I'm reminded of Douglas Adams' "Sirius Cybernetics Corporation", which, if I remember correctly, came to prominence by using time travel to go back in time and file patents so they could sue the original inventors for infringement.
IIRC, they sent _The Hithiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ (created and owned by Sirius Cybernetics Corporation) back in time and sued Encyclopedia Galactica for copyright infringement, not patenet infringement. The Guide was copied almost word for word from the Encyclopedia Galactica, but tense was changed as needed for the version sent back in time.
But that was nothing compared the The Guide II in _Mostly Harmless_ that temporally reverse engineered the universe to finally destroy Earth and all remnants of Earth. (Constructed under contract by the Vogons who were dumb but couldn't stand leaving a job uncompleted.)
Obviously Sirius' technology (or at least process control) had improved since they created the alternate universe for Zaphod in which they got the colors wrong and the Frogstar ships were "gunmetal green".
1. Buy 10,000 compasses 2. Write up description about how this one-of-a-kind last chance compass will be a collectors item your family will cherish for years to come. Link to New Scientist and Guardian articles. 3. Sell on eBay, one at a time 4. Profit!!!
5: If poles reverse in your lifetime, sell compass conversion kits on eBay. 6: Profit more!!!
The only question is the very smooth surface and if that would have any effect.
That is the exact problem and why sandpapering would help. However, it also makes the glass look crappy and therefore usually defeats the purpose of the glass.
From the article: With the LED's now exposed, gently heat each side of the LED's carefully pulling on them until they are removed from the PCB. Take your time. This is actually the hardest part of the whole mod.
This shouldn't be the hardest part of the mod. Solder-removal braiding and suction solder removers are cheaply available and highly recommended. Once you remove the solder, removing the LEDs is much easier and safer. (No flying hot solder!)
GNU/Hurd. 19 years in the making, and worth every minute of it.
That's not entirely fair. A lot of Linux-based OSes contain very healthy doses of GNU software and are compiled with GCC, one of the first major contributions of GNU.
The kernel was one of the last things they tackled, but along came Linus Torvalds and now many OS kernel developers would rather work on Linux than the Hurd.
The soc.singles type newsgroups frequently use "ze" and "zir" instead of he/she and his/her. I've seen other manufactured gender-neutrals, but those stick out in my head. Or is that "zy head"?
Many times the corporate lawyer is a liberal arts person who doesn't understand the finer points of technology and licensing. As such they don't have the background to come up with creative ways for you to achieve your goals while still remaining in compliance with licensing.
You have a point, but would you rather get sued over actions taken from advice taken by your attourney or by your creative tech/geek/programmer/etc.?
But what am I complaining about? It's an interesting question, and I'm sure there are interesting comments, and I'm avoiding work. Yay Slashdot!
No, this wasn't a dot-com startup, but a nasdaq listed company with a strong 25 year history.
My 3-year-old TV also is RF only. It's a cheapie 27" that my Mom won as a bingo door prize and sold to me for $200, which was about $100-$200 cheaper than new at the time.
I have an APEX DVD and run it through the VCR to view it on the TV, but I never noticed Macrovision problems even before I modified my firmware. Macrovision shouldn't affect the VCR/RF converter any more than a straight video out/in connection, should it? I thought it was just supposed to screw up frame timing for recording.
I dislike Macrovision, anyway, even if I haven't noticed a problem so far.
"It would be really cool to have 100+ movies built in to my dvd player."
Translates to:
"I am cheap, and I would really like to borrow my friends movies and rip permanent copies without actually compensating the people who made the movie."
Do you use your remote control, or do you always go to the TV to adjust the channel and volume?
Do you own a CD changer? Isn't it nice to have your favorite CDs at the ready?
Have you used a DirectTV-style schedule/menu to watch TV?
Well, now with hard drives we can have even better convenience and menu selection with our movies and music. Plus it's cool to do it this way. Why do you assume this is about piracy?
is if there is something like an IDE adapter for 10/100 ethernet
Hrm, I believe PCMCIA has a very similar--if not identical--pinout and function to ATA/IDE. But I don't know enough about it to know if you could rig a PC Card network atapter to an IDE cable or how to go about making it work if you did. A curious developer might peruse the pcmcia-core source code in the Linux kernel.
I'll see the movie in the theater once or twice. I might even splurge and buy $5 popcorn and $3 Coke. But the second time I'll probably sneak in some outside food and drink. Most of the theater employees are paid too little to care; I just keep the drink low and to my side and no one even notices. I'll buy the DVD when it comes out, and I'll watch it once--including all the DVD extras, and then never watch the extras again and rarely watch the movie because I'll think "well, I own this and can watch it anytime...what's good on cable?"
