If the Windows Paradigm was broken people would not use Windows. Yes there are some things about Windows that suck but MSI and InstallShield installers are not a example.
I'm guessing you've never seen these three letters before: DLL
And then of course there's the nightmare that is the registry...
...or how about all those programs that decide to make themselve fire up at startup without actually showing up in the "starup" group?
Plenty of people do, plenty of people don't. Unless everyone does it, you can't assume it will be available for what you need.
Which could be said about any package format.
The nice thing about ebuilds, as opposed to binary packages it that so long as you have libraries installed that can work with foobar, you can install foobar. If you have a binary package for foobar, it might demand a specfic library version of "stuff", or specfic compile-time flags for "stuff". Then you go download a package off somebody else's site and it turns out that one wants a different, INCOMPATIBLE configuration of "stuff".
So yes, you have these two binary packages that should work, but they don't.
I remember for example fighting with mplayer (wants GCC 2.95) and redhat (wants GCC 2.96), back in the days that I used redhat. There is nothing autopackage would have done to solve that problem, because it's a binary packaging format. Keeping track of where the files go is only part of the battle, you also need to be able to use a set of dependencies that actually work together.
A bunch of random people distributing binary packages in ANY format doesn't solve this, and if you create a central repository, what advantage do you have left over gentoo? You're still tied up waiting for things to get into the tree, but now your hands are tried WRT to things like what libraries you're going to use.
That's fine for advanced users who can handle the command line but what about the remaining 97% of the world?
If you can't handle a command line you probably don't want to be running unverified, alpha software.
Pretty much anything your average joe is going to want IS in portage. The stuff that isn't is generally really specialized, or not quite there yet in terms of features and stability.
....of course one might wonder how you got Gentoo up and running in the first place since use must you the command line to even install it.
Data never goes away once it's collected. (That doesn't count Murphy's Law of course - data you really want goes away quite easily.) Computer storage is cheap, and keeps becoming radically cheaper.
It doesn't matter how cheap computers get. You make keeping the data after a certain time period illegal.
This is the way they should be doing it. IIRC, this is that way it's already being done for firearms background checks.
If you make it illegal to keep the data after a certain period of time, then the hard disk cost might be trivial, but the potential legal consequences wouldn't be.
Sure the gov't might like to keep my DNA on file for life, but if everyone involved in the project knows that they might spend the next 10 years in jail for what they're doing, they might have second thoughts.
Here's a hypothetical scenario:
I have this data.
It's illegal for me to distribute it. The data itself has been watermarked so it can be traced back to me if I do. (Subliminal channel)
The data has been cryptographically end-dated. It is illegal for me to keep it after the pre-determined end date and it is impossible for for me to forge a new end date.
It's illegal for me to have this data without a valid signature and end date attached.
At this point, that data is like leaving an old WWII grenade around. Sure you could, but the chances are probably a lot better that it's going to bring you harm than anything else.
Of course there are problems created by making a certain pattern of bits illegal, but since our society doesn't seem to have any problems with doing this for kiddie porn (won't someone think of the children!), they shouldn't have a problem doing this for an actually decent reason.
SPDIF is a horrible protocol that is sensitive to cables and almost anything else. Though it's nominally a digital signal, it's multiplexed with the system clock (which is as analog as it gets).
The clock is no more analog than the data, IT'S THE SAME SIGNAL. There is nothing encoded in the amplitude of any part of an SPDIF signal. SPDIF uses BPM/Manchester coding, which is a well-established, non-horrible protocol. You do have an ethernet cord plugged into the back of your computer right now? Guess what that uses?
Analog signals are a whole different ballgame. If you don't think cables can make a difference, pick up an electromagnetics book.
And if you actually READ your electromagnetics book, you'd see that any cable that is even close to 75 ohms is good enough for SPDIF. SPDIF is not something where you need a 40dB return loss or a 0.1 dB insertion loss. It's digital. They could have run it over CAT5 if they wanted to.
There is no reason to buy monster cable for SPDIF lines. Any decent piece of coax will work. Your cable company doesn't pay $30 for six feet of coax and neither should you.
Also, you certainly can run a DAC off it's own clock, unlike your claim in another post. Allowing it to underrun or overrun would be silly. All you're really doing is resampling a digital signal at a different rate.
We have to pay the MS tax too. ( I work at Emperor ).
Isn't this blatantly illegal?
We're talking about a company that has been convicted of abusing there monopoly position multiple times. It seems like Microsoft forcing distributors to refuse to sell their laptops without Microsoft's OS is an obvious abuse of their monopoly position. Have you filed a complaint with the FTC?
As someone who's been looking around for a Linux laptop, I am NOT willing to pay an extra $500 AND the Microsoft tax. It's a principle thing. If you're going to charge that much extra, I'd at least like to know that some fraction of that money isn't going towards killing Linux.
Have you considered importing the laptops from other countries? (I bet you can buy a laptop in China that doesn't come with the MS tax.)
Hydrides currently achieve volumetric energy densities 50% better than liquid hydrogen (and safer than gasoline). There's no mention of this on the page you've linked -- but then the writer clearly has a pro-gasoline axe to grind.
That's because it's a big fat lie.
