Problem is, people on here probably aren't used to XTC
Uh, no, that's not the problem. The real problem is that most X you buy in the street is just heroin. When you get the real stuff (MDMA, iirc), it's not physically addicting and is mostly benign, like pot. But the stuff you usually get is physically addicting like heroin, because it is heroin. So, unless you can actually test the stuff you get, I'd suggest you not touch it (or if you make it yourself, but that's asking for trouble).
don't know about you, but when I program, I *do* think visually about it. It's really hard to describe exactly how, but to me, writing in a programming language "feels" more akin to drawing a picture than writing an essay.
That's because you're nuts.
When I program, it's more like playing guitar than anything else. Complete with movements, climaxes, anticlimaxes, cigarette breaks, and all. Sometimes I just play the blues (php). Other times I like to break into hardcore metal (c++). But once I get going, it's hard to stop me no matter what until the song's played out. Then it's time to work out the bugs.
Face it, dude. We're fucked. We're fucked in a big way. I don't mean to sound overly pessimistic or anything, but real like completely fucked. Our power infrastructure is goatse.
Here's the problem. Let's say oil is peaking right now, as Bush's energy advisor has said. So oil production drops, demand continues to grow, and so forth. Let's say the whole process to reach economic bankruptcy when oil becomes too expensive takes, oh, 30 years. Let's just say.
How long will it take to engineer, license, build, inspect, etc, enough fission plants to fill the gaping hole in our energy infrastructure that oil peaking/loss will leave? 30 years? Less? More? How long? We're talking about building a whole shitload of new plants in a hurry.
What else we got back there? Wind? Well, we can build wind farms quicker--less regulation, no debate on how clean they are.
Hydro? Many specialistic requirements, more regulation than wind.
Solar? Give me a fucking break. I live in Seattle, solar's not a possibility for us, sorry. Maybe given 30 years of hardcore engineering on the problem we can make solar energy a reality in these northern climes. Hell, if we could microwave power from one pole to the other then we could power the southern hemisphere during their winter and they could reciprocate during our winter. Wait, almost nobody (certainly nobody important:P ) lives in the southern hemisphere.
What's left? It's looking like biodiesel makes a better short-term replacement, since it'll drop-in and replace diesel in a lot of generators, but I really don't know if it's enough. Furthermore, I don't know how quickly we could scale up biodiesel production and still be able to get enough energy out of the system to stem off economic bankruptcy.
Nope, we're just plain fucked. I'm staking my future on either wind or some new energy source that can be built cheaply and distributed to individuals rather than depend on huge centralized power stations.
You're not paying them to protect you from fire. You're paying them to put out the fire in your yard/house/whatever. You're also paying them to put out the fire in your beat-up old car when you drive into town occasionally. You're paying them to put out the fire on the grocery store where you buy your food, on the building you work in (assuming you don't work at home), on the houses/forest/land around you. Everywhere, all the time. You're not just paying them to put it out, either. YOu're paying them to do it quickly, to arrive quickly. You're paying for 3 guys/engine to sit around 24 hours a day and wait for a call to a fire. Sure, the grocery store and your job and so forth all pay their own share of the taxes, right? Great! If I didn't pay my taxes and I had to wait 4 months for the grocery store to reopen because it took them that long to repair the building when the fire department showed up hours late due to lack of funding, well, I think that pretty much settles that.
Not to mention that in some municipalities, like mine, EMS and Fire are the same people.
Police arrive after you've been victimized.
Uhhh, no. Police patrol. Police investigate crimes. Sure, the serial killer got 5 people already, but if you're the 6th person do you really want to pay your taxes so the police can continue investigating the serial killer? Police also come in when people start rioting to keep the riot contained. I'd hate to see the Mardi Gras riots spill into my neighborhood (yes, I realize that police are part of the problem, different argument). You're also paying for the cops to chase the guy that held up the albertson's down the street with a knife, and then hid in the woods behind my house. They weren't trying to stop Albertson's from being victimized, at that point, they were trying to stop others from being victimized. So, yeah, you're paying for valuable services from the police, like it or not, and there's bad with the good, no argument there, but there is good that you pay for.
I have a well. I had to dig it at great cost. I also have a water treatment system - reverse osmosis, cruft removal, all of that. Why should I pay for your water too?
