Also missing is Dell's music player. My wife bought me one; it holds 20gb, the battery seems to last forever and the sound is great. Best of all, it's priced at only $250 for the 20gb model. Odd that pcmag didn't include the Dell in this lineup since they already reviewed it last year.
There's a guy that lives next door to us with a "clapped out sad wanker boy racer" car. It's the most annoying thing ever to be woken up at 2am by this moron letting his car run for five minutes after he's already parked so he can listen to it. I'd love to install one of these noise cancelling systems without his knowledge so he could hear the engine from inside the car, but we couldn't hear it outside, and see how long it takes him to notice.
I've always hated the noise, but never wanted to do water cooling because of the cost (and the water). The article says this will "add only about $20 to the cost of a personal computer." IMHO that would be $20 well spent to cancel out my noisyass thermaltake fan.
Sounds pretty lame. The article says it's $80/month, you don't get email or voice phone, and it isn't an always on service. And you have to use their hardware. Lot of money for not a lot of features. I bet you could get better service by wardriving.
You will never make a computer easy enough for them to use. Never.
Hence the saying: "Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot." I certainly agree, but as ESR said about CUPS, linux and its applications have a long way to go before they can satisfy even the majority of users, let alone the complete morons.
This book has been out for a few years; what books would make more sense today for a C++ learner's library?
VB for dummies.
Unfortunately, I'm only half kidding. Seems like most budding programmers I meet nowadays just want to take the fast route to a nice salary and don't care to learn how to write code well. A low level langage like C++ is definitely not for them.
I imagine Google wouldn't release enough shares to the public for a hostile takeover. Like an earlier poster pointed out, they hardly seem to need the cash, so why take the risk? As long as they release fewer than 51% of the shares, a hostile takeover is impossible.
Don't swipe from OSS software, unless you are absolutely, entirely certain that you can get away with it.
So stealing is only wrong if you get caught?
(Obviously, I'd like to say "never", but that probably isn't realistic.)
Why not? Closed source companies expect people to pay for their software. Most OSS developers don't even want money, just recognition (respect for the author[s]) and the source for any modifications made. Is it so much to ask for a closed source company to adhere to the terms of the license the OSS was distributed under?
On a side note, I'd be willing to bet the company doing the swiping has a much more strict license for their product than the license governing the OSS product.
Methinks it has to do with the amount of political pull they have. IANAL etc, but it seems to me that if another company were ordered to cease X behavior and then continued to do it, they would be fined or otherwise penalized. But with Microsoft, they keepdoingmonopolisticthings and the DoJ seems to look the other way. Maybe it's a combo of political pull and ridiculous legal team.
I couldn't agree more. Installing Gentoo was the single biggest linux learning experience I've been through. However, once you have it set up, Gentoo is far easier to maintain than Redhat. I can't believe how much time I wasted hunting down that exact rpm or trying to recover the system after I demolished my rpm database - now all I need to do is 'emerge sync' and I have the latest list of packages available for installation on my system. Do an occasional 'emerge -u world' and I've got any security fixes or updates available for any package on my entire system. Of course, it takes significantly longer than an rpm install, but it's all custom built and I have yet to see it fail.
You're right, in effect there is no difference between a 9000 and a 9200 in their systems. But what if they figure out a way to upgrade or otherwise force their AGP to run at 8x? That '9200' damn well better run at 8x as advertised.
There has to be some sort of strategy behind all of this.
Seriously! So far the only strategies seem to be:
- Make money (in stock price for SCO execs and legal fees for lawyers)
- Spread FUD on linux
- No such thing as bad PR?
(IAAP - I Am A Programmer - easier to type than IANAL, etc.)
Assuming what they are doing is illegal, it seems like Barrayo would have to "contact [his] local police station as a victim" for them to take action against the RIAA.
It sounds like they're mainly targeting hispanics; what are the odds they're only targeting illegal aliens (which isn't to say all hispanics are illegal aliens, but that Mexico isn't terribly far from LA, so it's probably safe to say many of the illegal aliens in that area are hispanic). If Barrayo or the others are illegal aliens, I think "[contacting] their local police station" is the last thing they want to do.
That aside, do the laws you mentioned (impersonating a police officer, etc.) even apply to illegal aliens? Maybe the RIAA is more intelligent than we think.
Now for the obligatory Family Guy quote:
"Oh you speak english?"
"No, just that sentence and this one explaining it."
"You're kidding, right?"
"Que?"
This is really incredible stuff. I think I mentioned in another post that the next logical step seems to be enabling the other direction of communication; allowing the device to stimulate the brain. In the context of moving a cursor on a screen, the device would project the image displayed on screen directly onto the user's brain. Once this is possible, it seems like electronically aided telepathy would be trivial.
