Wow! Here's where I show my newbiness: I didn't even know that info existed! Looks like I've something more to learn!:)
Like any UNIX system, if it lacks a feature you want -- just compile it in! That's why UNIX won't be going away any decade soon. It can keep evolving, unlike closed operating systems. Mac customizers cried, "Foul!," when Apple released OS X, and groaned that Apple took away their ability to customize their Macs the way they wanted to. Nothing could be further from the truth! The UNIX layer made the OS much more customizable than ever before. It's just a little more complex. Yet customizations in OS X can be more profround and more integral to the system, now. One simply needs to learn how.
That being said, there is a flip-side to this. You have to know how. The man pages are actually geared more as a memnonic aid to those who already know how to work with UNIX, not those who want to learn. My discovery of the info command -- I never would have known about that if it wasn't mentioned above. A close friend and colleague of mine once described UNIX as, "'...a huge Easter egg hunt, you have to look for things. You never quite know what you're going to find in there.'"
What the other UNIXes -- Solaris, Irix, MacOS X, etc. -- have is dedicated programmers who are paid to pour over the code to create improvements and nice custom little routines to make it all run nice. Those UNIXes also are written to work on specific hardware. Linux is patched together by expert hobbiests who work in their spare time, and try to make it to work on multiple platforms. So Linux's development goes a bit slower, and maybe lacks the bells and whistles and the spit and polish of the hardware-dedicated commercial systems. But it's no less capable than the other systems.
But it still requires you know how to wrangle it into doing what you want. Sure, I can add stuff to my system. But if I tell my mother that she has to build this, and set a simple makefile for that, I don't think she is going to be able to do it. And my grandmother, at 100, basically pokes at her computer with a stick.
Linux is only limited by your own personal knowledge of what you can do with it.
It wasn't very long ago that IBM decided to add Moto's Altivec engine to their chips. Earlier, IBM had rejected Altivec because IBM wanted to target the embedded controller market, which they felt really didn't require Altivec enhancements.
In persuing new markets, adding Altivec made sense. Not to mention that it had a good strong successful demonstration as part of Apple's hardware. So now it is included. I know there are more details to it than all that, but at the moment I'm just too tired and lazy to look up the articles...
Re:What do you mean, "...Wants us to believe?"
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The astronauts are well aware that with each launch, they have a 50% to 70% chance of being killed.
That was a quote from an astronaut being interviewed after the Challenger disaster. Sorry, I can't remember his name, I just remember him making that comment.
The point he was making was just because we don't see astronauts dying horrible deaths every year doesn't mean that this is a safe enterprise. There is an enormous risk involved, with a very high level of danger at every step in the activity. The fact that we don't see so many horrible deaths is a testament to the amazing detail that the people at NASA go through to try to keep their friends and family safe when being flung into orbit.
Keep in mind, that's a measure of the odds, not a statitistic gathered after the fact. When the Americans launched their first astronauts in the Mercury program, the rocket they used had a statistical 95% failure rate. The seven astronauts that were launched in the Mercury program only had a five percent chance of surviving through just the launch!
What do you mean, "...Wants us to believe?"
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At no point has NASA or any investigator come out and said that it was "'X' that caused the shuttle to break up." If anything, they've been imploring to the press not to jump to any conclusions. The easy answer would be to say, "Gee, it was an ice-engorged chunk of foam that struck the wing and broke the tiles off that caused this terribly accident."
The problem is, the foam is the most obvious candidate for causing the damage. But what if it wasn't? What if it was actually a fuel line that cracked open, began to burn -- hydrazine's value to the space program is that it can burn in a vacuum -- maybe it burned a hole from the inside out, allowing plasma from the rentry to get into the wing. What if it was actually a piece of space debris that struck the shuttle? We almost lost a crew a few years ago when a paint chip almost penetrated through one of the windows.
We just don't know, If they say it was the foam and it was actually something else, then the actual problem will not get fixed, and we will lose more astronauts.
The answers aren't going to come instantly. It is going to take a long time. It can take experts a couple of years to figure out what made an airplane come down, in spite of the fact that usually with a plane crash, the debris is in one small area. The shuttle debris is scattered over several states. The further west a piece is, the more likely it is going to shed light on what happened. The first pieces to come off are the most critical.
The astronauts are well aware that with each launch, they have a 50% to 70% chance of being killed. It's a testiment to how NASA does things that we haven't lost more astronauts. They accept this risk, because the work they do does eventually help everyone else in one way or another. They feel that this is worth the risk, to do what they can to help other people.
Will we stop going to space? Hell no! Even if the government gives up, people won't. How many people have died over the centuries when sailing ships explored the oceans? How many Polynesians sailed away from their home islands to colonize somewhere else, never to see dry land again? We have a pretty good idea how many Spanish galleons were lost in the Carribean. With a crew of upwards of 400, one ship resulted in a lot of lives lost.
None of that stopped us. Losing Challenger didn't stop us. Losing Columbia won't either. But it clearly serves as a terrible wakeup call that we missed something, and a sad reminder that spaceflight is not without risks.
So before you cry 'foul' and 'coverup,' give the people a chance to find out what happened to their friends.
Last -- what if they did know there was a problem? Do you think the crew would have wanted their friends and family knowing? Sitting there for the duration of the mission knowing their loved ones were doomed? I wouldn't want my family going through something like that. I'd rather put on a brave face, do everything I can to finish my work and life in some meaningful fashion, and then face destiny without making them suffer.
Actually, for some music and entertainment professionals, it can matter! DJ's that we hire for various social functions have to maintain a highly diverse library. Jobs can run from a rave one night, to a church social the next.
A young man I met working as a DJ had a library of well over 10,000 CD's and vinyl LP's he was digitizing when time allowed. He was meticulous in keeping record of what he had -- not just the standard biographical data, but by the sound, beat and mood each piece created. To alleviate costs, he frequently got CD's from flea markets and second hand stores and clearance sales.
For as young as he was and starting out on his own as a professional DJ, his professionalism was impressive. He understood that his career lived and died by his ability to deliver what his customer asked for. And yes, he was using an Apple to manage things for him.
