No, per my thread above, it's not possible at a reasonable cost. You'd basically need to dope your own microprocessors. You're not going to be doing that at home...
There are a couple of problems with such a printer:
A. Although you probably could get something to print circuit boards, you'd have one hell of a time printing capacitors, resistors, transistors etc. B. As such, you'd have to solder every little piece in by hand. C. As such, why couldn't you just use a preexisting solution (i.e. print up a schematic and use a UV light to burn it to a copper clad board)?
If hobbyists wanted to create open source electronic gizmos they could. However, whereas I can use./configure && make && make install to create the most complicated open source software from scratch, any open source hobby kits will be limited by how complex fabrication a home user can really do (without getting bored)
The problem with that is you're adding more elements that you need Linux hackers to work on. This will divert talent from improving the core OS, or interesting tools...
Because they have to. Your boss congratulates you on your promotion, then when the shit hits the fan tells you that as a senior member of the team you are expected to work overtime now and then. Then now and then becomes every fucking day.
It costs something like $1.50 every time you cash a check. The bank pays a teller to properly log it into the system, to ship it somewhere, do whatever processing, and whatever else it needs to get your money.
It seems then, reasonable, that with banks now being able to computerize images of checks, and automatically process them, or having an online bill pay where a bank has less work to do, can save a bank (which processes however many checks a day) buttloads of money.
Do you pay for it as a consumer? Maybe. I get a crap rate in my savings account even though interest rates are at the highest they've been since the bubble burst. BUT, I don't pay for checking, savings, tellers, or any of that. The only thing I arguably pay for is the checks -- and I use an online service so it costs me $20 for more checks than I'll ever need (partly because now everything goes on my credit card or online bill pay)
While I realize this list is written for folks who enjoy this kind of stuff, I don't think *anyone* would find that adding another half hour of film devoted to showing how Jurassic Park hired computer experts and documenting their security systems would benefit the movie.
Why not? Crappy prequels made a mint for George Lucas!
Not to be anal but your original post said i^2 = 0. You misquoted the article which was talking about x^2 + 1 = 0.
Also, SQRT(x) is assumed to only mean the positive root of x. It's like the way sometimes people refer to the natural logarithm as log and sometimes as ln. You always need to know what you're dealing with, and understand where ambiguities might lie...
Descartes or some long dead mathematician did just that for sqrt(-1). He said, we know sqrt(-1) doesn't exist, so let's make it equal to some number i. By using numbers that included a component of i, he was able to get real results.
So why can't we do this for other items that are not a number, i.e. x/0?
As IAAA (I am an accountant), Sony has a couple of ways to not take that big a loss in this quarter:
1. They can "depreciate" it -- basically they chop up one big loss into tiny pieces and take the hit over a long period of time. This is why if Intel opens a new plant, it wouldn't have one hugely unprofitable quarter (from the multibillion dollar investment), and quarters after that with oodles of profit. 2. They can use "accruals" to offset the loss. Basically they say "we've spent $x, but will make back $y, so we will put $y-$x on our balance sheet" 3. They can issue a statement to shareholders that this is an "extraordinary item." They would take a hit in the short term, tell the Street that it won't happen again, and make lots of money in the future.
I'd guess they'd do both #1 and #2.
--- (Note to the anal: yes I simplified the above terms but it's good enough for non-accountants)
It's the same in the US. I think the bigger issue is money? Why would a kid spend money (a very limited resource for kids) on something they could get for free?
It's basically a profit decision. If you make $10 per user for your software, and it costs $10,000 to rewrite your software to support Firefox, if you can't find 1,000 firefox users to buy your software, you shouldn't support firefox.[1] You just need to look to see whether or not you make money, and if it is a profitable decision (and profits don't just mean money -- do you gain enough good will from supporting legacy systems to make supporting IE 3 OK?) go for it.
[1] Yes these numbers are completely 100% pulled out of my ass. But the same principal applies.
Good websites like salary.com will provide you with the median income in your area. Median is of course a better measure of central tendancy for salary than average, so you can get a reasonable idea of what someone in your area should be making, along with a range (i.e. you may not make exactly ___, but you will make within $20k of it).
Part of this is probably due to the lack of fun / demand. Typically people doing OSS projects are doing it because either they enjoy it, or because they feel that it helps fill a need of some sorts. Commercial grade accounting systems and the programs you mentioned simply do not help to scratch this itch. IMHO, the only way these programs will evolve as open source is if a company says "What I'm paying to ____ I could use to write my own software," does it, open sources it, and then other industry insiders join in. But I fear that may be many many years down the road.:'(
I can't speak for Australia, I just know that when my mom broke off the pin on her laptop for the power supply, she got it back in a week after I took it in for her. That's not a cheap or easy fix (easy compared with replacing a hard drive on a desktop).
