Although the press release was not specific on exactly what sort of home security functions it would perform, I would think that it's speed would limit it's use. A 15 m per minute (.9 km/h) could easily be out walked by even the most unfit of people. This would seem to make it fairly useless in any sort of roving intruder detection system.
I've been saying this for quite some time now, but once more won't hurt. The following is my take on the, "video games cause children to go on killing sprees" mentality.
If a child (or anyone for that matter) plays a video game, then goes on a murderous rampage, there has to be something wrong with him other than the fact that he plays games, ie he already has some serious issues. Just like some people are predisposed to alcoholism, some people are predisposed to violence. When a kid starts shooting people, we shouldn't be blaming video games or anyone related to them, we should be questioning the parents, who are letting their child play games which they should realise could affect the kid in negative ways. Just like if you know your son or daughter is sensitive you don't let them watch horror movies, if you know (or even are mildly suspicious) that your child has violent tendencies, you shouldn't let them play video games that are violent. Like drinking, some people can play tons of games their entire lives without any adverse consequences, while for others all it takes is one round to set them off.
Another case of someone needed to be reminded that Slashdot != the rest of the world. Most people, and most internet users, don't even know what NAT stands for, nevermind how to set it up. While it is certainly possible that it affects the results of the survey, it would not have affected the survey all that much. Even then, there is probably a comparable amount of NATed users in Europe as well.
While your webstats might be originating mostly from the US, that is hardly representative of the population of the web. Perhaps your site doesn't have anything of interest to Europeans. Think about your web activity, I suspect that you mostly visit US- or North America-centric sites. Wouldn't the logical conclusion therefore be that most Europeans mostly visit European-centric sites?
Had you read the article, you would have seen that he states that they thought up the idea about a month before the Australians posted their results. I'm not saying they were the first or not, but before critisizing, you should read the article! I'm getting tired of the dozens of posts that obviously haven't read the article. People who do that simply show that they're missing the point of Slashdot alltogether.
Re:"all-in-wonder phone"
on
Motorola's i95cl
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
The problem with adding a real keyboard (I'll take that to mean a thumb-type QWERTY) is that it takes up too much space on a phone. It seems that Motorola is going for phone more than PDA with this thing, and phones nowadays are getting smaller and smaller. Even the Nokia 51xx series, which is on the larger end of phones now, wouldn't be able to accommodate a keyboard. The fact of the matter is that manufacturers realise that most people want a small size, and that means no keyboard. Also consider that very few people in North America actually use features like text and email messaging.
At the risk of sounding like I have a bug up my ass, I feel I should point out that VCD isn't a new format. In fact, VCD has been out about as long as DVDs, maybe even longer (don't quote me on that). It originally started in Japan as a cheap format for video. I believe it's moderately popular over there (or was for a time), but it never picked up in North America, except for videophiles and those who like to view their video in less than legal ways.
Standard for diaganostics would be better
on
Panicking In Morse Code
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Although this is a neat and creative idea, I think that a better way to diagnose a sick computer would be a standard for a set of diagnostic LEDs or even a small LCD panel as part of the next motherboard standard. Some manufacturers of motherboards and whole systems already do this, but it's far from standard, and is typically only useful for POST errors. A full standard would allow O/Ses, as well as the BIOS to access the output device (be it LEDs or an LCD) and display a standard code for whatever the error is, which the user could then look up in the manual, or on the web.
"1.0 version supposedly already released "
Obviously it's not going to be a good clone, if it's already out of Beta -- how can it be a good clone if it's worthy of a 1.0? I've never seen Windows software like that!
"Be nice and don't kill this guys downloads page." That's like standing in front of the running of the bulls and asking for them to spare you -- it's just not going to happen!:P
IEEE1394 (Firewire) is designed for external peripheral use, not for internal fixed drives. Although Firewire works well for external hard drives, it's designed with a different purpose in mind. As well, you can't boot off of an IEEE1934 drive, except on Macs.