It's one thing to put together the latest hits to play at a dance or a wedding, but it is entirely another thing when an ad agency calls you looking for just the right sound for a commercial. The bigger the library and the faster you can find something relevant in there, the more likely you are going to get the money for the job.
Whenever we watch a TV show, commercial or movie that tries to set a period for things happening, they need the right music. If you're doing a movie about the 50's, you don't want Britney Spears tunes coming out of the jukebox. So they are always looking for someone who can truly deliver what they need, quickly. When they find someone who can do so, they keep bringing their business to that person.
For most people, I think we can say it doesn't matter. But for professionals, I think it could make a difference. Just the fact that there are people finding the iTunes limit is a pretty good indicator.
"Think about it: they bundle all sorts of software "as part of the OS", and they have repeatedly cracked down hard on clone and part makers trying to enter their niche market."
One small thing you are missing here is that at any time, I can choose to change any of those bundled items with something else. To run a different browser than what came with the OS, all I have to do is load it on my hard drive and double-click on it. Do I want that other browser as my default? All I have to do is change the system default, which is about 3 or four mouse-clicks away. Do I want to get rid of something? I just delete it, it's gone. Done. No ghosts of applications past haunting the "system registry."
I'm not even stuck using an Apple OS. My oldest box ran on BeOS for a while, now it's a Linux box. I can switch to Linux any time I want on my other machines, but why bother when I already have a fully compliant UNIX with an incredibly well polished graphic interface on top of it? Sure, there are some pretty good window managers out there for Linux, but they really lack the spit and polish and attention to details that Aqua offers. Among the system administrators, network administrators, and software developers I know, most of them are walking around with Ti Powerbooks now than Dells.
So what if OS X isn't free? Actually, you can have it for free, just without Aqua and some of the other extras included with Aqua (That's what you really pay for). Just compile Darwin and you have FreeBSD. Hey, you have to pay a hell of a lot more for other UNIXes than Mac OS X: Irix, Solaris, etc.
To quote Jobs: "Apple is in the business of making hardware, not software." (Well, that point is arguable...) That's "why" he put the kabosh on licensing their ROMs to clone makers. Apple does not have the resources to take on Micro$oft head to head on their turf as a software manufacturer. Of course, with the initial flood of clones on the market, it was the first time I saw MacOS-based systems drop to a reasonable price-level. I still think that Apple should cut their prices by 25% from where they are now. In my opinion, that would trigger a massive surge in their market share.
Sure, Apple has a history of arrogance towards their customers and in their marketing. That's one of the reasons they don't have a strong market share today. But they do make a quality product, and it is a product I can configure any way I want once I have it. Heck, it's a lot easier to customize it via the UNIX underbelly to do the things I want than the old MacOS ever was! It's just a new paradigm, and people need to learn how to do it.
...Is a video recording device that I can plug into my network. This way, all I need to do to schedule it to record something is enter it in iCal or email my computer. Imagine being able to use my Palm Pilot to enter in the time and date a program will be on, and all I have to do is sync it with the device.
How much money does it cost an ISP to be a good ISP? A lot more than you expect! Take an OC-3 line. This can run you upwards of US$50,000 PER MONTH! This is just to connect your customers to the major communications backbones of the internet, so they get reasonable bandwidth.
But now you need to connect those communications lines to something so that your customers can actually get onto the internet. How 'bout a couple of routers. A couple of new Ciscos could run you upwards of US$100,000. Oh, wait a sec! You need servers so your customers can put up their websites, and to manage their accounts and stuff? Servers are the "creeping featurism" of providing service. The more customers you want, the more servers you have to add. For good, high-quality, industrial grade servers, let's take an average price of $2,000. I haven't even mentioned all the Cat-5 cable and switches you're going to need internally to connect all your equipment together.
For that matter, how on earth are your customers going to physically connect to your service? Dial-up? Well, you will probably need a CLEC to be installed at the local phone company. Be a cable provider? You'll have to string lines up around town. That's expensive! Either way, you are now a utility, and you will have to license yourself as such. THAT costs some bills.
The more customers you have, the more stuff is filling up your OC-3 bandwidth. In order to maintain a higher quality of service, you're probably going to need to add another OC-3 -- or more economically add a couple of DC-3's to help spread out the load. $! $! $! It's really starting to add up! Whew!
Just to connect alone, you are looking at a recurring cost of better than $500,000 per year. Equipment costs will probably run you another $300,000. But you have to maintain all that. There's another cost for maintenance contracts. Believe me! You can't run all this by yourself! You will need to hire people just to help run this. And sell your services. And deal with irate customers. And accountants to watch your books so you don't put yourself too deep in the red. Parasites- er, uh, "lawyers," to keep you out of trouble with RIAA when some cheese-eating high school boy decides that paying someone for their music so the musician can make a living goes against the constitutional rights to free listening...
And here's something that few people stop to think about: all these gadgets feed on electricity. There's yet another whopping, monthly recurring cost! Oh, well...
These are the things that your money is going towards. Admittedly, I'm listing out all the top tier stuff, here. When you want to handle industrial and commercial uses, many customers at that level want guarranteed levels of service. Just to run this level of ISP can very easily run you over US$1,500,000 per year. You had better keep your customers VERY happy in order to make enough money just to cover your costs.
At a lower level -- say you just want to be a neighborhood server for people in your part of town. Or maybe, all you want to do is be a hosting service, where people can park their web sites and pay you per month. A Mom-an'-Pop type set up could probably be pieced together for under $50,000, but you still have to connect to the internet so your customers sites serve to the world at a reasonable bandwidth. A DC-3 line could handle this at under $15,000 per month. You'd need quite a few customers to cover that cost, at least 200 at $75 just to match that price. More to make a profit.
A long time ago, before Broadband. When 2400 baud modems were considered lightning fast. It was quite possible to set yourself up with a couple of computers, a couple dozen modems and a T1 and call yourself an ISP. In fact, that's how a few of today's ISPs got started. Take a look at Pair.com". They are a classic example of a world class hosting service that got started in a garage. Nowadays, just to keep up with the competition, you have to put out over 200 time more cash just to get started.
Gee, I bet you wish you had that $350 million dollar Powerball lottery ticket now, don't ya?
Thanks for the info, Acidrain! But the problem is, none of your girlfriend's hard earned $100 went to the person who created this in the first place. Don't you think he should be paid for his efforts?
