The area of sunspots responsible for this latest spat of solar activity are FIFTEEN TIMES THE SIZE OF THE EARTH. Just to make this perfectly clear, THE SUN IS FUCKING HUGE! The whole fsking EARTH could smash into it and the sun wouldn't even blink. So no, it's highly unlikely that some heavenly body about 100 times the size of Jupiter smashed into the sun and we didn't see it coming or notice it happening. Solar weather just goes through weird phases, just like earth weather. That's all.
It's some of the best source code I've ever looked at. As far as having consistantly good source code, it whoops Linux. I really tried to get my operating systems class teacher to use it instead of Linux, because of it's clean design. He decided to use QNX instead. WTF~?
Anyway if you've never tried NetBSD, I think you should. At least get it installed and compile a kernel. It's a good learning experience. Plus it's been ported to every fsking hardware platform ever (just about.)
If DriverLoader could incorporate a lightweight x86 emulator, then it could easily support those chipsets on non-x86 platforms, like PowerBooks, for example, or maybe even Zaurus's (Zauri?), etc. I guess that's kind of a small market, but it would be cool.
Don't think that's too whacky, either. XFree86 already uses that trick to execute x86 video card BIOS code on non-x86 platforms.
And if you haven't read the book, then you are a luser.
Give only what you think you can give next year
on
Christmas Bonuses?
·
· Score: 1
Remember Clarke Grizwold? Jelly of the month club? Yeah... When you start giving your employess christmas boneruses, they may come to expect it every year. And reasonably so. Therefor you ought to be careful not to give them more than you think you'll be able to afford to give them next year. At least not unless you give them a serious disclaimer.
Okay, what the hell IS one of these things and how does it WORK?
There is a diagram on lenslet.com that shows how their optical processor works. There are three parts, a row of lasers, a row of photodetectors, and a big grid of Multiple Quantum Well (MQW) Spatial Light Modulator. I assume this grid is where the matrix operations actually take place. I don't even care about the math, I never could understand it. But from a physical point of view, how is this thing constructed? What _IS_ it?
I tried searching google but all I got were incomprehensible scientific papers. I'm not a layman but I'm also not an electro-optical engineer. Can someone explain this thing in language I can understand?
My mind is alredy overflowing with potential applications. I want to smash one to see how it works. Actually I want to smash them all because I'm afraid of things that I don't understand. Although once I understand it that urge will go away. This is like, God's gift to DSP engineers. It's both exciting and frightening to contemplate it's potential applications.
I guess when and where can I get one and how much will it cost?
I hate fossil fuels. I build solar cars. But this study has played some games to get hugely inflated numbers.
The crux of his "theory" is that only one-10,000th of the ancient dead plankton carbon that got deposited on the seafloor got turned into oil. He considers the other 9,999-10,000ths to be waste, or something.
From a more logical viewpoint, all that other carbon that didn't wind up as oil is completely irrelevant to anything and everthing. It shouldn't even be considered in the equation. It still sits underground in some form, we haven't affected it in the slightest by pumping out oil. So how can it be considered "waste"?
Since only about one-10,750th of the original carbon in ancient plant material actually ends up as oil, multiply 4.14 kilograms by 10,750 to get roughly 44,500 kilograms of carbon in ancient plant matter to make a gallon of gas
NO!!! The carbon matter that wound up NOT as oil simply LEFT THE BUILDING! It had NO EFFECT whatsoever on the carbon matter that DID become oil. It's not like the non-oil-producing carbon got CONSUMED or something, IT'S STILL THERE UNTOUCHED. They are two separate and distinct groups of carbon matter.
Wake up, public school is all about treating children like cattle. Thats why I hate it so much. Dropping out of high school was the best choice I ever made, it was MY choice to exercise MY rights and to proclaim MY freedom from a tyranical overloard, my fat bull-dyke principal (that's not an exageration, she really is a fat bull-dyke). If you disagree, you can bring it up with my bachelors degree and my honors.
Homeschool your kids. Or group homeschool them. Or something. Don't send them to McSchool.
You must go to school in a hot climate, in Vermont I can't remember the last time I saw a professor wear anything BUT long pants. Tweedy jackets are also quite common, but so are grungy sweatshirts and blue jeans.
Actually, the professors down in the Auto Tech program wear flashy jumpsuits.
