My Sony Vaio PCG-F250 has a similar problem. The battery can charge forever (the LED always shows "charging") and the system dies as soon as its plug is pulled.
I'm also starting to see my iBook battery degrade, but at least the iBook battery is a third of the price of the Sony battery...
Willy Wonka
on
Advergames
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I once downloaded an advergame for a Willy Wonka candy of some sort. It was a LodeRunner-like game where you had to run around and grab pieces of candy.
The one drawback to it was that every time you grabbed a piece of candy, a half-screen ad would pop up and the game would halt for a few seconds. I wasn't expecting much (you have to be bored to download such a thing in the first place), but I ditched it after five minutes because the halting was so darn annoying.
If they want to make an industry of this, they'll have to get it through their heads that people won't put up with that. Especially not kids, with their shorter attention spans.
http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov used to run cl-httpd, an open source web server written in Common Lisp. I just checked the link and it's dead now, but according to NetCraft, www.whitehouse.gov is running an unknown web server on Linux.
I can see the point of requesting distribution through source only -- I personally find binary distributions have more problems unless they are statically linked. Especially for MPlayer, which uses a whole thwack of libraries.
The better solution would be to allow binary distribution (and even distribute binaries from the MPlayer website), but make it known that any complaints about the binary distributions will be met with a request to build from source instead.
I agree that violating section six of the GPL isn't a good thing, but I also think it's one reason why the GPL may not be the best fit for all software. (Before you flame me into the ground, I know MPlayer uses GPLed libs, so has to be GPLed -- I'm just saying...)
btw - I hear that those things do bad to your skin, does anyone know the straightdope on that aspect?
Yup. Not personally, but I used to see a guy on the bus who had the skin and muscle damage consistent with using the electroshock muscle toners. His arms looked like hell -- I don't know why he (apparently) kept it up.
I'll take the more active (and natural) route any day.
And finally, the smell of quality tobacco is generally considered nice by non-smokers, unless you smoke really heavy aromatics.
Actually, I find that the aromatics are easier for the general public than the English blends. Latakia and perique seem to have less-than-popular odours to non-smokers.
That being said, I usually prefer English blends as late-night smokes, so there are fewer people around to complain.:)
At this stage of the planning there isn't a much concrete discussion about backup, not because it won't be needed, but rather because the technology is a moving target. If memory serves right, they hope to open the facility in about 3 years. Backups are no doubt on the integration plan, but a lot of the architecture is still in a planning phase.
That much is definitely true. Thank you for the reply!
"... To that end, the library's extensive collection of recordings and photos will soon be moved to a massive 41-acre complex built into the side of a mountain in Culpeper, Virginia..." It's built into a mountian. And it's availible to the public. What more do you want?
Moving the originals does not constitute backing them up to some medium and making sure the backups are useful in the event of the destruction of the originals. Hence the term "backup".
It's obviously a good idea to fortify the storage site, but what kind of arrangements will they have for off-site backup?
If these are the most important recordings, it would be a tragic loss to have a natural disaster or similar event destroy what may be the only complete recordings.
If we are going digital, wouldn't it make far more sense with built in wireless lan instead? The argument for those pesky cables has been the analog sound, I'd think most people would be hardpressed to find problems with wireless vs Cat5 these days.
One problem (or maybe not -- I defer to those who know wireless far better than I) would be the magnetic interference from the pickups on the guitar itself. Wouldn't that do a number on broadcast quality?
This is a small step in the right direction. On the other hand, I hope there are people on the other end actively taking the public's view into account, and not just shoving comments lacking $$$ contributions aside...
Well, is there a select box where you can pledge campaign contributions?:)
I believe that is the case, but FreeBSD (and possibly NetBSD and OpenBSD) include a System V compatibility layer that allows programs to use System V calls via shims and a kernel module. That could be the code that SCO is aiming at.
