BBB is much cheaper then the official arduino at any quantity if you don't need the USB after programming or shield compatibility. Same for the arduino pro, which is more expensive, but has shield compatibility and requires no assembly.
Seeeduino is slightly cheaper then the official version and has some cool hardware features missing from the original.
Your first one should probably still be the official arduino board, however. If you need a large quantity, you can save a bundle with the BBB or RBBB.
There's exactly one "adult" game I've enjoyed more then Mario and Zelda: Bioshock. It did have a great adult story, the creepy wasn't overdone for it's own sake, all in all one of the best games of any type.
If you check on Metacritic, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 have higher scores then *any game ever released on PC*. The only game that outscores them on any platform is Grand Theft Auto IV(which I've never played).
If you're too insecure in your own gender identity to enjoy Mario, that's up to you. Plenty of grown men think it's a good time though. Just out of curiosity: Have you actually played Super Mario Galaxy?
One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is the coming boomer retirement. If the economy recovers and boomers are *able* to retire, in the next 10 years will see a huge number of people leaving the workforce, particularly in the sciences. In the 60's, becoming a scientist was both a good career move and seen as "patriotic". The sciences have tons of boomers who are reaching retirement age, and it should make *some* of the sceinces more economically attractive once the boomers leave. Medical research science in particular will probably be a continued growth field.
There's two kinds of schools: Teaching schools and research schools.
Teaching schools are much less prestigious, even when they provide an excellent education, but they are much less stressful, as the focus is on the teaching rather then on research which requires the grants.
Many schools are somewhere in between. At my school, physics and engineering followed the research school model, and math and computer science followed the teaching schoool model. As I was leaving, the CS school was transitioning from a quality teaching school to an entry level research school, with a corresponding drop in the quality of the new teachers.
There are definite benefits to both types of schools, both from the professor and the student side, but you want to be in a high quality version of one or the other, and what makes a good teaching and research institution are completely different.
All that to say, I think your Canadian math professor lives in the "teaching school" camp, and life there is quite different.
There is a high power laser pointer ban, but the ban is on marketing terms only. Only class 3a or lower lasers (0-5mW) may be marketed as laser pointers. Class 3b and higher lasers (5-500mW) may be sold in a hand-held form, but not marketed as pointers or amusement devices.
More to the point, there are regulatory requirements for features in high power laser devices that are often ignored. All types of laser devices of any power must be registered with the FDA prior to sale in the US. Note this is registration per product type, not per sale. Class 3b and higher lasers must have a key based lockout, a remote interlock connector, and a warning label affixed to the product. Most importers of cheap chinese lasers of class 3b (>5mW) fall afoul of all of these requirements, and they are often confiscated in shipping with no recourse for the buyer.
The only class 3b hand-held lasers I've seen recently which meet all the requirements above are sold by wickedlasers.com. In the past year they have added a safety "key" and interlock connector to their class 3b laser products, and they now meet all the legal requirements. Other vendors might also meet the legal requirements, but I have not personally seen any.
The interesting thing is that "Intelligent Design Engineer/Scientist" was the most common Christian response to Darwin's theories soon after they were presented.
It wasn't until the 1920s when "liberal" or "modernist" theology started to cause large amounts of controversy that the fundamentalist movement started to gravitate to a very literal reading of the bible, including Genesis.
The whole "science vs religion" thing is just an unfortunate side effect of fundamentalists becoming overzealous in their defenses against liberal theology.
The whole thing is rather fascinating really. As a practicing Christian in fundamentalist circles, I hate that fundamentalism has moved from its beginnings (Focus on Christ) to over-claiming on lots of things they don't really understand and aren't qualified to speak on.
I've heard the analogy go like this: Windows is a brick building with bars on the windows and an alarm system in a bad part of town. That's "security hardened". Attacks are quite likely, and successful attack techniques spread quickly through the underground. Mac OS is an adobe hut with no locks in the desert. That's "Safety". Attack likelyhood is low.
Against random internet malware, you're much safer with a Mac. Against a well funded, targeted attack, you're screwed either way. There's probably more bugs to find in Macs still, and less hardening of the platform to make those exploits easier to write. Also, there's much more expertise and code written to attack Windows, while on the OS X side it's pretty much just Charlie Miller sitting on his private collection of flaws. He claims it's much easier to find and exploit then on the OS X side though..