For myself, I can wait. For all their upset over what was done to Nausicaa many years ago, the folks at Ghibli are finally relaxing and allowing their stuff to be carried over to English again. Granted, it took Disney's marketing power to convince them, but it's finally happening. Admittedly, Disney wasn't quite prepared for the market. They didn't think they'd push Kiki's Delivery Service to DVD and also delayed the release of Laputa: Castle in the Sky. Kiki didn't sell as well as Disney had hoped. The problem was, it was released onto VHS at the some time that anime on DVD was destroying VHS sales. The swing came so fast, that some studios were hit with some pretty big losses because they couldn't give away the VHS copies of their catalog. Disney got the wrong impression that the market was too weak for development. (I know a couple of our favorite anime sources that went through some very tough financial times during that period.)
But with the success of Mononoke and Spirited Away, Disney is starting to put more energy into their relationship with Ghibli. Now those other titles are being reviewed for DVD release. If Spirited Away takes an Academy Award, it pretty well will guarantee that Disney will put top priority to releasing as many of Ghibli's titles for which they can get licensing.
The best way to make a business do what you want is to wave some money in its face. Then it will sit up and beg and do what it takes to get your money. So I'll do what I can to convince Disney to hurry up. (waving credit card it the air)
-Or to convince them to quickly sell the licensing to a smaller business such as Viz or Animeigo, for whom an amount too small for Disney would be a boon.
A hearty congratulations to Mr. Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli on a well deserved award! Looking at the incredible work that comes from them, I can't wait to see what is revealed as their next work!
The only downside is I have to wonder just how long I'll have to wait until I can add this to my DVD collection. Fortunately, Mononoke hit the market pretty quickly. If Mr. Miyazaki ever decided to release the Ghibli catalog to DVD, I have a check just waiting to be filled out for my order!
If I understand the article correctly, this is new in that is has a very small size, and uses a very small amount of liquid to conduct the heat, and requires no mechanical pump to drive it, no rewiring, etc.
Because of this, it can easily be fit into an existing design with minimal re-engineering of your product. That's where the cost comes into play for manufacturers -- or has no one noticed that we don't see liquid cooling in consumer computers yet? Too expensive to add into existing designs. Also, you get one leak, there goes your computer. Not to mention the potential hazards of having a liquid flowing over live electrical circuits.
Small size, small amount of coolant liquid, and no need to add mechanical pumps. Any laptop manufacturer could add this and not have to increase the price to cover the retooling costs for the manufacturing process. This means a faster -- and naturally hotter -- chip could be put into the laptop. That will mean laptops that are as fast as desktops, instead of lagging behind by a few years.
What's the name of the company that will be making these things? I want to buy stock NOW while I can still afford it!!!!
A lot of people seem to be missing the point here. They're all focused on the 'sexist cooking' comments made in the article.
The important thing behind this article is not only is this young woman poised to redefine the laws of physics, but she's also a MAJOR babe!!!
Fotini Markopoulou Kalamara, will you marry me?
I'm an Aquarius, enjoy moonlight walks on the beach, I love children and animals, I can count to ten (twenty if I take my shoes off!), AND on top of all that, I'm a pretty good cook...!
That's very well stated! I particularly liked the last line of your statement -- very good marketing tool for the independent contractor. Not to mention the fact that it's a perfectly logical statement of fact.
Actually, in spite of what the article says, Apple's "Junk" filter for their OS X.2 works amazingly well!
My domain registry email address receives roughly 70 to 120 spams per day. I clean out the mailbox once a week. Only one or two spams get through the Junk filter, if at all. I am seriously impressed. To further this observation, I forgot to check that email address for the entire month of September and most of October. Still, only a few spams got through when I downloaded the email.
It's a pity that I can't apply this filter directly to my hosting service to remove spam at that level. I think Apple really nailed together a good AI for anti-spamming.
Yes, I'd help out my old company. But it would be at one hell of a premium price! Basically, you can charge about $125 per hour as a consultant and still have that considered a reasonable rate.
But if they were going to cop an attitude with me, my minimum would be the equivalent of 2 months of my salary at the time I left the company. Half (non-refundable) to be paid up front, the other half to be paid when I've completed the job they brought me on to cover.
In ANY situation, make sure you get a P.O. from them before you show up to do the work!!! It should state what the work is that they expected you to accomplish. If they start asking you to do other things while you are there, tell them to fill out new P.O.'s for those tasks separately, and determine an hourly rate to be charged for every hour spent on those separate tasks. Those separate tasks should be started when you are done with the work paid for by the first P.O.
Be professional! Do the best work you can. Remember, at this point you are an independent contractor. Your work should stand as a testament of what you are capable of as a professional.
Last, when you're done, make sure you give a clear list of what you diagnosed and what you did to fix things. Make sure that the person who authorized the work signs off on it. Don't forget to make a copy! (using their copier, naturally!)
Before you can render, you still need to create the models. The best 3D model creator out there is formZ. It is very easy to use, but it has a steep learning curve because there is so much you can do with it. Version 4 is due out in another month or two, and brings formZ to a whole new level.
The models for the Star Wars movies, Oceans 11, a couple of the Batman movies, and a few other heavy CG-effects movies were all initially created with formZ before they were brought into other packages (mainly Maya) for advanced texturing and animation.
For rendering $B!=(B I have to admit being a bit torn between Lightwave and Maya. Maya I feel is better optimized for spreading renderings across massively clustered systems. But Lightwave is easier to learn, and has rendering capabilities that Maya does not.
Probably, in the end, you will end up owning all three of these packages. Creating the models in formZ and then using Maya or Lightwave, depending on what the end result needs to be.
All these programs will run natively in OS X and take advantage of the presence of multiple processors. Form-Z ver. 4 will also be able to automatically take advantage of network-distributed rendering (e.g. using a cluster) directly for a rendering.
Even though I may be a slathering, maniacal, unwashed Mac addict myself, this goes just a wee bit further than the usual. What is the world coming to?!? People really need to get their priorities straight in life. This is clearly a fine example of this!
Let's face it, has anyone else noticed that nowhere on his site does he show us the picture of his assistant's tattoo? Especially where it was hidden?
