On the rare occasion that I trip the alarm, I turn it into a customer relations problem.
I immediately turn around and go back into the store (ignore the guard, or tell him to walk with you if he wants to talk to you) and march either back to the cashier who checked you out, or to the customer service desk (use judgement). Ignore any line. Slam packages on counter and yell, "Fix it, NOW!"
This has the following, positive effects:
Suspicion towards you is converted into embarassment on the store's part.
That embarassment is public
Evil looks from passers-by are converted into sympathy
You may trigger a retraining or an equipment inspection.
I have never set off an alarm in any one store more than once.
Seems to me like this type of prediction is just going to wind up letting people down.
Depends on what you expect.
I was very much let down when I found out that the MPEG accelerated video hardware on my VIA EPIA motherboard bound me to a very limited set of kernel versions, and that I couldn't compile a better one. If this lives up to what it appears to be, I may finally get the MPEG acceleration I've wanted.
I hate sites that feel they need to paginate their content. Give me the whole fscking article, so that I don't have to stop reading when the server get b0rked by Slashdot!
This is a really cool idea. It is also extremely unsustainable. Consider the base diet here in the industrial world to be about 2000-2400 Calories per day. Keep in mind that these are dietary calories, which are actually kilocalories. This translates to 8.368 to 10.042 MJ per day. Divide that by 86,400 seconds per day, and you get 96.85 to 116.22 watts average output, before you have adjusted for any inefficiencies. You can peak (as in your 400W example), but you can't hold it there. The human body is just as much a slave to the laws of thermodynamics as everything else.
The sunny boy inverters would actually be a very poor choice, because they shut down when the grid power goes. They are designed only to add your solar input to an existing AC system.
I would, instead, suggest getting an inverter from Xantrex/Trace or from Outback Power Systems. These are also grid-tie inverters, but can support being attached to a battery system.
A different, and perhaps better (and definitely much cheaper) solution, would be to purchase 12VDC power supplies from Mini-Box and cobining this with a 12V battery system and charger.
I am purchasing a service, and the provider supplies the platform (Satellite TV, Satellite Radio, CATV) AND
I am not restrained in how I can use the content for my personal use.
I do not accept DRM when:
I am required (as opposed to permitted) to supply the platform (e.g. DVD, anything on a computer) OR
A physical medium changes hands
I should make a note about supplying a platform. If the platform is offered for sale by the service provider, but is also avaible for lease at a reasonable fee, that's fine with me. (As it happens, I own my satellite receiver, but the same unit avaible for rent, also). Nobody will give a long-term lease on an iPod or a DVD player, though.
My satellite TV provider is acceptable because they don't constrain how I use the content. I can capture, on videotape or whatever I may have, any show I'm subscribed to, even PPV. They ask you not to do this with PPV, but they don't do anything to physically stop you. Their competitor does, using Macrovision. My receiver only has analog outputs, but I would expect to find a similar state of things on their receivers with digital outputs (though I doubt they strip out the broadcast flag).
I use DVD's but don't approve of the DRM. Tools exist to strip it out, though, and the platform is such that replacing the DRM scheme won't work like it will for iTMS.
I wonder if this new 3d technology can actually do anything for people like me?
It is unlikely.
As you have only one good eye, you have no depth perception. You may be able to tell how far away something is, but you are using deductive methods to accomplish this, compensating for your lack of an eye.
Thus far, all 3D devices I am aware of, except for holograms, provide no new information unless you can use both eyes. Holograms are an exception because you can look from side to side and the view angle changes accordingly.
One last point. Even if you had both eyes working, if they don't maintain a constant alignment, you still would lack depth perception. My wife has this problem, because the range of movement for her left eye is restricted. She can turn it to the right, but not the left, which has been the case from birth. As such, she never developed a depth perception, as the data her brain received was not constant. Folks who are simply wall-eyed or cross-eyed do not suffer this problem so badly.
The car was battery powered and could only go 55-95 (or 75-130, depending on the type of battery) miles per charge and took up to 8 hours to recharge. There is no possible way that they could make a profit off of a vehicle that performed that poorly.
Partly, this is symptomatic of people not thinking.
This is a perfect commuter car. Not many people commute more than 25 miles, and they aren't driving (at least I hope not) while they are sleeping, so overnight charging works well. Not only that, but overnight is when the cheapest electricity is available for customers who have time-of-use metering.