Most utilities will give you a rebate and/or not charge you at all if you grow your own, so to speak. As far as taxes and stuff, great, you've got a well in my watershed. You damn well better be responsible with your well. Your paying taxes to keep other people responsible for their wells, after all. So you've just got your own little piece of the watershed, and your taxes will pay for much more of that. They'll also keep the God Dam manned in case of heavy rains/light rains, which will naturally keep electricity flowing to your house (you didn't mention generating your own electricity). If not your house, your telephone, at least, and the streetlamps (although the one in front of my house doesn't work, the bastards), and so forth.
If it was a simple as "Oh, gee, I've got my own well, now give me a cookie" you'd already have it. But it's not, and it's never going to be.
I have a septic system, which I had to dig and connect and so forth at great cost. Why should my building a house make me liable for your sewage costs?
Again, most utility companies will provide a rebate for such things, or just won't charge you for sewage/drainage. IN any case, you are also paying for those regulatory bodies that prevent people from just dumping their sewage in the watershed that feeds your well.
# I quit high school and I have no children. I don't use the educational system (and I'm a lot better of for it, frankly - it's designed as lowest common denominator until about Master's level.)
Great, so after 9-11 years of schooling, you quit school. Now pay for the years you did go. Also pay to make sure the idiot down the block ha
Heh, I'm going to get flamed for this, but Napster was dead-ass wrong for what they did. First they create a distribution network. No problem, right? They actually created software that essentially makes its own distribution network, but with centralized servers to keep track of all the peers. That was fine. Then they gave the software away for free. That was fine too. Then they started selling advertisements and value-add services in relation to the network, and *not* the software itself (AudioGalaxy does the same thing, but better). That's where they screwed up. They made money off copyright infringement. Granted it was indirect, but it was still making money by facilitating large amounts of copyright infringement. That's where they screwed up.
Now, I'm not happy with the way the case was decided. I think it should have been decided against Napster for what they did and only what they did. Instead it became a precedent against P2P in general, and through various PR campaigns and more, *ahem*, agressive campaigns, we're on the verge of getting P2P made illegal. I don't know if it'll really go that far, but clouded by the dark side the future is. Hard to see.
So, I think Napster should have lost no matter what, but I also think they lost wrong, and I would prefer that they had won wrongly than pick up the legal precedent they picked up.:(
$15 for a hammer? Holy shit! My hammer cost me $50. Of course, it's a fine Snap-On hammer and will probably beat the hell out of any $15 hammer you care to throw at me....
There is context. you've just been in a wreck, and they have the whole scene laid out already. Now they have the black box, too, to give some indicators of what you were doing right before the wreck.
Just because the government has the ability to monitor us, and just because it does monitor us, does not mean the government has the right to monitor us! (emphasis removed due to laziness, refer to the original post if you want to know where it was)
Yes and no. The government has a responsibility to enforce certain laws enacted by legislation. Specifically, the cops have this responsibility. Setting up a speed trap is perfectly legal. Setting up a speed trap next to my 10 acre parcel is perfectly legal. Me posting a sign on my land indicating this speed trap is also perfectly legal.;)
The cameras are, in fact, legal as well, and have been tested in court already. The cameras were determined to be legal, but taking a picture of the man and his not-wife lover and including it in the ticket, thus causing a divorce that was already inevitable (apparently), is not legal because it's a violation of privacy. What's the difference between a speeding car getting caught by a speed trap with a real cop in it and a camera? (obviously, the difference is knowing who is in the car and actually holding them responsible, but it's been upheld in court so far)
"Rights are defined generally as 'powers of free action.' And the primal rights pertaining to men are enjoyed by human beings purely as such, being grounded in personality, and existing antecedently to their recognition by positive law."
Then you say:
According to several US Supreme Court decisions (see U.S. v Guest, Shapiro v Thomson, et. al.), the right to travel freely is enjoyed by all citizens.
Then, youassert this:
As the primary purpose of driving is to travel from one point to another, it must therefore be a right.
The way I figure it, based on every fact you have given and ignoring any assertions on your part, we have the right to travel, but the mode of that travel is not specified. Therefore, driving is indeed a privilege, because removing the privilege to drive from you does not remove your right to travel. You may still purchase a bus ticket, plane ticket, train ticket, take a cab, ride with a friend, ride a bike, walk, run, skateboard, etc.