I'm actually talking to you on my PIII and I can tell you right now that it will choke and die on DOOM3 or any of the newer games. (I haven't had time to play games in years, not sure when the "youngest" game you could play on it exist). Plus you have to look at things like FSB and AGP slots. With my 2x AGP card, I am not going to get good graphics acceleration, which means most modern games are out anyways.
In 1992, my Hard Disk was 20 Megs, and it was not sufficient. Today, it is 200 Gigs, and it ALSO is not enough.
What are you doing that 200 Gigs is not enough? I've got a 50 Gig hard drive and it's mostly empty despite all the *nix software I throw on it and pictures. You must have one hell of a porn collection!
E = MC^2. So if you assume that the typical technical support representative requires many Gigajoules of effort, you have X Gigajoules / C^2 as the mass. Mass * Gravity = Weight, so assuming 10 Gigajoules expended:
10 x 10^10 / (3 x 10^8)(3 x 10^8) = M
M = 10 x 10^10 / (9 x 10^16)
M is approximately 10 ^ -6 ?kg?
which is approximately 10 ^ -5 Newtons
<DISCLAIMER>sorry, it's been a long time since physics or this would make more sense and I would know whether to use KG or G or what not. Plus I'd have a better idea how much a Joule is.:-D</DISCLAIMER>
But could it run modern software, and would it come with all the bells and whistles of most macs these days? (i.e. dvd + rw (if you elect) + firewire + apple's service (if you've ever called up a Dell support line you'd realize being able to just walk into your local Apple store or get REAL people to support your product is worth its weight in gold)
You can still get the names by typing in the letter followed by *. A hacker would still need to do the work to harvest all the info. So running a loop through all 26 letters (char i++) would not be too difficult.
However I cannot get a copy of my own information from my univerity without paying them, so I find it hard to believe they would just hand it out to a company without any incentive.
Know any Perl? Create a spider to crawl through the student directory. Many colleges and universities have student directories or faculty directories with no check to make sure you're affiliated with the university. You might have to guess names but how hard is that? Go down a list and search for Anderson, Andreason, Anders, etc. Or just search by email addresses. When I was at the University of Buffalo they were a students initials. So run through the list: aaa@buffalo.edu, aab@buffalo.edu. It would be elementary to iterate through the permutations and get all the student data you can.
Still don't believe me? Try going to UB's Directory. You can do wildcard searchs. Search by last name, type in "a*". Repeat for all 26 letters of the alphabet. Get a spider to do it. It's scary how easy it is to access personal data -- the first link contains all sorts of information about a student: mailing address, phone number, etc. If you were intent on stealing an identity you'd be 90% on the way there.
Slashdot Mirror
No, per my thread above, it's not possible at a reasonable cost. You'd basically need to dope your own microprocessors. You're not going to be doing that at home...
There are a couple of problems with such a printer:
./configure && make && make install to create the most complicated open source software from scratch, any open source hobby kits will be limited by how complex fabrication a home user can really do (without getting bored)
A. Although you probably could get something to print circuit boards, you'd have one hell of a time printing capacitors, resistors, transistors etc.
B. As such, you'd have to solder every little piece in by hand.
C. As such, why couldn't you just use a preexisting solution (i.e. print up a schematic and use a UV light to burn it to a copper clad board)?
If hobbyists wanted to create open source electronic gizmos they could. However, whereas I can use
Remember, there is no compiler for electronics.
The problem with that is you're adding more elements that you need Linux hackers to work on. This will divert talent from improving the core OS, or interesting tools...
Because they have to. Your boss congratulates you on your promotion, then when the shit hits the fan tells you that as a senior member of the team you are expected to work overtime now and then. Then now and then becomes every fucking day.
You're assuming that you get paid on an hourly basis. Many of us get paid the same no matter how many hours we work...
It costs something like $1.50 every time you cash a check. The bank pays a teller to properly log it into the system, to ship it somewhere, do whatever processing, and whatever else it needs to get your money.
It seems then, reasonable, that with banks now being able to computerize images of checks, and automatically process them, or having an online bill pay where a bank has less work to do, can save a bank (which processes however many checks a day) buttloads of money.
Do you pay for it as a consumer? Maybe. I get a crap rate in my savings account even though interest rates are at the highest they've been since the bubble burst. BUT, I don't pay for checking, savings, tellers, or any of that. The only thing I arguably pay for is the checks -- and I use an online service so it costs me $20 for more checks than I'll ever need (partly because now everything goes on my credit card or online bill pay)
While I realize this list is written for folks who enjoy this kind of stuff, I don't think *anyone* would find that adding another half hour of film devoted to showing how Jurassic Park hired computer experts and documenting their security systems would benefit the movie.
Why not? Crappy prequels made a mint for George Lucas!
Not to be anal but your original post said i^2 = 0. You misquoted the article which was talking about x^2 + 1 = 0.