DVD is really just a more advanced VCR, as far as most people are concerned.
This is true, but DVD desperately needs a feature that it usually currently lacks. On the remote, there needs to be a button, next to the Play button. Play has the |> icon on it, this one could have |>! on it, with the acronynm JPTFMA under it. JPTFMA expands to Just Play The F---ing Movie Already!
Pressing this button would cause the DVD player to halt immediately whatever it is doing (except if it is still reading the TOC, of course), locate the main feature, and immediately start play from chapter 1. I don't need a menu, thanks, I already know what's for dinner, and some of these menus play pretty long before giving you a chance to choose.
8mm film is very poor quality. At best, you might get a VCD-quality playback, plus the frame rate is only 16fps.
That said, if you got a good scan of each frame, and wanted to take the time to do it, you could probably clean up the frames individually, and then use motion vector tracing to upconvert the framerate to 24/25/30/50/60/whatever. Alas, I don't know of any software for this purpose.
I wonder if the information sent to whatever-the-hell-it-is is encrypted...
Yes, it is. I used to work for a company that wrote ATM server software. In order to handle encryption securely (as there would otherwise be no point), we used a device caled an HSM (Host Security Module) that connected to the server via an RS-232 port (though that may have advanced since-- it's been 8 years). The HSM would be given the encrypted data and the anticipated answer, and the HSM would send back a simple 'yes' or 'no' type answer.
This allowed everything to be encrypted, and, since the HSM's were made in England, we avoided the problem with export restrictions.
Peak sunlight is approximately 1kW of power per m^2 of surface. That is the amount of energy contained in sunlight, at high noon, during summer, in the temperate zone. A conventional solar panel of 15% efficiency will get you 150 watts (before considering thermal derate, which doesn't enter into the equation here) at that time of day, during that time of year, in this climatic zone.
They claim to be able to deliver 120 watts per square inch. According to Google, there are 1550.0031 square inches in a square meter, so this panel, according to the numbers quoted in the Hindu, will deliver 186kW per square meter. That would make these panels about 18,600% efficient.
Those with even a passing acquaintance with the laws of Thermodynamics will see the problem with this.
Now, I'm not saying they aren't doing something great, far from it. I just wanted to point out that their numbers are no good.
Make your code clear, never mind a cycle here or there during compile time or run time. Chances are that the optimizer will squeeze quite a bit out of it, but even if it does not, except in some rare and/or degenerate cases, the computer your code will be running on will probably be so extremely overpowered for the task that you won't notice the difference.
However, in comparison, the amount of time saved by the code being clear to the next programmer to view it will be invaluable.
Also, please consider your algorithm carefully. Make sure that it isn't spinning its wheels a lot, else your (!ptr) vs (ptr==NULL) really isn't going to make a lot of difference.
Of course, it goes without saying that you can ignore my comments if you are entering the Obfuscated C Contest.:-)
Point 1: If Microsoft were to get into the business of writing drivers for Linux, how would that differ (aside from licensing) from purchasing commercial drivers or downloading free drivers? More importantly, how would this kill Linux? As he pointed out, commercial software already runs under Linux without any GPL implications. The community buys this software when it must, but usually develops around it.
Point 2: I have had fewer driver problems with Linux than Windows. Windows actually seems to sometimes generate driver problems, by seeking out a very specific driver where a generic one will do fine. A good example would be the USB port on my EPIA MII-12000 motherboard. It's USB 2.0. Linux sees that it is USB 2.0, and runs it as such. 'nuf sed. Windows, on the other hand, requires that I use the driver that came with the mobo (which is not inherently a problem) and no other. Not that this is a problem, but why?
It works for other things, too, besides Sci-Fi. Green Day's recent video for Boulevard of Broken Dreams is a good example. Everything was done on 35mm film, and they used rear projection to set up a backdrop, treadmills to have the guys walking along, and props on casters being pulled across the stage by ropes. The end result is a very retro-looking bit of cinematography. Oh, and the scratches and cigarette burns on the film are also real.
I think, on the whole, we do see eye-to-eye, but I wanted to make a couple of comments.