Volumetric energy density of liquid hydrogen:
2600 Wh/l
Volumetric energy density of lithium ion batteries:
~250-300 Wh/L Volumetric energy density of Nickel metal hydride batteries: 100 Wh/L
Volumetric energy density of Lead acid batteries:
150 Wh/L
(Small print: I had to make the assumption that this guy was talking about nimh batteries. If he wasn't, he still doesn't deserve a +5 Insightful because "hydrides" refers to an entire frickin class of chemicals and doesn't even give a clue what you're even doing with them.)
Pattents should go through some sort of peer review process. (I'm not going to argue the details, as IANAL.) But something like what publishing takes in the scientific journal world.
I think I have a better idea: Take away the persumption of validity from a patent. Turn the patent office in a registry of "I invented this on this date."
The first time you want to enforce you patent, you are FORCED to go to court and prove its validity. There a judge can hear aguments from experts presented by both sides, including a side that actually has a financial interest in striking down that patent. (Unlike the USPTO, who refers to patent holders are their "customers".)
Forcing a "blind" peer review wouldn't be worth nearly as much in the fight against shitty patents, since nobody involved in the process has a real interest in NOT letting the patent through, AND you would be wasting scientists time the world over reviewing useless and pointless patents. In terms of their time vs. their money, it's better for these "reviewers" to just pocket and feet they get and rubber stamp anything you give them instantly.
I beg to differ. I can't agree with the view, that people who don't know how a thing technically works should not expect protection of their privacy, property or other reasonable rights.
That's a REALLY silly idea.
So I go out and buy a gun, and I bear no responsibility for what happens with it?
How am *I* supposed to know that I shouldn't jerk the steering wheel to one side while doing 90 on the freeway?
You mean I'm not supposed to reach inside the toaster and grab the bread with my bare hands?
Maybe manufacturer or seller of the device should be bothered with "why it is broadcasting personal info", but certainly not the end user.
The consumer should have gone out and read a product review. If they can't be bothered to do even the slightest research, they're asking for trouble and they need to learn that.
The end user has a right to be technologically ignorant and still have his privacy protected.
If you were actually arguing for a fundamental right to privacy, I'd agree with you, but you're not. You're arguing for some crazy restriction of others rights. One much, much worse than current cellphone laws.
You have a really messed up view of what "rights" are:
Our society has agreed that this little chunk of wireless spectrum will be like a public sqaure, open to all. Sing, dance, play music, make deals, whatever.
All of a sudden some idiot comes along, yelling his private information for all to hear.
Now we're all supposed to stop paying any attenion to what happens in the square until he decides to stop being an idiot. He's using a precious, public resource unwisely, but rather than face the consequences of those actions and hopefully be improved as a result of them, we're supposed to loose a valuable resource.
Since it's now illegal to even tell this guy he's actively being an idiot, things will never get better.
What's even better is that a non-idiot can take advantage of this new law to start what look to the other party like regular, consensual communications and then later claim they we're.
If you really get into it, thinking like yours would actually destroy the whole damned internet, since it would no longer be safe to connect to public servers, as the server could later claim you "violated it's privacy".
Never mind the fact that they obviously were actively making the information availible to anyone who wanted it, and have absolutely NO security measures in place, we're now supposed to be mind readers and guess whether they "really, really mean to".
After all, what if I actually WANT to give you my phone number?
How are you going to prove that in court when you piss me off later and claim I "stole" it?
Second of all, torturing prisoners is on the highest order of hypocrisy. We expect other nations not to torture our people, yet we do it to them. That's a bunch of bullshit. One standard, please.
Moreover, if we torture people, any sort of "moral authority" we had to invade Iraq in the first place evaporates.
If we're not there because of WMD's... AND we're not there to make life better for the Iraqi people, then why exactly are thousands of people being killed or wounded?
In other words, users are generally right in their expectance of some form of protection of their privacy.
Actually, they're generally wrong in both senses of the word:
Technically, they vastly overestimate the security of their own devices. Even if they know the level of insecurity, they act like the have no responsibility for it. "How dare someone connect to my cellphone THAT IS PROGRAMMED TO AUTOMATICALLY ACCEPT ALL CONNECTIONS! The injustice of it all"
Ethically, you're making use of the public airwaves. The onus really should be on you to keep your own information private. Being a user of an unliscensed band, you have no more right to it than me.
It's enough to look at the case of good, old-fashioned radio scanners to foresee results.
Those laws are both very shortsighted and wrongheaded. Besides providing a false sense of security, and acting as a disincentive to tecnological innovation, I expect them to come under scrutiny soon, as manufacturers will want to begin selling software defined receivers.
Anyways, besides me personally thinking they suck, BLUETOOTH OPERATES IN AN UNLISCENSED BAND. Regulation of an unliscensed band in the manner that you're describing would be truly unprecedented. The FCC has gone so far as to tell airport authorities that they can't regulate the 2.4GHz band at their own airports, do you really think they're going to deviate from this stance because you can't be bothered to properly configure your cellphone?
Executive summary:
How to deal with it?
Turn off bluetooth unless you're actually using it.