That could very well be. Wouldn't it be terribly ironic to have the Unix Wars settled by SCO? I always thought that BSD would come out on top, and if your suggestion is correct, that would pretty much assure it, at least in the open source space.
It seems to me that OpenBSD, NetBSD, and FreeBSD are derived from 4.4BSD Lite -- which I believe is covered by the original BSD license. It would seem to me that trying to pursue something like that legally would simply be a great waste of time and money.
That being said, it does sound a bit like SCO has given up trying to make money the honest way and brought in the land sharks...
This is a typical artifact of RISC chips. Instructions are fixed size, and usually the same size as the general purpose registers. When you load from an immediate value (a value contained in the instruction), the instruction has insufficient room for a value as wide as the instruction itself after specifying the instruction, the destination operand, etc.
Thank you for clarifying that -- I seemed to remember it from doing some MIPS assembly years ago, but I wasn't sure.
On the whole, though, it's more of an oddidity than a real annoyance -- one just has to write a "load immediate" macro, and away you go.
Not only the Sharp Zaurus, but the Agenda VR3, the iPAQ running any of two or three different distros, and there are most likely more that I'm not aware of.
The point is that Linux isn't only good for larger devices, but can be made small enough for PDA use. uCLinux is a good example of an attempt to make it even smaller and use microcontrollers (which have no MMU), making it possible (but absurd overkill) to use Linux in a home digital thermostat or camera, for example.
Can anyone in the know tell me why you would need a field-programmable gate array on a PDA?
I don't know why one would need one, but I know I would definitely want one, just for the hackability factor.:)
My guess is that the FPGA is replacing several ASICs, and that might lead to lower power consumption and/or smaller size. I haven't done any reading up on the power requirements of FPGAs vs. ASICs, so someone reply if I'm off in left field.
Why? Aren't PowerPC chips more expensive? Is there a major benefit that I'm not seeing? Why wouldn't they run a Linux version on it with a regular PC chip and be able to sell the device cheaper?
For one, IBM has a large hand in the development of the PowerPC, and I can't say I blame them for wanting to use one of their own chips. In terms of real advantages, the PowerPC has a few in general, but I'm not sure about the embedded series of chips.
From a programming perspective PowerPC can be somewhat annoying (I believe you can only load 16 bits of a register at a time -- I read that in an IBM DeveloperWorks article, I believe) if you're writing assembly, but I find it a wonderful platform for my daily projects (Darwin/PPC and Linux/PPC mostly).
I am really looking forward to this unit, in part because of the developer sled. The ability to hack a handheld device is of utmost importance to me, as there are so many specialized uses for them. It is nice to see a unit with that sort of hacking convenience.
I also noticed that one of the host USB ports is disabled. Would that be for power saving, or is it a limitation of the chipset? If it's for power saving, would one be able to enable it when one has a use for it?
I personally think that Cocoa and GNUstep deserve to be mentioned among the best-designed toolkits around. Both follow the OpenStep guidelines rather closely, and the OpenStep guidelines are very well-documented on Apple's site.
GNUstep is also quite portable -- I have used it on three or four platforms, and have no doubt that others work great. My only complaint about GNUstep is its idiosyncratic build system, but I believe that's a left-over from NeXTSTEP, the precursor to OpenStep.
If you're interested in learning more about Cocoa and other OpenStep-compliant toolkits, check Apple's developer site and the Hillegass book, published by AW.
I'd like to see something like this where you could switch between keyboard layouts like QWERTY, Dvorak, Typematrix, Kinesis, etc...
Frankly, I'd settle for being able to switch Control and CapsLock. Perhaps move Escape and Backspace, back-tick and tilde.
Deleting/disabling keys would be nice, too. I didn't check any of the pictures too much, but it might be nice to be able to disable/delete the arrow keys if they get in the way.
That'll never fly in school. Who wasn't getting in shit all the time for drumming on the desk eh?