You used this analogy:
You don't NEED a later model computer to surf the net, you can surf just fine with a 486, but do you want to? Are you still on a 486 era computer, or are you driving something bigger/better/faster/fits your needs better machine right this second?
I wanted to point out the hole in that analogy. I use a Via C3 processor in my workstation at home. It uses 1/2 the energy of a '486DX4, and exhibits 9 times the clock cycles, and about 4 times the computational power per clock cycle, thus making it a more efficient device. It is not as fast as a Pentium 4, I grant, but a Pentium 4 is much more computer than I require, and probably more computer than most of us require.
Cars fall into this idea also. If you can make an SUV get 40MPG, then you should be able to get a sedan to go up to 70+.... and that is how the technology would (in my opinion) be better applied in most cases.
I own solar PV and a wind genny, do you?
I congratulate you on achieving what I am currently striving to achieve. Remember, though, that every dollar spent on efficiency saves about three on RE generation hardware.
Back to SUVs, we have half a year of inclement winter weather in the US,people still need to get from point A to B, so in a lot of places all wheel drive is practical, at least having the option. Many europaen cars have that as an option as well, because it works for that purpose. And in other places where you need to drive might be on still not the best of roads, again, 4wd is practical for those situations. This is why SUVs are just so popular, they fill a niche that so many millions have. If it didn't, we wouldn't see them out there in such numbers.
This is an excellent point, because I live in an area that does get lots of snow. AWD is a wonderful thing. Counterintuitively, though, a well-built AWD sedan (Such as Subaru's offerings) will work better in snowy, slippery conditions than an SUV, due to lower mass (reduces inertia, making steering and braking easier and requiring less torque to start up), and a lower center of gravity improving the stability of the vehicle. The only SUV I can think of to have that kind of stability is a Hummer, which gets it from its wide gait, rather than a low center of gravity.
Slashdot Mirror
CUPS does not work with my Canon BJC-4200. LPRng does. Ergo, cups has been ripped out by its damned roots and replaced with something that works.
Well, unless Canon
Um.... Nikon, dude.
On the rare occasion that I trip the alarm, I turn it into a customer relations problem.
I immediately turn around and go back into the store (ignore the guard, or tell him to walk with you if he wants to talk to you) and march either back to the cashier who checked you out, or to the customer service desk (use judgement). Ignore any line. Slam packages on counter and yell, "Fix it, NOW!"
This has the following, positive effects:
I have never set off an alarm in any one store more than once.
Seems to me like this type of prediction is just going to wind up letting people down.
Depends on what you expect.
I was very much let down when I found out that the MPEG accelerated video hardware on my VIA EPIA motherboard bound me to a very limited set of kernel versions, and that I couldn't compile a better one. If this lives up to what it appears to be, I may finally get the MPEG acceleration I've wanted.
I hate sites that feel they need to paginate their content. Give me the whole fscking article, so that I don't have to stop reading when the server get b0rked by Slashdot!
Get a pedal cycle and a dynamo.
This is a really cool idea. It is also extremely unsustainable. Consider the base diet here in the industrial world to be about 2000-2400 Calories per day. Keep in mind that these are dietary calories, which are actually kilocalories. This translates to 8.368 to 10.042 MJ per day. Divide that by 86,400 seconds per day, and you get 96.85 to 116.22 watts average output, before you have adjusted for any inefficiencies. You can peak (as in your 400W example), but you can't hold it there. The human body is just as much a slave to the laws of thermodynamics as everything else.
like sunny boy inverters, google for them
The sunny boy inverters would actually be a very poor choice, because they shut down when the grid power goes. They are designed only to add your solar input to an existing AC system.
I would, instead, suggest getting an inverter from Xantrex/Trace or from Outback Power Systems. These are also grid-tie inverters, but can support being attached to a battery system.
A different, and perhaps better (and definitely much cheaper) solution, would be to purchase 12VDC power supplies from Mini-Box and cobining this with a 12V battery system and charger.
I accept DRM when....
I do not accept DRM when:
I should make a note about supplying a platform. If the platform is offered for sale by the service provider, but is also avaible for lease at a reasonable fee, that's fine with me. (As it happens, I own my satellite receiver, but the same unit avaible for rent, also). Nobody will give a long-term lease on an iPod or a DVD player, though.