There is no need to have yet another rule, law or regulation just because someone can't be bothered to understand what it is they just bought and why it's broadcasting their information to anyone who asks.
Actually, the Bootable linux on ipod is ipod specific. The ipod retains it's music player ability and can have linux installed directly onto it.
RTFA, THE ARTICLE IS ABOUT STORING LINUX ON AN IPOD AND BOOTING IT ON A PC.
That's not "ipod specfic", that's something you can do with anything that will act as a mass storage device.
"Should be noted this is not iPod specific; USB devices will do."
DUH! Seems like five times a week we see some new story involving "ipods", that really isn't ipod-specfic at all.Does slashdot make a comission off every ipod sold or something?
Otherwise, why be such blatant whores for apple?
Here are some exampmles:
ipod shuffle RAID, so you can make an array of USB drives using ANY USB drive, and someone did it with an ipod. Big deal.
Crank recharged ipod. Was anyone NOT aware that mechanical energy can be converted to electrical energy and that ipods are powered by electricity?
Bootable linux on an ipod. Not the ipod actually RUNNING linux, just being used like any other mass storagte device. Not ipod specfic at all.
If you have news about the ipod that's actually ipod-specfic, then fine, otherwise PLEASE STOP WHORING A SPECFIC BRAND NAME. THIS IS SLASHDOT, WE ARE SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT A "MASS STORAGE DEVICE" IS.
But in this case, I don't think you need causation. If Apple is just really good at picking winners, then that has the same effect on blu-ray predictions as Apple being really good at causing winners. Either way, if Apple backs a technology there is a very high chance that it will be successful, whether or not it's Apple's fault.
Bravo. A great example of this is McDonalds. No two coutries with a McDonald's in them have ever gone to war.
Yet, does anyone seriously claim that McDonald's has that much control over world events?
It's pretty obvious that McDonald's is just careful where they put their restaurants.
Contrary to popular belief most (or at least a lot) of what the NSA does isn't all that secret.
Later on...
The really secret stuff is done by the SIGINT folks.
WTF!? They're "not that secret" but they do "really secret stuff"?
That fact is that the NSA is a highly secretive organization. Try reading their employee manual.
As a matter of fact, if you asked me for an example of a "secretive organization", the NSA would be one of the first examples to come to mind.
Heck, the only guys at NSA HQ who even carry guns are the security guards.
OBVIOUSLY. If you're in a building that HAS SECURITY GUARDS, chances are you don't need to carry a gun inside that building. What point are you trying to make here?
That they don't run around shooting people inside their own building?
That all having been said, whoever "harvested" this information is asking for trouble.
I wouldn't say they are "asking" for trouble, but they might get it anyways. Look what the secret service did to Bernie S for taking pictures of an agent picking his nose.
Personally, I find the problem has almost nothing to do with the shape of my mouse.
The most fatiguing aspect my own mousing is wrist-related. While you're using a mouse, your arm is just sort of hanging out there, putting a lot of stress on your wrist.
Think about it, in order to use your mouse, you MUST hold your elbow above the desk the whole time.
Some work has been done to alleviate wrist strain by adding those gel wrist pads, but I think what we really need to see is another pad further back to support your forearm.
The actual standard mouse shape itself is pretty good.
Try this:
Put your hand on your mouse.
Allow it to rotate to a comfortable angle. (For me about 10 deg CCW.)
Freeze your hand and wrist in that position, lift your hand up and look at it.
For me, the result is a very natural even spacing between all my fingers, almost the same you would see if let your arm go limp at your side.
IMO, workstations need more forearm support, not a different-shaped mouse. Take writing for example, you typically rest not just your wrist, but your whole arm on the paper as you write.
Look, I work for Macromedia, so I'm hardly a disinterested observer, but saying "Flash blows" (or "technology X blows", for that matter) is hardly what I'd call a useful contribution to this discussion.
But Flash DOES suck.
Pointing out why is like pointing out why living under a fascist regieme sucks. You could go on forever about why it sucks, or you just admit that it sucks and move on to something else.
Let's look at just SOME of the reasons Flash sucks:
No real standard
No real security options
No "don't let ads annoy the fuck out of me option"
Proprietary lock-in
Destroys the intent of the web
Expensive (compare to Java for example)
VERY limited platform support
often totally unnecessary for the task it's being used to accomplish
not easily indexable/searchable
there's not really much you can do to support it besides tell people to "udgrade to the latest version"
all-around shitty UI, the keyword there being USER... there's almost no control of a Flash app besides whatever buttons the original developer put in
At least at one point in time, you had the inability to shut off access to your microphone and webcam. It appears this *might* have changed.
Even somebody who works for Macromedia has to install Adblock, to avoid having the crap annoyed out of them by their own software. Don't you think if YOU have to install third party software to do this, your product just might "suck"?
and now.... Adware!
Flash sucks. There's TONS of reasons why, but it just plain sucks. It's one step away from double clicking random.exe files on web pages.
Some software just sucks. As another poster put it:
"Flash is a lot like dogshit. It sucks and I hate it."
You don't need to give specfic reasons to hate dogshit because it's dogshit. To a reasonable person, it's pretty obvious that it sucks.
