcrash -- just imagine an interactive zoology lab, where you could ask a spider to find out why he finds flies so tasty, or talk to a zebra about what his stripes are for.
Or you could have an interactive music partner that allowed you to practice duets, or maybe a virtual ZZ Top to jam with (subject to RIAA synthTexan® licensing requirements).
Chip H.
What will be more interesting is in what manner the .mil admins will request the cached pages to be dropped. From Google's webmaster page, it sounds like a simple e-mail request will be sufficient. However, going by recent events in the web world, a cease & desist letter is more likely.
{Sigh} An excess of lawyers is a sign of the forthcoming end of civility.
Chip H.
On another note, NASA has just released it's findings that humans have too few arms to be any damn good in space.
RIAA et al keep going on about the large numbers of people illegally sharing copyrighted content. Wired Magazine (dead tree edition) said that on a recent Monday morning there were 3.1 million people on Kazaa. Of those millions of people, how many were Overpeer clients masquerading as users?
Hiring Overpeer in this respect is a win-win for the record companys. They get to increase the noise-to-signal ratio by posting nasty 8-track quality rips out there, *and* go to Congress with inflated P2P usage figures!
Chip H.
With large XML files, we've seen 80-90% compression, dropping their size significantly.
For example:
foobar.xml is 16,286,384 bytes, which compresses to 2,644,897 bytes, a ratio of 84%
Chip H.
Here's some ideas I've had:
1) Code purposely (have a specific goal for the function you're writing)
2) Acquire good habits from better coders (study their code)
3) Avoid interruptions (the "Man from Porlock" effect)
4) Write a lot of code, and be willing to throw it away when it isn't good enough.
5) Adapt the woodworker's saw: "Design twice, code once".
6) Be willing to work hard. Good software development isn't easy.
Chip H.
The big-box stores (Best Buy, WalMart, etc) sell CDs at cost or below in order to get you in the door. Afterwards, they hope that you'll also pick up a big screen TV or two.
Chip H.
Wired Magazine is reporting that CD sales slipped 11% in the 4th quarter of 2002. What makes the record companies think they can reverse this trend?
After all, they haven't been too successful to date, dishing out the same old stale, derivative, and uninspired music that they've been pushing for the past 2-4 years.
Chip H.
Well, it's obvious that I won't be buying any Chamberlain ("Liftmaster" brand) products -- not only because of their tactics, but also because their security stinks.
The next question to ask is: Have they licensed their rolling-code technology to any other garage door manufacturers? Would I be safer/more secure by buying a Craftsman or a Genie opener?
Anyone know of a brand that is cryptographically secure? (quick geek test: In what scene in Cryptonomicon was a similar phrase used?)
Chip H.
...on their "Computer World" album. The tones heard at the start of "Home Computer" are from the TI Speak & Spell game.
Chip H.
FYI: Network Associates kept the rights to their eBusiness Server when they sold the rights to the desktop version of PGP to the new PGP Corporation. eBusiness Server is used by many corporations to automate their PGP encryption for batch processes, SOAP servers, etc.
Even when (If!) the Gnu GPG group decides to release a library/DLL version of their privacy tool, I suspect a fair number of companies will continue to use the NAI product in order to avoid having to deal with the Bureau of Industry and Security in the US Department of Commerce for exporting their own compiled encryption software.
Why not split the difference between these two alternatives? You could *loan* it to a museum.
a) You become a patron of the sciences, gaining valuable social contacts (and free dinners).
b) You get good feelings about sharing a piece of the family history with others.
c) Young people can learn and be inspired to choose a career in the sciences.
d) It's still yours, so if you decide to sell it later on eBay, you can.
Chip H.
The UK power plugs were obviously designed by a committee. Doesn't matter if you're just running an electric razor, the plug is capable of supplying enough juice for an arc-welder. I've got my UK adapter right here, and I suspect the sheer amount of brass in it is what caused my luggage to be overweight on my last trip to London. In a post-September 11th world, I doubt I could get it through airport security.
For a good design, look at the German plugs. The outlet is recessed, and the plug (like the UK one the author mentioned) has it's conductors exposed only at the tip. By the time the plug is started into the outlet, there's no way for your fingers to touch anything metal.
Now if we could get the Germans to put more than only one outlet in a room, they'd have the perfect system.
Chip H.
The cool thing about BBSes was that the other people on them *were* local (as opposed to today, where the person at the other end of IRC could be in New Zealand or Greece). After chatting with them for hours, you got to know them. But then you could arrange to meet them in person. No worries about being abducted, killed, whatever -- they were people like you, who liked computers and liked the thought that you could talk to other people via them.
unless there's an ocean in the way.
Chip H.
Damn!
Now we all have to get our US Citizenship tattoos changed!
Chip H.
I'll have to dig my books out to be sure, but it looks like I have a couple of rarity 4's. None better than "Very Good", though.
Who would have thought that the game that got me flunked out of college could be worth something after all?
Chip H.
Not truly random. This method has a spike at 60Hz (50Hz if you live in Europe) due to nearby power lines. Probably at harmonic multiples of 60/50Hz, too.
Chip H.
What's the hurry? We've got 'till 2019 to get there before the asteroid smashes into the earth.
Chip H.
The FreeCharge should be in everyone's hurricane/earthquake/riot prepardness kit.
There's a much better chance of the cell-phone tower working (they have generators) than the 3 miles of cable between you and the CO still being in one piece. You'll still have trouble getting dial-tone, but that's just a matter of retrying until you do.
Chip H.