There is one place IE 6 is still king: Corporate networks. They no longer make up the largest share of web browsing though, which is why the other browsers have higher market share.
GPL turns copyright on its head, creating a sort of anti-copyright. The BSD license is "Open Source", and much closer to "wanting nothing to do with copyright". Both are actively saying traditional copyright is harmful to innovation.
This is really not a problem. If the Gov't really wants access to your calls, they bug your room, bug your computer microphone, install custom phone firmware with a backdoor, etc. Usually all the Gov't cares about is the metadata: Who called who when. The conversations themselves are gravy.
Encryption stops casual snooping, and I highly recommend it's use, even against gov't level attacks. However, if the Gov't really is interested in you specifically, you're hosed no matter what countermeasures you use.
Display your pictures on your computer desktop, screensaver, on your large LCD tv, etc.
If you really have to print them for some reason, they print much better at Walmart, CVS, or other online photo printers.
If you need a few color prints for desktop publishing type stuff, you can do that cheap at Staples, etc.
Really, most home users should buy a cheap laser printer (the brother HL-21?? line is good with really cheap consumables) and outsource their color printing needs. Or buy an iPad, KindleDX, or other PDF reader and move off of dead tree altogether.
Yes, you can improve the Theora(the free video codec I think you meant to say) encoder. Xiph is doing just that.
Still, improvements to the encoder, while they can give massive improvement, will never bring it to the level of H.264. To do that, you need to make changes to the codec itself, and those changes would be the same ones that are in VP8. With the exception of B-frames (which are rather important), VP8 is fairly modern and should be able to compete much more closely with a good H.264 codec. H.264 High profile will still be better then VP8, but it will be a much closer match. VP8 already beats H.264 Baseline Profile(Basile is also missing B-frames), which is what is served by Youtube as the non-high def formats, as Baseline is what mobiles can handle. High def formats on Youtube use H.264 High profile, which is still the king of the hill. VP8 can only hope to get close, it has pretty much no chance of beating a good High Profile encoder.
I'm not overly optimistic: I'm mostly selfish. I hope my actions evoke change, but I predominately do what benefits me now.
I buy non-DRM ebook content from O'Reilly and Manning, who are major players in the tech books I spend most of my reading dollars on. I do it somewhat in the hope that their success will spill over into other publishers, but mostly because it's the content I want, at reasonable prices, in all the formats I care about. Both companies have also made new formats available to previous ebook owners as new formats come out, and allow you to redownload content if you no longer have the original copies.
I still fail to understand how my predominately selfish support of major publishers who sell non-DRM content with reasonable policies is worse then your complete lack of a plan to evoke any change, but I guess we just have to disagree on that one.
Sorry, I'm lost in this thread now. Why exactly do you think the kindle hardware with non-DRMed content is immoral(the original question)? What exactly do you think will enact change better then educating my friends and family and voting with my money?
I also bought an iPod when iTunes was DRM restricted, and put on it non-drmed material. Guess what, all major music stores are DRM free now, because people found out DRM was a pain in the butt and it was easier to steal.
The competition for many DRMed works are stolen works. With music, businesses eventually saw that people would go for the easiest solution available, legal or illegal, and they dropped DRM to make their goods for sale more convenient.
Change does happen. It has happened before, and it will happen again.
I was not arguing for or against DRM at all. My point was simply this: I bought a Kindle, and cannot "Have YOUR(my) PAID FOR books removed at amazons will." You're overgeneralizing. The Kindle the device and the Kindle bookstore are convenient to use together, but my non-DRMed books from O'Reilly, Manning Publications, and other publishers work just fine with no threat from Amazon's DRM.
As to your argument, I assume the DRM fight cannot include buying non-DRMed ebooks to show the business model is valid? Business only understands two languages: Laws and Money. Outlawing DRM isn't likely, so only economics works. That's not really the reason I buy what I do however: I buy them because it's convenient for me. Given a choice I buy the non-DRM option, from the vendor that provides the largest number of ebook formats. This is not the equivalent of ignoring abuse, it's the equivalent of strongly preferring to buy goods from non-abusers. I educate my family on friends on the perils of DRM and buy DRM free goods when possible, thus maximizing the economic conditions that foster the downfall of DRM. Business hears only money, so education and purchasing decisions are much more effective then simply making noise in protest.
I buy predominantly non-DRMed books to read on my kindle DX. The fact that DRMed books are also available isn't a restriction on my freedoms if I don't choose to buy them, and if I do choose to buy them Amazon's policies have been good so far with only on very public misstep they later corrected.