As someone has already mentioned Flash is used extensively on educational websites. I realize that the average geek guy does not find flash extremely useful in daily life unless your into Homestar Runner, but it is incredibly useful in the educational arena, making websites for children much more interactive and useful. (This is my biggest issue with Linux: very few useful, well-designed children's applications.)
Sites like this should be using Java. It's just like putting an MS Word file on your website vs a PDF file.
Sure most people have both Acrobat and MS word, but PDFs are both more portable, and less of a security risk.
Flash is no less of a hassle for the end user, but Java is less of a security risk, more "open" in every sense of the word, AND has much better support on a wider variety of platforms.
It should be almost a non-question.
How many companies make Flash players?
How many companies make Java VM's?
How much does Sun's JDK cost?
How much does Macromedia's stuff cost?
The only reason a power supply might fail is if it is built using cheap, shoddy, or underrated components. A decently made power supply will work for decades without as much as a hiccup.
Are where do you think most consumers place "Wall-wart quality" only their list when they go out to buy new widgets?
Rest assured that your wall warts (and line lumps) are a cheap as the manufacturer could get them from the third world. See the recent Dell recall for an example.
Decent components cost money. Derating components so they last longer costs more money.
I wouldn't count on the cheap electrolytic capacitors in your wall warts lasting for decades.
Two halves of a Swisstech. (The center joint isn't very strong.)
A Leatherman (original), just picked it up last week for $7
A Leatherman Squirt P4. I busted half of the file off within a few hours of buying it.
A Gerbel legend
A Gerber 600
I also used to own an original gerber multitool, and a Coleman multitool.
I rank the Gerbers as the best of any of them. They're built like a tank.
The original Gerber was the most solid, but they don't make them anymore. It was heavy as hell, but it was like a brick of steel. I used it as a hammer on numerous occasions. Alas, it was stolen.
The Gerber legend is the best if you're an electronics nut. It's the *only* full-sized multi-tool I've ever seen with spring loaded handles.
The Gerber 600 is not quite as nice, but still very good. It has the gerber, wrist-flick opening and is reasonably beefy. It's good if you don't want to shell out for a Legend. The blunt-nosed version would make a good bike tool.
The Coleman tool had two things going for it:
-Detachable tools from the handle (Need to hold a nut still while turning a philips screw?)
-The only decent knife blade I've ever seen on a multitool. I general, knife blades on multitools are basically a POS. They're always so thin for their length that it feels like you're going to snap the blade off it you try to do any serious work with it. The Coleman's was double the thickness of any other tool I've seen. Other than that, it mostly sucked.
My favorite thing about the regular Leatherman is the size/weight. If only my Gerbers were that small. Alas, the handle design makes the pliers cut into your hand WAY too much, making the pliers only useful for half of what you could do if it had better handles.
Also, I've played with the Leatherman Wave and IMO it's just not a match for the Gerber Legend. The Legend has beefier, spring loaded pliers with tungsten-carbide cutters, and a tungsten-carbide sawblade. The only thing the Wave seems to do better is the file, but I never find myself really needing a diamond file.
The Squirt P4, is a decent keychain tool, but it's out of its class against any full-sized multitool. Compared to a real multitool, it sucks. Compared to nothing, it's great:)
I wonder why some people still pretend to understand the laws of the United States when they can't even distinguish between a proposed bill in Congress and an actual law...
I guess that's because the only difference between a bill and a law are a few piles of small, unmarked bills.
It's hard to keep track when that's all you need to get even to most stupid, evil laws passed.
Personally, I think congressmen should be forced to turn over all their assets to the gov't the day they get elected. From then on they are no longer allowed ANY income besides the "golden paracute" retirement policy they have already created for themselves.
It's almost impossible to prove something was a bribe rather than a "gift" but if accepting ANY money became illegal, certain laws would become much easier to enforce.
I dunno... I'm a linux supporter, but I can honestly say that I've had linux act like this at times. Sometimes audio on flash movies will play, sometimes it won't.
Sounds like a problem with flash, not Linux.
It usually requires only a reboot, but it still shouldn't need to.
Linux isn't windows and you shouldn't be rebooting for this. Whatever is crashing on you system can most likely be restarted with a one line console command.
But it's significantly less of a problem than corrupted IDE drivers, especially considering it could (and probably is) the flash player's fault.
Yep. If ALL your sound quit working, you might have a sound driver issue, but it sounds like you have an issue with crappy, probably closed-source flash software... part of the reason I don't have flash installed.
About the review&revisal process for these snapshots, that would make no sense, because you'd have to invest a lot of manpower to do this - and you'd have to make sure that the reviewers are more "reliable" than the average wikipedia editor who does exactly this job regularly.
The thing is, snapshots would *only* be revised for correctness, so it's not really an issue of having better reviewers, but you have (essentially) blocked new errors from being introduced into the text.
Say I have a page about Alexander Hamilton that gets reviewed once a week by a different editor, with the snapshot system, these editors are reviewing the exact same page. This gives you the sum of all the moderators/editors.
It's like having three people proofread the exact same essay vs. having three people proofread three similar essays.
Except that it's an even better effect that because EVERYONE accesing the snapshot is only acting as a reviewer as opposed to a contributor.
