It's also amazing to note that while the Sony P800 which runs the Symbian OS can perfectly sync up with Outlook, I'm still struggling to get a low-footprint app on my Linux box to do the same.
Cnet and objectivity. Nice point. I remember David Coursey, the chief Microsoft Apologist at Anchordesk wrote up a review of the Smartphone, days after the product launched in the UK. And he'd claimed he loved a product he hadn't even seen, much less experienced.
Hey! how about a Terrorism Color Meter at MSN or hotmail? Getting refershed hourly would be nice. And the color could vary depending on geographical location, religion, diet preferences, hairstyle etc etc.
Pentagon: The New Terrorism Color is InfraRed! You can't see the color, and we can't see the terror.
The point of this article was (despite the colorful spherical literature), if I may rephrase it: How to program serial, parallel and USB ports under DOS, Windows and Linux? With DOS, I remember BASIC was free and gave direct access to the ports. With Windows, Billy decided we should pay $200 for Visual Basic... maybe theyse days $600 for Visual Studio.NEt to program a simple serial port. With Linux??? I'm not sure, but I'd like to know...
and the point of this article was, if I may rephrase it: How to program serial, parallel and USB ports under DOS, Windows and Linux? With DOS, I remember BASIC was free and gave direct access to the ports. With Windows, Billy decided we should pay $200 for Visual Basic... maybe theyse days $600 for Visual Studio.NEt to program a simple serial port. With Linux??? I'm not sure, but I'd like to know...
I'm reminded of my college days when we had a lab class on 'Traffic Light Simulation' using LEDs connected to the Intel 8255 PPI chip. (Programmable Peripheral Interface, I guess).
This chip has 3 ports of 8-bit and by writing a combn of bits, you could control the output. I also remember one of the ports supported a bit-set-reset capability. This simple chip (should cost about $5, no more) would be more than enough for the project at hand.
The chip is a part of Standard Microprocessor kits (about $30 I guess) which could be programmed with assembly lang. There are also interfaces to this chip from the PC's serial port. As for software, DOS is more than adequate, in fact it's recommended for projects like these.
I'm amazed while reading articles on these two topics at Slashdot. Articles on Linux (and other Free/ Open Source products as well) seem to generate limited comment. This is despite the fact that readers stand to gain a lot from them.
On the contrary, pro-Microsoft articles typically get published around this time, and generate flame-wars in the community. Even 16-hour old-news (an oxymoron right?) on Microsoft is 'delayed' to fit into the Slashdot-MS schedule. (case in point: the SQL-database-patent-case).
Every pro-Linux comment these days is hair-split by the MS apologists - I doubt new readers can ever get to experience the Slashdot of 2000. Mod points seem to be heavily stacked in favor of the MS lobby as well.
I also suspect the Linux-geek crowd waste a lot of their otherwise productive time, defending their views. Time for some spirited defence I'd say.
Truth can stand naked... lies need good clothing. Linux does not need props from the Gartners and the Aberdeens for it's success. It is non-proletycizing (is my spelling OK?) like Hinduism, say. It is tough as hell to understand Linux through the narrow prism of the Windows experience.
Once the principles of Linux (GNU and GPL rather) are truly understood and assimilated, the computer becomes an object of enjoyment, not a distrurtful, supercillous tool. This feeling of freedom and power is propogated to fellow enthusiasts and thus pervades the minds of developers and users alike.
Windows is just a faith. Linux is the actual Experience.
I find your posts, though insightful, tend to divert attention from the topic at the top of the thread. If you start a new thread, I promise to read all your posts. Just remember to retain the same title thuogh. Thanks.
Broadcast music has always been free (as in beer, as well as freedom) ever since, well, broadcasting. I could listen to music for free, AND make a personal recording. Simply packaging it in TCP/IP and streaming it over WiFi does not make sense.
What I'd like to see is a CD/solid state RAM-based system that can play MP3 CDs and 'one-touch-record' about a 100 hours of audio. This would be useful when I do some loud-thinking, and my secretary could make notes and write articles later.