I could not have stated this any better than you did. The idea of patents by Jefferson was to ensure that the creators of innovation would be able to profit from their ideas, to encourage them to disclose their ideas.
It was not created as a way to bully innovative people into coughing up money for their hard work by lazy, parasites manipulating the legal system.
I wonder if there are any tech lawyers out there willing to represent some sort of counter suit against companies that try to do these activities. Or perhaps there is some politically minded geek out there who would be interested in running for office so as to get the Patent Office changed.
Anyone out there got a couple of million dollars to help me get elected to Congress?
A lot of companies attempt this sort of thing. One reader suggested that if your dot bomb company is going down the tubes, take the money and run. He's got a pretty good point. There probably won't be anything left to sue them for, unless they were up to some Enron-style activities.
In the United States, there must be an equitable exchange in such a contract for it to be valid. Suppose they get you to agree not to sue them. Then, a while after your departure, they renege on paying you severance as they agreed. Presumably, because you signed that paper you can't sue them. But the truth is, if they don't stand by their part of the agreement, then the contract is null and void. You can sue the crap out of them and collect triple damages.
One of my favorites is the "non-compete" clause, where you agree not to compete against your former company. This never stands in court, because they can't force you not to earn a living. When another company hires you for your skills, technically that means you could be competing against your old company.
Again, in the US, if the compensation you receive is not considered equitable to the conditions that you are being asked to accept, any such contract is null and void. If the severance is good -- take it! But if you have any doubts, maybe you should seek counsel. I live in Massachusetts, and the Attorney General's office is very aggressive in pursuing companies that pull these sort of things. The office offers legal advice and free counsel for people who want to find out if they have a complaint. Maybe your province in Canada offers something similar?
"The problem is the way that these patents were handled. Patents that are not enforced immediately should be automatically revoked by law. Protect them immediately, or lose them."
Actually, this is the law on Trademarks. Protect it immediately, or lose it. This is why you see MacDonalds, Disney, Bill Watterson and others have such a nutty when someone shows up with a similar moniker or symbol, or uses it for some use without permission. If they don't take it to court immediately, their rights to the trademark are immediately invalidated. So long as they defend it, a trademark is perpetual.
A copywrite protects the IP of the author of a piece of art. Much easier to defend than a trademark. The problem arises when a distributer demands the author hand over all rights, or they won't distribute the work. When you have lots of distributers, this is no problem, you simply go to a competing distributer. But when you only have five distributers (RIAA), there is a monopoly, and you can get blacklisted if you don't play by their rules.
Patents are different. Jefferson's vision of patents and inventions was that an invention immediately belongs to society, so that society may benefit from that innovation. But without some sort of benefit for the inventor, there would be no reason for the inventor to disclose his invention, thereby stifling innovation. Society would suffer from the lack thereof. So a patent protects the inventor by giving him a period of time to benefit from licensing his invention. But with some inventions, often it can be pretty hard to tell if some product is actually using a patented process and it takes time to reveal that fact. This is why a patent need not be vigorously defended, and can be invoked at any time. Indeed, demand for payment can be made retroactive for the lifespan of the product.
Of course, we all know there can be abuse to the system. Philo T. Farnsworth is a fine example of this. (Farnsworth invented the electronic television, in case you didn't know, and got screwed when RCA claimed they did. He finally won the court battle, and RCA was forced to pay royalties. But by that point, his patents began to expire. This is why today, inventors have more agressive laws to support them when fighting patent infringement. Imagine surfing the internet using a teletype machine...)
I watched as a friend of mine succumbed to ALS (Lou Gherig's Disease). She went from being a top notch singer and excellent stage presence to having to type slowly on a keyboard to communicate. Thank heavens that Apple had Text-to-Speech built into their operating system. She could at least be heard, albeit mechanically. In the end, the disease robbed her of even that when she could no longer control her hands.
I wonder if this software could have spared her the isolation of not being able to communicate with her friends and family. I have nothing but admiration for Dr. Stephen Hawking and how long he has held on against this horrible scourge. I wonder if he is using something similar. There are too many people who could really use a tool like this to help them communicate. Just because someone is in a wheelchair (or mechanical bed) and can't speak doesn't mean that there isn't a mind in there desperate to be heard as a human being.
Unfortunately, I can see that there may still problems and issues with input devices like these. Not everyone can hold their eye focus on one point. Maybe the software could be optimized for situations like this. Unfortunately, I'm a terrible programmer, but I'm sure that the Slashdot community represents enough brain power to work out better solutions based on what we have today.
Perhaps it's now time to file an anti-trust lawsuit against the recording industry. They're trying to cram pap that no one wants down our throats, and they are stifling innovation in the music industry by not letting us hear new and fresh sounds.
This is why internet streaming MP3 stations are so popular, because we can go out and look for what we want to hear, and try out new sounds that we haven't heard about.
Kevin Krajick wrote a book on finding diamonds in America. Information on this book can be found at this link about his book.
Because DeBeers is a monopoly, they are forbidden to do business in the United States due to the anti-trust laws. Directly, that is. They can crush any competition outside the U.S. by under cutting any competitor in prices. As a majority of the diamonds come from outside the U.S., we still get them from DeBeers, as a result.
Gem quality diamonds are still found in the U.S., one such source is in Arkansas, where you can actually go dig for your own diamonds in places. One of the largest yellow diamonds ever found was found in Arkansas.
Search for mineralogical societies. There are rock hounds everywhere who would love to point you in the right direction to find American found diamonds.
For example, Perhams of West Paris, Maine sells jewelry that was created from raw materials that were found in the state of Maine. Friends of mine got their engagement ring there: a dark blue sapphire ring. The sapphire was found in the legendary (for rock hounds) Newry mines, and the gold for the ring was panned out of the Swift River in Bryson.
Think about this angle: What does she want? A sterile, cardon-copy store bought gem? Or one that her man dug out of the ground with his own bare hands?
I cant fucking enjoy something that is not in print and unavailable for ANY PRICE used. So how again am I "The Public" benefited again?