As far as investing manpower, that's simply what you need to do to be credible. Sure, reviewing things takes time, but the alternative is being taken less seriously.
Right now wikipedia is simply to easy to subvert. Sure sabatoge is found and eventually corrected, but that doesn't help some poor kid who gets a D on his paper, let alone someone who's looking to use the information in a more serious context.
While the whole democratic nature of wikipedia is wonderful, there's something to be said for having a rigorous process of review. (And there's no reason why the review process can't be just as democratic.) The current wiki system simply can't claim to have that. There's a reason why most people don't run the odd linux kernel series on their PCs. Wikipedia is essentially always in a development state.
Sure you have people trying to catch bugs in the development kernel, but things are rapidly changing and it's just a given that a significant number of bugs are going to slip through the cracks. Additionally, looking at old versions of wikipedia pages, really only has as much worth as looking at older development linux kernels. They all went through the same process as the current version, so the simply can't be more stable/credible than the current.
The nice thing about having a stable version is that you get the cumulative effort of all who have looked at it or used it.
Slashdot Mirror
If the Windows Paradigm was broken people would not use Windows. Yes there are some things about Windows that suck but MSI and InstallShield installers are not a example.
...or how about all those programs that decide to make themselve fire up at startup without actually showing up in the "starup" group?
I'm guessing you've never seen these three letters before: DLL
And then of course there's the nightmare that is the registry...
Plenty of people do, plenty of people don't. Unless everyone does it, you can't assume it will be available for what you need.
Which could be said about any package format.
The nice thing about ebuilds, as opposed to binary packages it that so long as you have libraries installed that can work with foobar, you can install foobar. If you have a binary package for foobar, it might demand a specfic library version of "stuff", or specfic compile-time flags for "stuff". Then you go download a package off somebody else's site and it turns out that one wants a different, INCOMPATIBLE configuration of "stuff".
So yes, you have these two binary packages that should work, but they don't.
I remember for example fighting with mplayer (wants GCC 2.95) and redhat (wants GCC 2.96), back in the days that I used redhat.
There is nothing autopackage would have done to solve that problem, because it's a binary packaging format. Keeping track of where the files go is only part of the battle, you also need to be able to use a set of dependencies that actually work together.
A bunch of random people distributing binary packages in ANY format doesn't solve this, and if you create a central repository, what advantage do you have left over gentoo? You're still tied up waiting for things to get into the tree, but now your hands are tried WRT to things like what libraries you're going to use.
That's fine for advanced users who can handle the command line but what about the remaining 97% of the world?
....of course one might wonder how you got Gentoo up and running in the first place since use must you the command line to even install it.
If you can't handle a command line you probably don't want to be running unverified, alpha software.
Pretty much anything your average joe is going to want IS in portage. The stuff that isn't is generally really specialized, or not quite there yet in terms of features and stability.
It doesn't matter how cheap computers get. You make keeping the data after a certain time period illegal.
This is the way they should be doing it. IIRC, this is that way it's already being done for firearms background checks.
If you make it illegal to keep the data after a certain period of time, then the hard disk cost might be trivial, but the potential legal consequences wouldn't be.
Sure the gov't might like to keep my DNA on file for life, but if everyone involved in the project knows that they might spend the next 10 years in jail for what they're doing, they might have second thoughts.
Here's a hypothetical scenario:
I have this data.
At this point, that data is like leaving an old WWII grenade around. Sure you could, but the chances are probably a lot better that it's going to bring you harm than anything else.
Of course there are problems created by making a certain pattern of bits illegal, but since our society doesn't seem to have any problems with doing this for kiddie porn (won't someone think of the children!), they shouldn't have a problem doing this for an actually decent reason.
This all has me wondering of anybody here has used 10-gauge Romex as speaker cable.
Actually, the best price/performance for speaker cable right now is the low voltage cable they sell for outdoor lighting systems.
BTW, the whole skin effect thing is nonsense at audio frequencies.
See this page for the formula for skin depth.
If you're too lazy to do the math yourself, someone else has already done it.
SPDIF is a horrible protocol that is sensitive to cables and almost anything else. Though it's nominally a digital signal, it's multiplexed with the system clock (which is as analog as it gets).
The clock is no more analog than the data, IT'S THE SAME SIGNAL. There is nothing encoded in the amplitude of any part of an SPDIF signal. SPDIF uses BPM/Manchester coding, which is a well-established, non-horrible protocol. You do have an ethernet cord plugged into the back of your computer right now?
Guess what that uses?
Analog signals are a whole different ballgame. If you don't think cables can make a difference, pick up an electromagnetics book.
And if you actually READ your electromagnetics book, you'd see that any cable that is even close to 75 ohms is good enough for SPDIF. SPDIF is not something where you need a 40dB return loss or a 0.1 dB insertion loss. It's digital. They could have run it over CAT5 if they wanted to.
There is no reason to buy monster cable for SPDIF lines. Any decent piece of coax will work. Your cable company doesn't pay $30 for six feet of coax and neither should you.
Also, you certainly can run a DAC off it's own clock, unlike your claim in another post. Allowing it to underrun or overrun would be silly. All you're really doing is resampling a digital signal at a different rate.