Put telepathy and robot control together and we'll be able to control armies of robots by thought. Who needs AI when you've (arguably) got the real thing?
This might be a little out in left field, but as our technology leverages biology more and more for its implementation (nano tech, DNA computing etc) maybe down the road we'll be able to engineer humans to be born with telepathic abilities instead of implanting them later. Similar to breeding dogs to have certain physical and mental characteristics, except with a little more help from the science lab. All I can picture right now is the stereotypical alien with an enlarged head and unproportionally small body. Is that what we're evolving toward?
I don't really see how this one could be used for porn (at least not for the paralyzed person) or drugs. And they will (at least partially) be used for disabled people -- look at wheelchairs for instance.
This seems like a one way connection -- data only flows from the user's brain to the robotic arm or screen cursor. The next step will be enabling the other direction so that the arm can tell the user what it's feeling and instead of the user looking at the screen to see the cursor, the image is sent directly to their brain. Of course, that's exactly what the Matrix is built on;)
This tech works -- this article talks about a team of researchers at Duke that were able to connect sensors to a monkey's brain and then use the brain patters to drive a robot arm. As the monkey reached for food, so would the arm. The cool part is that the arm was located in a lab 950km away.
My coworker (a Duke alum) told me that the researchers then tied down the monkey's arm and asked it to reach for the food again. The monkey's arm didn't move, but the robotic arm did. I can't find any articles on that, but here's one about some monkey's playing video games just by thinking it. Cool stuff.
I agree that Mars should be a goal, but it seems like getting there would be much easier if we have already developed the moon or some other waypoint for refueling, repairs, launching rescue missions, etc.
What about the (I forget what they're called) points in space around the earth and moon where the gravitational fields are balanced? It seems like that would be less dangerous given the number of asteroids that hit the moon. On the flip side, it would take more fuel to get to one of those points since you don't have the moon's gravity field to pull you in.
Apollo 13 (everything I know I learned at the movies;) was the last attempted moon landing and it was nearly a disaster. I bet that had as much to do with halting moon missions as anything; we haven't been in space at all since Columbia.
Google would end up being controlled by Microsoft.
You're insinuating Microsoft would do a hostile takeover of Google. IIRC, Microsoft would have to own 51% of the company by buying shares of the IPO (or acquiring them later on, etc). This is only possible if Google releases 51% of their shares when they go public. The company I work for recently went public and did not want to have to worry about a hostile takeover (we're relatively small - our competitors would gobble us up if they had the chance) so they only released ~ 30% of their shares. And they haven't become obsessed with the stock price; we're just as committed to providing quality products to our customers.
Our society has lived for 110 years without a frontier...
Uhh... what about space? Going to the moon? Neil Armstrong? The sixties weren't that long ago. Also, what about technology? One could argue that the technology explosion is the latest great new frontier even though it isn't exploration in the traditional sense. I believe the human race is pursuing many, many frontiers right now. Artificial intelligence, deep sea exploration, medical science, just to name a few.
...we have forgotten that there are things more important than human life...
No, we've learned that nothing is more important than human life. What good is exploration if the explorer dies before the rest of us can learn from their experiences (e.g. midflight)?
Slashdot Mirror
Also missing is Dell's music player. My wife bought me one; it holds 20gb, the battery seems to last forever and the sound is great. Best of all, it's priced at only $250 for the 20gb model. Odd that pcmag didn't include the Dell in this lineup since they already reviewed it last year.
There's a guy that lives next door to us with a "clapped out sad wanker boy racer" car. It's the most annoying thing ever to be woken up at 2am by this moron letting his car run for five minutes after he's already parked so he can listen to it. I'd love to install one of these noise cancelling systems without his knowledge so he could hear the engine from inside the car, but we couldn't hear it outside, and see how long it takes him to notice.
I've always hated the noise, but never wanted to do water cooling because of the cost (and the water). The article says this will "add only about $20 to the cost of a personal computer." IMHO that would be $20 well spent to cancel out my noisyass thermaltake fan.
Sounds pretty lame. The article says it's $80/month, you don't get email or voice phone, and it isn't an always on service. And you have to use their hardware. Lot of money for not a lot of features. I bet you could get better service by wardriving.
Hence the saying: "Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot." I certainly agree, but as ESR said about CUPS, linux and its applications have a long way to go before they can satisfy even the majority of users, let alone the complete morons.
VB for dummies.
Unfortunately, I'm only half kidding. Seems like most budding programmers I meet nowadays just want to take the fast route to a nice salary and don't care to learn how to write code well. A low level langage like C++ is definitely not for them.
