Actually, an e-bike can make alot of sense in the right circumstances. I would consider biking to work, except having survived several heart attacks at age 50, it is not prudent for me to push any cardio exercise too far. It doesn't help that my dad dropped dead on an exercise bike at age 58.
Still, I'd like to do my part for the environment and get a safe amount of exercise in the bargain, but the 500 foot hill between me and work is a real obstacle. This e-bike thingy could be just the thing for me.
Sadly, while I'd like to hear a real discussion of the pros and cons of the available technologies, I instead have to wade through post-after-post made by arrogant idiots who cannot imagine that there might actually be people out here that could derive some benefits from e-bikes.
Where the heck do you people get the money to drop $7000 on a friggin' wedding? I work, make okay money, and don't have the money to buy lunch every day, let alone drop a seven grand on a wedding.
Of course, I just got a $1,000 loan for a monitor.
I, too, would recommend a Via system. My gateway/router is a Via 866 MHz based mini-tower with 80G Seagate Barracuda. Idling, the system uses something under 20 Watts(less than a couple of night-lights).
I disconnected power to the CPU fan and power supply fan, and was able to run the system under full-load without any problems. Aside from a faint whir from the hard drive, it is completely silent.
The mini-tower is mostly empty, and the thermally-driven air flow seems to be enough to cool the system. Cost was around $200.
Okay, here's as much as I can figure out about it.
Some assert that storage and retrieval of data is best done using a "relational" methodology.
The gurus of relational theory complain that the most ubiquitous implementation of relational operations, SQL, does not truly represent the relational model due to the fact that the designers of SQL did not truly understand the its subtleties.
The author asserts that those same designers are making the similar mistakes in implementing XQuery.
AFAICT, the big mistakes are:
1) XML is intrinsically a format for representing data across domains, and it is ill-suited to the task of representing and/or exercising the relational logic that may exist between data elements.
2) As XML is inherently hierarchical, not relational, database functionality developed with XML will trend toward a hierarchical architecture which has long been known to be less than optimal.
For me, the most salient point was the line:...why use a data interchange format for data management, something for which it was not intended?
The short answer is no. The physics of railguns seems to limit muzzle velocity to around 6 km/sec, which is substantially lower than orbital or escape velocity (at least when I was working on them - best case vacuum launch).
You might imagine a railgun launcher to give a conventional rocket some initial velocity thereby reducing the on board fuel requirements for the rocket. However, given a rail track less than a number of kilometers, the G forces of the launch would turn most anything into mush or rubble, so about all you could launch would be slugs of inert or hardened material. If the rail track were several kilometers long, it would be a bitch to aim.
This also disregards atmospheric drag issues.
The simple fact is that the earth is so massive we cannot jump off of it. The only way into space for the near future is rockets - until we master gravity.
One day, in line at the company cafeteria, Jack says to Mike behind him, "My elbow hurts like hell. I guess I better see a doctor. " "Listen, don't waste time," Mike replies. "There's a diagnostic computer down at Asda. Just give it a urine sample and the computer'll tell you what's wrong and what to do about it. It takes ten seconds and costs five pounds. . . a lot quicker and better than a doctor. " So Jack deposits a urine sample in a small jar and takes it to Asda.
He deposits five pounds, and the computer lights up and asks for the urine sample. He pours the sample into the slot and waits.
Ten seconds later, the computer ejects a printout: "You have tennis elbow. Soak your arm in warm water and avoid heavy activity. It will improve in two weeks"
That evening while thinking how amazing this new technology was, Jack began wondering if the computer could be fooled. He mixed some tap water, a stool sample from his dog, urine samples from his wife and daughter, and masturbated into the mixture for good measure. Jack hurries back to Asda, eager to check the results. He deposits five pounds, pours in his concoction, and awaits the results. The computer prints the following:
1. Your tap water is too hard. Get a water softener.
2. Your dog has ringworm. Bathe him with anti-fungal shampoo.
3. Your daughter has a cocaine habit. Get her into rehab.
4. Your wife is pregnant. Twins. They aren't yours. Get a lawyer.
5. If you don't stop playing with yourself, your elbow will never get better. and thank you for shopping at Asda.
I don't think any of the opposite sex will be amused.