...the only problem is htat you don't get the ability to hit the shift key with the other hand...
For me, the shift keys worked fine. That is, I could use my left-hand keyboard for typing a capital "I" with my right-hand keyboard and vice versa for a capital "D". I expected that to be a problem before I tried it, but it worked. It was a surprisingly comfortable arrangement to type like that--with my head and body pointed to the monitor in the corner of two cube-shelfs/desks meeting, with a kb to each side so my hands were roughly at 90 degree angles to each other.
This was with a Windows 2000 PC, a normal ps/2 keyboard and a Compaq wireless USB keyboard/mouse combo. (That is, one USB wireless access point served the mouse and keyboard.) I haven't tried it on other OSes.
I wish I could train myself to use my right hand for emacs and the left for vi, but I'm not there yet. Maybe I could do it with two chord keyboards?
Chord keyboards are too expensive. During troubleshooting a PC last week I had a ps/2 keyboard and a USB keyboard hooked up while trying to get the USB keyboard to work for the power-on password. After finishing I coincidentally had two working keyboards at 90 degree angles in a comfortable position for my hands. (This was a cubicle with a desk on each wall plus the little shelf that goes between them.) For the amusement of a coworker and myself I typed a few sentences and was surprised to see how natural it was for me.
Now, as many geeks know, Dvorak made one-handed keyboard layouts, one for the left and one for the right. I've had thoughts about learning the left one to keep my mouse hand free (one or two Slashdotters have claimed they do this; I haven't because I'm a tech/sysadmin and use everyone else's keyboards), but now you and I could learn the left- and right-hand Dvoraks for simultaneous vi & emacs usage.
If we can do that, then we can probably solve that Palestinean-Israeli thing afterwards.
My (brick & mortar) company had a problem with caps blowing in the power supply of custom mini PCs at customer locations. However this was a major distributor who built these 'custom' PCs for us, so we had warranty protection. I believe we got the PS manufacturer to foot the bill for the replacement PS'es and paid for us service techs to replace them on several thousand units. (We had a special code on our ticketing system to charge our time to 3rd parties.)
However it was still a nasty problem. It took a few months to replace them all because generally every PC was in a different geographical location and we had to coordinate with the customer.
During the time before the problem was discovered and solved the PSes were dying left and right, and they tended to blow chips on the hard drives, mother board, and modems when they went. Many customers lost their data and weren't happy. (I told them to back up and gave them the disks to do it, though.)
A warranty is definitely important for many companies and individuals.
However for my personal PCs I buy cheap parts (not the cheapest, though...motherboards and RAM I now pay more for) and rarely get burned. I figure I get burned seldom enough that it works out in my favor in the long run, but I back up my important data and have the knowledge and spare parts to get myself up and running again when things go South.
Slashdot seems to be slashdotted today, so here goes a submit with no preview.... (takes too long to see the preview if at all)
Oops, I guess I'm more stupid today than usual. Oh well. I actually thought you were complaining about desktop CPU expense for a while. I'll try not to operate any heavy machinery for the rest of today.
Does supporting OGG require more CPU usage in portable devices/DSPs than MP3 because OGG is really more processor intensive or because existing chips were designed with MP3 in mind? (Honest question, I don't know.) Seems like some devices are supporting MP3 and WMA; can OGG be that hard?
Re:I think ogg should have been named ...
on
Ogg Support For iTunes
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I think it should've been named "og3" (oh-gee-three) to associated itself a bit more with em-pee-three.
The non geek probably ignores "Xiph Ogg Vorbis" but might pay attention to "og3" and understand what the hell it might be.
Plus ogg is a generic container format and will be used for other Xiph codecs, including video. So calling a Vorbis music file Ogg is shortsighted.
It might be free to put in hardware, but it's an open question as to wether the licensing costs for mp3 or WMA is more then the cost of the CPU power needed to decode oggs.
Oh, that's right, we IA-32 people keep forgetting how much Macs and PowerPC's cost. I was about to flame you, but now I pity you.
Here's a quarter. Go buy yourself a faster processor. (Just kidding! Just kidding!)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm reminded of Douglas Adams' "Sirius Cybernetics Corporation", which, if I remember correctly, came to prominence by using time travel to go back in time and file patents so they could sue the original inventors for infringement.
IIRC, they sent _The Hithiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ (created and owned by Sirius Cybernetics Corporation) back in time and sued Encyclopedia Galactica for copyright infringement, not patenet infringement. The Guide was copied almost word for word from the Encyclopedia Galactica, but tense was changed as needed for the version sent back in time.