It's probably the optoisolator right in the front end, between the rj-45 jack and the rest of the card. A similar thing happens to modems, the little isolation transformer blows out. When I used to do ISP tech support, every time a line of thunderstorms would roll through we'd get a half dozen calls from people who's modems were acting perfectly normally except that they suddenly were getting "No Dialtone". That transformer gets popped and thats what happens.
Ditto, except I think it was more like several years ago that I first saw one of those shows. There are absolutely tremendous amounts of frozen methane deposits along the floor of the Bermuda triangle, and the sea floor there is steep and unstable. The theory goes that landslides uncover the methane which under reduced pressure reverts to a gas and violently bubbles its' way to the surface. Ships can't float in gassified water as the gas reduces the water's density.
The theory also works to explain airplane disappearances, since a plane flying through a giant cloud of methane could easily ignite it into a tremendous fireball which would likely destroy the plane almost instantly.
I'm a geek and I still have to drive old-n-busted:( But someday I hope I get rich and CAN pay a REAL mechanic to do my work. Or that I can afford a lift and a real garage so I can do my own work and not have it be a fuckshow.
I do enjoy working on my rigs but there are certain menial things like changing oil that I really can't justify taking the time to do myself. Disposing of it is a PITA too.
I really get satisfaction out of working on my vehicles. Plus I save money. And I know that I can do the work better than most mechanics, who while not necessarily malicious, are usually idiots.
The thing is, cars are so fsking complex, and each individual make/model has so many unique nuances, that I honestly can't belive that your average mechanic can really learn it all. Hell, it took me years to learn everything there was to know about my VW Passat alone! Start tossing in GM's, Fords, 'yotas, Hondas, etc. and damn that's a lot of different kinds of cars to learn to work on.
Obviously there are some pretty significant differences between cars and computers. Building high-performance cars invariably involves machining and metalwork for example. Nobody fabricates their own sillicon chips, or even does mods on the sillicon level. Computer parts are mostly all plug and play these days. Car parts, IMO, require a lot more specialized tools and knowledge to work on. The only tool you really need to work on a computer is a Phillips head screwdriver. You can't work on a car at all without a wrench and socket set. And if you want to do anything serious you're going to need a whole slew of specialized tools and chemicals. I never start any job on my car without a can of Parts Blaster and a tube of RTV. On a computer, you might need a little dab of heatsink grease, but only if the old stuff is all dried up and shitty. Oh yeah, I don't have to replace a gasket everytime I pull out a hard drive. Oh yeah, my engine weighs hundreds of pounds and is the size of, well, and engine. My CPU is obviously much smaller and easier to carry around.
I think that cars and computers both appeal to hackers because they are both cheap, commonplace, and hackable. Those rice boys with their riced out Hondas, they're hackers (some of them). The guys building lifted Jeeps with 44" Super Swampers for rock crawling, they're hackers too.
My current vehicle is a 90 Jeep Cherokee Laredo, 4WD of course. I'm already shopping for a 3" lift kit so I can fit 31" tires on it. Add a couple of skid plates and some rock rails, and a Hi-Lift jack for getting unstuck, and I'll be ready to hit some easy trails. I'm just about the biggest computer geek I know. Answered.
Well, one interesting thing is that OpenDoc wasn't exactly the only thing like it. OLE and COM etc. have a lot in common with OpenDoc. However, while MS went a few steps further and actually incorporated the technology into real applications that people use (I pasted Excel charts into a Word document just today), their monopoly position doesn't encourage them to develop it further.
Since Macs dominate the graphics and publishing industry, MacWorld has always been good about doing in depth technical qualitative reviews of the products associated with that industry. Granted I haven't read MacWorld in about 5 years, but unless they've changed drastically they probably have reveiwed color lasers within the last year or so.
Congress funds PBS. Congress is empowered by The People. Therefore The People fund PBS. The people DO think it's worthwhile which is WHY Congress continues to fund it. Welcome to democracy.
Regardless, this guy taking pot shots at PBS is about as low as Bill O'Reilly taking pot shots at the Red Cross. Way to fuck a benevolent organization run primarily by low paid and unpaid volunteers.
And if you STILL don't belive me that this guy is a jerk, just read some more of his "articles".
This is the same guy who's been calling for an end to government funding of PBS. He mistated several facts and twisted a few issues and came to the conclusion that PBS is a waste of time and money because they broadcast Barney. Now we ALL hate Barney, but Daniel Lyons is basically an ignorant prick and should be furiously ignored, in the hopes that he'll just go away.