Text to Speech and vice-versa takes more memory and CPU time. as time goes on. Surely given market potential for these apps, their quality and availability should've been much much more.
Is MS carrying any patents on this, and acting Dog-In-The-Manger..ish? Any good low-footprint Linux-based apps for text-speech?
Broadcast music has always been free (as in beer, as well as freedom) ever since, well, broadcasting. I could listen to music for free, AND make a personal recording. Simply packaging it in TCP/IP and streaming it over WiFi does not make sense.
What I'd like to see is a CD/solid state RAM-based system that can play MP3 CDs and 'one-touch-record' about a 100 hours of audio. This would be useful when I do some loud-thinking, and my secretary could make notes and write articles later.
"Call it GNU/Linux 'mommy's testicles' if you want"
I thought female mommy's couldn't have testicles. Ovaries and ovules maybe. And using adjectives like 'free' or 'open' to these sensitive anatomical parts could be insulting.
"satisfying the cliche markets? " This sounds new to me. I've heard of niche markets though.
Haven't you heard of BillyG giving us useless wrist watches synchronised with atomic clocks? These devices would be much more useful than those watches.
"Is there anything useful out there?" Maybe not directly, but look at the possibilities. What if you can subscribe to a Proximity Dating Service - one that beeps when your 'soulmate' is around? With the increasing number of introverts these days, such services could do well.
" remove those big bulky things that set off the alarms".. you said. And from the referenced article: "the ID is embedded in the clothes -- it's an antenna-bearing chip smaller than a grain of rice that's attached to the clothes' labels "
A grain of rice isn't bulky, and isn't easily removed either.
Actually, the tags ought to be removable just before the purchase. Frequently, I remove the price tags before gifting clothes.
Never underestimate the power of the Slashdot community. Most Slashdot geeks are married to / related to / friends of non-geeks. The word spreads around faster than you or Benetton care to believe.
And remember, Benetton is a global brand, and this move could cost them even in markets where they don't have these tags.
"But I think using rfid tags as a secret theft deterrent is better... "
How come? Where is the link between the tag and the buyer? If I donate my clothing, must I email Benetton? Mind you, I'm not talking shop-lifting here, but theft 'after' purchase.
"It's an easy way to catch more crooks."
For every 'crook' caught stealing a clothing, the privacy of a 100 innocent buyers is being violated.
" So we boycott the company just because they're using some new technology that everyone is afraid of." No, we boycott it because, as the original poster pointed out, the tags aren't removed after the sale, and customers aren't informed about the feature and the implications.
"but nobody is buying into it(water) simply because they know where it came from (sewage)" How is this relevant to the point at issue? If a sewage treatment plant generates potable water, it should be lauded because: a. It informs customers of the source, the technology and the process. b. The end-product does not have undesirable 'features'.
Benetton is doing neither. Like BigBrother MS, it just says we're including 'Smart Tags' - and that's it. Until a coherent explanation comes up, a boycott is the only solution.
"Believe me, if big brother wants to track you down, they're gonna track you down and it won't be using unreliable stuff like rfid tags."
The problem with believing is just that - belief.How do you expect someone to believe catch23?? Remember what Gorbachev told Reagan? "Trust, but verify".
Look at it another way - Why would Benetton put these things in the first place, despite the cost? It seems to me that the Microsoft Windows Virus Business Model is spreading across all businesses.
Thankfully, we have the Internet and Benetton isn't yet a monopoly, so a 'boycott until full explanation' is in order.
Slashdot Mirror
is inching closer to GPL... hey! that means MS is dead already. Wow!!
How much does an 800lb gorilla weigh? In spirit, I mean....
Foley may have other follies, but she definitely puts out authentic information. She's been around long enough, you could assume it's authentic.
Her 'predictions' and 'directions' may not be that accurate though.
In cricket, a googly is a ball that is bowled in a deceptive way - surprisingly that would be the correct adjective for Microsoft!
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=googly
Time for a name change perhaps?