My satellite TV provider is acceptable because they don't constrain how I use the content. I can capture, on videotape or whatever I may have, any show I'm subscribed to, even PPV. They ask you not to do this with PPV, but they don't do anything to physically stop you. Their competitor does, using Macrovision. My receiver only has analog outputs, but I would expect to find a similar state of things on their receivers with digital outputs (though I doubt they strip out the broadcast flag).
I use DVD's but don't approve of the DRM. Tools exist to strip it out, though, and the platform is such that replacing the DRM scheme won't work like it will for iTMS.
Radio4all.net has grass roots radio programming.
Also, try getting some podcasts.
Between the two, you should find anything you want.
I wonder if this new 3d technology can actually do anything for people like me?
It is unlikely.
As you have only one good eye, you have no depth perception. You may be able to tell how far away something is, but you are using deductive methods to accomplish this, compensating for your lack of an eye.
Thus far, all 3D devices I am aware of, except for holograms, provide no new information unless you can use both eyes. Holograms are an exception because you can look from side to side and the view angle changes accordingly.
One last point. Even if you had both eyes working, if they don't maintain a constant alignment, you still would lack depth perception. My wife has this problem, because the range of movement for her left eye is restricted. She can turn it to the right, but not the left, which has been the case from birth. As such, she never developed a depth perception, as the data her brain received was not constant. Folks who are simply wall-eyed or cross-eyed do not suffer this problem so badly.
Should be 10 (million billion billionths) of a second, not (10 million billion) billionths of a second....
The car was battery powered and could only go 55-95 (or 75-130, depending on the type of battery) miles per charge and took up to 8 hours to recharge. There is no possible way that they could make a profit off of a vehicle that performed that poorly.
Partly, this is symptomatic of people not thinking.
This is a perfect commuter car. Not many people commute more than 25 miles, and they aren't driving (at least I hope not) while they are sleeping, so overnight charging works well. Not only that, but overnight is when the cheapest electricity is available for customers who have time-of-use metering.
DVD is really just a more advanced VCR, as far as most people are concerned.
This is true, but DVD desperately needs a feature that it usually currently lacks. On the remote, there needs to be a button, next to the Play button. Play has the |> icon on it, this one could have |>! on it, with the acronynm JPTFMA under it. JPTFMA expands to Just Play The F---ing Movie Already!
Pressing this button would cause the DVD player to halt immediately whatever it is doing (except if it is still reading the TOC, of course), locate the main feature, and immediately start play from chapter 1. I don't need a menu, thanks, I already know what's for dinner, and some of these menus play pretty long before giving you a chance to choose.
8mm film is very poor quality. At best, you might get a VCD-quality playback, plus the frame rate is only 16fps.
That said, if you got a good scan of each frame, and wanted to take the time to do it, you could probably clean up the frames individually, and then use motion vector tracing to upconvert the framerate to 24/25/30/50/60/whatever. Alas, I don't know of any software for this purpose.
I wonder if the information sent to whatever-the-hell-it-is is encrypted...
Yes, it is. I used to work for a company that wrote ATM server software. In order to handle encryption securely (as there would otherwise be no point), we used a device caled an HSM (Host Security Module) that connected to the server via an RS-232 port (though that may have advanced since-- it's been 8 years). The HSM would be given the encrypted data and the anticipated answer, and the HSM would send back a simple 'yes' or 'no' type answer.
This allowed everything to be encrypted, and, since the HSM's were made in England, we avoided the problem with export restrictions.
Peak sunlight is approximately 1kW of power per m^2 of surface. That is the amount of energy contained in sunlight, at high noon, during summer, in the temperate zone. A conventional solar panel of 15% efficiency will get you 150 watts (before considering thermal derate, which doesn't enter into the equation here) at that time of day, during that time of year, in this climatic zone.
They claim to be able to deliver 120 watts per square inch. According to Google, there are 1550.0031 square inches in a square meter, so this panel, according to the numbers quoted in the Hindu, will deliver 186kW per square meter. That would make these panels about 18,600% efficient.
Those with even a passing acquaintance with the laws of Thermodynamics will see the problem with this.
Now, I'm not saying they aren't doing something great, far from it. I just wanted to point out that their numbers are no good.
I've been building hard-drive wind chimes since 1996 or so and selling them at hamfests and other gatherings of the geek.