My oldest box that I actually still use (unlike my IIgs which sits IN it's own special box in the garage) is my PowerMac 7500. Granted it's been souped up a bit, with a whopping 180MHz 604e and 164MB RAM, plus a fast/wide ultra scsi card and matching 9 gig drive, plus my old fast SCSI-2 4 gig Seagate Barracuda (damn that drive gets hot). For networking it's got a 3C905. I made a token effort to get my Voodoo Banshee working under X (I think it's possible) but I gave up when I realized I'd have to switch the connector back to the built-in video anytime I wasn't in X.
For software, when I first pulled it out of the mothballs I ran NetBSD for a while. Then I got sick of it's poor hardware support (well it IS a rare machine these days) and switched over to Yellow Dog Linux. I still fool with MacOS 9 under hot Mac-On-Linux action!
Actually, the question was "Oldest hardware", not necessarily oldest computer. While it's less to brag about, I think my LaserJet III is my oldest piece of hardware that still sees regular service.
What ever happened to Copland? Or Rhapsody? Or object-oriented computing like OpenDoc? I remember when Apple first announced OpenDoc and gave out some demo CDs, it was pretty freaking cool. Of course without getting companies like Adobe or Aldus to adopt it, it was pretty much pointless. Anyway we've all seen many many long hyped OS projects go the way of the dodo bird. Apple hit several OS dead ends while continuing to limp MacOS along until they finally flushed the toilet and started using someone elses OS (BSD). Imagine if a similar thing happened to Windows and UNIX, an officially-supported bastard child? It might be interesting. Is it possible? Why not? MS only sees $$$, and once everything runs on.NET, the underlying OS is really arbitrary anyway. They could go to Linux for shits sake, it would save them a whole assload of money, really.
During the space race back in the 1960's, NASA was faced with a major problem. The astronaut needed a pen that would write in the vacuum of space. NASA went to work. At a cost of $1.5 million they developed the "Astronaut Pen". Some of you may remember. It enjoyed minor success on the commercial market.
The Russians were faced with the same dilemma.
They used a pencil.
Okay okay, this is an urban legend. But in every legend there is a grain of truth...
Slashdot Mirror
The area of sunspots responsible for this latest spat of solar activity are FIFTEEN TIMES THE SIZE OF THE EARTH. Just to make this perfectly clear, THE SUN IS FUCKING HUGE! The whole fsking EARTH could smash into it and the sun wouldn't even blink. So no, it's highly unlikely that some heavenly body about 100 times the size of Jupiter smashed into the sun and we didn't see it coming or notice it happening. Solar weather just goes through weird phases, just like earth weather. That's all.
It's some of the best source code I've ever looked at. As far as having consistantly good source code, it whoops Linux. I really tried to get my operating systems class teacher to use it instead of Linux, because of it's clean design. He decided to use QNX instead. WTF~?
Anyway if you've never tried NetBSD, I think you should. At least get it installed and compile a kernel. It's a good learning experience. Plus it's been ported to every fsking hardware platform ever (just about.)
If DriverLoader could incorporate a lightweight x86 emulator, then it could easily support those chipsets on non-x86 platforms, like PowerBooks, for example, or maybe even Zaurus's (Zauri?), etc. I guess that's kind of a small market, but it would be cool.
Don't think that's too whacky, either. XFree86 already uses that trick to execute x86 video card BIOS code on non-x86 platforms.
And if you haven't read the book, then you are a luser.
Remember Clarke Grizwold? Jelly of the month club? Yeah... When you start giving your employess christmas boneruses, they may come to expect it every year. And reasonably so. Therefor you ought to be careful not to give them more than you think you'll be able to afford to give them next year. At least not unless you give them a serious disclaimer.
Okay, what the hell IS one of these things and how does it WORK?
There is a diagram on lenslet.com that shows how their optical processor works. There are three parts, a row of lasers, a row of photodetectors, and a big grid of Multiple Quantum Well (MQW) Spatial Light Modulator. I assume this grid is where the matrix operations actually take place. I don't even care about the math, I never could understand it. But from a physical point of view, how is this thing constructed? What _IS_ it?
I tried searching google but all I got were incomprehensible scientific papers. I'm not a layman but I'm also not an electro-optical engineer. Can someone explain this thing in language I can understand?
Santa-beard on that...