Exactly!! You got my point exactly correct! You can't enjoy something that is not in print and unavailable! So if you give money to the author of the stuff you like, they can make a living at it and make more of what you enjoy.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow! Here's where I show my newbiness: I didn't even know that info existed! Looks like I've something more to learn! :)
Like any UNIX system, if it lacks a feature you want -- just compile it in! That's why UNIX won't be going away any decade soon. It can keep evolving, unlike closed operating systems. Mac customizers cried, "Foul!," when Apple released OS X, and groaned that Apple took away their ability to customize their Macs the way they wanted to. Nothing could be further from the truth! The UNIX layer made the OS much more customizable than ever before. It's just a little more complex. Yet customizations in OS X can be more profround and more integral to the system, now. One simply needs to learn how.
That being said, there is a flip-side to this. You have to know how. The man pages are actually geared more as a memnonic aid to those who already know how to work with UNIX, not those who want to learn. My discovery of the info command -- I never would have known about that if it wasn't mentioned above. A close friend and colleague of mine once described UNIX as, "'...a huge Easter egg hunt, you have to look for things. You never quite know what you're going to find in there.'"
What the other UNIXes -- Solaris, Irix, MacOS X, etc. -- have is dedicated programmers who are paid to pour over the code to create improvements and nice custom little routines to make it all run nice. Those UNIXes also are written to work on specific hardware. Linux is patched together by expert hobbiests who work in their spare time, and try to make it to work on multiple platforms. So Linux's development goes a bit slower, and maybe lacks the bells and whistles and the spit and polish of the hardware-dedicated commercial systems. But it's no less capable than the other systems.
But it still requires you know how to wrangle it into doing what you want. Sure, I can add stuff to my system. But if I tell my mother that she has to build this, and set a simple makefile for that, I don't think she is going to be able to do it. And my grandmother, at 100, basically pokes at her computer with a stick.
Linux is only limited by your own personal knowledge of what you can do with it.
It wasn't very long ago that IBM decided to add Moto's Altivec engine to their chips. Earlier, IBM had rejected Altivec because IBM wanted to target the embedded controller market, which they felt really didn't require Altivec enhancements.
In persuing new markets, adding Altivec made sense. Not to mention that it had a good strong successful demonstration as part of Apple's hardware. So now it is included. I know there are more details to it than all that, but at the moment I'm just too tired and lazy to look up the articles...
The astronauts are well aware that with each launch, they have a 50% to 70% chance of being killed.
That was a quote from an astronaut being interviewed after the Challenger disaster. Sorry, I can't remember his name, I just remember him making that comment.
The point he was making was just because we don't see astronauts dying horrible deaths every year doesn't mean that this is a safe enterprise. There is an enormous risk involved, with a very high level of danger at every step in the activity. The fact that we don't see so many horrible deaths is a testament to the amazing detail that the people at NASA go through to try to keep their friends and family safe when being flung into orbit.
Keep in mind, that's a measure of the odds, not a statitistic gathered after the fact. When the Americans launched their first astronauts in the Mercury program, the rocket they used had a statistical 95% failure rate. The seven astronauts that were launched in the Mercury program only had a five percent chance of surviving through just the launch!
At no point has NASA or any investigator come out and said that it was "'X' that caused the shuttle to break up." If anything, they've been imploring to the press not to jump to any conclusions. The easy answer would be to say, "Gee, it was an ice-engorged chunk of foam that struck the wing and broke the tiles off that caused this terribly accident."
The problem is, the foam is the most obvious candidate for causing the damage. But what if it wasn't? What if it was actually a fuel line that cracked open, began to burn -- hydrazine's value to the space program is that it can burn in a vacuum -- maybe it burned a hole from the inside out, allowing plasma from the rentry to get into the wing. What if it was actually a piece of space debris that struck the shuttle? We almost lost a crew a few years ago when a paint chip almost penetrated through one of the windows.
We just don't know, If they say it was the foam and it was actually something else, then the actual problem will not get fixed, and we will lose more astronauts.
The answers aren't going to come instantly. It is going to take a long time. It can take experts a couple of years to figure out what made an airplane come down, in spite of the fact that usually with a plane crash, the debris is in one small area. The shuttle debris is scattered over several states. The further west a piece is, the more likely it is going to shed light on what happened. The first pieces to come off are the most critical.
The astronauts are well aware that with each launch, they have a 50% to 70% chance of being killed. It's a testiment to how NASA does things that we haven't lost more astronauts. They accept this risk, because the work they do does eventually help everyone else in one way or another. They feel that this is worth the risk, to do what they can to help other people.
Will we stop going to space? Hell no! Even if the government gives up, people won't. How many people have died over the centuries when sailing ships explored the oceans? How many Polynesians sailed away from their home islands to colonize somewhere else, never to see dry land again? We have a pretty good idea how many Spanish galleons were lost in the Carribean. With a crew of upwards of 400, one ship resulted in a lot of lives lost.
None of that stopped us. Losing Challenger didn't stop us. Losing Columbia won't either. But it clearly serves as a terrible wakeup call that we missed something, and a sad reminder that spaceflight is not without risks.
So before you cry 'foul' and 'coverup,' give the people a chance to find out what happened to their friends.
Last -- what if they did know there was a problem? Do you think the crew would have wanted their friends and family knowing? Sitting there for the duration of the mission knowing their loved ones were doomed? I wouldn't want my family going through something like that. I'd rather put on a brave face, do everything I can to finish my work and life in some meaningful fashion, and then face destiny without making them suffer.
Sorry about the sermon...
Actually, for some music and entertainment professionals, it can matter! DJ's that we hire for various social functions have to maintain a highly diverse library. Jobs can run from a rave one night, to a church social the next.
A young man I met working as a DJ had a library of well over 10,000 CD's and vinyl LP's he was digitizing when time allowed. He was meticulous in keeping record of what he had -- not just the standard biographical data, but by the sound, beat and mood each piece created. To alleviate costs, he frequently got CD's from flea markets and second hand stores and clearance sales.
For as young as he was and starting out on his own as a professional DJ, his professionalism was impressive. He understood that his career lived and died by his ability to deliver what his customer asked for. And yes, he was using an Apple to manage things for him.
It's one thing to put together the latest hits to play at a dance or a wedding, but it is entirely another thing when an ad agency calls you looking for just the right sound for a commercial. The bigger the library and the faster you can find something relevant in there, the more likely you are going to get the money for the job.
