I think we are all talking about the same thing - from a different prospective. Yes, there is always an underlying scientific process for all this. When I said 'magic' I was referring to the ability of some humans (i.e. chefs) to identify the few combinations that are not necessarily apparent/obvious and which please the human tastebuds. And no, there is no 'magic' happening per se (of course) - could we perhaps settle on the word 'art'? Oh boy - here we go again - LOL:-)
There is more to cooking than just science. Think about it - how many variations of 'proteins, acids, amino acids, fats, carbohydrates' are out there? It's not in how those ingredients are being mixed, the magic lies in which ones you mix together. Of course discard the word 'magic' in the context of British recipes;-)
I tried to set up Fedore 2 on one of my older machines (a 400Mhz system) a few weeks ago - no dice and X kept crashing all the time after a few hours of active use. I'm not sure if it was my box, but it's happily running RH 9.0 at this point. Besides all the problems I also hated the fact that it never asked me for he boot level. There was no way to select level 3 from the get-go and a novice trying to get to a pure commandline interface would experience problems.
I also hear a lot of complaints from my group of colleagues - looks like a lot of them are switching to other distros. Anyway, I'll keep RH 9 running and will give Fedora another shot next time I set up a box - those problems better be fixed though...
Problem solved - peer network users will quickly be able to excreed bogus files by declaring them as 'suspicous'. Quality content will flow to the top and will be shared more effectively. In fact, while this might throw a monkey wrench into existing clients and frameworks, it might actually lead to higher quality downloads.
... or does anyone really think that these guys are NOT aware of this?
Anyone surprised support jobs are moving to India?
on
Orwellian Tech Support
·
· Score: 1
I haven't read all the responses on this thread, but I couldn't help but wonder - is anyone surprised that tech support jobs are moving to India? I've had my share of stints with customer support personnel who I wound up educating (and I felt like an idiot afterward) - up to the point that I just don't call customer support anymore. Unless it's a small company of course where I know who's doing tech support and I can drive down the street and kick his hiny if necessary;-)
But all violent urges when dealing with tech support personnel aside - if that greedy attitude is the standard out here in the U.S. - then we shouldn't complain about those jobs wandering off to India. I'd rather have some guy with a 7/11 accent answer my call and try to help me out then to simply have my time blatantly wasted. That's the problem in this country, everyone is so busy finding ways to undercut the next guy and putting one's hand into someone else's pocket - it just goes down the line until the lowest bitter is someone is Mombay (formerly Bombay).
We all thought that pure greed and lack of integrity is commonly accepted now and that's just the law of the land. Well, guess what? There are repercussions to all actions (good or bad) and maybe you doing a crappy job today or some company just focusing on the bottom-line will cause a snowball effect in the long run. Can't find a job for over six months now? Maybe it's that type of mentality that caused the dotcom bubble to burst in the first place. And obviously, reading reports such as this, people have still not learned their lesson, and it's
'business as usual'. Corporate America is a piece of turde - I'd probably feel better working as a male actor in p0rn movies than to live through one day as depicted in this article.
Actually, using a lot of 'prosumer' and consumer cameras myself, I would recommend to find a camcorder that does NOT have a lot of zoom. Zooming has totally been blown out of proportion by the marketing drones (typical: more zoom = better) but guess what - you won't need it for 95% of the shots you want to make. When's the last time you watched a movie that showed a lot of zooming? Did you know that film camera lenses don't even have zooming capabilities? You need a special zoom lens for that - or you just dolly in. Really, all this MTV-style zooming has become the hallmark of non-professional video and if you can - stay away from it!
Based on all that confusion related to zooming, many consumer cameras have a minimum focal length that's the equivalent of 50mm or more! Yeah, now you can stand in Santa Monica and film some bug crawling around on a boat in Catalina Island, but make sure you don't fall out of the window when trying to film your newborn's crip on the other side of the room! LOL
I would also recommend a used GL2 - it's an excellent camera, the focal length is relatively short (43mm equiv.) and it's got great optics - which is the most important aspect of a camera. It also got three 1/4'' CCDs and you won't believe the quality you will get for relatively little money.
This was to be expected - they have done a great job re-strategizing their business and producing film based cameras is probably not as profitable. Although I'll miss film eventually, when it's really gone - it has a certain look & feel that is very unique. There is also still a lot of resolution left in film that has never been tapped, based on the nano-sized film particles. I wonder if that is a pre-cursor to theatrical film...