My mind is alredy overflowing with potential applications. I want to smash one to see how it works. Actually I want to smash them all because I'm afraid of things that I don't understand. Although once I understand it that urge will go away. This is like, God's gift to DSP engineers. It's both exciting and frightening to contemplate it's potential applications.
I guess when and where can I get one and how much will it cost?
Yeah or use a $100 DVD player and burn your own DVD slide shows.
Good point, it sure is, not yet but I hope to get it there eventually.
The crux of his "theory" is that only one-10,000th of the ancient dead plankton carbon that got deposited on the seafloor got turned into oil. He considers the other 9,999-10,000ths to be waste, or something.
From a more logical viewpoint, all that other carbon that didn't wind up as oil is completely irrelevant to anything and everthing. It shouldn't even be considered in the equation. It still sits underground in some form, we haven't affected it in the slightest by pumping out oil. So how can it be considered "waste"?
NO!!! The carbon matter that wound up NOT as oil simply LEFT THE BUILDING! It had NO EFFECT whatsoever on the carbon matter that DID become oil. It's not like the non-oil-producing carbon got CONSUMED or something, IT'S STILL THERE UNTOUCHED. They are two separate and distinct groups of carbon matter.
The rest of his equation seems plausible.
Wake up, public school is all about treating children like cattle. Thats why I hate it so much. Dropping out of high school was the best choice I ever made, it was MY choice to exercise MY rights and to proclaim MY freedom from a tyranical overloard, my fat bull-dyke principal (that's not an exageration, she really is a fat bull-dyke). If you disagree, you can bring it up with my bachelors degree and my honors.
Homeschool your kids. Or group homeschool them. Or something. Don't send them to McSchool.
You must go to school in a hot climate, in Vermont I can't remember the last time I saw a professor wear anything BUT long pants. Tweedy jackets are also quite common, but so are grungy sweatshirts and blue jeans.
Actually, the professors down in the Auto Tech program wear flashy jumpsuits.
It's probably the optoisolator right in the front end, between the rj-45 jack and the rest of the card. A similar thing happens to modems, the little isolation transformer blows out. When I used to do ISP tech support, every time a line of thunderstorms would roll through we'd get a half dozen calls from people who's modems were acting perfectly normally except that they suddenly were getting "No Dialtone". That transformer gets popped and thats what happens.
set off some explosives on the sea bed to trigger a landslide, watch the bubbles from a submersible or something.
I rest my case. I mean case closed.
-Lionel Hutz
Ditto, except I think it was more like several years ago that I first saw one of those shows. There are absolutely tremendous amounts of frozen methane deposits along the floor of the Bermuda triangle, and the sea floor there is steep and unstable. The theory goes that landslides uncover the methane which under reduced pressure reverts to a gas and violently bubbles its' way to the surface. Ships can't float in gassified water as the gas reduces the water's density.
The theory also works to explain airplane disappearances, since a plane flying through a giant cloud of methane could easily ignite it into a tremendous fireball which would likely destroy the plane almost instantly.
I'm a geek and I still have to drive old-n-busted :( But someday I hope I get rich and CAN pay a REAL mechanic to do my work. Or that I can afford a lift and a real garage so I can do my own work and not have it be a fuckshow.
I do enjoy working on my rigs but there are certain menial things like changing oil that I really can't justify taking the time to do myself. Disposing of it is a PITA too.
I really get satisfaction out of working on my vehicles. Plus I save money. And I know that I can do the work better than most mechanics, who while not necessarily malicious, are usually idiots.
The thing is, cars are so fsking complex, and each individual make/model has so many unique nuances, that I honestly can't belive that your average mechanic can really learn it all. Hell, it took me years to learn everything there was to know about my VW Passat alone! Start tossing in GM's, Fords, 'yotas, Hondas, etc. and damn that's a lot of different kinds of cars to learn to work on.
Obviously there are some pretty significant differences between cars and computers. Building high-performance cars invariably involves machining and metalwork for example. Nobody fabricates their own sillicon chips, or even does mods on the sillicon level. Computer parts are mostly all plug and play these days. Car parts, IMO, require a lot more specialized tools and knowledge to work on. The only tool you really need to work on a computer is a Phillips head screwdriver. You can't work on a car at all without a wrench and socket set. And if you want to do anything serious you're going to need a whole slew of specialized tools and chemicals. I never start any job on my car without a can of Parts Blaster and a tube of RTV. On a computer, you might need a little dab of heatsink grease, but only if the old stuff is all dried up and shitty. Oh yeah, I don't have to replace a gasket everytime I pull out a hard drive. Oh yeah, my engine weighs hundreds of pounds and is the size of, well, and engine. My CPU is obviously much smaller and easier to carry around.