Heh. I generally agree with both you and the responding poster to your post that made some pretty good points. I've always wondered why we didn't have black boxes in cars already, since they are for the express purpose of determining what happens in the case of a crash, and sometimes there isn't any real way to know. I mean, if you wrap your car around a tree, obviously you were speeding, right? Was there ice on the road? ABS readings would tell us of at least the lack of traction. Were you drunk? The black box shouldn't know that at all, but it might likely show a drunken slow reaction to events. Sure, you wrapped your car around the tree and we probably have a blood test or something to show for it (not sure, I crashed a motorcycle while drinking and there weren't any tests taken of my blood alcohol level, it was more "you stupid idiot, why'd you do it?"). Combine it with those nice little radars I saw the article about and we might even know if there were any other cars on the road. We might know that you were drag-racing and another car took off and left the scene. Failure to render aid, anyone? (Yes, it's a criminal offense in many jurisdictions)
I also don't mind if the black box calls 911 if you crash. Seriously! Anything that'll get that ambulance out to where some idiot just rear-ended me and I'm at death's door is welcome, believe me. Same for the poor soul that I just tore up with my own crazy driving habits.
But keep it off the network unless there's a crash, and don't record anything unless there's a crash (yeah, that means record 5 seconds, if there's no crash erase the first second and record one more second, check for crash, do(forever) ).
Inspect they can (maybe), but can the black box be introduced into a court room with out a warrent? This is upto judges and lawyers.
Well, let's see. To get a warrant they must have some sort of idea that you've committed a criminal offense. So if they've determined the other guy was at fault, they can't get a warrant to search your car and get the black box.
Instead, they subpoena it for the court case, and you still have to comply. Requirements on a subpoena are much looser because a subpoena is just a requirement for information, not a search for criminal evidence to be used against you. It's information to be used against someone else, and you're really expected to just give it up on request. If not, subpoena. They get it anyway. If you don't give it up, then it's a criminal offense, I understand.
No, I'm not a lawyer either. But I don't burn my brain cells watching TV, either.
Besides, this would require horizontal screens (so you wouldn't need to keep your hand rised), which would cause all kind of interesting neck problems.
Would it make my neck red, er, from the strain?
Actually, I don't want screens at all. I want holograms, but that's still a ways off. Failing that, I'd like one pretty large screen with some way to use my hands directly as input devices.
Datagloves which register hand movements have existed for a long time. So we're just writing a window manager apart from them:).
I'll take the gloves. If they're accurate, that is. If I only had the time to work them into a 3d desktop.... Actually, I wasn't going to read this article, then I thought "Oh, someone'll post a link to a 3d desktop window manager." 3d for XP doesn't apply to me, but give me 3d under X, I *want* that.
One could probably make do with a webcam and an image-recognition program, but this would require two things:
Large movements - a cheap, low-framerate camera cannot pick up subtle movements with any accuracy.
Very safe user interface - you don't want to loose half your files just by picking your nose.
Nobody picks their nose in front of the computer, do they? Besides, web cams just aren't accurate enough. You'd spend all your processing power figuring out the motions and have none left over for rendering the desktop. Are there any cams or motion sensors that are more accurate?
My, have we forgotten our Theory of Improbability already? Well, I guess that's ok, then. Me, I'm still working on my Improbability Drive, and when it's done, I'm getting off this rock for good.;)
What's really needed is a new input device. Mouse + Keyboard is *really* shitty. I'd like something better. I'd like to just wave my hands around and have the stuff I'm using move around. I'd like to just put my finger on the window I want and either write on a pad or just talk into it (yes, I like writing better than typing) and have it take dictation.
How far are we from being able to just wave our arms around as part of our ui?
Basic probability: even if it got hit by an asteroid, the chances that it had exactly the amount of momentum to slow down Sedna's angular velocity to near-zero would be infinitesimal.
Basic Improbability: The universe is so very big that any event, no matter how improbable, must occur somewhere and sometime.
What kind of track record does your Costco vendor have? What, you've never heard of them? Hmm...imagine.
I just wanted to point out that Costco is probably the worst place to buy computer parts and/or complete systems. Sure you get it all at once, and that's great, and you get it while you're grocery shopping. But I have yet to price a piece of hardware at Costco that I couldn't get at 3 other places for cheaper, and the margins are quite noticeable (120GB HD = $150 at Costco, $120 at PC Club, $110 at Frye's).