I've gone through this a few weeks ago and it took me 2 weeks to figure it out. Anyway, in order to save you guys those pains, make sure you download the video driver and stereo drivers in PAIRS. That means if you run the 45.23 stereo driver you also need the 45.23 video driver. You'll find a lot of info/help on this issue at the guru3d.com forums.
I did not RTFA, but from similar excerpts on the subject matter it is clear that they engineered the virus to only infect cancerous cells. The virus might be attracted to the increased level of telomerase that is being produced by cancer cells. Telomerase is used to replenish the expended telomeres on the end of the shoelaces-like DNA helixes. From what I know RNA attaches itself to the telomeres and starts recreating what it reads off. However, the place where it attaches itself does not get fully read, and therefore not re-created. Thus, the new molecule has a shorter telomere (the shiny end part on your shoelace). Now, when the end of the telomere is reached, the cell knows that it's time to commit senesence (suicide). Some guy called Hayflick figured that out in the 50's and that's why they call it the 'Hayflick limit', which is somewhere around 50 replications per cell (aka mitosis).
The problem is that cancer cells produce a lot more telomerase, which replenish their telomeres, so those suckers just won't die. If I would engineer a virus, I'd have it be attracted to that.
Anyway, just my 2 cents, maybe someone who really knows this stuff can elaborate on my layman explanation of this.
Sorry guys, but you've GOT to get out of the house more often!! LOL
I concede that she's not a total dog and does have some curves, but she's not even close to hot on my scale. Hey, but I'd do her just at the remote chance that it would raise my own IQ by a few nodges. Here's my own equation:
Sorry guys, but you've GOT to get out of the house more often!! LOL
I concede that she's not a total dog and does have some curves, but she's not even close to hot on my scale. Hey, but I'd do her just at the remote chance that it would raise my own IQ by a few nodges. Here's my own equation:
.... it's all about 'people using computers' to increase productivity and shift their daily tasks from repetitive grunt work to intelligent information management. Also, let's factor in that in this brave new world of computers how much time is actually being spent on battling viruses, appying patches, re-installing new operating systems, learning applications, etc.. We are in some ways more productive, but we also pay a certain price for being able to instantly communicate with someone on the other side of the planet. One can debate this issue to death, but I personally feel that I'm a lot more powerful in my capabilities and my creativity than I was just 10 years ago. Some of that can be attributed to my own growth, but a lot of it is based on me being able to write a Java servlet for a form, open an illustration in Illustrator, work with my spreadsheet on some business projections, download movies with Kazaa (oooops;-) - anyway, you get the drift.
The current cycle is exactly just that: a cycle - and it will swing back up again in its due time (when, if I just knew I would live on my own island and charge a lot of money for that info). Of course the world has changed and the new EC, NAFTA, terrorist attacks, corporate greed and corruption, Microsoft, George Bush, Bill Gates, you picks it, all have an hand in the current economic situation. So do you and I - who knows any one of us might come up with this amazing new idea that gives IT a renewed boost and changes things to some extend.
I personally don't focus my attention on 'computers' or any other tool I work with. It's all about creativity and good ideas - getting the job done. Has the computer changed my way of doing things? Yes, and so did the invention of the gun powder - we use what we can - but in the end wealth creation depends on people not tools.
Trying to get a Nvidia dual port card to work
on
Worst Linux Annoyances?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
After messing around with X for a week, I finally had the insight to download the Nvidia driver from their site. Worked like a charm right away, but there should have been more documentation on this. This book might just be what the Linux community needs. Then again, what does that say about the user friendlyness of Linux?;-)
I didn't study non-stop for the last 11 years just to join the ranks of technical support. The whole reason for me to get into technology and eventually into IT was to 'build cool sh...t' - not to listen to some technophobe bitching about why her/his system got corrupted after opening some suspicous email attachment. Seriously, is that all we'll be relegated to do? Hey, I rather start laying bricks then - at least I have something productive to look as the fruits of my work. Just my two cents, I bet many will disagree - but I'm not wired that way...