I think that cars and computers both appeal to hackers because they are both cheap, commonplace, and hackable. Those rice boys with their riced out Hondas, they're hackers (some of them). The guys building lifted Jeeps with 44" Super Swampers for rock crawling, they're hackers too.
My current vehicle is a 90 Jeep Cherokee Laredo, 4WD of course. I'm already shopping for a 3" lift kit so I can fit 31" tires on it. Add a couple of skid plates and some rock rails, and a Hi-Lift jack for getting unstuck, and I'll be ready to hit some easy trails. I'm just about the biggest computer geek I know. Answered.
Well, one interesting thing is that OpenDoc wasn't exactly the only thing like it. OLE and COM etc. have a lot in common with OpenDoc. However, while MS went a few steps further and actually incorporated the technology into real applications that people use (I pasted Excel charts into a Word document just today), their monopoly position doesn't encourage them to develop it further.
Since Macs dominate the graphics and publishing industry, MacWorld has always been good about doing in depth technical qualitative reviews of the products associated with that industry. Granted I haven't read MacWorld in about 5 years, but unless they've changed drastically they probably have reveiwed color lasers within the last year or so.
Congress funds PBS. Congress is empowered by The People. Therefore The People fund PBS. The people DO think it's worthwhile which is WHY Congress continues to fund it. Welcome to democracy.
Regardless, this guy taking pot shots at PBS is about as low as Bill O'Reilly taking pot shots at the Red Cross. Way to fuck a benevolent organization run primarily by low paid and unpaid volunteers.
And if you STILL don't belive me that this guy is a jerk, just read some more of his "articles".
This is the same guy who's been calling for an end to government funding of PBS. He mistated several facts and twisted a few issues and came to the conclusion that PBS is a waste of time and money because they broadcast Barney. Now we ALL hate Barney, but Daniel Lyons is basically an ignorant prick and should be furiously ignored, in the hopes that he'll just go away.
HISSSSSS!!!! BAD MEDICINE!!!
When I worked in IT, we had to make regular trips to reset all the keys that the lusers had accidentaly reprogrammed.
My oldest box that I actually still use (unlike my IIgs which sits IN it's own special box in the garage) is my PowerMac 7500. Granted it's been souped up a bit, with a whopping 180MHz 604e and 164MB RAM, plus a fast/wide ultra scsi card and matching 9 gig drive, plus my old fast SCSI-2 4 gig Seagate Barracuda (damn that drive gets hot). For networking it's got a 3C905. I made a token effort to get my Voodoo Banshee working under X (I think it's possible) but I gave up when I realized I'd have to switch the connector back to the built-in video anytime I wasn't in X.
For software, when I first pulled it out of the mothballs I ran NetBSD for a while. Then I got sick of it's poor hardware support (well it IS a rare machine these days) and switched over to Yellow Dog Linux. I still fool with MacOS 9 under hot Mac-On-Linux action!
Actually, the question was "Oldest hardware", not necessarily oldest computer. While it's less to brag about, I think my LaserJet III is my oldest piece of hardware that still sees regular service.
What ever happened to Copland? Or Rhapsody? Or object-oriented computing like OpenDoc? I remember when Apple first announced OpenDoc and gave out some demo CDs, it was pretty freaking cool. Of course without getting companies like Adobe or Aldus to adopt it, it was pretty much pointless. Anyway we've all seen many many long hyped OS projects go the way of the dodo bird. Apple hit several OS dead ends while continuing to limp MacOS along until they finally flushed the toilet and started using someone elses OS (BSD). Imagine if a similar thing happened to Windows and UNIX, an officially-supported bastard child? It might be interesting. Is it possible? Why not? MS only sees $$$, and once everything runs on .NET, the underlying OS is really arbitrary anyway. They could go to Linux for shits sake, it would save them a whole assload of money, really.
Thought for the day.
During the space race back in the 1960's, NASA was faced with a major problem. The astronaut needed a pen that would write in the vacuum of space. NASA went to work. At a cost of $1.5 million they developed the "Astronaut Pen". Some of you may remember. It enjoyed minor success on the commercial market.
The Russians were faced with the same dilemma.
They used a pencil.
Okay okay, this is an urban legend. But in every legend there is a grain of truth...