I shop at Costco all the time, but I wouldn't be stupid enough to think I was getting a bargain on something just because Costco sold it to me.;) (Although I did get my digital camera for cheaper at Costco, but within a month it wasn't so any more, good thing I bought when I did)
You know, generally speaking, before I spend any money on something I try to find out exactly what I get in exchange for my money. If I don't like what I'm getting, I generally don't spend the money. I've never had to reverse charges off a credit card.;)
kernel 2.6 is highly incompatable with the leftovers of the 2.4 kernels and installs your best thing with ANY 2.6 based linux it to format and start from fresh. which is not much of a problem as it's easy to backup your user profile in linux compared to the nightmare that is windows.
Heh. How do you figure? I've got, oh I don't know, 6 kernels installed on my machine. 3 of them just plain don't work because I misconfigured them when I built them. Three of them work really really well. One is the standard 2.4 kernel that came with Mandrake 9.2, one is the multimedia 2.4 kernel that came with Mandrake 9.2, and the other is the 2.6.2 kernel that I downloaded from kernel.org and built. (I also learned the absolute best way to make sure you properly configure your kernel. cat/proc/pci > mycomputer.txt) Anyway, I boot into different kernels all the time for various reasons. The 2.6.2 won't let me set my IDE controller to DMA 100 or more so dvds run real slow (some don't run at all), so I boot into 2.4MM for that. 2.4MM doesn't have a working midi sequencer device for my sound card, so I boot into 2.6 for that. I know, why doesn't a Multimedia kernel have a working midi sequencer? Beats me. I think it's likely a *bug*, but why bother fixing it? I anticipate it'll be fixed in 10.0 Official, which I'll get asap.;)
Point is, I don't have any trouble caused by having all these stupid kernels laying around, and when I boot into 2.6 it takes great effort to convince me to boot into 2.4 for *anything*. dvd's? Why bother? Just watch one of the many.avi's I've got instead.;)
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Problem is, people on here probably aren't used to XTC
Uh, no, that's not the problem. The real problem is that most X you buy in the street is just heroin. When you get the real stuff (MDMA, iirc), it's not physically addicting and is mostly benign, like pot. But the stuff you usually get is physically addicting like heroin, because it is heroin. So, unless you can actually test the stuff you get, I'd suggest you not touch it (or if you make it yourself, but that's asking for trouble).
don't know about you, but when I program, I *do* think visually about it. It's really hard to describe exactly how, but to me, writing in a programming language "feels" more akin to drawing a picture than writing an essay.
That's because you're nuts.
When I program, it's more like playing guitar than anything else. Complete with movements, climaxes, anticlimaxes, cigarette breaks, and all. Sometimes I just play the blues (php). Other times I like to break into hardcore metal (c++). But once I get going, it's hard to stop me no matter what until the song's played out. Then it's time to work out the bugs.
I think you have to 'su' first for it to work.
I unknowingly tend to interact with FAT myself around bar time on the weekends.
Hey, you know, FAT-bottomed girls make the world go 'round...
Something wrong with nuclear power?
Face it, dude. We're fucked. We're fucked in a big way. I don't mean to sound overly pessimistic or anything, but real like completely fucked. Our power infrastructure is goatse.
Here's the problem. Let's say oil is peaking right now, as Bush's energy advisor has said. So oil production drops, demand continues to grow, and so forth. Let's say the whole process to reach economic bankruptcy when oil becomes too expensive takes, oh, 30 years. Let's just say.
How long will it take to engineer, license, build, inspect, etc, enough fission plants to fill the gaping hole in our energy infrastructure that oil peaking/loss will leave? 30 years? Less? More? How long? We're talking about building a whole shitload of new plants in a hurry.
What else we got back there? Wind? Well, we can build wind farms quicker--less regulation, no debate on how clean they are.
Hydro? Many specialistic requirements, more regulation than wind.
Solar? Give me a fucking break. I live in Seattle, solar's not a possibility for us, sorry. Maybe given 30 years of hardcore engineering on the problem we can make solar energy a reality in these northern climes. Hell, if we could microwave power from one pole to the other then we could power the southern hemisphere during their winter and they could reciprocate during our winter. Wait, almost nobody (certainly nobody important :P ) lives in the southern hemisphere.
What's left? It's looking like biodiesel makes a better short-term replacement, since it'll drop-in and replace diesel in a lot of generators, but I really don't know if it's enough. Furthermore, I don't know how quickly we could scale up biodiesel production and still be able to get enough energy out of the system to stem off economic bankruptcy.
Nope, we're just plain fucked. I'm staking my future on either wind or some new energy source that can be built cheaply and distributed to individuals rather than depend on huge centralized power stations.