Whenever we watch a TV show, commercial or movie that tries to set a period for things happening, they need the right music. If you're doing a movie about the 50's, you don't want Britney Spears tunes coming out of the jukebox. So they are always looking for someone who can truly deliver what they need, quickly. When they find someone who can do so, they keep bringing their business to that person.
For most people, I think we can say it doesn't matter. But for professionals, I think it could make a difference. Just the fact that there are people finding the iTunes limit is a pretty good indicator.
"Think about it: they bundle all sorts of software "as part of the OS", and they have repeatedly cracked down hard on clone and part makers trying to enter their niche market."
One small thing you are missing here is that at any time, I can choose to change any of those bundled items with something else. To run a different browser than what came with the OS, all I have to do is load it on my hard drive and double-click on it. Do I want that other browser as my default? All I have to do is change the system default, which is about 3 or four mouse-clicks away. Do I want to get rid of something? I just delete it, it's gone. Done. No ghosts of applications past haunting the "system registry."
I'm not even stuck using an Apple OS. My oldest box ran on BeOS for a while, now it's a Linux box. I can switch to Linux any time I want on my other machines, but why bother when I already have a fully compliant UNIX with an incredibly well polished graphic interface on top of it? Sure, there are some pretty good window managers out there for Linux, but they really lack the spit and polish and attention to details that Aqua offers. Among the system administrators, network administrators, and software developers I know, most of them are walking around with Ti Powerbooks now than Dells.
So what if OS X isn't free? Actually, you can have it for free, just without Aqua and some of the other extras included with Aqua (That's what you really pay for). Just compile Darwin and you have FreeBSD. Hey, you have to pay a hell of a lot more for other UNIXes than Mac OS X: Irix, Solaris, etc.
To quote Jobs: "Apple is in the business of making hardware, not software." (Well, that point is arguable...) That's "why" he put the kabosh on licensing their ROMs to clone makers. Apple does not have the resources to take on Micro$oft head to head on their turf as a software manufacturer. Of course, with the initial flood of clones on the market, it was the first time I saw MacOS-based systems drop to a reasonable price-level. I still think that Apple should cut their prices by 25% from where they are now. In my opinion, that would trigger a massive surge in their market share.
Sure, Apple has a history of arrogance towards their customers and in their marketing. That's one of the reasons they don't have a strong market share today. But they do make a quality product, and it is a product I can configure any way I want once I have it. Heck, it's a lot easier to customize it via the UNIX underbelly to do the things I want than the old MacOS ever was! It's just a new paradigm, and people need to learn how to do it.
...Is a video recording device that I can plug into my network. This way, all I need to do to schedule it to record something is enter it in iCal or email my computer. Imagine being able to use my Palm Pilot to enter in the time and date a program will be on, and all I have to do is sync it with the device.
'Nuff said.
How much money does it cost an ISP to be a good ISP? A lot more than you expect! Take an OC-3 line. This can run you upwards of US$50,000 PER MONTH! This is just to connect your customers to the major communications backbones of the internet, so they get reasonable bandwidth.
But now you need to connect those communications lines to something so that your customers can actually get onto the internet. How 'bout a couple of routers. A couple of new Ciscos could run you upwards of US$100,000. Oh, wait a sec! You need servers so your customers can put up their websites, and to manage their accounts and stuff? Servers are the "creeping featurism" of providing service. The more customers you want, the more servers you have to add. For good, high-quality, industrial grade servers, let's take an average price of $2,000. I haven't even mentioned all the Cat-5 cable and switches you're going to need internally to connect all your equipment together.
For that matter, how on earth are your customers going to physically connect to your service? Dial-up? Well, you will probably need a CLEC to be installed at the local phone company. Be a cable provider? You'll have to string lines up around town. That's expensive! Either way, you are now a utility, and you will have to license yourself as such. THAT costs some bills. The more customers you have, the more stuff is filling up your OC-3 bandwidth. In order to maintain a higher quality of service, you're probably going to need to add another OC-3 -- or more economically add a couple of DC-3's to help spread out the load. $! $! $! It's really starting to add up! Whew!
Just to connect alone, you are looking at a recurring cost of better than $500,000 per year. Equipment costs will probably run you another $300,000. But you have to maintain all that. There's another cost for maintenance contracts. Believe me! You can't run all this by yourself! You will need to hire people just to help run this. And sell your services. And deal with irate customers. And accountants to watch your books so you don't put yourself too deep in the red. Parasites- er, uh, "lawyers," to keep you out of trouble with RIAA when some cheese-eating high school boy decides that paying someone for their music so the musician can make a living goes against the constitutional rights to free listening...
And here's something that few people stop to think about: all these gadgets feed on electricity. There's yet another whopping, monthly recurring cost! Oh, well...
These are the things that your money is going towards. Admittedly, I'm listing out all the top tier stuff, here. When you want to handle industrial and commercial uses, many customers at that level want guarranteed levels of service. Just to run this level of ISP can very easily run you over US$1,500,000 per year. You had better keep your customers VERY happy in order to make enough money just to cover your costs.
At a lower level -- say you just want to be a neighborhood server for people in your part of town. Or maybe, all you want to do is be a hosting service, where people can park their web sites and pay you per month. A Mom-an'-Pop type set up could probably be pieced together for under $50,000, but you still have to connect to the internet so your customers sites serve to the world at a reasonable bandwidth. A DC-3 line could handle this at under $15,000 per month. You'd need quite a few customers to cover that cost, at least 200 at $75 just to match that price. More to make a profit.
A long time ago, before Broadband. When 2400 baud modems were considered lightning fast. It was quite possible to set yourself up with a couple of computers, a couple dozen modems and a T1 and call yourself an ISP. In fact, that's how a few of today's ISPs got started. Take a look at Pair.com". They are a classic example of a world class hosting service that got started in a garage. Nowadays, just to keep up with the competition, you have to put out over 200 time more cash just to get started.
Gee, I bet you wish you had that $350 million dollar Powerball lottery ticket now, don't ya?
Thanks for the info, Acidrain! But the problem is, none of your girlfriend's hard earned $100 went to the person who created this in the first place. Don't you think he should be paid for his efforts?