I can't believe these schools are seriously considering making a deal with the music industry. What if I simply don't care about all that commercial crap they throw on the market year in and out? Who's next? Drug dealers? It's bad enough that students get bombarded with credit card offers the day they start college. Nothing like getting into dept and starting off the 'American way of life' - now the music pushers want their cut too? Not to overreact here, but does anyone else feel less and less like a citizen and increasinly just like a f....ing consumer? There is someting terribly wrong with this picture - commercial entities should stay out of academic organizations as much as possible - basta!
Just my 2 cents - things are really getting out of hand out there...
I just went to the Anime Expo 2003 in Anaheim and saw the entire Animatrix there. It's simply incredible what they are pulling off these days. I predicted something like this over 10 years ago, when 3D was just getting on to a lukewarm start, but I'm still flabbergasted seeing almost life-like actors completely generated in 3D. Now, give those guys another 10 or 20 years and we will be able to generate realistic movies entirely in a computer. And, I must add of course: Can you imagine a beowolf cluster of these?;-)
Isn't that what Einstein said? Anyway, that link seems to be down, but I just saw a documentary yesterday night on the telly, where they trained people to modify their brainwave activity to move a player through a video game. I think this only scratches the surface - there's a lot of potential that we probably don't even know about... I would be glad to add a few more percent to mine, that's for sure - LOL:-)
'Nanosystems' for the rest of us
on
Nanotechnology
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I met Eric Drexler and Ralph Merkle at one of the Foresight Institute meetings a few years ago while I was living in Silicon Vally. I had always been a nanotech groupy and decided to shell out big bucks to buy Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation which unfortunately totally was beyond my level of scientific education (Jim, I'm a doctor, not a physicist;-) Anyway, this looks like something a bit more becoming for us 'pseudo science geeks' who know the basics about DNA, molecules, Angstrom, MOLs etc.. but don't have a deep scientific foundation. This is going to be the next frontier - well, actually it already is, and the better the wider public is informed the better. I am actually in the planning phase for a 3-part nanotech documentary, if anyone is interested in contributing, please let me know.
You're absolutely correct - Sun Tzu is the author and the book is called 'Art of War' - another book worth reading is 'A Book of Five Rings' which pretty much is the more Zen based Japanese version. I didn't have my coffee yet this morning when I stepped on my little soap box.
... or is the RIAA getting real desperate? It amuses me that their broad 'onslaught' of lawsuits against P2P networks, downloaders, uploaders, etc.. as well as more 'creative' activities such as these envisioned to battle illegal copying of shared digital media had almost zero effect on its proliferation. P2P file sharing is alive and kicking and I just bought myself a brandnew Sony car radio that - big surprise - also plays MP3s (what irony I might add). UPS is also in the process of delivering my shiny new KISS DP-500 from Europe, which plays DVDs and - you probably guessed it - DivX and Xvid files as well (and it has an Ethernet port - droool;-)
So, I really wonder what the RIAA's vision of the future is - obviously they are paying a lot of people (i.e. lawyers) very high consulting fees to come up with something to preserver their 'interest' (pun intended) - and this is the BEST they can come up with? LOL
Seriously - a friend of my and I came up with a working, commercial P2P digital distribution model 3 years ago, that would kick illegal copying to the curb since it actually rewarded people for downloading. We actually pitched it to the usual suspects and got laughed at. I'm actually surprised that noone has replicated our effort up to this point - maybe I'll pick up on it when I'm done with my current company.
Maybe Rosen should buy herself a copy of 'Sun Tsu' (a book about the art of warfare which predates the bible) - and I quote: 'fighting a protracted war against an overwhelming and resourceful enemy should be avoided at all cost.'
It is time that the RIAA fesses up to its evils and relinquishes these silly stabs against P2P downloaders - they just wind up pissing off their greates asset - the kids willing to pay good money for concerts and 'affordable music' (Rosen: re-read the last sentence three times).
Now, I'm as much a tech geek like the next slashdotter, but I don't understand why being able to schlepp your TV around would be such a big deal. When's the last time any of you felt the need to move your 21 incher to the bathroom... mmmh, maybe while I take a bath - at least I wouldn't get electrocuted again that way - LOL.
Anyway, I'm much more looking forward to that 802.11b equipped DivX/DVD player - now THAT's something useful. Anhone any clue when that thing is making it into the U.S.?
