Actually, the book was "The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer". You're probably confused because a few years later, he came out with another book titled "The Rise and Ressurection of the American Programmer". In that book, he basically refuted all his arguements from "Decline and Fall".
If more people read the sequel, these stupid articles would lessen. Still, I hate patronizing Yourdon - who made $$ playing both sides of the issue.
I have a night-vision camera over my daughter's crib. You're really going to want to see your kid at night when you hear some crying!
I have the output from that camera re-modulated to a custom TV channel (121) so that I can tune to that channel from any TV in the house and see what's up.
You might also consider capturing the camera w/ a video card, streaming it to the web (or whatever) and also having your PC's video sent to a custom channel (I do this for my PVR). That way, you get the best of both worlds: You can monitor your baby from any TV in the house, as well as over the net. You can also use the PVR to easily zip through a whole day's activity;-)
Re:Took mine apart
on
Old Toy Modding?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Actually, the Big Trak was a little smarter than this (I took mine apart also). On the inside of each wheel was a disc with evenly spaced holes. On one side of the disk was a fixed IR emitter. On the other side, a detector. When the Big Trak turned, out could "count" the times the hole lined up between the emitter and receiver and therefore know the wheel had gone a fixed distance. Even if there was some slippage, mine was largely accurate. I remember many times sending it across the room and back. The big problem was that there were a couple of rubber bands that sat around the middle wheels on each side to aid in traction. If they were missing/removed, it did tend to slide a bit more.
I mean, beyond the 10K he made in the contest. Did Google give him a job? Or did they basically get this great idea (and a lot of others) for the low-low price of $10,000?
I have to bring up the same old issue: cost. As long as I can get a cheap laptop with a bigger screen, and battery life that would at least last for my commute, why bother?
Sure, the form-factor is awesome, and for $300, it'd be a no-brainer. But at $600, I'd drop coin on something I could also play games on and read email.
DIY is only complicated b/c there wasn't an easy to use solution out there for a long time.
I'm using SageTV from FreyTechnologies and it totally rocks. And is passes the biggest test: It is wife-friendly.
Among cool things: multi-tuner support (3 is a common setup), a network client (access your whole media library from anywhere), all the trick-play features you could ask for, and a great support environment. The app is written in Java, and these guys turn out a stable new release every other day or so!
And the DIY mod's I've added: The output is remodulated onto an unused TV channel (123), and I have IR receivers around the house, which transmit the signal over the same coax that brings in the picture. So I have "Tivo in every room". I can stroll about the house pausing TV between rooms. I also have a wireless kb/mouse combo that provides emergency net access;-)
Yes, it's $50 (plus $5/mo or $50/yr for listings). But it's a kick-ass product. As a final plug: I have a friend who owns a Tivo and he's selling it to build a system like mine.
The Wicker Man? Isn't that the piece of crap where they put that old guy from the "Enforcer" TV show in a big wicker scarecrow and torch him?
Man, that is one of the worst movies ever made.
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" it blows a high pitched whistle " 2600hz?
I see no concrete illustration about why Atom is superior to RSS. Why would is necessarily "win". >
Can the new Sony Cybrator (tm) controller be far behind?
Actually, the book was "The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer". You're probably confused because a few years later, he came out with another book titled "The Rise and Ressurection of the American Programmer". In that book, he basically refuted all his arguements from "Decline and Fall". If more people read the sequel, these stupid articles would lessen. Still, I hate patronizing Yourdon - who made $$ playing both sides of the issue.
I have a night-vision camera over my daughter's crib. You're really going to want to see your kid at night when you hear some crying! I have the output from that camera re-modulated to a custom TV channel (121) so that I can tune to that channel from any TV in the house and see what's up. You might also consider capturing the camera w/ a video card, streaming it to the web (or whatever) and also having your PC's video sent to a custom channel (I do this for my PVR). That way, you get the best of both worlds: You can monitor your baby from any TV in the house, as well as over the net. You can also use the PVR to easily zip through a whole day's activity ;-)
Try a search for 'email' or 'calendar' and guess who always comes up first? Not exactly impartial results, are they?
I've got to stop using c:\windows as my password!
Actually, the Big Trak was a little smarter than this (I took mine apart also). On the inside of each wheel was a disc with evenly spaced holes. On one side of the disk was a fixed IR emitter. On the other side, a detector. When the Big Trak turned, out could "count" the times the hole lined up between the emitter and receiver and therefore know the wheel had gone a fixed distance. Even if there was some slippage, mine was largely accurate. I remember many times sending it across the room and back. The big problem was that there were a couple of rubber bands that sat around the middle wheels on each side to aid in traction. If they were missing/removed, it did tend to slide a bit more.
Looking at that comparison table, it's clear the author hasn't looked at Java since 1.4
I mean, beyond the 10K he made in the contest. Did Google give him a job? Or did they basically get this great idea (and a lot of others) for the low-low price of $10,000?
I have to bring up the same old issue: cost. As long as I can get a cheap laptop with a bigger screen, and battery life that would at least last for my commute, why bother? Sure, the form-factor is awesome, and for $300, it'd be a no-brainer. But at $600, I'd drop coin on something I could also play games on and read email.
Considering that Plot was 10% and not 8, I think they estimated your intelligence correctly.
DIY is only complicated b/c there wasn't an easy to use solution out there for a long time.
;-)
I'm using SageTV from FreyTechnologies and it totally rocks. And is passes the biggest test: It is wife-friendly.
Among cool things: multi-tuner support (3 is a common setup), a network client (access your whole media library from anywhere), all the trick-play features you could ask for, and a great support environment. The app is written in Java, and these guys turn out a stable new release every other day or so!
And the DIY mod's I've added: The output is remodulated onto an unused TV channel (123), and I have IR receivers around the house, which transmit the signal over the same coax that brings in the picture. So I have "Tivo in every room". I can stroll about the house pausing TV between rooms. I also have a wireless kb/mouse combo that provides emergency net access
Yes, it's $50 (plus $5/mo or $50/yr for listings). But it's a kick-ass product. As a final plug: I have a friend who owns a Tivo and he's selling it to build a system like mine.
The Wicker Man? Isn't that the piece of crap where they put that old guy from the "Enforcer" TV show in a big wicker scarecrow and torch him? Man, that is one of the worst movies ever made.
Comments in the source code!
I read this before leaving a job a few years ago. I agree with it, for the most part.
That site name is misleading.
I thought it was for students to turn in their handguns for extra credit...