... considering that I can build a machine that easily ties and/or outperforms a Dell and has better components for several hundred ($CAN) less than a Dell. A few months ago I couldn't beat them on low end systems, but now I can by the above margin. The margin increases as the performance goes up (I heart Athlons). It's quite easy to see that small local stores can easily out price the big boys right now, and at the same time make a tidy profit too.
Heading to General Electric Appliances Canada (http://geappliances.ca), I compared 10 random side-by-side fridges. The average weight was 322.2 pounds, or 150.68 kg. So maybe this is slightly heavier. I would guess it's simply made of heavier materials, maybe a few kilo difference due to electronics.
I think that this is one of the best ways to promote awareness of OSS. I know many people who are somewhat computer savvy, they know enough that they don't mind trying new things, but they don't seek this sort of stuff out. They don't read all sorts of tech sites, but they do read newspapers. If we could get more coverage of OSS in the tech sections of every day newspapers (most ones that I know have a small tech section in with the business section, or a once a week all-tech section), we could slowly increase awareness of stuff like OpenOffice and Linux.
Although I don't doubt that your point about WalMart being a very tech dependant company (what company isn't these days after all?), you seem to have missed the original posters point in that quote.
He says that "Walmart isn't really rooted in the technology industry," and it's true. WalMart may use all sorts of technology, and more so than other companies, but it is not a member of the technology industry. It doesn't manufacture chipsets or routers or anything else. It is definitely a customer of the tech industry, but WalMart is a member of the retail industry, NOT the technology industry.
This is just my personal experience, but I thought I would share it with/.
I'm a high school student in Toronto, and back in September I decided to spend some of the cash I had saved to buy a cheap PalmOS device in part to fool around with and partly to help organise my heavy workload. After doing some research, I decided on the m100, as it was the only one that was within my price range. While doing my research, I did come across some user stories talking about assorted problems with the m100 including broken digitizers and screens. However, I decided to go ahead with my purchase anyways, as I saw just as many (and probably more) glowing reviews about the m100.
So far, it's been eight months, and I couldn't do without it. Luckily, I have only suffered two minor problems, both easily corrected. The first is that the graffiti is sometimes misinterpreted, but that is due to the enormous amount of dust and other junk on the screen (it spends its life in my pocket) and is fixed with a simple wipe with a tissue. The second problem I experienced twice a few months ago. It inexplicably crashed overnight and would not turn on the next morning. I solved this by doing a hard restart with the pinhole button on the back. The same thing happened a few hours later, and was fixed in the same manner. All data and programs were wiped, but I was able to restore everything from backups. I think this may have had something to do with the batteries (they were low at the time) as it hasn't occured since I changed them.
My synopsis: if you're someone on a small budget who needs a good electronic organiser that can do a few extras go for the m100. Just don't expect an all in one media device.
Anyways, hope this helps anyone who's thinking of buying a low priced PDA.
Don't know where you live, but Pizza Pizza allows you to go to their site and order pizza online (after you register) for some regions, most notably Toronto. Unfortunately their app is some POS Oracle thing that takes forever to do even the slightest thing like adding a topping (good 10-30 seconds between clicking a button and seeing the order frame change - with my cable connect and decent comp (733 w/ 384 megs), so it can take 10 minutes or longer for a complex order, plus delivery.
BTW, this isn't O/T in the context of this thread.
FYI, the Chieftec Dragons are actually just rebadged (and in his case painted) Antec cases. I'm just guessing here, but if you're looking for one of these cases (and don't mind beige or a self-paint job), you could probably get it a little cheaper if you bought it as an Antec rather than a Chieftec.
Re:My favorite is USAIR's tactic
on
Window or Aisle?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Never mind the space flight (which is actually a suborbital flight), I would go for the flight in a MiG-25! It says you go as high as 85000' and as fast as mach 2.
Slashdot Mirror
"2^64 is certainly enough for at least a hundred years"
Famous last words?
Although the press release was not specific on exactly what sort of home security functions it would perform, I would think that it's speed would limit it's use. A 15 m per minute (.9 km/h) could easily be out walked by even the most unfit of people. This would seem to make it fairly useless in any sort of roving intruder detection system.