Slashdot Mirror
I think we are all talking about the same thing - from a different prospective. Yes, there is always an underlying scientific process for all this. When I said 'magic' I was referring to the ability of some humans (i.e. chefs) to identify the few combinations that are not necessarily apparent/obvious and which please the human tastebuds. And no, there is no 'magic' happening per se (of course) - could we perhaps settle on the word 'art'? Oh boy - here we go again - LOL :-)
There is more to cooking than just science. Think about it - how many variations of 'proteins, acids, amino acids, fats, carbohydrates' are out there? It's not in how those ingredients are being mixed, the magic lies in which ones you mix together. Of course discard the word 'magic' in the context of British recipes ;-)
I tried to set up Fedore 2 on one of my older machines (a 400Mhz system) a few weeks ago - no dice and X kept crashing all the time after a few hours of active use. I'm not sure if it was my box, but it's happily running RH 9.0 at this point. Besides all the problems I also hated the fact that it never asked me for he boot level. There was no way to select level 3 from the get-go and a novice trying to get to a pure commandline interface would experience problems. I also hear a lot of complaints from my group of colleagues - looks like a lot of them are switching to other distros. Anyway, I'll keep RH 9 running and will give Fedora another shot next time I set up a box - those problems better be fixed though...
Problem solved - peer network users will quickly be able to excreed bogus files by declaring them as 'suspicous'. Quality content will flow to the top and will be shared more effectively. In fact, while this might throw a monkey wrench into existing clients and frameworks, it might actually lead to higher quality downloads.
... or does anyone really think that these guys are NOT aware of this?
I haven't read all the responses on this thread, but I couldn't help but wonder - is anyone surprised that tech support jobs are moving to India? I've had my share of stints with customer support personnel who I wound up educating (and I felt like an idiot afterward) - up to the point that I just don't call customer support anymore. Unless it's a small company of course where I know who's doing tech support and I can drive down the street and kick his hiny if necessary ;-)
But all violent urges when dealing with tech support personnel aside - if that greedy attitude is the standard out here in the U.S. - then we shouldn't complain about those jobs wandering off to India. I'd rather have some guy with a 7/11 accent answer my call and try to help me out then to simply have my time blatantly wasted. That's the problem in this country, everyone is so busy finding ways to undercut the next guy and putting one's hand into someone else's pocket - it just goes down the line until the lowest bitter is someone is Mombay (formerly Bombay).
We all thought that pure greed and lack of integrity is commonly accepted now and that's just the law of the land. Well, guess what? There are repercussions to all actions (good or bad) and maybe you doing a crappy job today or some company just focusing on the bottom-line will cause a snowball effect in the long run. Can't find a job for over six months now? Maybe it's that type of mentality that caused the dotcom bubble to burst in the first place. And obviously, reading reports such as this, people have still not learned their lesson, and it's 'business as usual'. Corporate America is a piece of turde - I'd probably feel better working as a male actor in p0rn movies than to live through one day as depicted in this article.
Actually, using a lot of 'prosumer' and consumer cameras myself, I would recommend to find a camcorder that does NOT have a lot of zoom. Zooming has totally been blown out of proportion by the marketing drones (typical: more zoom = better) but guess what - you won't need it for 95% of the shots you want to make. When's the last time you watched a movie that showed a lot of zooming? Did you know that film camera lenses don't even have zooming capabilities? You need a special zoom lens for that - or you just dolly in. Really, all this MTV-style zooming has become the hallmark of non-professional video and if you can - stay away from it!
Based on all that confusion related to zooming, many consumer cameras have a minimum focal length that's the equivalent of 50mm or more! Yeah, now you can stand in Santa Monica and film some bug crawling around on a boat in Catalina Island, but make sure you don't fall out of the window when trying to film your newborn's crip on the other side of the room! LOL
I would also recommend a used GL2 - it's an excellent camera, the focal length is relatively short (43mm equiv.) and it's got great optics - which is the most important aspect of a camera. It also got three 1/4'' CCDs and you won't believe the quality you will get for relatively little money.
This was to be expected - they have done a great job re-strategizing their business and producing film based cameras is probably not as profitable. Although I'll miss film eventually, when it's really gone - it has a certain look & feel that is very unique. There is also still a lot of resolution left in film that has never been tapped, based on the nano-sized film particles. I wonder if that is a pre-cursor to theatrical film...