But now you'll be able to have an excuse for it that should distract the class for at least five minutes while everyone checks out your new toy! Pull it out when you want a break.:)
I have been waiting for something like this for a long time now. I have keyboard preferences that many people deem odd (Sun 3 keyboard, QWERTY layout, essentially), and this looks like the answer to my problem.
I also like that at least one of the devices will have RS232-C output. That will make connection to older devices a lot easier, and drivers easy to write.
Does anyone have any idea when these will hit the Canadian market? Sometimes we lag behind the US market, and other times we get it a week or two early.
Re:For idiots like me -
on
SVG On the Rise
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Other posts in this thread have listed some disadvantages of SVG, but omitted that a browser plug-in fully implementing the spec weighs in at several megs.
Last time I built Amaya it only weighed in at several megs itself -- and it's a browser, WYSIWYHYGOOB (What You See Is What You Hope You Get On Other Browsers) XHTML editor, and to the best of my knowledge, fully supports SVG and MathML (which although unrelated, is nice if you don't have LaTeX2HTML or HeVeA handy).
Slashdot Mirror
It's Raph, not Ralph. :)
My Sony Vaio PCG-F250 has a similar problem. The battery can charge forever (the LED always shows "charging") and the system dies as soon as its plug is pulled.
I'm also starting to see my iBook battery degrade, but at least the iBook battery is a third of the price of the Sony battery...
I once downloaded an advergame for a Willy Wonka candy of some sort. It was a LodeRunner-like game where you had to run around and grab pieces of candy.
The one drawback to it was that every time you grabbed a piece of candy, a half-screen ad would pop up and the game would halt for a few seconds. I wasn't expecting much (you have to be bored to download such a thing in the first place), but I ditched it after five minutes because the halting was so darn annoying.
If they want to make an industry of this, they'll have to get it through their heads that people won't put up with that. Especially not kids, with their shorter attention spans.
http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov used to run cl-httpd, an open source web server written in Common Lisp. I just checked the link and it's dead now, but according to NetCraft, www.whitehouse.gov is running an unknown web server on Linux.
I can see the point of requesting distribution through source only -- I personally find binary distributions have more problems unless they are statically linked. Especially for MPlayer, which uses a whole thwack of libraries.
The better solution would be to allow binary distribution (and even distribute binaries from the MPlayer website), but make it known that any complaints about the binary distributions will be met with a request to build from source instead.
I agree that violating section six of the GPL isn't a good thing, but I also think it's one reason why the GPL may not be the best fit for all software. (Before you flame me into the ground, I know MPlayer uses GPLed libs, so has to be GPLed -- I'm just saying...)
Yup. Not personally, but I used to see a guy on the bus who had the skin and muscle damage consistent with using the electroshock muscle toners. His arms looked like hell -- I don't know why he (apparently) kept it up.
I'll take the more active (and natural) route any day.
Nope, he strikes me more as a VMS kind of guy.
Actually, I find that the aromatics are easier for the general public than the English blends. Latakia and perique seem to have less-than-popular odours to non-smokers.
That being said, I usually prefer English blends as late-night smokes, so there are fewer people around to complain. :)
That much is definitely true. Thank you for the reply!
Moving the originals does not constitute backing them up to some medium and making sure the backups are useful in the event of the destruction of the originals. Hence the term "backup".
It's obviously a good idea to fortify the storage site, but what kind of arrangements will they have for off-site backup?
If these are the most important recordings, it would be a tragic loss to have a natural disaster or similar event destroy what may be the only complete recordings.
One problem (or maybe not -- I defer to those who know wireless far better than I) would be the magnetic interference from the pickups on the guitar itself. Wouldn't that do a number on broadcast quality?
Well, is there a select box where you can pledge campaign contributions? :)
That could very well be. Wouldn't it be terribly ironic to have the Unix Wars settled by SCO? I always thought that BSD would come out on top, and if your suggestion is correct, that would pretty much assure it, at least in the open source space.