I've been saying this for quite some time now, but once more won't hurt. The following is my take on the, "video games cause children to go on killing sprees" mentality.
If a child (or anyone for that matter) plays a video game, then goes on a murderous rampage, there has to be something wrong with him other than the fact that he plays games, ie he already has some serious issues. Just like some people are predisposed to alcoholism, some people are predisposed to violence. When a kid starts shooting people, we shouldn't be blaming video games or anyone related to them, we should be questioning the parents, who are letting their child play games which they should realise could affect the kid in negative ways. Just like if you know your son or daughter is sensitive you don't let them watch horror movies, if you know (or even are mildly suspicious) that your child has violent tendencies, you shouldn't let them play video games that are violent.
Like drinking, some people can play tons of games their entire lives without any adverse consequences, while for others all it takes is one round to set them off.
Umm, I don't know what Keanu Reeves you've been watching, but the one I know is pasty white. As pasty as any geek on /.
Maybe they'll create a new super-character! Think about it, SuperNeo would have no weaknesses! "There is no kryptonite."
Another case of someone needed to be reminded that Slashdot != the rest of the world. Most people, and most internet users, don't even know what NAT stands for, nevermind how to set it up. While it is certainly possible that it affects the results of the survey, it would not have affected the survey all that much. Even then, there is probably a comparable amount of NATed users in Europe as well.
While your webstats might be originating mostly from the US, that is hardly representative of the population of the web. Perhaps your site doesn't have anything of interest to Europeans.
Think about your web activity, I suspect that you mostly visit US- or North America-centric sites. Wouldn't the logical conclusion therefore be that most Europeans mostly visit European-centric sites?
SOHO Spacecraft eh? Where can I accquire one of these for my small office/home office?
Had you read the article, you would have seen that he states that they thought up the idea about a month before the Australians posted their results. I'm not saying they were the first or not, but before critisizing, you should read the article!
I'm getting tired of the dozens of posts that obviously haven't read the article. People who do that simply show that they're missing the point of Slashdot alltogether.
The problem with adding a real keyboard (I'll take that to mean a thumb-type QWERTY) is that it takes up too much space on a phone. It seems that Motorola is going for phone more than PDA with this thing, and phones nowadays are getting smaller and smaller. Even the Nokia 51xx series, which is on the larger end of phones now, wouldn't be able to accommodate a keyboard. The fact of the matter is that manufacturers realise that most people want a small size, and that means no keyboard.
Also consider that very few people in North America actually use features like text and email messaging.
At the risk of sounding like I have a bug up my ass, I feel I should point out that VCD isn't a new format. In fact, VCD has been out about as long as DVDs, maybe even longer (don't quote me on that). It originally started in Japan as a cheap format for video. I believe it's moderately popular over there (or was for a time), but it never picked up in North America, except for videophiles and those who like to view their video in less than legal ways.
Although this is a neat and creative idea, I think that a better way to diagnose a sick computer would be a standard for a set of diagnostic LEDs or even a small LCD panel as part of the next motherboard standard.
Some manufacturers of motherboards and whole systems already do this, but it's far from standard, and is typically only useful for POST errors. A full standard would allow O/Ses, as well as the BIOS to access the output device (be it LEDs or an LCD) and display a standard code for whatever the error is, which the user could then look up in the manual, or on the web.
"1.0 version supposedly already released " Obviously it's not going to be a good clone, if it's already out of Beta -- how can it be a good clone if it's worthy of a 1.0? I've never seen Windows software like that!
"Be nice and don't kill this guys downloads page." :P
That's like standing in front of the running of the bulls and asking for them to spare you -- it's just not going to happen!
IEEE1394 (Firewire) is designed for external peripheral use, not for internal fixed drives. Although Firewire works well for external hard drives, it's designed with a different purpose in mind. As well, you can't boot off of an IEEE1934 drive, except on Macs.
