There is nothing more beautiful (in the auto realm) that a perfectly done black paint job. Not the job you get from the factory - a true professional job. It has incredible depth, gloss, and a certian glow. Hard to explain.
Well, until the first time it gets dust on it anyways.
I have tried to keep my black car clean and shiny. It's impossible. Even when polishing, just when it looks perfect from one angle, you find flaws from another angle.
Which is probably why the perfect black finish you describe is the province of automotive artists and collectors - because it's out of reach for us mortals.
It uses space set asside by the OS so it doesn't even lower your capacity*.
I cannot for the life of me understand how TiVo owners can buy into that line. I am never going to buy a tivo if they don't even admit my ownership over the hardware.
Their spamming and subscription requirements ARE costing them customers.
I'm not so sure the 17" screen is such a great thing. I have a PowerBook G4 Titanium, and while the screen is nice to look at, the resulting form factor is too big for my taste. I tend to use my Latitude L400 more because it's so portable. Also, for the large size of the Titanium's screen, the resolution is disappointingly low. Maybe they have fixed that in the newer screens though.
Finally, I must admit that the main thing wrong with my Titanium is it still has OS 9. As somebody new to Macintoshes, I can't believe they were still shipping such a crappy OS so recently. I'm sure OS X will be a big improvement, but I'm afraid of messing up compatibility with a certain OS 9 app.
The problem isn't with YOUR box sending packets out, it is with the fragments coming back in reply from some far-off server. THOSE are sequenced as well.
All that would reveal is the number of connections on the gateway box. Which you could get just by looking at IP addresses and port numbers anyways.
What's even worse (and which I rarely see mentioned) is that it has to optimize it's software for a particular chip design rather than an architecture, ie Itanium software needs to be recompiled for the Itanium2 in order to see many of the benefits of the new chip.
I would think, rather, that a VLIW ISA is simply more comprehensive, in that it must specify which instructions can execute concurrently, exactly how long is a branch or load delay, etc, etc. But this would mean either that 1) designers of future chips in the line will have less design leeway or 2) they'll add on a layer to adapt code optimized for IA64 timing to whatever is underneath. But IMHO that sounds like a disaster, because there is already so much compiler effort getting things combined and ordered to run well on the IA64 in the first place.
BTW does IA64 really have no branch prediction? Surely that is data-dependent and better done dynamically!
I think the concern centers around (or should center around) the intentions of the "czar," and his concept of computer security.
To some, "computer security" means ensuring that electronic communications are entirely insecure, so they can be intercepted and stored in a database to help make sure the citizens aren't going off the rails.
To others, "computer security" means restricted hardware that filters the data it will read and write, so IP owners can exert more control.
Finally, there is the idea that "computer security" means controlling who can access your own computers and information, and how facilitating communication without tampering or snooping. But there seems to be little interest in this one.
A boost in NASA funding? I predict, if anything, the opposite. Little of popular interest has come out of the space program for years, and most of the high-profile unmanned missions have bombed.
The Shuttle program and ISS are money pits that just orbit endlessly. I hope there is at least a debate about junking the Shuttle and ISS, which would free up tons of money for more groundbreaking unmanned missions.
Actually, the human genome isn't all that big by today's data storage standards - just three gigs for the whole thing. And individuals are only 0.2% different, so maybe 10 megs per additional person.
It seems your impulse was wrong. All I've seen on CNN is reporters repeatedly reassuring everybody that terrorism has nothing to do with it. I haven't heard anybody express any such suspicion.
I'm sure the usenet quacks blaming terrorism will be far outnumbered by the usenet quacks blaming the president and US military.
I could go for that, IF the big cheeses in these companies were willing to move their headquarters and themselves to India, too. As it is they're having it both ways.
Okay, $2500 sounds like a lot for a game console. But *somebody* must be buying those $400 video cards for PCs. I'll bet alot of those go into $2500+ "gaming rigs." (Sure, those PCs can do other stuff too, but mostly no better than whatever computer they're replacing).
Why release a fast, inexpensive processor for the desktop market when you can release a slightly slower one, for a different market, for much, much more?
Simple, because AMD hasn't been embraced by the establishment. I know a few individuals willing to give them a shot at home, but I've never seen an AMD processor at work, ever.
...and no ammount of encryption will make a difference. Encryption will always be broken.
Why do you believe that? It's entirely possible that there is no way to break strong encryption (brute-forcing is not "breaking"). There's no sound reason to assume a flaw exists.