Au contraire!
They may not be particularly interested, but I am certain that they will be amused, although they will probably wait for you to leave before ROTFLTAO at what a geek you are.
Joe has been my *nix editor of choice for over ten years, and I've always felt like a second-class citizen because I wasn't 1337 enough to grok emacs or vi (and yes, I can use them funblingly if you put a gun to my head).
Now I can hold my head high, knowing that there are world-class geeks using my favorite editor.
My dad used to drive me nuts while playing bridge. He would pick up a newly dealt hand, look at it for about ten seconds (he never sorted it), then put the cards down until the bidding was over.
At the end of the play he was able to tell exactly which card was played by each player in each trick and if you had made a mistake (God help you), he would tell you which card you should have played instead.
Then there was the time that he played two games of (timed) blind chess simultaneously against me and my sister while cooking dinner in the kitchen.
He used this ability all the time everywhere, and from watching him get through life, I can assert that it is actually useful to be able to recall random sequences accurately - at least for a short while (dad was Phd Chem Eng).
I wish I had half as good a memory as he. Miss you dad!
Actually, I had noticed that Mr. Dell cashed in a cool billion worth of stock last December. It must be nice to be able to take that much money off the table, and still be a major stakeholder.
I wonder if he will simply take time to enjoy life, or perhaps he has a new pet project that has piqued his interest.
Best wishes Michael, and thanks for all the magazine covers.
Ten years ago, Win311 ran pretty well on a machine with 4MB. Now 128MB is recommended for XP. A linear extrapolation suggests that we'll need 4GB to run pretty well in 2014. I'm glad they're starting now so that the 64-bit CPUs will be really cheap when we truly need them.
I vaguely recall having used a modem to dial into campus from my C64 in '84. Xmodem or one of its descendents would happily download your GEOS data (300 baud or higher).
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, an e-bike can make alot of sense in the right circumstances. I would consider biking to work, except having survived several heart attacks at age 50, it is not prudent for me to push any cardio exercise too far. It doesn't help that my dad dropped dead on an exercise bike at age 58.
Still, I'd like to do my part for the environment and get a safe amount of exercise in the bargain, but the 500 foot hill between me and work is a real obstacle. This e-bike thingy could be just the thing for me.
Sadly, while I'd like to hear a real discussion of the pros and cons of the available technologies, I instead have to wade through post-after-post made by arrogant idiots who cannot imagine that there might actually be people out here that could derive some benefits from e-bikes.
Life is bigger than you, and you are not me...
Where the heck do you people get the money to drop $7000 on a friggin' wedding? I work, make okay money, and don't have the money to buy lunch every day, let alone drop a seven grand on a wedding.
Of course, I just got a $1,000 loan for a monitor.
...And don't forget that September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate day!
I disconnected power to the CPU fan and power supply fan, and was able to run the system under full-load without any problems. Aside from a faint whir from the hard drive, it is completely silent.
The mini-tower is mostly empty, and the thermally-driven air flow seems to be enough to cool the system. Cost was around $200.
Everybody loses interest when they get to chapter 11.
I wonder how much more Sun would need to pay to get this article posted a third time.
Last time I checked a 1 GHz PIII was comparable to a 1.6 GHz P4. Does that hold true here or is the P4 required?
So does this affect the 7.x releases of Netscape as well?
I was wondering who was going to keep track of all the non-cents on the internet.
Whoa! That's way to much partying for me.
Okay, here's as much as I can figure out about it.
...why use a data interchange format for data management, something for which it was not intended?
Some assert that storage and retrieval of data is best done using a "relational" methodology.
The gurus of relational theory complain that the most ubiquitous implementation of relational operations, SQL, does not truly represent the relational model due to the fact that the designers of SQL did not truly understand the its subtleties.
The author asserts that those same designers are making the similar mistakes in implementing XQuery.
AFAICT, the big mistakes are:
1) XML is intrinsically a format for representing data across domains, and it is ill-suited to the task of representing and/or exercising the relational logic that may exist between data elements.