But that was nothing compared the The Guide II in _Mostly Harmless_ that temporally reverse engineered the universe to finally destroy Earth and all remnants of Earth. (Constructed under contract by the Vogons who were dumb but couldn't stand leaving a job uncompleted.)
Obviously Sirius' technology (or at least process control) had improved since they created the alternate universe for Zaphod in which they got the colors wrong and the Frogstar ships were "gunmetal green".
Easier yet:
1. Buy 10,000 compasses
2. Write up description about how this one-of-a-kind last chance compass will be a collectors item your family will cherish for years to come. Link to New Scientist and Guardian articles.
3. Sell on eBay, one at a time
4. Profit!!!
5: If poles reverse in your lifetime, sell compass conversion kits on eBay.
6: Profit more!!!
The only question is the very smooth surface and if that would have any effect.
That is the exact problem and why sandpapering would help. However, it also makes the glass look crappy and therefore usually defeats the purpose of the glass.
From the article: With the LED's now exposed, gently heat each side of the LED's carefully pulling on them until they are removed from the PCB. Take your time. This is actually the hardest part of the whole mod.
This shouldn't be the hardest part of the mod. Solder-removal braiding and suction solder removers are cheaply available and highly recommended. Once you remove the solder, removing the LEDs is much easier and safer. (No flying hot solder!)
although, the glass tops on tables does make using optical mice a pain there.
Rub some sandpaper over the part of the glass where the mouse will be. Problem solved!
Any device that attempts to do two completely different things will do neither of them well. Prime example: The "spork"- how many do you own?
I own KFC, you insensitive clod!
GNU/Hurd. 19 years in the making, and worth every minute of it.
That's not entirely fair. A lot of Linux-based OSes contain very healthy doses of GNU software and are compiled with GCC, one of the first major contributions of GNU.
The kernel was one of the last things they tackled, but along came Linus Torvalds and now many OS kernel developers would rather work on Linux than the Hurd.
Microsoft Hypes XP Tablets
In other news, GM hypes cars. . . .
when will we get some of these mounted on the sharks??
While we're waiting we'll have to make do with the ill-tempered sea bass.
The soc.singles type newsgroups frequently use "ze" and "zir" instead of he/she and his/her. I've seen other manufactured gender-neutrals, but those stick out in my head. Or is that "zy head"?
Many times the corporate lawyer is a liberal arts person who doesn't understand the finer points of technology and licensing. As such they don't have the background to come up with creative ways for you to achieve your goals while still remaining in compliance with licensing.
:-)
You have a point, but would you rather get sued over actions taken from advice taken by your attourney or by your creative tech/geek/programmer/etc.?
But what am I complaining about? It's an interesting question, and I'm sure there are interesting comments, and I'm avoiding work. Yay Slashdot!
No, this wasn't a dot-com startup, but a nasdaq listed company with a strong 25 year history.
You work for Microsoft?
My 3-year-old TV also is RF only. It's a cheapie 27" that my Mom won as a bingo door prize and sold to me for $200, which was about $100-$200 cheaper than new at the time.
I have an APEX DVD and run it through the VCR to view it on the TV, but I never noticed Macrovision problems even before I modified my firmware. Macrovision shouldn't affect the VCR/RF converter any more than a straight video out/in connection, should it? I thought it was just supposed to screw up frame timing for recording.
I dislike Macrovision, anyway, even if I haven't noticed a problem so far.
"It would be really cool to have 100+ movies built in to my dvd player."
Translates to:
"I am cheap, and I would really like to borrow my friends movies and rip permanent copies without actually compensating the people who made the movie."
Do you use your remote control, or do you always go to the TV to adjust the channel and volume?
Do you own a CD changer? Isn't it nice to have your favorite CDs at the ready?
Have you used a DirectTV-style schedule/menu to watch TV?
Well, now with hard drives we can have even better convenience and menu selection with our movies and music. Plus it's cool to do it this way. Why do you assume this is about piracy?
is if there is something like an IDE adapter for 10/100 ethernet
Hrm, I believe PCMCIA has a very similar--if not identical--pinout and function to ATA/IDE. But I don't know enough about it to know if you could rig a PC Card network atapter to an IDE cable or how to go about making it work if you did. A curious developer might peruse the pcmcia-core source code in the Linux kernel.
The entire series of Star Trek Movies that you can switch with a single press of a button.
Good thing, too, because only the even-numbered ST movies are any good.
Score:4 Insightful? Okaaaaaaaayy...let me try:
I'll see the movie in the theater once or twice. I might even splurge and buy $5 popcorn and $3 Coke. But the second time I'll probably sneak in some outside food and drink. Most of the theater employees are paid too little to care; I just keep the drink low and to my side and no one even notices. I'll buy the DVD when it comes out, and I'll watch it once--including all the DVD extras, and then never watch the extras again and rarely watch the movie because I'll think "well, I own this and can watch it anytime...what's good on cable?"
