> when you want to erase, you turn the pen over and it erases
In short, it's a digital pencil which works like a pencil, looks like a pencil and still gives a digital output:)
Nice mixture of old and new - now, I prefer to see what I'm drawing AND the pen together (like on paper) , which sucks when I draw on a tablet. All that said, I'm not a graphic artist and all I draw are random lines:)
Doesn't guy wrote this know that at the time when a these 6 foot wonders were invented, there WAS NO ELECTRICITY !!. It runs on pure potential energy stored in weights.
The interesting part is that it would be much harder to make a real grandfather clock (like the one at my ancestral home) - because Lego in comparison is easier to build.
But Kudos to the guy - it's not really pointless , it would have helped if this was part of at least a few mechanical engineer's curriculum - not just carnot cycle engines.
More recently they are being called "Notebook PCs" or "Portables"... It's generally used for programming in bed or reading slashdot in the loo (or *other* activities *narf*).
I remember seeing a print ad for a series of laptops which essentially had a guy sitting with a laptop bag on his side and a HOT chick in half-thigh skirt sitting on his lap . The caption just read "Laptops" in big letters and the company logo at the bottom.
To us , it'll still be amazing because we'll be past the 35-hump since when each invention is against the laws of nature .
Below 16 , all inventions are taken for granted. After 16 to 35, every invention is the next big thing and by the time you're over 35 , it'll be a violation of your fundamental understanding of science.
So kids born in 2000 see supersonic air travel as an ordinary means of travel , while my father feels there's something impossible about faster than sound travel (someday I'll say the same about Faster than light , hopefully) .
>endorsed a program that deemphasizes pencil and paper arithmetic to the point that some of the more extreme advocates of this program have proposed banning traditional algorithmic arithmetic until close to fourth grade.
I sucked at arithmetic, but I NEVER sucked at Math. I could solve quadriatic equations without thinking, but doing multiplication on paper was very hard for me. I was dyslexic and would transpose numbers unknowingly - I suffered my mathlessness for 7 long years before I got into a grade where they taught PURE mathematics. Mathematics is not Arithmetic, do not confuse it at any cost.
I understand geometry and algebra - I just learned arithmetic. After completing an entire engineering degree, I still can't do arithmetic without a calculator. It's still easier for me to prove Cantor's theorem or to intergrate an expression than to add up and calculate the percentage for my college exams. Man !! , I even qualified for IIT (but I didn't go as I only got Mech and stayed somewhere where I could study Computers) without being able to multiply fractions properly.
Btw, if any mathematicians are around - Please let me know if you have any good explanations of how Pythagoras theorem came into being ?. I don't mean just the proof from theorem - but the real root derievation of the theorem. I just hate it how students just accept it as a fundamental theorem without questioning !! . It's easy to learn, but I need to know how it came about to understand it.
Mm.. if I raise the price of Linux servers by 20% , will there be a predictable 20% rise in revenue for Linux ?
Statisticians say "YES" . Economists "Supply and Demand equality fundamentals suggest that the profits would increase but not upto the 20% mark". Of course this brings up a number of "Simplest answer is often right" idiots babbling about growth.
Strangely, Managers have a wierd rationale built into their head that says "You get what you pay for". So if an employee draws 6 times the salary of another , he's 6 times more "valuable" , which sucks when you compare an European programmer to a Indian one. Similar cost inversions are happening in the Operating Systems world, where the more costly version of the current "trendy OS to have" are likely to increase in popularity over cheaper versions doing the same thing.
Costly != State of the Art and Revenue != Popularity . But Managers do read it that way often, so it's a good thing to say. So a reasonable price increase might actually increase the popularity of Linux in the corporate world.
Expensive Education Dillema
on
Offshoring IT
·
· Score: 1
> doing something that involves my expensive education in a meaningful way?
Dude, that's the problem when the government doesn't invest enough in Education and infrastructure. You end up thinking of the money spent on education as something you need to make good. Quite a few end up as money grubbing , greedy CEOs or doctors with a penchant for CAT scans for headaches.
I paid around 12k INR for my Computer Science education similar to around 600 of the best and brightest students of my state. The rest of my educational burden ie 500k INR was borne by the state. So here I am, working at around 300k INR per annum and sending around 25% of that money home. Paradoxically the state has the lowest per-capita income in the country , but has the highest standard of living. But of course, that depends slightly more on me sending money home or coming back home to settle down with my retirement money. But it did work out nicely for 50 years now.