Also, SQRT(x) is assumed to only mean the positive root of x. It's like the way sometimes people refer to the natural logarithm as log and sometimes as ln. You always need to know what you're dealing with, and understand where ambiguities might lie...
Descartes or some long dead mathematician did just that for sqrt(-1). He said, we know sqrt(-1) doesn't exist, so let's make it equal to some number i. By using numbers that included a component of i, he was able to get real results.
So why can't we do this for other items that are not a number, i.e. x/0?
Why would Microsoft make piracy easier?
They have added a valuable feature for their paying customers, and former non-paying customers may be more likely to pay.
From Microsoft's perspective, it's a no brainer business decision.
As IAAA (I am an accountant), Sony has a couple of ways to not take that big a loss in this quarter:
1. They can "depreciate" it -- basically they chop up one big loss into tiny pieces and take the hit over a long period of time. This is why if Intel opens a new plant, it wouldn't have one hugely unprofitable quarter (from the multibillion dollar investment), and quarters after that with oodles of profit.
2. They can use "accruals" to offset the loss. Basically they say "we've spent $x, but will make back $y, so we will put $y-$x on our balance sheet"
3. They can issue a statement to shareholders that this is an "extraordinary item." They would take a hit in the short term, tell the Street that it won't happen again, and make lots of money in the future.
I'd guess they'd do both #1 and #2.
---
(Note to the anal: yes I simplified the above terms but it's good enough for non-accountants)
Would you like white meat or dark meat with your Thanksgiving dinner?
It's the same in the US. I think the bigger issue is money? Why would a kid spend money (a very limited resource for kids) on something they could get for free?
To invest your student loan proceeds until you can use them.
I think you are right.
It's basically a profit decision. If you make $10 per user for your software, and it costs $10,000 to rewrite your software to support Firefox, if you can't find 1,000 firefox users to buy your software, you shouldn't support firefox.[1] You just need to look to see whether or not you make money, and if it is a profitable decision (and profits don't just mean money -- do you gain enough good will from supporting legacy systems to make supporting IE 3 OK?) go for it.
[1] Yes these numbers are completely 100% pulled out of my ass. But the same principal applies.
Good websites like salary.com will provide you with the median income in your area. Median is of course a better measure of central tendancy for salary than average, so you can get a reasonable idea of what someone in your area should be making, along with a range (i.e. you may not make exactly ___, but you will make within $20k of it).
Part of this is probably due to the lack of fun / demand. Typically people doing OSS projects are doing it because either they enjoy it, or because they feel that it helps fill a need of some sorts. Commercial grade accounting systems and the programs you mentioned simply do not help to scratch this itch. IMHO, the only way these programs will evolve as open source is if a company says "What I'm paying to ____ I could use to write my own software," does it, open sources it, and then other industry insiders join in. But I fear that may be many many years down the road. :'(
I can't speak for Australia, I just know that when my mom broke off the pin on her laptop for the power supply, she got it back in a week after I took it in for her. That's not a cheap or easy fix (easy compared with replacing a hard drive on a desktop).
I'm actually talking to you on my PIII and I can tell you right now that it will choke and die on DOOM3 or any of the newer games. (I haven't had time to play games in years, not sure when the "youngest" game you could play on it exist). Plus you have to look at things like FSB and AGP slots. With my 2x AGP card, I am not going to get good graphics acceleration, which means most modern games are out anyways.
42
E = MC^2. So if you assume that the typical technical support representative requires many Gigajoules of effort, you have X Gigajoules / C^2 as the mass. Mass * Gravity = Weight, so assuming 10 Gigajoules expended:
:-D</DISCLAIMER>
10 x 10^10 / (3 x 10^8)(3 x 10^8) = M
M = 10 x 10^10 / (9 x 10^16)
M is approximately 10 ^ -6 ?kg?
which is approximately 10 ^ -5 Newtons
<DISCLAIMER>sorry, it's been a long time since physics or this would make more sense and I would know whether to use KG or G or what not. Plus I'd have a better idea how much a Joule is.
But could it run modern software, and would it come with all the bells and whistles of most macs these days? (i.e. dvd + rw (if you elect) + firewire + apple's service (if you've ever called up a Dell support line you'd realize being able to just walk into your local Apple store or get REAL people to support your product is worth its weight in gold)
You can still get the names by typing in the letter followed by *. A hacker would still need to do the work to harvest all the info. So running a loop through all 26 letters (char i++) would not be too difficult.
Still don't believe me? Try going to UB's Directory. You can do wildcard searchs. Search by last name, type in "a*". Repeat for all 26 letters of the alphabet. Get a spider to do it. It's scary how easy it is to access personal data -- the first link contains all sorts of information about a student: mailing address, phone number, etc. If you were intent on stealing an identity you'd be 90% on the way there.