They should be glad they didn't discover E=mc^2... I'd be very uncomfortable
It's also amazing to note that while the Sony P800 which runs the Symbian OS can perfectly sync up with Outlook, I'm still struggling to get a low-footprint app on my Linux box to do the same.
Time for a Symbian distro maybe?
Cnet and objectivity. Nice point. I remember David Coursey, the chief Microsoft Apologist at Anchordesk wrote up a review of the Smartphone, days after the product launched in the UK. And he'd claimed he loved a product he hadn't even seen, much less experienced.
, 10 738,2895473,00.html
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0
Where is Slashdot heading??
Hey! how about a Terrorism Color Meter at MSN or hotmail? Getting refershed hourly would be nice. And the color could vary depending on geographical location, religion, diet preferences, hairstyle etc etc.
Pentagon: The New Terrorism Color is InfraRed! You can't see the color, and we can't see the terror.
The point of this article was (despite the colorful spherical literature), if I may rephrase it:
How to program serial, parallel and USB ports under DOS, Windows and Linux?
With DOS, I remember BASIC was free and gave direct access to the ports.
With Windows, Billy decided we should pay $200 for Visual Basic... maybe theyse days $600 for Visual Studio.NEt to program a simple serial port.
With Linux??? I'm not sure, but I'd like to know...
and the point of this article was, if I may rephrase it:
How to program serial, parallel and USB ports under DOS, Windows and Linux? With DOS, I remember BASIC was free and gave direct access to the ports. With Windows, Billy decided we should pay $200 for Visual Basic... maybe theyse days $600 for Visual Studio.NEt to program a simple serial port. With Linux??? I'm not sure, but I'd like to know...
Pretty soon, you can subscribe to the .Net Terrorism Color Service to know how afraid you should be. And then, if Code Red III broke out.....
I'm reminded of my college days when we had a lab class on 'Traffic Light Simulation' using LEDs connected to the Intel 8255 PPI chip. (Programmable Peripheral Interface, I guess).
This chip has 3 ports of 8-bit and by writing a combn of bits, you could control the output. I also remember one of the ports supported a bit-set-reset capability. This simple chip (should cost about $5, no more) would be more than enough for the project at hand.
The chip is a part of Standard Microprocessor kits (about $30 I guess) which could be programmed with assembly lang. There are also interfaces to this chip from the PC's serial port. As for software, DOS is more than adequate, in fact it's recommended for projects like these.
Good Luck.
I'm amazed while reading articles on these two topics at Slashdot. Articles on Linux (and other Free/ Open Source products as well) seem to generate limited comment. This is despite the fact that readers stand to gain a lot from them.
On the contrary, pro-Microsoft articles typically get published around this time, and generate flame-wars in the community. Even 16-hour old-news (an oxymoron right?) on Microsoft is 'delayed' to fit into the Slashdot-MS schedule. (case in point: the SQL-database-patent-case).
Every pro-Linux comment these days is hair-split by the MS apologists - I doubt new readers can ever get to experience the Slashdot of 2000. Mod points seem to be heavily stacked in favor of the MS lobby as well.
I also suspect the Linux-geek crowd waste a lot of their otherwise productive time, defending their views. Time for some spirited defence I'd say.
Truth can stand naked. Lies need good clothing.
Truth can stand naked... lies need good clothing. Linux does not need props from the Gartners and the Aberdeens for it's success. It is non-proletycizing (is my spelling OK?) like Hinduism, say. It is tough as hell to understand Linux through the narrow prism of the Windows experience.
Once the principles of Linux (GNU and GPL rather) are truly understood and assimilated, the computer becomes an object of enjoyment, not a distrurtful, supercillous tool. This feeling of freedom and power is propogated to fellow enthusiasts and thus pervades the minds of developers and users alike.
Windows is just a faith.
Linux is the actual Experience.
I find your posts, though insightful, tend to divert attention from the topic at the top of the thread. If you start a new thread, I promise to read all your posts. Just remember to retain the same title thuogh. Thanks.