A cheap education is not often a bad thing - I should say I didn't really appreciate it when I got it. But now, I really do understand how it just keeps the economy afloat eventhough the state seems to get NOTHING out of it directly.
How Indian Protectionism almost killed India
on
Offshoring IT
·
· Score: 2, Informative
>all the Indians I see on message boards spouting the value of free trade, India's economy is one of the most protectionist on earth
Being Indian, I have to protest against this.
India is a Sovereign , Secular, Socalist country by definition. That spells out to "We won't let other countries screw us" as part of government policy. Thankfully the government seems to be keeping that promise to a large extent.
From 1950 to 1991 , India was a protectionist economy . In 1991 the globalization initiative (due to the influence of USA , no less) , hit India along with a finance minister (Manmohan Singh) who knew what he was doing. Almost all trade restrictions on exporters and importers were taken off between 1991 - 1997 . And what you are seeing today is the result of that liberalisation.
America has dished out a lot of Free Trade agreements and then screwed a few foreign industries as well - Canadian car industry would be an excellent example. America used protectionist strategies to let Detroit sell cars by raising tarriffs on Japanese cars. America too has been a protectionist economy and almost destroyed it's economy (still is trying to repeat that according to US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan).
The really ironic part of your comment, is that India has profited more from dropping their Nehruvian protectionist policies than from anything else since Independence.
>think of how weird "yoda talk" seems, even when it isn't technically grammatically incorrect, and understand it just fine you can.
Speaking as a non-native speaker of english , my language would order verbs in EXACTLY the way yoda does. In fact, English's order of verbs sounds (sounded) alien to me when I was learning to speak. But after nearly 20 years of constant usage, it's my natural language to write with.
All that said, I did learn to write English first and my mother tongue later - which had more to do with the curves and the 100 odd glyphs involved in my language.
Ironically, English has become the lingua franca of the modern world . And it's evolving on its own.
> We're not voting for prom queen here. We're voteing for who we think can make a diference.
Sadly the ones who can don't believe in democracy, because it dilutes their power to act decisively. An elected leader will always flip-flop to (aka respect) the nation's wishes (that's democracy) or else he has all the makings of a world changing dictator.
Go home, read some history and look at the people who made real differences in this world (Hitler to the Pharoahs)
Remember Hitler was voted into power by a majority vote... In 2050 you might hear the same about George W .
I have been finding a few Xenophobic tendencies in USA and the Patriot act is very similar to the Nazi "Law for the Protection of the People and the State". Btw , Read this review by BBC.
Stupid question, If it costs as much as another hubble up there , why are we not building another one and send it up again ?.
Secondly, why isn't ISS going anywhere in comparison ?. Also that's a more international project for space. I hated the canadian reference... Also sadly the guy in charge wants to last out till Sept 2005 (you know nothing good or bad happens in the last months of retirement).
Last century, most of the world (with notable exceptions), expected america to do the Right Thing. That's past now (see the Thermonuclear reactor project) and in 4 short YEARS.
Comets are usually ice and frozen gases (dry ice, ammonia...etc.)
Heavy metals are very rare in comets . Also copper over iron , because copper is much more rarer than iron . Aluminium or Iron would be too common , silver/gold would be better than copper - but who can afford that:)
VoIP is nice, but it's overrated for most purposes IMHO. It's just trading the over inflated rates that most telepone companies offer for a lossy/crackling voice channel (my experience).
I'm not American , but I see America going the wrong way and cutting funding for the wrong things (ok, it's not a socialist state)... Education, Healthcare, Emergency services are things which have intangible returns on investment.
Imagine a police force based on capitalism.. what would be it's return on investment.... oh, wait...
Since the arrival of the mobile phone (with the worthy hands free) , the telephone booths have been dying out (or at least its time is numbered).... Except for Ransom calls nothing else would use booths if the current trend kept up:)
Interestingly, I think a "virtual" hologram system which'd use a 3-D head mount with all the 3D movements in software would be easier. Would be like playing an FPS , in the real world where we can walk around a "virtual" image of a real thing.
I'd love a panorama that I can view by turning my head around (think about the IR camera system in Apache Longbow, but on a still image so to speak).
Slashdot Mirror
In short, it's a digital pencil which works like a pencil, looks like a pencil and still gives a digital output :)
Nice mixture of old and new - now, I prefer to see what I'm drawing AND the pen together (like on paper) , which sucks when I draw on a tablet. All that said, I'm not a graphic artist and all I draw are random linesDoesn't guy wrote this know that at the time when a these 6 foot wonders were invented, there WAS NO ELECTRICITY !!. It runs on pure potential energy stored in weights.