The PC Engines ALIX series are similar to the Soekris boards, are fast and well supported by various open source routers, including hardware based crypto acceleration. It comes in various versions with different number of lan ports and mini-pci ports to fit most needs. http://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm
KDE, Gnome, DRM2, and Gallium3d ARE underlying systems. KDE and Gnome are much more then GUIs, they are also suites of libraries and backends for all sorts activities. KDE 4 was a user space change in the same order of magnitude as the Apple OS 9- OS X switch.
DRM2, gallium3d, and KMS are ways to clean up graphics drivers. Nvidia stopped developing it's open source video drivers since Noveau is much better at this point, and they still support and are making large changes to their closed source driver.
Every Linux computer I've tried to hook up to my HDTV has worked fine. The all are semi-modern and have HDMI output though, so can't speak to what your problem might be.
The velocity of Linux is as high or higher then it ever has been. You might not be happy with the current product, but that doesn't mean it's not improving quickly. It has also "just worked" for me for years now. As the web continues to grow into the dominant application platform, Linux continues to become more and more relevant, and there's less and less downside to switching from Windows or OS X.g
Laser printers use toner, not ink. It's quite possible the article writer does not know the difference, but there is one. Dye sublimation printers also use something commonly referred to as ink, but ink jet printers are much more common.
Slashdot Mirror
BBB is much cheaper then the official arduino at any quantity if you don't need the USB after programming or shield compatibility. Same for the arduino pro, which is more expensive, but has shield compatibility and requires no assembly.
Seeeduino is slightly cheaper then the official version and has some cool hardware features missing from the original.
Your first one should probably still be the official arduino board, however. If you need a large quantity, you can save a bundle with the BBB or RBBB.
There's exactly one "adult" game I've enjoyed more then Mario and Zelda: Bioshock. It did have a great adult story, the creepy wasn't overdone for it's own sake, all in all one of the best games of any type.
If you check on Metacritic, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 have higher scores then *any game ever released on PC*. The only game that outscores them on any platform is Grand Theft Auto IV(which I've never played).
If you're too insecure in your own gender identity to enjoy Mario, that's up to you. Plenty of grown men think it's a good time though. Just out of curiosity: Have you actually played Super Mario Galaxy?
One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is the coming boomer retirement. If the economy recovers and boomers are *able* to retire, in the next 10 years will see a huge number of people leaving the workforce, particularly in the sciences. In the 60's, becoming a scientist was both a good career move and seen as "patriotic". The sciences have tons of boomers who are reaching retirement age, and it should make *some* of the sceinces more economically attractive once the boomers leave. Medical research science in particular will probably be a continued growth field.
There's two kinds of schools: Teaching schools and research schools.
Teaching schools are much less prestigious, even when they provide an excellent education, but they are much less stressful, as the focus is on the teaching rather then on research which requires the grants.
Many schools are somewhere in between. At my school, physics and engineering followed the research school model, and math and computer science followed the teaching schoool model. As I was leaving, the CS school was transitioning from a quality teaching school to an entry level research school, with a corresponding drop in the quality of the new teachers.
There are definite benefits to both types of schools, both from the professor and the student side, but you want to be in a high quality version of one or the other, and what makes a good teaching and research institution are completely different.
All that to say, I think your Canadian math professor lives in the "teaching school" camp, and life there is quite different.
There is a high power laser pointer ban, but the ban is on marketing terms only. Only class 3a or lower lasers (0-5mW) may be marketed as laser pointers. Class 3b and higher lasers (5-500mW) may be sold in a hand-held form, but not marketed as pointers or amusement devices.
More to the point, there are regulatory requirements for features in high power laser devices that are often ignored.
All types of laser devices of any power must be registered with the FDA prior to sale in the US. Note this is registration per product type, not per sale. Class 3b and higher lasers must have a key based lockout, a remote interlock connector, and a warning label affixed to the product. Most importers of cheap chinese lasers of class 3b (>5mW) fall afoul of all of these requirements, and they are often confiscated in shipping with no recourse for the buyer.
http://www.fda.gov/Radiation-EmittingProducts/RadiationEmittingProductsandProcedures/HomeBusinessandEntertainment/LaserProductsandInstruments/ucm116373.htm
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfCFR/CFRSearch.cfm?FR=1040.10
The only class 3b hand-held lasers I've seen recently which meet all the requirements above are sold by wickedlasers.com. In the past year they have added a safety "key" and interlock connector to their class 3b laser products, and they now meet all the legal requirements. Other vendors might also meet the legal requirements, but I have not personally seen any.