We have to pay the MS tax too. ( I work at Emperor ).
Isn't this blatantly illegal?
We're talking about a company that has been convicted of abusing there monopoly position multiple times. It seems like Microsoft forcing distributors to refuse to sell their laptops without Microsoft's OS is an obvious abuse of their monopoly position.
Have you filed a complaint with the FTC?
As someone who's been looking around for a Linux laptop, I am NOT willing to pay an extra $500 AND the Microsoft tax. It's a principle thing. If you're going to charge that much extra, I'd at least like to know that some fraction of that money isn't going towards killing Linux.
Have you considered importing the laptops from other countries? (I bet you can buy a laptop in China that doesn't come with the MS tax.)
Hydrides currently achieve volumetric energy densities 50% better than liquid hydrogen (and safer than gasoline). There's no mention of this on the page you've linked -- but then the writer clearly has a pro-gasoline axe to grind.
That's because it's a big fat lie.
Volumetric energy density of liquid hydrogen:
2600 Wh/l
Volumetric energy density of lithium ion batteries:
~250-300 Wh/L
Volumetric energy density of Nickel metal hydride batteries:
100 Wh/L
Volumetric energy density of Lead acid batteries:
150 Wh/L
(Small print: I had to make the assumption that this guy was talking about nimh batteries. If he wasn't, he still doesn't deserve a +5 Insightful because "hydrides" refers to an entire frickin class of chemicals and doesn't even give a clue what you're even doing with them.)
Pattents should go through some sort of peer review process. (I'm not going to argue the details, as IANAL.) But something like what publishing takes in the scientific journal world.
I think I have a better idea:
Take away the persumption of validity from a patent. Turn the patent office in a registry of "I invented this on this date."
The first time you want to enforce you patent, you are FORCED to go to court and prove its validity. There a judge can hear aguments from experts presented by both sides, including a side that actually has a financial interest in striking down that patent. (Unlike the USPTO, who refers to patent holders are their "customers".)
Forcing a "blind" peer review wouldn't be worth nearly as much in the fight against shitty patents, since nobody involved in the process has a real interest in NOT letting the patent through, AND you would be wasting scientists time the world over reviewing useless and pointless patents. In terms of their time vs. their money, it's better for these "reviewers" to just pocket and feet they get and rubber stamp anything you give them instantly.
That's a REALLY silly idea.
So I go out and buy a gun, and I bear no responsibility for what happens with it?
How am *I* supposed to know that I shouldn't jerk the steering wheel to one side while doing 90 on the freeway?
You mean I'm not supposed to reach inside the toaster and grab the bread with my bare hands?
Maybe manufacturer or seller of the device should be bothered with "why it is broadcasting personal info", but certainly not the end user.
The consumer should have gone out and read a product review. If they can't be bothered to do even the slightest research, they're asking for trouble and they need to learn that.
The end user has a right to be technologically ignorant and still have his privacy protected.
If you were actually arguing for a fundamental right to privacy, I'd agree with you, but you're not. You're arguing for some crazy restriction of others rights. One much, much worse than current cellphone laws.
You have a really messed up view of what "rights" are:
What's even better is that a non-idiot can take advantage of this new law to start what look to the other party like regular, consensual communications and then later claim they we're.
If you really get into it, thinking like yours would actually destroy the whole damned internet, since it would no longer be safe to connect to public servers, as the server could later claim you "violated it's privacy".
Never mind the fact that they obviously were actively making the information availible to anyone who wanted it, and have absolutely NO security measures in place, we're now supposed to be mind readers and guess whether they "really, really mean to".
After all, what if I actually WANT to give you my phone number?
How are you going to prove that in court when you piss me off later and claim I "stole" it?
Its one thing to trash a music player down to only its storage roots, and quite another to integrate it without losing its original functionality.
You're acting like this is a big deal. Almost ANY mp3 player/camera/whatever, is capable of doing this.
Try getting your USB stick to play MP3's and boot linux...
The ipod isn't "booting linux". It's just being a mass storage device.
Second of all, torturing prisoners is on the highest order of hypocrisy. We expect other nations not to torture our people, yet we do it to them. That's a bunch of bullshit. One standard, please.
Moreover, if we torture people, any sort of "moral authority" we had to invade Iraq in the first place evaporates.
If we're not there because of WMD's... AND we're not there to make life better for the Iraqi people, then why exactly are thousands of people being killed or wounded?
By knowing what the fuck you're transmitting.
In other words, users are generally right in their expectance of some form of protection of their privacy.
Actually, they're generally wrong in both senses of the word:
- Technically, they vastly overestimate the security of their own devices. Even if they know the level of insecurity, they act like the have no responsibility for it. "How dare someone connect to my cellphone THAT IS PROGRAMMED TO AUTOMATICALLY ACCEPT ALL CONNECTIONS! The injustice of it all"
- Ethically, you're making use of the public airwaves. The onus really should be on you to keep your own information private. Being a user of an unliscensed band, you have no more right to it than me.
It's enough to look at the case of good, old-fashioned radio scanners to foresee results.Those laws are both very shortsighted and wrongheaded. Besides providing a false sense of security, and acting as a disincentive to tecnological innovation, I expect them to come under scrutiny soon, as manufacturers will want to begin selling software defined receivers.