The interesting part is that it would be much harder to make a real grandfather clock (like the one at my ancestral home) - because Lego in comparison is easier to build.
But Kudos to the guy - it's not really pointless , it would have helped if this was part of at least a few mechanical engineer's curriculum - not just carnot cycle engines.
More recently they are being called "Notebook PCs" or "Portables" ... It's generally used for programming in bed or reading slashdot in the loo (or *other* activities *narf*).
I remember seeing a print ad for a series of laptops which essentially had a guy sitting with a laptop bag on his side and a HOT chick in half-thigh skirt sitting on his lap . The caption just read "Laptops" in big letters and the company logo at the bottom.That's what I first read ... Then I re-read it again and noticed the powerbook along with the 15" :)
To us , it'll still be amazing because we'll be past the 35-hump since when each invention is against the laws of nature .
Below 16 , all inventions are taken for granted. After 16 to 35, every invention is the next big thing and by the time you're over 35 , it'll be a violation of your fundamental understanding of science.So kids born in 2000 see supersonic air travel as an ordinary means of travel , while my father feels there's something impossible about faster than sound travel (someday I'll say the same about Faster than light , hopefully) .
People don't change - they are just replaced.
I sucked at arithmetic, but I NEVER sucked at Math. I could solve quadriatic equations without thinking, but doing multiplication on paper was very hard for me. I was dyslexic and would transpose numbers unknowingly - I suffered my mathlessness for 7 long years before I got into a grade where they taught PURE mathematics. Mathematics is not Arithmetic, do not confuse it at any cost.
I understand geometry and algebra - I just learned arithmetic. After completing an entire engineering degree, I still can't do arithmetic without a calculator. It's still easier for me to prove Cantor's theorem or to intergrate an expression than to add up and calculate the percentage for my college exams. Man !! , I even qualified for IIT (but I didn't go as I only got Mech and stayed somewhere where I could study Computers) without being able to multiply fractions properly.Btw, if any mathematicians are around - Please let me know if you have any good explanations of how Pythagoras theorem came into being ?. I don't mean just the proof from theorem - but the real root derievation of the theorem. I just hate it how students just accept it as a fundamental theorem without questioning !! . It's easy to learn, but I need to know how it came about to understand it.
Mm.. if I raise the price of Linux servers by 20% , will there be a predictable 20% rise in revenue for Linux ?
Statisticians say "YES" . Economists "Supply and Demand equality fundamentals suggest that the profits would increase but not upto the 20% mark". Of course this brings up a number of "Simplest answer is often right" idiots babbling about growth.
Strangely, Managers have a wierd rationale built into their head that says "You get what you pay for". So if an employee draws 6 times the salary of another , he's 6 times more "valuable" , which sucks when you compare an European programmer to a Indian one. Similar cost inversions are happening in the Operating Systems world, where the more costly version of the current "trendy OS to have" are likely to increase in popularity over cheaper versions doing the same thing.
Costly != State of the Art and Revenue != Popularity . But Managers do read it that way often, so it's a good thing to say. So a reasonable price increase might actually increase the popularity of Linux in the corporate world.
Dude, that's the problem when the government doesn't invest enough in Education and infrastructure. You end up thinking of the money spent on education as something you need to make good. Quite a few end up as money grubbing , greedy CEOs or doctors with a penchant for CAT scans for headaches.
I paid around 12k INR for my Computer Science education similar to around 600 of the best and brightest students of my state. The rest of my educational burden ie 500k INR was borne by the state. So here I am, working at around 300k INR per annum and sending around 25% of that money home. Paradoxically the state has the lowest per-capita income in the country , but has the highest standard of living. But of course, that depends slightly more on me sending money home or coming back home to settle down with my retirement money. But it did work out nicely for 50 years now.
A cheap education is not often a bad thing - I should say I didn't really appreciate it when I got it. But now, I really do understand how it just keeps the economy afloat eventhough the state seems to get NOTHING out of it directly.Being Indian, I have to protest against this. India is a Sovereign , Secular, Socalist country by definition. That spells out to "We won't let other countries screw us" as part of government policy. Thankfully the government seems to be keeping that promise to a large extent.
From 1950 to 1991 , India was a protectionist economy . In 1991 the globalization initiative (due to the influence of USA , no less) , hit India along with a finance minister (Manmohan Singh) who knew what he was doing. Almost all trade restrictions on exporters and importers were taken off between 1991 - 1997 . And what you are seeing today is the result of that liberalisation.