The interesting thing is that "Intelligent Design Engineer/Scientist" was the most common Christian response to Darwin's theories soon after they were presented.
It wasn't until the 1920s when "liberal" or "modernist" theology started to cause large amounts of controversy that the fundamentalist movement started to gravitate to a very literal reading of the bible, including Genesis.
The whole "science vs religion" thing is just an unfortunate side effect of fundamentalists becoming overzealous in their defenses against liberal theology.
The whole thing is rather fascinating really. As a practicing Christian in fundamentalist circles, I hate that fundamentalism has moved from its beginnings (Focus on Christ) to over-claiming on lots of things they don't really understand and aren't qualified to speak on.
For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation-evolution_controversy or for some dead tree reading: http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Firmament-Understanding-Theology-Creation/dp/0978718615
It's a safety vs security thing also.
Windows is more secure. Macs are more safe.
I've heard the analogy go like this:
Windows is a brick building with bars on the windows and an alarm system in a bad part of town. That's "security hardened". Attacks are quite likely, and successful attack techniques spread quickly through the underground.
Mac OS is an adobe hut with no locks in the desert. That's "Safety". Attack likelyhood is low.
Against random internet malware, you're much safer with a Mac. Against a well funded, targeted attack, you're screwed either way. There's probably more bugs to find in Macs still, and less hardening of the platform to make those exploits easier to write. Also, there's much more expertise and code written to attack Windows, while on the OS X side it's pretty much just Charlie Miller sitting on his private collection of flaws. He claims it's much easier to find and exploit then on the OS X side though..
IE 6 is definitely not the most used browser version by any stats site I've seen.
IE8 is. Depending on which stats site you look at, either FF 3.6 or IE 6 is second.
http://gs.statcounter.com/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#browser_version-ww-monthly-201005-201005-bar
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2
There is one place IE 6 is still king: Corporate networks. They no longer make up the largest share of web browsing though, which is why the other browsers have higher market share.
GPL turns copyright on its head, creating a sort of anti-copyright. The BSD license is "Open Source", and much closer to "wanting nothing to do with copyright". Both are actively saying traditional copyright is harmful to innovation.
This is really not a problem. If the Gov't really wants access to your calls, they bug your room, bug your computer microphone, install custom phone firmware with a backdoor, etc. Usually all the Gov't cares about is the metadata: Who called who when. The conversations themselves are gravy.
Encryption stops casual snooping, and I highly recommend it's use, even against gov't level attacks. However, if the Gov't really is interested in you specifically, you're hosed no matter what countermeasures you use.
Display your pictures on your computer desktop, screensaver, on your large LCD tv, etc.
If you really have to print them for some reason, they print much better at Walmart, CVS, or other online photo printers.
If you need a few color prints for desktop publishing type stuff, you can do that cheap at Staples, etc.
Really, most home users should buy a cheap laser printer (the brother HL-21?? line is good with really cheap consumables) and outsource their color printing needs. Or buy an iPad, KindleDX, or other PDF reader and move off of dead tree altogether.
Yes, you can improve the Theora(the free video codec I think you meant to say) encoder. Xiph is doing just that.
Still, improvements to the encoder, while they can give massive improvement, will never bring it to the level of H.264. To do that, you need to make changes to the codec itself, and those changes would be the same ones that are in VP8. With the exception of B-frames (which are rather important), VP8 is fairly modern and should be able to compete much more closely with a good H.264 codec. H.264 High profile will still be better then VP8, but it will be a much closer match. VP8 already beats H.264 Baseline Profile(Basile is also missing B-frames), which is what is served by Youtube as the non-high def formats, as Baseline is what mobiles can handle. High def formats on Youtube use H.264 High profile, which is still the king of the hill. VP8 can only hope to get close, it has pretty much no chance of beating a good High Profile encoder.
Schneier nailed this one recently. Worst case thinking is paralyzing and harmful. It does little but draw attention to the speaker.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/05/worst-case_thin.html
I don't doubt that espionage is going on, but this article is way light on statistics and proof, and way heavy on FUD.
I'm not overly optimistic: I'm mostly selfish. I hope my actions evoke change, but I predominately do what benefits me now.