Anyways, besides me personally thinking they suck, BLUETOOTH OPERATES IN AN UNLISCENSED BAND. Regulation of an unliscensed band in the manner that you're describing would be truly unprecedented. The FCC has gone so far as to tell airport authorities that they can't regulate the 2.4GHz band at their own airports, do you really think they're going to deviate from this stance because you can't be bothered to properly configure your cellphone?
Executive summary:
How to deal with it?
Turn off bluetooth unless you're actually using it.
There is no need to have yet another rule, law or regulation just because someone can't be bothered to understand what it is they just bought and why it's broadcasting their information to anyone who asks.
Actually, the Bootable linux on ipod is ipod specific. The ipod retains it's music player ability and can have linux installed directly onto it.
RTFA, THE ARTICLE IS ABOUT STORING LINUX ON AN IPOD AND BOOTING IT ON A PC.
That's not "ipod specfic", that's something you can do with anything that will act as a mass storage device.
DUH!
Seems like five times a week we see some new story involving "ipods", that really isn't ipod-specfic at all. Does slashdot make a comission off every ipod sold or something?
Otherwise, why be such blatant whores for apple?
Here are some exampmles:
If you have news about the ipod that's actually ipod-specfic, then fine, otherwise PLEASE STOP WHORING A SPECFIC BRAND NAME. THIS IS SLASHDOT, WE ARE SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT A "MASS STORAGE DEVICE" IS.
But in this case, I don't think you need causation. If Apple is just really good at picking winners, then that has the same effect on blu-ray predictions as Apple being really good at causing winners. Either way, if Apple backs a technology there is a very high chance that it will be successful, whether or not it's Apple's fault.
Bravo. A great example of this is McDonalds.
No two coutries with a McDonald's in them have ever gone to war.
Yet, does anyone seriously claim that McDonald's has that much control over world events?
It's pretty obvious that McDonald's is just careful where they put their restaurants.
Contrary to popular belief most (or at least a lot) of what the NSA does isn't all that secret.
Later on...
The really secret stuff is done by the SIGINT folks.
WTF!? They're "not that secret" but they do "really secret stuff"?
That fact is that the NSA is a highly secretive organization. Try reading their employee manual. As a matter of fact, if you asked me for an example of a "secretive organization", the NSA would be one of the first examples to come to mind.
Heck, the only guys at NSA HQ who even carry guns are the security guards.
OBVIOUSLY. If you're in a building that HAS SECURITY GUARDS, chances are you don't need to carry a gun inside that building. What point are you trying to make here?
That they don't run around shooting people inside their own building?
That all having been said, whoever "harvested" this information is asking for trouble.
I wouldn't say they are "asking" for trouble, but they might get it anyways. Look what the secret service did to Bernie S for taking pictures of an agent picking his nose.
Personally, I find the problem has almost nothing to do with the shape of my mouse.
The most fatiguing aspect my own mousing is wrist-related. While you're using a mouse, your arm is just sort of hanging out there, putting a lot of stress on your wrist.
Think about it, in order to use your mouse, you MUST hold your elbow above the desk the whole time.
Some work has been done to alleviate wrist strain by adding those gel wrist pads, but I think what we really need to see is another pad further back to support your forearm.
The actual standard mouse shape itself is pretty good.
Try this:
Put your hand on your mouse.
Allow it to rotate to a comfortable angle. (For me about 10 deg CCW.)
Freeze your hand and wrist in that position, lift your hand up and look at it.
For me, the result is a very natural even spacing between all my fingers, almost the same you would see if let your arm go limp at your side.
IMO, workstations need more forearm support, not a different-shaped mouse. Take writing for example, you typically rest not just your wrist, but your whole arm on the paper as you write.
But Flash DOES suck.
Pointing out why is like pointing out why living under a fascist regieme sucks. You could go on forever about why it sucks, or you just admit that it sucks and move on to something else.
Let's look at just SOME of the reasons Flash sucks:
Flash sucks. There's TONS of reasons why, but it just plain sucks. It's one step away from double clicking random
Some software just sucks. As another poster put it:
"Flash is a lot like dogshit. It sucks and I hate it."
You don't need to give specfic reasons to hate dogshit because it's dogshit. To a reasonable person, it's pretty obvious that it sucks.
As someone has already mentioned Flash is used extensively on educational websites. I realize that the average geek guy does not find flash extremely useful in daily life unless your into Homestar Runner, but it is incredibly useful in the educational arena, making websites for children much more interactive and useful. (This is my biggest issue with Linux: very few useful, well-designed children's applications.)
Sites like this should be using Java. It's just like putting an MS Word file on your website vs a PDF file.
Sure most people have both Acrobat and MS word, but PDFs are both more portable, and less of a security risk.
Flash is no less of a hassle for the end user, but Java is less of a security risk, more "open" in every sense of the word, AND has much better support on a wider variety of platforms.
It should be almost a non-question.
How many companies make Flash players?
How many companies make Java VM's?
How much does Sun's JDK cost?
How much does Macromedia's stuff cost?