I've gone through this a few weeks ago and it took me 2 weeks to figure it out. Anyway, in order to save you guys those pains, make sure you download the video driver and stereo drivers in PAIRS. That means if you run the 45.23 stereo driver you also need the 45.23 video driver. You'll find a lot of info/help on this issue at the guru3d.com forums.
I did not RTFA, but from similar excerpts on the subject matter it is clear that they engineered the virus to only infect cancerous cells. The virus might be attracted to the increased level of telomerase that is being produced by cancer cells. Telomerase is used to replenish the expended telomeres on the end of the shoelaces-like DNA helixes. From what I know RNA attaches itself to the telomeres and starts recreating what it reads off. However, the place where it attaches itself does not get fully read, and therefore not re-created. Thus, the new molecule has a shorter telomere (the shiny end part on your shoelace). Now, when the end of the telomere is reached, the cell knows that it's time to commit senesence (suicide). Some guy called Hayflick figured that out in the 50's and that's why they call it the 'Hayflick limit', which is somewhere around 50 replications per cell (aka mitosis).
The problem is that cancer cells produce a lot more telomerase, which replenish their telomeres, so those suckers just won't die. If I would engineer a virus, I'd have it be attracted to that.
Anyway, just my 2 cents, maybe someone who really knows this stuff can elaborate on my layman explanation of this.
Not number one, but hey, you can't always win.
Sorry guys, but you've GOT to get out of the house more often!! LOL
I concede that she's not a total dog and does have some curves, but she's not even close to hot on my scale.
Hey, but I'd do her just at the remote chance that it would raise my own IQ by a few nodges.
Here's my own equation:
moreIQ = doMeNow(hornygeek + curvy smart chick);
Sorry guys, but you've GOT to get out of the house more often!! LOL
I concede that she's not a total dog and does have some curves, but she's not even close to hot on my scale.
Hey, but I'd do her just at the remote chance that it would raise my own IQ by a few nodges. Here's my own equation:
moreIQ = doMeNow(hornygeek + curvy smart chick);
.... it's all about 'people using computers' to increase productivity and shift their daily tasks from repetitive grunt work to intelligent information management. Also, let's factor in that in this brave new world of computers how much time is actually being spent on battling viruses, appying patches, re-installing new operating systems, learning applications, etc.. We are in some ways more productive, but we also pay a certain price for being able to instantly communicate with someone on the other side of the planet. One can debate this issue to death, but I personally feel that I'm a lot more powerful in my capabilities and my creativity than I was just 10 years ago. Some of that can be attributed to my own growth, but a lot of it is based on me being able to write a Java servlet for a form, open an illustration in Illustrator, work with my spreadsheet on some business projections, download movies with Kazaa (oooops ;-) - anyway, you get the drift.
The current cycle is exactly just that: a cycle - and it will swing back up again in its due time (when, if I just knew I would live on my own island and charge a lot of money for that info). Of course the world has changed and the new EC, NAFTA, terrorist attacks, corporate greed and corruption, Microsoft, George Bush, Bill Gates, you picks it, all have an hand in the current economic situation. So do you and I - who knows any one of us might come up with this amazing new idea that gives IT a renewed boost and changes things to some extend.
I personally don't focus my attention on 'computers' or any other tool I work with. It's all about creativity and good ideas - getting the job done. Has the computer changed my way of doing things? Yes, and so did the invention of the gun powder - we use what we can - but in the end wealth creation depends on people not tools.
After messing around with X for a week, I finally had the insight to download the Nvidia driver from their site. Worked like a charm right away, but there should have been more documentation on this. This book might just be what the Linux community needs. Then again, what does that say about the user friendlyness of Linux? ;-)
I was referring to my professional experience in IT... I was not counting school education.
I didn't study non-stop for the last 11 years just to join the ranks of technical support. The whole reason for me to get into technology and eventually into IT was to 'build cool sh...t' - not to listen to some technophobe bitching about why her/his system got corrupted after opening some suspicous email attachment. Seriously, is that all we'll be relegated to do? Hey, I rather start laying bricks then - at least I have something productive to look as the fruits of my work. Just my two cents, I bet many will disagree - but I'm not wired that way...