I buy non-DRM ebook content from O'Reilly and Manning, who are major players in the tech books I spend most of my reading dollars on. I do it somewhat in the hope that their success will spill over into other publishers, but mostly because it's the content I want, at reasonable prices, in all the formats I care about. Both companies have also made new formats available to previous ebook owners as new formats come out, and allow you to redownload content if you no longer have the original copies.
I still fail to understand how my predominately selfish support of major publishers who sell non-DRM content with reasonable policies is worse then your complete lack of a plan to evoke any change, but I guess we just have to disagree on that one.
Sorry, I'm lost in this thread now. Why exactly do you think the kindle hardware with non-DRMed content is immoral(the original question)? What exactly do you think will enact change better then educating my friends and family and voting with my money?
I also bought an iPod when iTunes was DRM restricted, and put on it non-drmed material. Guess what, all major music stores are DRM free now, because people found out DRM was a pain in the butt and it was easier to steal.
The competition for many DRMed works are stolen works. With music, businesses eventually saw that people would go for the easiest solution available, legal or illegal, and they dropped DRM to make their goods for sale more convenient.
Change does happen. It has happened before, and it will happen again.
I was not arguing for or against DRM at all. My point was simply this: I bought a Kindle, and cannot "Have YOUR(my) PAID FOR books removed at amazons will." You're overgeneralizing. The Kindle the device and the Kindle bookstore are convenient to use together, but my non-DRMed books from O'Reilly, Manning Publications, and other publishers work just fine with no threat from Amazon's DRM.
As to your argument, I assume the DRM fight cannot include buying non-DRMed ebooks to show the business model is valid? Business only understands two languages: Laws and Money. Outlawing DRM isn't likely, so only economics works. That's not really the reason I buy what I do however: I buy them because it's convenient for me. Given a choice I buy the non-DRM option, from the vendor that provides the largest number of ebook formats.
This is not the equivalent of ignoring abuse, it's the equivalent of strongly preferring to buy goods from non-abusers. I educate my family on friends on the perils of DRM and buy DRM free goods when possible, thus maximizing the economic conditions that foster the downfall of DRM. Business hears only money, so education and purchasing decisions are much more effective then simply making noise in protest.
I buy predominantly non-DRMed books to read on my kindle DX. The fact that DRMed books are also available isn't a restriction on my freedoms if I don't choose to buy them, and if I do choose to buy them Amazon's policies have been good so far with only on very public misstep they later corrected.
The political parties want power more then they want what is good for the country. It's not that hard to understand.
The PC Engines ALIX series are similar to the Soekris boards, are fast and well supported by various open source routers, including hardware based crypto acceleration.
It comes in various versions with different number of lan ports and mini-pci ports to fit most needs.
http://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm
Another good and cheaper replacement is the router station pro.
It does have gigE ports, unlike the ALIX and Soekris boards, and is quite affordable.
http://www.ubnt.com/rspro
Version with case here:
http://www.netgate.com/product_info.php?cPath=27_104&products_id=812
That's true in the world of 90-120 watt monster desktop chips, but in the portable space, RISC still has an advantage.
Yes, for pretty much every disaster or even most large parades or races.
Google "ARES RACES" for plenty more information.
KDE, Gnome, DRM2, and Gallium3d ARE underlying systems. KDE and Gnome are much more then GUIs, they are also suites of libraries and backends for all sorts activities. KDE 4 was a user space change in the same order of magnitude as the Apple OS 9- OS X switch.
DRM2, gallium3d, and KMS are ways to clean up graphics drivers. Nvidia stopped developing it's open source video drivers since Noveau is much better at this point, and they still support and are making large changes to their closed source driver.
Every Linux computer I've tried to hook up to my HDTV has worked fine. The all are semi-modern and have HDMI output though, so can't speak to what your problem might be.
The velocity of Linux is as high or higher then it ever has been. You might not be happy with the current product, but that doesn't mean it's not improving quickly. It has also "just worked" for me for years now. As the web continues to grow into the dominant application platform, Linux continues to become more and more relevant, and there's less and less downside to switching from Windows or OS X.g
Seeing as it's March 30th, that would have to be 2 datelines...
Laser printers use toner, not ink. It's quite possible the article writer does not know the difference, but there is one.
Dye sublimation printers also use something commonly referred to as ink, but ink jet printers are much more common.