Broadcast music has always been free (as in beer, as well as freedom) ever since, well, broadcasting. I could listen to music for free, AND make a personal recording. Simply packaging it in TCP/IP and streaming it over WiFi does not make sense.
What I'd like to see is a CD/solid state RAM-based system that can play MP3 CDs and 'one-touch-record' about a 100 hours of audio. This would be useful when I do some loud-thinking, and my secretary could make notes and write articles later.
Text to Speech and vice-versa takes more memory and CPU time. as time goes on. Surely given market potential for these apps, their quality and availability should've been much much more.
Is MS carrying any patents on this, and acting Dog-In-The-Manger..ish? Any good low-footprint Linux-based apps for text-speech?
Broadcast music has always been free (as in beer, as well as freedom) ever since, well, broadcasting. I could listen to music for free, AND make a personal recording. Simply packaging it in TCP/IP and streaming it over WiFi does not make sense.
What I'd like to see is a CD/solid state RAM-based system that can play MP3 CDs and 'one-touch-record' about a 100 hours of audio. This would be useful when I do some loud-thinking, and my secretary could make notes and write articles later.
"Call it GNU/Linux 'mommy's testicles' if you want"
I thought female mommy's couldn't have testicles. Ovaries and ovules maybe. And using adjectives like 'free' or 'open' to these sensitive anatomical parts could be insulting.
"satisfying the cliche markets? "
This sounds new to me. I've heard of niche markets though.
Haven't you heard of BillyG giving us useless wrist watches synchronised with atomic clocks? These devices would be much more useful than those watches.
"Is there anything useful out there?"
Maybe not directly, but look at the possibilities. What if you can subscribe to a Proximity Dating Service - one that beeps when your 'soulmate' is around? With the increasing number of introverts these days, such services could do well.
It might help you locate a person of the opposite sex - but same underwear size. Requires XML underpant match service upgrade though.
" remove those big bulky things that set off the alarms".. you said.
And from the referenced article:
"the ID is embedded in the clothes -- it's an antenna-bearing chip smaller than a grain of rice that's attached to the clothes' labels "
A grain of rice isn't bulky, and isn't easily removed either.
Actually, the tags ought to be removable just before the purchase. Frequently, I remove the price tags before gifting clothes.
Never underestimate the power of the Slashdot community. Most Slashdot geeks are married to / related to / friends of non-geeks. The word spreads around faster than you or Benetton care to believe.
And remember, Benetton is a global brand, and this move could cost them even in markets where they don't have these tags.
"But I think using rfid tags as a secret theft deterrent is better... " How come? Where is the link between the tag and the buyer? If I donate my clothing, must I email Benetton? Mind you, I'm not talking shop-lifting here, but theft 'after' purchase. "It's an easy way to catch more crooks." For every 'crook' caught stealing a clothing, the privacy of a 100 innocent buyers is being violated.
" So we boycott the company just because they're using some new technology that everyone is afraid of."
No, we boycott it because, as the original poster pointed out, the tags aren't removed after the sale, and customers aren't informed about the feature and the implications.
"but nobody is buying into it(water) simply because they know where it came from (sewage)"
How is this relevant to the point at issue? If a sewage treatment plant generates potable water, it should be lauded because:
a. It informs customers of the source, the technology and the process.
b. The end-product does not have undesirable 'features'.
Benetton is doing neither. Like BigBrother MS, it just says we're including 'Smart Tags' - and that's it. Until a coherent explanation comes up, a boycott is the only solution.
"Believe me, if big brother wants to track you down, they're gonna track you down and it won't be using unreliable stuff like rfid tags."
The problem with believing is just that - belief.How do you expect someone to believe catch23?? Remember what Gorbachev told Reagan? "Trust, but verify".
Look at it another way - Why would Benetton put these things in the first place, despite the cost? It seems to me that the Microsoft Windows Virus Business Model is spreading across all businesses.
Thankfully, we have the Internet and Benetton isn't yet a monopoly, so a 'boycott until full explanation' is in order.