It seems to me that OpenBSD, NetBSD, and FreeBSD are derived from 4.4BSD Lite -- which I believe is covered by the original BSD license. It would seem to me that trying to pursue something like that legally would simply be a great waste of time and money.
That being said, it does sound a bit like SCO has given up trying to make money the honest way and brought in the land sharks...
Thank you for clarifying that -- I seemed to remember it from doing some MIPS assembly years ago, but I wasn't sure.
On the whole, though, it's more of an oddidity than a real annoyance -- one just has to write a "load immediate" macro, and away you go.
Not only the Sharp Zaurus, but the Agenda VR3, the iPAQ running any of two or three different distros, and there are most likely more that I'm not aware of.
The point is that Linux isn't only good for larger devices, but can be made small enough for PDA use. uCLinux is a good example of an attempt to make it even smaller and use microcontrollers (which have no MMU), making it possible (but absurd overkill) to use Linux in a home digital thermostat or camera, for example.
I don't know why one would need one, but I know I would definitely want one, just for the hackability factor. :)
My guess is that the FPGA is replacing several ASICs, and that might lead to lower power consumption and/or smaller size. I haven't done any reading up on the power requirements of FPGAs vs. ASICs, so someone reply if I'm off in left field.
For one, IBM has a large hand in the development of the PowerPC, and I can't say I blame them for wanting to use one of their own chips. In terms of real advantages, the PowerPC has a few in general, but I'm not sure about the embedded series of chips.
From a programming perspective PowerPC can be somewhat annoying (I believe you can only load 16 bits of a register at a time -- I read that in an IBM DeveloperWorks article, I believe) if you're writing assembly, but I find it a wonderful platform for my daily projects (Darwin/PPC and Linux/PPC mostly).
I am really looking forward to this unit, in part because of the developer sled. The ability to hack a handheld device is of utmost importance to me, as there are so many specialized uses for them. It is nice to see a unit with that sort of hacking convenience.
I also noticed that one of the host USB ports is disabled. Would that be for power saving, or is it a limitation of the chipset? If it's for power saving, would one be able to enable it when one has a use for it?
I personally think that Cocoa and GNUstep deserve to be mentioned among the best-designed toolkits around. Both follow the OpenStep guidelines rather closely, and the OpenStep guidelines are very well-documented on Apple's site.
GNUstep is also quite portable -- I have used it on three or four platforms, and have no doubt that others work great. My only complaint about GNUstep is its idiosyncratic build system, but I believe that's a left-over from NeXTSTEP, the precursor to OpenStep.
If you're interested in learning more about Cocoa and other OpenStep-compliant toolkits, check Apple's developer site and the Hillegass book, published by AW.
Frankly, I'd settle for being able to switch Control and CapsLock. Perhaps move Escape and Backspace, back-tick and tilde.
Deleting/disabling keys would be nice, too. I didn't check any of the pictures too much, but it might be nice to be able to disable/delete the arrow keys if they get in the way.
But now you'll be able to have an excuse for it that should distract the class for at least five minutes while everyone checks out your new toy! Pull it out when you want a break. :)
I have been waiting for something like this for a long time now. I have keyboard preferences that many people deem odd (Sun 3 keyboard, QWERTY layout, essentially), and this looks like the answer to my problem.
I also like that at least one of the devices will have RS232-C output. That will make connection to older devices a lot easier, and drivers easy to write.
Does anyone have any idea when these will hit the Canadian market? Sometimes we lag behind the US market, and other times we get it a week or two early.
Last time I built Amaya it only weighed in at several megs itself -- and it's a browser, WYSIWYHYGOOB (What You See Is What You Hope You Get On Other Browsers) XHTML editor, and to the best of my knowledge, fully supports SVG and MathML (which although unrelated, is nice if you don't have LaTeX2HTML or HeVeA handy).