The ones made from larger drives (5" and some even 10") are the most popular as the parts are the most rare.
Make your code clear, never mind a cycle here or there during compile time or run time. Chances are that the optimizer will squeeze quite a bit out of it, but even if it does not, except in some rare and/or degenerate cases, the computer your code will be running on will probably be so extremely overpowered for the task that you won't notice the difference.
However, in comparison, the amount of time saved by the code being clear to the next programmer to view it will be invaluable.
Also, please consider your algorithm carefully. Make sure that it isn't spinning its wheels a lot, else your (!ptr) vs (ptr==NULL) really isn't going to make a lot of difference.
Of course, it goes without saying that you can ignore my comments if you are entering the Obfuscated C Contest. :-)
Point 1: If Microsoft were to get into the business of writing drivers for Linux, how would that differ (aside from licensing) from purchasing commercial drivers or downloading free drivers? More importantly, how would this kill Linux? As he pointed out, commercial software already runs under Linux without any GPL implications. The community buys this software when it must, but usually develops around it.
Point 2: I have had fewer driver problems with Linux than Windows. Windows actually seems to sometimes generate driver problems, by seeking out a very specific driver where a generic one will do fine. A good example would be the USB port on my EPIA MII-12000 motherboard. It's USB 2.0. Linux sees that it is USB 2.0, and runs it as such. 'nuf sed. Windows, on the other hand, requires that I use the driver that came with the mobo (which is not inherently a problem) and no other. Not that this is a problem, but why?
The Soup Dragons' "Soft As Your Face" EP has two grooves on each side.
A friend of mine commented on my email headers the other day. One of the headers reads:
X-Answer: 42It works for other things, too, besides Sci-Fi. Green Day's recent video for Boulevard of Broken Dreams is a good example. Everything was done on 35mm film, and they used rear projection to set up a backdrop, treadmills to have the guys walking along, and props on casters being pulled across the stage by ropes. The end result is a very retro-looking bit of cinematography. Oh, and the scratches and cigarette burns on the film are also real.
I think, on the whole, we do see eye-to-eye, but I wanted to make a couple of comments.
You used this analogy:
You don't NEED a later model computer to surf the net, you can surf just fine with a 486, but do you want to? Are you still on a 486 era computer, or are you driving something bigger/better/faster/fits your needs better machine right this second?
I wanted to point out the hole in that analogy. I use a Via C3 processor in my workstation at home. It uses 1/2 the energy of a '486DX4, and exhibits 9 times the clock cycles, and about 4 times the computational power per clock cycle, thus making it a more efficient device. It is not as fast as a Pentium 4, I grant, but a Pentium 4 is much more computer than I require, and probably more computer than most of us require.
Cars fall into this idea also. If you can make an SUV get 40MPG, then you should be able to get a sedan to go up to 70+.... and that is how the technology would (in my opinion) be better applied in most cases.
I own solar PV and a wind genny, do you?
I congratulate you on achieving what I am currently striving to achieve. Remember, though, that every dollar spent on efficiency saves about three on RE generation hardware.
Back to SUVs, we have half a year of inclement winter weather in the US,people still need to get from point A to B, so in a lot of places all wheel drive is practical, at least having the option. Many europaen cars have that as an option as well, because it works for that purpose. And in other places where you need to drive might be on still not the best of roads, again, 4wd is practical for those situations. This is why SUVs are just so popular, they fill a niche that so many millions have. If it didn't, we wouldn't see them out there in such numbers.
This is an excellent point, because I live in an area that does get lots of snow. AWD is a wonderful thing. Counterintuitively, though, a well-built AWD sedan (Such as Subaru's offerings) will work better in snowy, slippery conditions than an SUV, due to lower mass (reduces inertia, making steering and braking easier and requiring less torque to start up), and a lower center of gravity improving the stability of the vehicle. The only SUV I can think of to have that kind of stability is a Hummer, which gets it from its wide gait, rather than a low center of gravity.
According to Pricewatch, you can get Samsung RDRAM, 800MHz, 512MB for about $100-$130 less.
I wonder how much simulation and testing you need before we feel safe about affecting an entire planet.
Clearly, none at all. We have done no simulation and testing prior to affecting our own planet; why would we for any other?