Man, so easy. Let's go.
The government doesn't protect from you fire.
You're not paying them to protect you from fire. You're paying them to put out the fire in your yard/house/whatever. You're also paying them to put out the fire in your beat-up old car when you drive into town occasionally. You're paying them to put out the fire on the grocery store where you buy your food, on the building you work in (assuming you don't work at home), on the houses/forest/land around you. Everywhere, all the time. You're not just paying them to put it out, either. YOu're paying them to do it quickly, to arrive quickly. You're paying for 3 guys/engine to sit around 24 hours a day and wait for a call to a fire. Sure, the grocery store and your job and so forth all pay their own share of the taxes, right? Great! If I didn't pay my taxes and I had to wait 4 months for the grocery store to reopen because it took them that long to repair the building when the fire department showed up hours late due to lack of funding, well, I think that pretty much settles that.
Not to mention that in some municipalities, like mine, EMS and Fire are the same people.
Police arrive after you've been victimized.
Uhhh, no. Police patrol. Police investigate crimes. Sure, the serial killer got 5 people already, but if you're the 6th person do you really want to pay your taxes so the police can continue investigating the serial killer? Police also come in when people start rioting to keep the riot contained. I'd hate to see the Mardi Gras riots spill into my neighborhood (yes, I realize that police are part of the problem, different argument). You're also paying for the cops to chase the guy that held up the albertson's down the street with a knife, and then hid in the woods behind my house. They weren't trying to stop Albertson's from being victimized, at that point, they were trying to stop others from being victimized. So, yeah, you're paying for valuable services from the police, like it or not, and there's bad with the good, no argument there, but there is good that you pay for.
I have a well. I had to dig it at great cost. I also have a water treatment system - reverse osmosis, cruft removal, all of that. Why should I pay for your water too?
Most utilities will give you a rebate and/or not charge you at all if you grow your own, so to speak. As far as taxes and stuff, great, you've got a well in my watershed. You damn well better be responsible with your well. Your paying taxes to keep other people responsible for their wells, after all. So you've just got your own little piece of the watershed, and your taxes will pay for much more of that. They'll also keep the God Dam manned in case of heavy rains/light rains, which will naturally keep electricity flowing to your house (you didn't mention generating your own electricity). If not your house, your telephone, at least, and the streetlamps (although the one in front of my house doesn't work, the bastards), and so forth.
If it was a simple as "Oh, gee, I've got my own well, now give me a cookie" you'd already have it. But it's not, and it's never going to be.
I have a septic system, which I had to dig and connect and so forth at great cost. Why should my building a house make me liable for your sewage costs?
Again, most utility companies will provide a rebate for such things, or just won't charge you for sewage/drainage. IN any case, you are also paying for those regulatory bodies that prevent people from just dumping their sewage in the watershed that feeds your well.
# I quit high school and I have no children. I don't use the educational system (and I'm a lot better of for it, frankly - it's designed as lowest common denominator until about Master's level.)
Great, so after 9-11 years of schooling, you quit school. Now pay for the years you did go. Also pay to make sure the idiot down the block ha
(P2P doesn't copyright infringe, people do.)
Heh, I'm going to get flamed for this, but Napster was dead-ass wrong for what they did. First they create a distribution network. No problem, right? They actually created software that essentially makes its own distribution network, but with centralized servers to keep track of all the peers. That was fine. Then they gave the software away for free. That was fine too. Then they started selling advertisements and value-add services in relation to the network, and *not* the software itself (AudioGalaxy does the same thing, but better). That's where they screwed up. They made money off copyright infringement. Granted it was indirect, but it was still making money by facilitating large amounts of copyright infringement. That's where they screwed up.
Now, I'm not happy with the way the case was decided. I think it should have been decided against Napster for what they did and only what they did. Instead it became a precedent against P2P in general, and through various PR campaigns and more, *ahem*, agressive campaigns, we're on the verge of getting P2P made illegal. I don't know if it'll really go that far, but clouded by the dark side the future is. Hard to see.
So, I think Napster should have lost no matter what, but I also think they lost wrong, and I would prefer that they had won wrongly than pick up the legal precedent they picked up. :(
$15 for a hammer? Holy shit! My hammer cost me $50. Of course, it's a fine Snap-On hammer and will probably beat the hell out of any $15 hammer you care to throw at me....
There is context. you've just been in a wreck, and they have the whole scene laid out already. Now they have the black box, too, to give some indicators of what you were doing right before the wreck.