...the only problem is htat you don't get the ability to hit the shift key with the other hand...
For me, the shift keys worked fine. That is, I could use my left-hand keyboard for typing a capital "I" with my right-hand keyboard and vice versa for a capital "D". I expected that to be a problem before I tried it, but it worked. It was a surprisingly comfortable arrangement to type like that--with my head and body pointed to the monitor in the corner of two cube-shelfs/desks meeting, with a kb to each side so my hands were roughly at 90 degree angles to each other.
This was with a Windows 2000 PC, a normal ps/2 keyboard and a Compaq wireless USB keyboard/mouse combo. (That is, one USB wireless access point served the mouse and keyboard.) I haven't tried it on other OSes.
I wish I could train myself to use my right hand for emacs and the left for vi, but I'm not there yet. Maybe I could do it with two chord keyboards?
Chord keyboards are too expensive. During troubleshooting a PC last week I had a ps/2 keyboard and a USB keyboard hooked up while trying to get the USB keyboard to work for the power-on password. After finishing I coincidentally had two working keyboards at 90 degree angles in a comfortable position for my hands. (This was a cubicle with a desk on each wall plus the little shelf that goes between them.) For the amusement of a coworker and myself I typed a few sentences and was surprised to see how natural it was for me.
Now, as many geeks know, Dvorak made one-handed keyboard layouts, one for the left and one for the right. I've had thoughts about learning the left one to keep my mouse hand free (one or two Slashdotters have claimed they do this; I haven't because I'm a tech/sysadmin and use everyone else's keyboards), but now you and I could learn the left- and right-hand Dvoraks for simultaneous vi & emacs usage.
If we can do that, then we can probably solve that Palestinean-Israeli thing afterwards.
Not a problem. Just print it out and read it a couple of times while in line for the security check.
My (brick & mortar) company had a problem with caps blowing in the power supply of custom mini PCs at customer locations. However this was a major distributor who built these 'custom' PCs for us, so we had warranty protection. I believe we got the PS manufacturer to foot the bill for the replacement PS'es and paid for us service techs to replace them on several thousand units. (We had a special code on our ticketing system to charge our time to 3rd parties.)
However it was still a nasty problem. It took a few months to replace them all because generally every PC was in a different geographical location and we had to coordinate with the customer.
During the time before the problem was discovered and solved the PSes were dying left and right, and they tended to blow chips on the hard drives, mother board, and modems when they went. Many customers lost their data and weren't happy. (I told them to back up and gave them the disks to do it, though.)
A warranty is definitely important for many companies and individuals.
However for my personal PCs I buy cheap parts (not the cheapest, though...motherboards and RAM I now pay more for) and rarely get burned. I figure I get burned seldom enough that it works out in my favor in the long run, but I back up my important data and have the knowledge and spare parts to get myself up and running again when things go South.
Slashdot seems to be slashdotted today, so here goes a submit with no preview.... (takes too long to see the preview if at all)
I watch Animal Planet, and I've seen dogs skatebaord and surf (the ocean waves). It just takes a LOT of determination and patience, I think. ;-)
Oops, I guess I'm more stupid today than usual. Oh well. I actually thought you were complaining about desktop CPU expense for a while. I'll try not to operate any heavy machinery for the rest of today.
Does supporting OGG require more CPU usage in portable devices/DSPs than MP3 because OGG is really more processor intensive or because existing chips were designed with MP3 in mind? (Honest question, I don't know.) Seems like some devices are supporting MP3 and WMA; can OGG be that hard?
I think it should've been named "og3" (oh-gee-three) to associated itself a bit more with em-pee-three.
The non geek probably ignores "Xiph Ogg Vorbis" but might pay attention to "og3" and understand what the hell it might be.
Plus ogg is a generic container format and will be used for other Xiph codecs, including video. So calling a Vorbis music file Ogg is shortsighted.
It might be free to put in hardware, but it's an open question as to wether the licensing costs for mp3 or WMA is more then the cost of the CPU power needed to decode oggs.
Oh, that's right, we IA-32 people keep forgetting how much Macs and PowerPC's cost. I was about to flame you, but now I pity you.
Here's a quarter. Go buy yourself a faster processor. (Just kidding! Just kidding!)
So when is Ogg coming to the iPod?
/. article I thought it WAS for the iPod, but nope, this is only for iTunes. :(
Damn, when I read the
Oh well, I don't have an iPod anyway, and I still have no reason to buy one. Good thing; they're too expensive.
Major kudos to Apple for putting into iTunes, though.