The only reason a power supply might fail is if it is built using cheap, shoddy, or underrated components. A decently made power supply will work for decades without as much as a hiccup.
Are where do you think most consumers place "Wall-wart quality" only their list when they go out to buy new widgets?
Rest assured that your wall warts (and line lumps) are a cheap as the manufacturer could get them from the third world. See the recent Dell recall for an example.
Decent components cost money. Derating components so they last longer costs more money.
I wouldn't count on the cheap electrolytic capacitors in your wall warts lasting for decades.
I rank the Gerbers as the best of any of them. They're built like a tank.
The original Gerber was the most solid, but they don't make them anymore. It was heavy as hell, but it was like a brick of steel. I used it as a hammer on numerous occasions. Alas, it was stolen.
The Gerber legend is the best if you're an electronics nut. It's the *only* full-sized multi-tool I've ever seen with spring loaded handles.
The Gerber 600 is not quite as nice, but still very good. It has the gerber, wrist-flick opening and is reasonably beefy. It's good if you don't want to shell out for a Legend. The blunt-nosed version would make a good bike tool.
The Coleman tool had two things going for it:
-Detachable tools from the handle (Need to hold a nut still while turning a philips screw?)
-The only decent knife blade I've ever seen on a multitool. I general, knife blades on multitools are basically a POS. They're always so thin for their length that it feels like you're going to snap the blade off it you try to do any serious work with it. The Coleman's was double the thickness of any other tool I've seen. Other than that, it mostly sucked.
My favorite thing about the regular Leatherman is the size/weight. If only my Gerbers were that small. Alas, the handle design makes the pliers cut into your hand WAY too much, making the pliers only useful for half of what you could do if it had better handles.
Also, I've played with the Leatherman Wave and IMO it's just not a match for the Gerber Legend. The Legend has beefier, spring loaded pliers with tungsten-carbide cutters, and a tungsten-carbide sawblade. The only thing the Wave seems to do better is the file, but I never find myself really needing a diamond file.
The Squirt P4, is a decent keychain tool, but it's out of its class against any full-sized multitool. Compared to a real multitool, it sucks. Compared to nothing, it's great
I wonder why some people still pretend to understand the laws of the United States when they can't even distinguish between a proposed bill in Congress and an actual law...
I guess that's because the only difference between a bill and a law are a few piles of small, unmarked bills.
It's hard to keep track when that's all you need to get even to most stupid, evil laws passed.
Personally, I think congressmen should be forced to turn over all their assets to the gov't the day they get elected. From then on they are no longer allowed ANY income besides the "golden paracute" retirement policy they have already created for themselves.
It's almost impossible to prove something was a bribe rather than a "gift" but if accepting ANY money became illegal, certain laws would become much easier to enforce.
I dunno... I'm a linux supporter, but I can honestly say that I've had linux act like this at times. Sometimes audio on flash movies will play, sometimes it won't.
Sounds like a problem with flash, not Linux.
It usually requires only a reboot, but it still shouldn't need to.
Linux isn't windows and you shouldn't be rebooting for this. Whatever is crashing on you system can most likely be restarted with a one line console command.
But it's significantly less of a problem than corrupted IDE drivers, especially considering it could (and probably is) the flash player's fault.
Yep. If ALL your sound quit working, you might have a sound driver issue, but it sounds like you have an issue with crappy, probably closed-source flash software... part of the reason I don't have flash installed.
About the review&revisal process for these snapshots, that would make no sense, because you'd have to invest a lot of manpower to do this - and you'd have to make sure that the reviewers are more "reliable" than the average wikipedia editor who does exactly this job regularly.
The thing is, snapshots would *only* be revised for correctness, so it's not really an issue of having better reviewers, but you have (essentially) blocked new errors from being introduced into the text.
Say I have a page about Alexander Hamilton that gets reviewed once a week by a different editor, with the snapshot system, these editors are reviewing the exact same page. This gives you the sum of all the moderators/editors.
It's like having three people proofread the exact same essay vs. having three people proofread three similar essays.
Except that it's an even better effect that because EVERYONE accesing the snapshot is only acting as a reviewer as opposed to a contributor.
As far as investing manpower, that's simply what you need to do to be credible. Sure, reviewing things takes time, but the alternative is being taken less seriously.
Right now wikipedia is simply to easy to subvert. Sure sabatoge is found and eventually corrected, but that doesn't help some poor kid who gets a D on his paper, let alone someone who's looking to use the information in a more serious context.
While the whole democratic nature of wikipedia is wonderful, there's something to be said for having a rigorous process of review. (And there's no reason why the review process can't be just as democratic.) The current wiki system simply can't claim to have that.
There's a reason why most people don't run the odd linux kernel series on their PCs. Wikipedia is essentially always in a development state.
Sure you have people trying to catch bugs in the development kernel, but things are rapidly changing and it's just a given that a significant number of bugs are going to slip through the cracks. Additionally, looking at old versions of wikipedia pages, really only has as much worth as looking at older development linux kernels. They all went through the same process as the current version, so the simply can't be more stable/credible than the current.
The nice thing about having a stable version is that you get the cumulative effort of all who have looked at it or used it.