I can't believe these schools are seriously considering making a deal with the music industry. What if I simply don't care about all that commercial crap they throw on the market year in and out? Who's next? Drug dealers? It's bad enough that students get bombarded with credit card offers the day they start college. Nothing like getting into dept and starting off the 'American way of life' - now the music pushers want their cut too? Not to overreact here, but does anyone else feel less and less like a citizen and increasinly just like a f....ing consumer? There is someting terribly wrong with this picture - commercial entities should stay out of academic organizations as much as possible - basta! Just my 2 cents - things are really getting out of hand out there...
... they're selling this stuff online and I get my nailclippers confiscated before boarding my plane. What a world we live in ...
I just went to the Anime Expo 2003 in Anaheim and saw the entire Animatrix there. It's simply incredible what they are pulling off these days. I predicted something like this over 10 years ago, when 3D was just getting on to a lukewarm start, but I'm still flabbergasted seeing almost life-like actors completely generated in 3D. Now, give those guys another 10 or 20 years and we will be able to generate realistic movies entirely in a computer. And, I must add of course: Can you imagine a beowolf cluster of these? ;-)
Isn't that what Einstein said? Anyway, that link seems to be down, but I just saw a documentary yesterday night on the telly, where they trained people to modify their brainwave activity to move a player through a video game. I think this only scratches the surface - there's a lot of potential that we probably don't even know about... I would be glad to add a few more percent to mine, that's for sure - LOL :-)
I met Eric Drexler and Ralph Merkle at one of the Foresight Institute meetings a few years ago while I was living in Silicon Vally. I had always been a nanotech groupy and decided to shell out big bucks to buy Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation which unfortunately totally was beyond my level of scientific education (Jim, I'm a doctor, not a physicist ;-) Anyway, this looks like something a bit more becoming for us 'pseudo science geeks' who know the basics about DNA, molecules, Angstrom, MOLs etc.. but don't have a deep scientific foundation. This is going to be the next frontier - well, actually it already is, and the better the wider public is informed the better. I am actually in the planning phase for a 3-part nanotech documentary, if anyone is interested in contributing, please let me know.
You're absolutely correct - Sun Tzu is the author and the book is called 'Art of War' - another book worth reading is 'A Book of Five Rings' which pretty much is the more Zen based Japanese version. I didn't have my coffee yet this morning when I stepped on my little soap box.
... or is the RIAA getting real desperate? It amuses me that their broad 'onslaught' of lawsuits against P2P networks, downloaders, uploaders, etc.. as well as more 'creative' activities such as these envisioned to battle illegal copying of shared digital media had almost zero effect on its proliferation. P2P file sharing is alive and kicking and I just bought myself a brandnew Sony car radio that - big surprise - also plays MP3s (what irony I might add). UPS is also in the process of delivering my shiny new KISS DP-500 from Europe, which plays DVDs and - you probably guessed it - DivX and Xvid files as well (and it has an Ethernet port - droool ;-)
So, I really wonder what the RIAA's vision of the future is - obviously they are paying a lot of people (i.e. lawyers) very high consulting fees to come up with something to preserver their 'interest' (pun intended) - and this is the BEST they can come up with? LOL
Seriously - a friend of my and I came up with a working, commercial P2P digital distribution model 3 years ago, that would kick illegal copying to the curb since it actually rewarded people for downloading. We actually pitched it to the usual suspects and got laughed at. I'm actually surprised that noone has replicated our effort up to this point - maybe I'll pick up on it when I'm done with my current company.
Maybe Rosen should buy herself a copy of 'Sun Tsu' (a book about the art of warfare which predates the bible) - and I quote: 'fighting a protracted war against an overwhelming and resourceful enemy should be avoided at all cost.' It is time that the RIAA fesses up to its evils and relinquishes these silly stabs against P2P downloaders - they just wind up pissing off their greates asset - the kids willing to pay good money for concerts and 'affordable music' (Rosen: re-read the last sentence three times).
Now, I'm as much a tech geek like the next slashdotter, but I don't understand why being able to schlepp your TV around would be such a big deal. When's the last time any of you felt the need to move your 21 incher to the bathroom... mmmh, maybe while I take a bath - at least I wouldn't get electrocuted again that way - LOL.
Anyway, I'm much more looking forward to that 802.11b equipped DivX/DVD player - now THAT's something useful. Anhone any clue when that thing is making it into the U.S.?