This is including a full version of Windows and MS Works (same thing that Dell throws on) btw.
... considering that I can build a machine that easily ties and/or outperforms a Dell and has better components for several hundred ($CAN) less than a Dell. A few months ago I couldn't beat them on low end systems, but now I can by the above margin. The margin increases as the performance goes up (I heart Athlons).
It's quite easy to see that small local stores can easily out price the big boys right now, and at the same time make a tidy profit too.
Heading to General Electric Appliances Canada (http://geappliances.ca), I compared 10 random side-by-side fridges. The average weight was 322.2 pounds, or 150.68 kg. So maybe this is slightly heavier. I would guess it's simply made of heavier materials, maybe a few kilo difference due to electronics.
I think that this is one of the best ways to promote awareness of OSS. I know many people who are somewhat computer savvy, they know enough that they don't mind trying new things, but they don't seek this sort of stuff out. They don't read all sorts of tech sites, but they do read newspapers. If we could get more coverage of OSS in the tech sections of every day newspapers (most ones that I know have a small tech section in with the business section, or a once a week all-tech section), we could slowly increase awareness of stuff like OpenOffice and Linux.
Although I don't doubt that your point about WalMart being a very tech dependant company (what company isn't these days after all?), you seem to have missed the original posters point in that quote.
He says that "Walmart isn't really rooted in the technology industry," and it's true. WalMart may use all sorts of technology, and more so than other companies, but it is not a member of the technology industry. It doesn't manufacture chipsets or routers or anything else. It is definitely a customer of the tech industry, but WalMart is a member of the retail industry, NOT the technology industry.
This is just my personal experience, but I thought I would share it with /.
I'm a high school student in Toronto, and back in September I decided to spend some of the cash I had saved to buy a cheap PalmOS device in part to fool around with and partly to help organise my heavy workload. After doing some research, I decided on the m100, as it was the only one that was within my price range. While doing my research, I did come across some user stories talking about assorted problems with the m100 including broken digitizers and screens. However, I decided to go ahead with my purchase anyways, as I saw just as many (and probably more) glowing reviews about the m100.
So far, it's been eight months, and I couldn't do without it. Luckily, I have only suffered two minor problems, both easily corrected. The first is that the graffiti is sometimes misinterpreted, but that is due to the enormous amount of dust and other junk on the screen (it spends its life in my pocket) and is fixed with a simple wipe with a tissue. The second problem I experienced twice a few months ago. It inexplicably crashed overnight and would not turn on the next morning. I solved this by doing a hard restart with the pinhole button on the back. The same thing happened a few hours later, and was fixed in the same manner. All data and programs were wiped, but I was able to restore everything from backups. I think this may have had something to do with the batteries (they were low at the time) as it hasn't occured since I changed them.
My synopsis: if you're someone on a small budget who needs a good electronic organiser that can do a few extras go for the m100. Just don't expect an all in one media device.
Anyways, hope this helps anyone who's thinking of buying a low priced PDA.
Don't know where you live, but Pizza Pizza allows you to go to their site and order pizza online (after you register) for some regions, most notably Toronto. Unfortunately their app is some POS Oracle thing that takes forever to do even the slightest thing like adding a topping (good 10-30 seconds between clicking a button and seeing the order frame change - with my cable connect and decent comp (733 w/ 384 megs), so it can take 10 minutes or longer for a complex order, plus delivery.
BTW, this isn't O/T in the context of this thread.
FYI, the Chieftec Dragons are actually just rebadged (and in his case painted) Antec cases. I'm just guessing here, but if you're looking for one of these cases (and don't mind beige or a self-paint job), you could probably get it a little cheaper if you bought it as an Antec rather than a Chieftec.
Never mind the space flight (which is actually a suborbital flight), I would go for the flight in a MiG-25! It says you go as high as 85000' and as fast as mach 2.
:D
Only 275,000 miles + $8,000
/me pictures himself in Top Gun
Current price as of 9:03 EST:
US $56,600.00 (reserve not yet met)
:D