I saw on last week's C.S.I. the new MS side scrolling wheel mouse, and they made reference to the Xbox. I wasn't really paying attention to placements before, but I'll watch more closely next week.
Thanks Michael. I know you are right once you leave the mass market "PC clone" arena, but the bulk of all personal computers sold are PC hardware. Most PC users are even more clueless than I am.
My main point is that MS has a track record of doing everything possible (not just legal) to lock the bulk of the users into the Windows platform. That includes marketing, software, and hardware lockins. There is a lot of reason to suppose that if they enter the BIOS market, that they will try for a locking there as well.
Deep tech guys will always be able to break through the locking (barring DMCA) but MS doesn't care if a 100 users aren't using Windows. It's the other 100's of millions that they are looking at.
What percentage of the population really knows anything about Unix at all? What percentage of the population knows how to make the "standard" vendor key "functional"? Is that sliver of the population really going to make a differnce in the market?
BTW, can you link to the "standard" that specifies the vendor key for me? Can you tell me the function that a key with a flying window should have on my home built SuSE machine? Didn't think so.
Yes, I too remeber the time before MS had an iron grip on the keyboard business. Keyboards used to look like this, as you say. Now, try and purchase a keyboard that doesn't look like this. I even bought a Keytronic, but it is the same.
Yeah, remember the last time Microsoft tried to alter PC hardware so that it could only boot with...
I'll make it simpler for you. "Try to remember the last time that Microsoft tried to alter PC hardware so that the keyboard would only be fully functional with MS Windows." Does that help?
You might also ask yourself if you think it is likely that MS will supply a Linux driver for their new side scrolling mouse? Didn't think so.
The BIOS itself could easily become an MS product. Already XP complains if you try to load unsigned (by MS) drivers. The BIOS in many ways is like a driver for the base system hardware, at least during the booting process. Microsoft may try to sell the takeover as "for the safety of the children,.. er, operating system". BIOS code is tiny compared to the OS code, so it wouldn't be technically hard to do it. Of course they could just buy Pheonix, no problem.
While the initial open source software may be free, most studies conclude that acquisition costs represent only 5 to 10 percent of total cost of ownership.
So the total cost of owership could be 10 to 20 times the aquistion cost. Let's see, what is 20 times free?
I'm a Linux newbie. The file linkss on Magnatune seem to be all to *.m3u files. My machine (SuSE 8.2) doesn't know what to do with those. I can play MP3 files ok, but how do I get them out of the site? Thanks!
My first scientific calculator was the Sinclair Low Cost Scientific calculator. I got it through an ad in the Scientific American, where it was sold in kit form for only $100. (Yes, the white one with the aqua buttons.) The assembled model was $200! I was very pleased, but I bought an HP later that was much more powerful.
Re:Mr. Spock's commentary on plasma balls.
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Plasma Comes Alive
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· Score: 1
Well fine, so you are interested in history as it was, instead of history as it *should* have been.
Re:Mr. Spock's commentary on plasma balls.
on
Plasma Comes Alive
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· Score: 1
No, that sounds more like Bones. Spock would say something like "Fascinating, this seems to be a non-organic life form."
A convicted drug dealer should be sentenced do the time that is given to somebody who deals drugs. Somebody who is convicted of making chemical weapons (illegally) should do the time that goes with that offense. Different crimes, differnt times.
It might be that the semi-flat bottom results in less sound energy being sent downward, and more being sent up. So it need not really make the plane any quieter, just quieter to those on the ground.
Hot fusion is alive and working in experimental reactors.
If you plot the time from the present until hot fussion will be commercially available over time, you will see that it keeps moving farther into the future every year. In 50 years, it will be ready for commercial use in 70 more years, if the trend continues.
I expect the copyright to "Steamboat Willie" to expire just before we see commercial fusion plants.
The cold fusion-ists can't even agree amongst themselves what that "something" is! Heat? Neutrons? Helium? Alchemy? In the quantities they claim, all three are DIFFERENT and MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE of each other.
If there were any fusion taking place, there would be excess heat, released neutrons (posibly), and helium produced, which could be called Alchemy (H + H = He). We know fusion is possible, because the Sun can do it, and we can do it will intertial or magnetic confinement and simple thermal energy applied to the hydrogen or duterium or tritium. If heat energy can do the job at pressures far below those found in an ordinary solid or liquid, you better know an awful lot before you make the claim that it is impossible to cause fusion in a solid with electrical energy at room temperature.
You are quite right that cold fusion has not been proven, but neither has the possibility of cold fusion been disproven. That would be a much harder job to do.
Lots of interesting things happen with electrons in crystals, especially in stretched crystals. I'm not claiming that I know that cold fusion works, I just object to folks saying that "it goes against physics" as thought physics were a religion or something. If cold fusion were a fact, physics could accomodate it easily in the existing framework of things. No need to change quantum mechanics or anything, just some previously unknown nano-scale effects.
We've already seen some things like this that did pan out, the light microscope that uses a metalized glass fiber with an aperature smaller than 1 wavelength of light to illuminate the specimen.
Cold fusion doesn't go against physics in any way at all. All you need to do is to get a gradient of a couple of volts across an atomic distance, and you will be able to overcome the natural repulsion two protons feel for each other.