For myself, I can wait. For all their upset over what was done to Nausicaa many years ago, the folks at Ghibli are finally relaxing and allowing their stuff to be carried over to English again. Granted, it took Disney's marketing power to convince them, but it's finally happening. Admittedly, Disney wasn't quite prepared for the market. They didn't think they'd push Kiki's Delivery Service to DVD and also delayed the release of Laputa: Castle in the Sky. Kiki didn't sell as well as Disney had hoped. The problem was, it was released onto VHS at the some time that anime on DVD was destroying VHS sales. The swing came so fast, that some studios were hit with some pretty big losses because they couldn't give away the VHS copies of their catalog. Disney got the wrong impression that the market was too weak for development. (I know a couple of our favorite anime sources that went through some very tough financial times during that period.)
But with the success of Mononoke and Spirited Away, Disney is starting to put more energy into their relationship with Ghibli. Now those other titles are being reviewed for DVD release. If Spirited Away takes an Academy Award, it pretty well will guarantee that Disney will put top priority to releasing as many of Ghibli's titles for which they can get licensing.
The best way to make a business do what you want is to wave some money in its face. Then it will sit up and beg and do what it takes to get your money. So I'll do what I can to convince Disney to hurry up. (waving credit card it the air)
-Or to convince them to quickly sell the licensing to a smaller business such as Viz or Animeigo, for whom an amount too small for Disney would be a boon.
A hearty congratulations to Mr. Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli on a well deserved award! Looking at the incredible work that comes from them, I can't wait to see what is revealed as their next work!
The only downside is I have to wonder just how long I'll have to wait until I can add this to my DVD collection. Fortunately, Mononoke hit the market pretty quickly. If Mr. Miyazaki ever decided to release the Ghibli catalog to DVD, I have a check just waiting to be filled out for my order!
If I understand the article correctly, this is new in that is has a very small size, and uses a very small amount of liquid to conduct the heat, and requires no mechanical pump to drive it, no rewiring, etc.
Because of this, it can easily be fit into an existing design with minimal re-engineering of your product. That's where the cost comes into play for manufacturers -- or has no one noticed that we don't see liquid cooling in consumer computers yet? Too expensive to add into existing designs. Also, you get one leak, there goes your computer. Not to mention the potential hazards of having a liquid flowing over live electrical circuits.
Small size, small amount of coolant liquid, and no need to add mechanical pumps. Any laptop manufacturer could add this and not have to increase the price to cover the retooling costs for the manufacturing process. This means a faster -- and naturally hotter -- chip could be put into the laptop. That will mean laptops that are as fast as desktops, instead of lagging behind by a few years.
What's the name of the company that will be making these things? I want to buy stock NOW while I can still afford it!!!!
A lot of people seem to be missing the point here. They're all focused on the 'sexist cooking' comments made in the article.
The important thing behind this article is not only is this young woman poised to redefine the laws of physics, but she's also a MAJOR babe!!!
Fotini Markopoulou Kalamara, will you marry me?
I'm an Aquarius, enjoy moonlight walks on the beach, I love children and animals, I can count to ten (twenty if I take my shoes off!), AND on top of all that, I'm a pretty good cook...!
That's very well stated! I particularly liked the last line of your statement -- very good marketing tool for the independent contractor. Not to mention the fact that it's a perfectly logical statement of fact.
Actually, in spite of what the article says, Apple's "Junk" filter for their OS X.2 works amazingly well!
My domain registry email address receives roughly 70 to 120 spams per day. I clean out the mailbox once a week. Only one or two spams get through the Junk filter, if at all. I am seriously impressed. To further this observation, I forgot to check that email address for the entire month of September and most of October. Still, only a few spams got through when I downloaded the email.
It's a pity that I can't apply this filter directly to my hosting service to remove spam at that level. I think Apple really nailed together a good AI for anti-spamming.
Yes, I'd help out my old company. But it would be at one hell of a premium price! Basically, you can charge about $125 per hour as a consultant and still have that considered a reasonable rate.
But if they were going to cop an attitude with me, my minimum would be the equivalent of 2 months of my salary at the time I left the company. Half (non-refundable) to be paid up front, the other half to be paid when I've completed the job they brought me on to cover.
In ANY situation, make sure you get a P.O. from them before you show up to do the work!!! It should state what the work is that they expected you to accomplish. If they start asking you to do other things while you are there, tell them to fill out new P.O.'s for those tasks separately, and determine an hourly rate to be charged for every hour spent on those separate tasks. Those separate tasks should be started when you are done with the work paid for by the first P.O.
Be professional! Do the best work you can. Remember, at this point you are an independent contractor. Your work should stand as a testament of what you are capable of as a professional.
Last, when you're done, make sure you give a clear list of what you diagnosed and what you did to fix things. Make sure that the person who authorized the work signs off on it. Don't forget to make a copy! (using their copier, naturally!)
Before you can render, you still need to create the models. The best 3D model creator out there is formZ. It is very easy to use, but it has a steep learning curve because there is so much you can do with it. Version 4 is due out in another month or two, and brings formZ to a whole new level.
The models for the Star Wars movies, Oceans 11, a couple of the Batman movies, and a few other heavy CG-effects movies were all initially created with formZ before they were brought into other packages (mainly Maya) for advanced texturing and animation.
For rendering $B!=(B I have to admit being a bit torn between Lightwave and Maya. Maya I feel is better optimized for spreading renderings across massively clustered systems. But Lightwave is easier to learn, and has rendering capabilities that Maya does not.
Probably, in the end, you will end up owning all three of these packages. Creating the models in formZ and then using Maya or Lightwave, depending on what the end result needs to be.
All these programs will run natively in OS X and take advantage of the presence of multiple processors. Form-Z ver. 4 will also be able to automatically take advantage of network-distributed rendering (e.g. using a cluster) directly for a rendering.
Good luck!
Even though I may be a slathering, maniacal, unwashed Mac addict myself, this goes just a wee bit further than the usual. What is the world coming to?!? People really need to get their priorities straight in life. This is clearly a fine example of this!
Let's face it, has anyone else noticed that nowhere on his site does he show us the picture of his assistant's tattoo? Especially where it was hidden?
I am deeply disturbed.