America has dished out a lot of Free Trade agreements and then screwed a few foreign industries as well - Canadian car industry would be an excellent example. America used protectionist strategies to let Detroit sell cars by raising tarriffs on Japanese cars. America too has been a protectionist economy and almost destroyed it's economy (still is trying to repeat that according to US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan).
The really ironic part of your comment, is that India has profited more from dropping their Nehruvian protectionist policies than from anything else since Independence.Speaking as a non-native speaker of english , my language would order verbs in EXACTLY the way yoda does. In fact, English's order of verbs sounds (sounded) alien to me when I was learning to speak. But after nearly 20 years of constant usage, it's my natural language to write with.
All that said, I did learn to write English first and my mother tongue later - which had more to do with the curves and the 100 odd glyphs involved in my language.
Ironically, English has become the lingua franca of the modern world . And it's evolving on its own.
Am I the only one who keeps having Dune flashbacks reading this ?.
Of course, mod parent up - the "how to Win the Peace on Mars, by winning their hearts and minds" deserves it .The old UNIX SYSV kernel took a whopping 54kb of memory !. I'm now running the same kernel in user space and playing around with it.
Hehe, it's a fun project for CS Majors to play around with.Sadly the ones who can don't believe in democracy, because it dilutes their power to act decisively. An elected leader will always flip-flop to (aka respect) the nation's wishes (that's democracy) or else he has all the makings of a world changing dictator.
Go home, read some history and look at the people who made real differences in this world (Hitler to the Pharoahs)Remember Hitler was voted into power by a majority vote... In 2050 you might hear the same about George W .
I have been finding a few Xenophobic tendencies in USA and the Patriot act is very similar to the Nazi "Law for the Protection of the People and the State". Btw , Read this review by BBC.Stupid question, If it costs as much as another hubble up there , why are we not building another one and send it up again ?.
... Also sadly the guy in charge wants to last out till Sept 2005 (you know nothing good or bad happens in the last months of retirement).
Secondly, why isn't ISS going anywhere in comparison ?. Also that's a more international project for space. I hated the canadian reference
Last century, most of the world (with notable exceptions), expected america to do the Right Thing. That's past now (see the Thermonuclear reactor project) and in 4 short YEARS.
Or write a cool application that lets you cheat by doing stuff that a normal human won't be able to :).....
HIGH SCORE !!
Or is it possible to "virtually" listen to your PC/house exploiting this ?.
... and I don't use Kazaa (firewalls) , what's the point really ?...
:)
Btw, I like Skype
Mmm.. better get a tinfoil hat
Comets are usually ice and frozen gases (dry ice, ammonia ...etc.)
:)
Heavy metals are very rare in comets . Also copper over iron , because copper is much more rarer than iron . Aluminium or Iron would be too common , silver/gold would be better than copper - but who can afford that
You see they patented Clippy .... and of course the "Press F1 for Help" stuff ... :)
Thankfully now no-one will use a clippyesque helper .
Will it coincide with an Alien attack and the president flying into it to plant a virus ?.
Thank God, they STOLE the stuff and proved they were true americans ... just slashing the wires would have gotten then terrorism charges.
Get a haircut and shave ... and you can't withdraw money anymore ?..
...
I'd have believed more in iris recognition
I'm not American , but I see America going the wrong way and cutting funding for the wrong things (ok, it's not a socialist state) ... Education, Healthcare, Emergency services are things which have intangible returns on investment.
Imagine a police force based on capitalismThe Porn Effect .... Technology is indeed driven by the Human male's desire to get laid :)
Since the arrival of the mobile phone (with the worthy hands free) , the telephone booths have been dying out (or at least its time is numbered).... Except for Ransom calls nothing else would use booths if the current trend kept up :)
Interestingly, I think a "virtual" hologram system which'd use a 3-D head mount with all the 3D movements in software would be easier. Would be like playing an FPS , in the real world where we can walk around a "virtual" image of a real thing.
I'd love a panorama that I can view by turning my head around (think about the IR camera system in Apache Longbow, but on a still image so to speak).
Does this mean letting the guy next door borrow your TiVo files is illegal ?.
I thought that recording shows and viewing it at your leisure was a Good Thing (tm) for TV shows ?.
I reach home at 11:00 PM at night, how'll I watch the 5-7 pm comedy slot ?.