When cold fusion was "hot" the theorists were all over it with ways that it could reasonably be happening.
Slashdot Mirror
I saw on last week's C.S.I. the new MS side scrolling wheel mouse, and they made reference to the Xbox. I wasn't really paying attention to placements before, but I'll watch more closely next week.
Thanks Michael. I know you are right once you leave the mass market "PC clone" arena, but the bulk of all personal computers sold are PC hardware. Most PC users are even more clueless than I am.
My main point is that MS has a track record of doing everything possible (not just legal) to lock the bulk of the users into the Windows platform. That includes marketing, software, and hardware lockins. There is a lot of reason to suppose that if they enter the BIOS market, that they will try for a locking there as well.
Deep tech guys will always be able to break through the locking (barring DMCA) but MS doesn't care if a 100 users aren't using Windows. It's the other 100's of millions that they are looking at.
What percentage of the population really knows anything about Unix at all? What percentage of the population knows how to make the "standard" vendor key "functional"? Is that sliver of the population really going to make a differnce in the market?
BTW, can you link to the "standard" that specifies the vendor key for me? Can you tell me the function that a key with a flying window should have on my home built SuSE machine? Didn't think so.
Yes, I too remeber the time before MS had an iron grip on the keyboard business. Keyboards used to look like this, as you say. Now, try and purchase a keyboard that doesn't look like this. I even bought a Keytronic, but it is the same.
You might also ask yourself if you think it is likely that MS will supply a Linux driver for their new side scrolling mouse? Didn't think so.
Look at your keyboard. What key is on the bottom row, between the Ctrl and Alt keys? I thought so.
The BIOS itself could easily become an MS product. Already XP complains if you try to load unsigned (by MS) drivers. The BIOS in many ways is like a driver for the base system hardware, at least during the booting process. Microsoft may try to sell the takeover as "for the safety of the children, .. er, operating system". BIOS code is tiny compared to the OS code, so it wouldn't be technically hard to do it. Of course they could just buy Pheonix, no problem.
Perhaps not everybody, but some are.
Thanks! That worked fine.
I'm a Linux newbie. The file linkss on Magnatune seem to be all to *.m3u files. My machine (SuSE 8.2) doesn't know what to do with those. I can play MP3 files ok, but how do I get them out of the site? Thanks!
I think Article 1, section 9 is more to the point!
"No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state. "
Not much wiggle room there.
My first scientific calculator was the Sinclair Low Cost Scientific calculator. I got it through an ad in the Scientific American, where it was sold in kit form for only $100. (Yes, the white one with the aqua buttons.) The assembled model was $200! I was very pleased, but I bought an HP later that was much more powerful.
Well fine, so you are interested in history as it was, instead of history as it *should* have been.
No, that sounds more like Bones. Spock would say something like "Fascinating, this seems to be a non-organic life form."
I too support Senator Feingold in his opposition of the USA PATRIOT Act. It is sad that there was only one, but better than having none oppose it.
A convicted drug dealer should be sentenced do the time that is given to somebody who deals drugs. Somebody who is convicted of making chemical weapons (illegally) should do the time that goes with that offense. Different crimes, differnt times.
This worked for me!
It might be that the semi-flat bottom results in less sound energy being sent downward, and more being sent up. So it need not really make the plane any quieter, just quieter to those on the ground.
If you plot the time from the present until hot fussion will be commercially available over time, you will see that it keeps moving farther into the future every year. In 50 years, it will be ready for commercial use in 70 more years, if the trend continues.
I expect the copyright to "Steamboat Willie" to expire just before we see commercial fusion plants.
You have your ten's digit upside down.
If there were any fusion taking place, there would be excess heat, released neutrons (posibly), and helium produced, which could be called Alchemy (H + H = He). We know fusion is possible, because the Sun can do it, and we can do it will intertial or magnetic confinement and simple thermal energy applied to the hydrogen or duterium or tritium. If heat energy can do the job at pressures far below those found in an ordinary solid or liquid, you better know an awful lot before you make the claim that it is impossible to cause fusion in a solid with electrical energy at room temperature.
You are quite right that cold fusion has not been proven, but neither has the possibility of cold fusion been disproven. That would be a much harder job to do.
Lots of interesting things happen with electrons in crystals, especially in stretched crystals. I'm not claiming that I know that cold fusion works, I just object to folks saying that "it goes against physics" as thought physics were a religion or something. If cold fusion were a fact, physics could accomodate it easily in the existing framework of things. No need to change quantum mechanics or anything, just some previously unknown nano-scale effects. We've already seen some things like this that did pan out, the light microscope that uses a metalized glass fiber with an aperature smaller than 1 wavelength of light to illuminate the specimen.
Cold fusion doesn't go against physics in any way at all. All you need to do is to get a gradient of a couple of volts across an atomic distance, and you will be able to overcome the natural repulsion two protons feel for each other. When cold fusion was "hot" the theorists were all over it with ways that it could reasonably be happening.
Please check out this white paper, DCOM and CORBA Side by Side, Step by Step, and Layer by Layer and see if you can pick out which is the simpler, faster, and more reliable technology. Thanks.