Just because the government has the ability to monitor us, and just because it does monitor us, does not mean the government has the right to monitor us! (emphasis removed due to laziness, refer to the original post if you want to know where it was)
Yes and no. The government has a responsibility to enforce certain laws enacted by legislation. Specifically, the cops have this responsibility. Setting up a speed trap is perfectly legal. Setting up a speed trap next to my 10 acre parcel is perfectly legal. Me posting a sign on my land indicating this speed trap is also perfectly legal. ;)
The cameras are, in fact, legal as well, and have been tested in court already. The cameras were determined to be legal, but taking a picture of the man and his not-wife lover and including it in the ticket, thus causing a divorce that was already inevitable (apparently), is not legal because it's a violation of privacy. What's the difference between a speeding car getting caught by a speed trap with a real cop in it and a camera? (obviously, the difference is knowing who is in the car and actually holding them responsible, but it's been upheld in court so far)
Slow down, cowboy!
First you say:
"Rights are defined generally as 'powers of free action.' And the primal rights pertaining to men are enjoyed by human beings purely as such, being grounded in personality, and existing antecedently to their recognition by positive law."
Then you say:
According to several US Supreme Court decisions (see U.S. v Guest, Shapiro v Thomson, et. al.), the right to travel freely is enjoyed by all citizens.
Then, you assert this:
As the primary purpose of driving is to travel from one point to another, it must therefore be a right.
The way I figure it, based on every fact you have given and ignoring any assertions on your part, we have the right to travel, but the mode of that travel is not specified. Therefore, driving is indeed a privilege, because removing the privilege to drive from you does not remove your right to travel. You may still purchase a bus ticket, plane ticket, train ticket, take a cab, ride with a friend, ride a bike, walk, run, skateboard, etc.
Heh. I generally agree with both you and the responding poster to your post that made some pretty good points. I've always wondered why we didn't have black boxes in cars already, since they are for the express purpose of determining what happens in the case of a crash, and sometimes there isn't any real way to know. I mean, if you wrap your car around a tree, obviously you were speeding, right? Was there ice on the road? ABS readings would tell us of at least the lack of traction. Were you drunk? The black box shouldn't know that at all, but it might likely show a drunken slow reaction to events. Sure, you wrapped your car around the tree and we probably have a blood test or something to show for it (not sure, I crashed a motorcycle while drinking and there weren't any tests taken of my blood alcohol level, it was more "you stupid idiot, why'd you do it?"). Combine it with those nice little radars I saw the article about and we might even know if there were any other cars on the road. We might know that you were drag-racing and another car took off and left the scene. Failure to render aid, anyone? (Yes, it's a criminal offense in many jurisdictions)
I also don't mind if the black box calls 911 if you crash. Seriously! Anything that'll get that ambulance out to where some idiot just rear-ended me and I'm at death's door is welcome, believe me. Same for the poor soul that I just tore up with my own crazy driving habits.
But keep it off the network unless there's a crash, and don't record anything unless there's a crash (yeah, that means record 5 seconds, if there's no crash erase the first second and record one more second, check for crash, do(forever) ).
Inspect they can (maybe), but can the black box be introduced into a court room with out a warrent? This is upto judges and lawyers.
Well, let's see. To get a warrant they must have some sort of idea that you've committed a criminal offense. So if they've determined the other guy was at fault, they can't get a warrant to search your car and get the black box.
Instead, they subpoena it for the court case, and you still have to comply. Requirements on a subpoena are much looser because a subpoena is just a requirement for information, not a search for criminal evidence to be used against you. It's information to be used against someone else, and you're really expected to just give it up on request. If not, subpoena. They get it anyway. If you don't give it up, then it's a criminal offense, I understand.
No, I'm not a lawyer either. But I don't burn my brain cells watching TV, either.
Um, which alsa tools are those, exactly? I'm not having any trouble that can be blamed on those tools, and alsa 'just works' anyway...
Man, that movie rocked. It is the first Tom Cruise movie I ever saw that I actually *liked*.
And yes, the UI I want is very much along the lines of what's in that movie. ;)
Besides, this would require horizontal screens (so you wouldn't need to keep your hand rised), which would cause all kind of interesting neck problems.
Would it make my neck red, er, from the strain?
Actually, I don't want screens at all. I want holograms, but that's still a ways off. Failing that, I'd like one pretty large screen with some way to use my hands directly as input devices.