2) As XML is inherently hierarchical, not relational, database functionality developed with XML will trend toward a hierarchical architecture which has long been known to be less than optimal.
For me, the most salient point was the line:
The short answer is no. The physics of railguns seems to limit muzzle velocity to around 6 km/sec, which is substantially lower than orbital or escape velocity (at least when I was working on them - best case vacuum launch).
You might imagine a railgun launcher to give a conventional rocket some initial velocity thereby reducing the on board fuel requirements for the rocket. However, given a rail track less than a number of kilometers, the G forces of the launch would turn most anything into mush or rubble, so about all you could launch would be slugs of inert or hardened material. If the rail track were several kilometers long, it would be a bitch to aim.
This also disregards atmospheric drag issues.
The simple fact is that the earth is so massive we cannot jump off of it. The only way into space for the near future is rockets - until we master gravity.
Yeah, some of us just can't manage without the Korean, Slovakian and Urdu documentation.
One day, in line at the company cafeteria, Jack says to Mike behind him, "My elbow hurts like hell. I guess I better see a doctor. " "Listen, don't waste time," Mike replies. "There's a diagnostic computer down at Asda. Just give it a urine sample and the computer'll tell you what's wrong and what to do about it. It takes ten seconds and costs five pounds. . . a lot quicker and better than a doctor. " So Jack deposits a urine sample in a small jar and takes it to Asda.
He deposits five pounds, and the computer lights up and asks for the urine sample. He pours the sample into the slot and waits.
Ten seconds later, the computer ejects a printout: "You have tennis elbow. Soak your arm in warm water and avoid heavy activity. It will improve in two weeks"
That evening while thinking how amazing this new technology was, Jack began wondering if the computer could be fooled. He mixed some tap water, a stool sample from his dog, urine samples from his wife and daughter, and masturbated into the mixture for good measure. Jack hurries back to Asda, eager to check the results. He deposits five pounds, pours in his concoction, and awaits the results. The computer prints the following:
1. Your tap water is too hard. Get a water softener.
2. Your dog has ringworm. Bathe him with anti-fungal shampoo.
3. Your daughter has a cocaine habit. Get her into rehab.
4. Your wife is pregnant. Twins. They aren't yours. Get a lawyer.
5. If you don't stop playing with yourself, your elbow will never get better. and thank you for shopping at Asda.
I don't think any of the opposite sex will be amused.
Au contraire!
They may not be particularly interested, but I am certain that they will be amused, although they will probably wait for you to leave before ROTFLTAO at what a geek you are.
Or maybe it's just me...
Thank you for your post!!!
Joe has been my *nix editor of choice for over ten years, and I've always felt like a second-class citizen because I wasn't 1337 enough to grok emacs or vi (and yes, I can use them funblingly if you put a gun to my head).
Now I can hold my head high, knowing that there are world-class geeks using my favorite editor.
The encryption works:
> cat balance
cat: cannot open balance
No, they will have to give away the hardware free because no one will want to buy it with all of the DRM included.
Kids these days!
And this was one of dad's favorite jokes.
At the end of the play he was able to tell exactly which card was played by each player in each trick and if you had made a mistake (God help you), he would tell you which card you should have played instead.
Then there was the time that he played two games of (timed) blind chess simultaneously against me and my sister while cooking dinner in the kitchen.
He used this ability all the time everywhere, and from watching him get through life, I can assert that it is actually useful to be able to recall random sequences accurately - at least for a short while (dad was Phd Chem Eng).
I wish I had half as good a memory as he. Miss you dad!
I wonder if he will simply take time to enjoy life, or perhaps he has a new pet project that has piqued his interest.
Best wishes Michael, and thanks for all the magazine covers.
Ten years ago, Win311 ran pretty well on a machine with 4MB. Now 128MB is recommended for XP. A linear extrapolation suggests that we'll need 4GB to run pretty well in 2014. I'm glad they're starting now so that the 64-bit CPUs will be really cheap when we truly need them.
I assume you haven't misplaced your C64 modem. :)