The world's militaries and intelligence agencies are transmitting classified information through your body at this very moment (satellite downlinks, for instance).
I'm not pretending there are absolute guarantees, but IMHO your data is much more likely to be disclosed by a burglar or by an FBI raid than by some cryptographic breakthrough.
Even if they copy everything off of your hard drive and send it to their own servers, according to most Slashdotters, that is only copyright infringement (not theft), provided they don't delete anything.
Even though most slashdotters' morals on music copying are pretty loose, I think very few would support hacking into somebody's system to get mp3's. And even fewer would defend somebody who hacks into a system and steals proprietary information, which is a far different matter than music (which is already publicly available). In fact I have not seen aybody on slashdot support hacking into systems to steal private information.
Don't all modern cellphones use encryption? At least the digital ones. And true it's only the wireless portion, rather than end-to-end. But given people's lack of interest in encrypting email, I doubt end-to-end encryption is a killer app.
So what? Rowing across the ocean is faster than swimming. Most of us still fly.
Sure, for the best scanning speed you have to cut the binding off and use a sheet feeder. But even scanning 2 pages at a time will be far faster than reading the whole thing out loud.
Slashdot Mirror
When my dad was in college (60s), GE (I think) set up a display on campus with a lexan slab and a sledgehammer. Nobody could break it.
Unfortunately none of it is as good as the old lead-based paint.
I have tried to keep my black car clean and shiny. It's impossible. Even when polishing, just when it looks perfect from one angle, you find flaws from another angle.
Which is probably why the perfect black finish you describe is the province of automotive artists and collectors - because it's out of reach for us mortals.
Their spamming and subscription requirements ARE costing them customers.
Finally, I must admit that the main thing wrong with my Titanium is it still has OS 9. As somebody new to Macintoshes, I can't believe they were still shipping such a crappy OS so recently. I'm sure OS X will be a big improvement, but I'm afraid of messing up compatibility with a certain OS 9 app.
AFAIK the ONLY person to commit to Linus' linux tree is Linus. Is that incorrect?
Geez, it passes a spell checker, what do you want?
They used to say the 386 had a little 8086 etched in one corner, for backwards compatibility. I don't know how literally that was the case though.
BTW does IA64 really have no branch prediction? Surely that is data-dependent and better done dynamically!
Hmm, so far it looks like my guess was wrong. But I still hope some of the money goes for new technology.
To some, "computer security" means ensuring that electronic communications are entirely insecure, so they can be intercepted and stored in a database to help make sure the citizens aren't going off the rails.
To others, "computer security" means restricted hardware that filters the data it will read and write, so IP owners can exert more control.
Finally, there is the idea that "computer security" means controlling who can access your own computers and information, and how facilitating communication without tampering or snooping. But there seems to be little interest in this one.
The Shuttle program and ISS are money pits that just orbit endlessly. I hope there is at least a debate about junking the Shuttle and ISS, which would free up tons of money for more groundbreaking unmanned missions.
Actually, the human genome isn't all that big by today's data storage standards - just three gigs for the whole thing. And individuals are only 0.2% different, so maybe 10 megs per additional person.
I'm sure the usenet quacks blaming terrorism will be far outnumbered by the usenet quacks blaming the president and US military.
Oh, and basketball.
I could go for that, IF the big cheeses in these companies were willing to move their headquarters and themselves to India, too. As it is they're having it both ways.
Okay, $2500 sounds like a lot for a game console. But *somebody* must be buying those $400 video cards for PCs. I'll bet alot of those go into $2500+ "gaming rigs." (Sure, those PCs can do other stuff too, but mostly no better than whatever computer they're replacing).
The world's militaries and intelligence agencies are transmitting classified information through your body at this very moment (satellite downlinks, for instance).
I'm not pretending there are absolute guarantees, but IMHO your data is much more likely to be disclosed by a burglar or by an FBI raid than by some cryptographic breakthrough.
Don't all modern cellphones use encryption? At least the digital ones. And true it's only the wireless portion, rather than end-to-end. But given people's lack of interest in encrypting email, I doubt end-to-end encryption is a killer app.
Sure, for the best scanning speed you have to cut the binding off and use a sheet feeder. But even scanning 2 pages at a time will be far faster than reading the whole thing out loud.
So what is your point?
That's crazy. OCR will always be faster than speech, even if speech recognition ever works, which it currently does not.