Datagloves which register hand movements have existed for a long time. So we're just writing a window manager apart from them :).
I'll take the gloves. If they're accurate, that is. If I only had the time to work them into a 3d desktop.... Actually, I wasn't going to read this article, then I thought "Oh, someone'll post a link to a 3d desktop window manager." 3d for XP doesn't apply to me, but give me 3d under X, I *want* that.
One could probably make do with a webcam and an image-recognition program, but this would require two things:
Large movements - a cheap, low-framerate camera cannot pick up subtle movements with any accuracy.
Very safe user interface - you don't want to loose half your files just by picking your nose.
Nobody picks their nose in front of the computer, do they? Besides, web cams just aren't accurate enough. You'd spend all your processing power figuring out the motions and have none left over for rendering the desktop. Are there any cams or motion sensors that are more accurate?
My, have we forgotten our Theory of Improbability already? Well, I guess that's ok, then. Me, I'm still working on my Improbability Drive, and when it's done, I'm getting off this rock for good. ;)
What's really needed is a new input device. Mouse + Keyboard is *really* shitty. I'd like something better. I'd like to just wave my hands around and have the stuff I'm using move around. I'd like to just put my finger on the window I want and either write on a pad or just talk into it (yes, I like writing better than typing) and have it take dictation.
How far are we from being able to just wave our arms around as part of our ui?
First I press "Alt". Then I click on the window in back with my left mouse button *anywhere* in the window. Then I move it.
Or, if the back window is completely blocked by it, I find it on the taskbar, right-click and select "Move". Then I move it.
OMG! Ida looks like a mummy sarcofagus! It must have been put there by the the same people who built the pyramids and the cydonia structures.
Actually, it's Lore.
Basic probability: even if it got hit by an asteroid, the chances that it had exactly the amount of momentum to slow down Sedna's angular velocity to near-zero would be infinitesimal.
Basic Improbability: The universe is so very big that any event, no matter how improbable, must occur somewhere and sometime.
What kind of track record does your Costco vendor have? What, you've never heard of them? Hmm...imagine.
I just wanted to point out that Costco is probably the worst place to buy computer parts and/or complete systems. Sure you get it all at once, and that's great, and you get it while you're grocery shopping. But I have yet to price a piece of hardware at Costco that I couldn't get at 3 other places for cheaper, and the margins are quite noticeable (120GB HD = $150 at Costco, $120 at PC Club, $110 at Frye's).
I shop at Costco all the time, but I wouldn't be stupid enough to think I was getting a bargain on something just because Costco sold it to me. ;) (Although I did get my digital camera for cheaper at Costco, but within a month it wasn't so any more, good thing I bought when I did)
Maybe, but you get it without the $2500 investment in hardware. ;)
You know, generally speaking, before I spend any money on something I try to find out exactly what I get in exchange for my money. If I don't like what I'm getting, I generally don't spend the money. I've never had to reverse charges off a credit card. ;)
kernel 2.6 is highly incompatable with the leftovers of the 2.4 kernels and installs your best thing with ANY 2.6 based linux it to format and start from fresh. which is not much of a problem as it's easy to backup your user profile in linux compared to the nightmare that is windows.
Heh. How do you figure? I've got, oh I don't know, 6 kernels installed on my machine. 3 of them just plain don't work because I misconfigured them when I built them. Three of them work really really well. One is the standard 2.4 kernel that came with Mandrake 9.2, one is the multimedia 2.4 kernel that came with Mandrake 9.2, and the other is the 2.6.2 kernel that I downloaded from kernel.org and built. (I also learned the absolute best way to make sure you properly configure your kernel. cat /proc/pci > mycomputer.txt) Anyway, I boot into different kernels all the time for various reasons. The 2.6.2 won't let me set my IDE controller to DMA 100 or more so dvds run real slow (some don't run at all), so I boot into 2.4MM for that. 2.4MM doesn't have a working midi sequencer device for my sound card, so I boot into 2.6 for that. I know, why doesn't a Multimedia kernel have a working midi sequencer? Beats me. I think it's likely a *bug*, but why bother fixing it? I anticipate it'll be fixed in 10.0 Official, which I'll get asap. ;)
Point is, I don't have any trouble caused by having all these stupid kernels laying around, and when I boot into 2.6 it takes great effort to convince me to boot into 2.4 for *anything*. dvd's? Why bother? Just watch one of the many .avi's I've got instead. ;)