I could not have stated this any better than you did. The idea of patents by Jefferson was to ensure that the creators of innovation would be able to profit from their ideas, to encourage them to disclose their ideas.
It was not created as a way to bully innovative people into coughing up money for their hard work by lazy, parasites manipulating the legal system.
I wonder if there are any tech lawyers out there willing to represent some sort of counter suit against companies that try to do these activities. Or perhaps there is some politically minded geek out there who would be interested in running for office so as to get the Patent Office changed.
Anyone out there got a couple of million dollars to help me get elected to Congress?
Yes! But what happens when the battery on the cell phone dies? ;)
A lot of companies attempt this sort of thing. One reader suggested that if your dot bomb company is going down the tubes, take the money and run. He's got a pretty good point. There probably won't be anything left to sue them for, unless they were up to some Enron-style activities.
In the United States, there must be an equitable exchange in such a contract for it to be valid. Suppose they get you to agree not to sue them. Then, a while after your departure, they renege on paying you severance as they agreed. Presumably, because you signed that paper you can't sue them. But the truth is, if they don't stand by their part of the agreement, then the contract is null and void. You can sue the crap out of them and collect triple damages.
One of my favorites is the "non-compete" clause, where you agree not to compete against your former company. This never stands in court, because they can't force you not to earn a living. When another company hires you for your skills, technically that means you could be competing against your old company.
Again, in the US, if the compensation you receive is not considered equitable to the conditions that you are being asked to accept, any such contract is null and void. If the severance is good -- take it! But if you have any doubts, maybe you should seek counsel. I live in Massachusetts, and the Attorney General's office is very aggressive in pursuing companies that pull these sort of things. The office offers legal advice and free counsel for people who want to find out if they have a complaint. Maybe your province in Canada offers something similar?
I wish you the best of luck.
"The problem is the way that these patents were handled. Patents that are not enforced immediately should be automatically revoked by law. Protect them immediately, or lose them."
Actually, this is the law on Trademarks. Protect it immediately, or lose it. This is why you see MacDonalds, Disney, Bill Watterson and others have such a nutty when someone shows up with a similar moniker or symbol, or uses it for some use without permission. If they don't take it to court immediately, their rights to the trademark are immediately invalidated. So long as they defend it, a trademark is perpetual.
A copywrite protects the IP of the author of a piece of art. Much easier to defend than a trademark. The problem arises when a distributer demands the author hand over all rights, or they won't distribute the work. When you have lots of distributers, this is no problem, you simply go to a competing distributer. But when you only have five distributers (RIAA), there is a monopoly, and you can get blacklisted if you don't play by their rules.
Patents are different. Jefferson's vision of patents and inventions was that an invention immediately belongs to society, so that society may benefit from that innovation. But without some sort of benefit for the inventor, there would be no reason for the inventor to disclose his invention, thereby stifling innovation. Society would suffer from the lack thereof. So a patent protects the inventor by giving him a period of time to benefit from licensing his invention. But with some inventions, often it can be pretty hard to tell if some product is actually using a patented process and it takes time to reveal that fact. This is why a patent need not be vigorously defended, and can be invoked at any time. Indeed, demand for payment can be made retroactive for the lifespan of the product.
Of course, we all know there can be abuse to the system. Philo T. Farnsworth is a fine example of this. (Farnsworth invented the electronic television, in case you didn't know, and got screwed when RCA claimed they did. He finally won the court battle, and RCA was forced to pay royalties. But by that point, his patents began to expire. This is why today, inventors have more agressive laws to support them when fighting patent infringement. Imagine surfing the internet using a teletype machine...)
I watched as a friend of mine succumbed to ALS (Lou Gherig's Disease). She went from being a top notch singer and excellent stage presence to having to type slowly on a keyboard to communicate. Thank heavens that Apple had Text-to-Speech built into their operating system. She could at least be heard, albeit mechanically. In the end, the disease robbed her of even that when she could no longer control her hands.
I wonder if this software could have spared her the isolation of not being able to communicate with her friends and family. I have nothing but admiration for Dr. Stephen Hawking and how long he has held on against this horrible scourge. I wonder if he is using something similar. There are too many people who could really use a tool like this to help them communicate. Just because someone is in a wheelchair (or mechanical bed) and can't speak doesn't mean that there isn't a mind in there desperate to be heard as a human being.
Unfortunately, I can see that there may still problems and issues with input devices like these. Not everyone can hold their eye focus on one point. Maybe the software could be optimized for situations like this. Unfortunately, I'm a terrible programmer, but I'm sure that the Slashdot community represents enough brain power to work out better solutions based on what we have today.
Anyone...?
Perhaps it's now time to file an anti-trust lawsuit against the recording industry. They're trying to cram pap that no one wants down our throats, and they are stifling innovation in the music industry by not letting us hear new and fresh sounds.
This is why internet streaming MP3 stations are so popular, because we can go out and look for what we want to hear, and try out new sounds that we haven't heard about.
Kevin Krajick wrote a book on finding diamonds in America. Information on this book can be found at this link about his book.
Because DeBeers is a monopoly, they are forbidden to do business in the United States due to the anti-trust laws. Directly, that is. They can crush any competition outside the U.S. by under cutting any competitor in prices. As a majority of the diamonds come from outside the U.S., we still get them from DeBeers, as a result.
Gem quality diamonds are still found in the U.S., one such source is in Arkansas, where you can actually go dig for your own diamonds in places. One of the largest yellow diamonds ever found was found in Arkansas.
Search for mineralogical societies. There are rock hounds everywhere who would love to point you in the right direction to find American found diamonds.
For example, Perhams of West Paris, Maine sells jewelry that was created from raw materials that were found in the state of Maine. Friends of mine got their engagement ring there: a dark blue sapphire ring. The sapphire was found in the legendary (for rock hounds) Newry mines, and the gold for the ring was panned out of the Swift River in Bryson.
Think about this angle: What does she want? A sterile, cardon-copy store bought gem? Or one that her man dug out of the ground with his own bare hands?
I cant fucking enjoy something that is not in print and unavailable for ANY PRICE used. So how again am I "The Public" benefited again?
Exactly!! You got my point exactly correct! You can't enjoy something that is not in print and unavailable! So if you give money to the author of the stuff you like, they can make a living at it and make more of what you enjoy.