I imagine Google wouldn't release enough shares to the public for a hostile takeover. Like an earlier poster pointed out, they hardly seem to need the cash, so why take the risk? As long as they release fewer than 51% of the shares, a hostile takeover is impossible.
So stealing is only wrong if you get caught?
(Obviously, I'd like to say "never", but that probably isn't realistic.)
Why not? Closed source companies expect people to pay for their software. Most OSS developers don't even want money, just recognition (respect for the author[s]) and the source for any modifications made. Is it so much to ask for a closed source company to adhere to the terms of the license the OSS was distributed under?
On a side note, I'd be willing to bet the company doing the swiping has a much more strict license for their product than the license governing the OSS product.
Methinks it has to do with the amount of political pull they have. IANAL etc, but it seems to me that if another company were ordered to cease X behavior and then continued to do it, they would be fined or otherwise penalized. But with Microsoft, they keep doing monopolistic things and the DoJ seems to look the other way. Maybe it's a combo of political pull and ridiculous legal team.
I couldn't agree more. Installing Gentoo was the single biggest linux learning experience I've been through. However, once you have it set up, Gentoo is far easier to maintain than Redhat. I can't believe how much time I wasted hunting down that exact rpm or trying to recover the system after I demolished my rpm database - now all I need to do is 'emerge sync' and I have the latest list of packages available for installation on my system. Do an occasional 'emerge -u world' and I've got any security fixes or updates available for any package on my entire system. Of course, it takes significantly longer than an rpm install, but it's all custom built and I have yet to see it fail.
You're right, in effect there is no difference between a 9000 and a 9200 in their systems. But what if they figure out a way to upgrade or otherwise force their AGP to run at 8x? That '9200' damn well better run at 8x as advertised.
Seriously! So far the only strategies seem to be:
- Make money (in stock price for SCO execs and legal fees for lawyers)
- Spread FUD on linux
- No such thing as bad PR?
Brilliant. Thanks for the heads up. I bet Thomas E. Ray III wishes he had friends like you.
what they'll be doing at the next foo camp ;)
My basic point was that it is easier to type what I am (programmer), than what I am not (doctor, lawyer, ).
Assuming what they are doing is illegal, it seems like Barrayo would have to "contact [his] local police station as a victim" for them to take action against the RIAA.
It sounds like they're mainly targeting hispanics; what are the odds they're only targeting illegal aliens (which isn't to say all hispanics are illegal aliens, but that Mexico isn't terribly far from LA, so it's probably safe to say many of the illegal aliens in that area are hispanic). If Barrayo or the others are illegal aliens, I think "[contacting] their local police station" is the last thing they want to do.
That aside, do the laws you mentioned (impersonating a police officer, etc.) even apply to illegal aliens? Maybe the RIAA is more intelligent than we think.
Now for the obligatory Family Guy quote:
"Oh you speak english?"
"No, just that sentence and this one explaining it."
"You're kidding, right?"
"Que?"
Put telepathy and robot control together and we'll be able to control armies of robots by thought. Who needs AI when you've (arguably) got the real thing?
This might be a little out in left field, but as our technology leverages biology more and more for its implementation (nano tech, DNA computing etc) maybe down the road we'll be able to engineer humans to be born with telepathic abilities instead of implanting them later. Similar to breeding dogs to have certain physical and mental characteristics, except with a little more help from the science lab. All I can picture right now is the stereotypical alien with an enlarged head and unproportionally small body. Is that what we're evolving toward?
...includes VoIP
This seems like a one way connection -- data only flows from the user's brain to the robotic arm or screen cursor. The next step will be enabling the other direction so that the arm can tell the user what it's feeling and instead of the user looking at the screen to see the cursor, the image is sent directly to their brain. Of course, that's exactly what the Matrix is built on ;)
My coworker (a Duke alum) told me that the researchers then tied down the monkey's arm and asked it to reach for the food again. The monkey's arm didn't move, but the robotic arm did. I can't find any articles on that, but here's one about some monkey's playing video games just by thinking it. Cool stuff.
What about the (I forget what they're called) points in space around the earth and moon where the gravitational fields are balanced? It seems like that would be less dangerous given the number of asteroids that hit the moon. On the flip side, it would take more fuel to get to one of those points since you don't have the moon's gravity field to pull you in.
and just imagine a beowulf cluster of... oh nevermind.
Apollo 13 (everything I know I learned at the movies ;) was the last attempted moon landing and it was nearly a disaster. I bet that had as much to do with halting moon missions as anything; we haven't been in space at all since Columbia.
You're insinuating Microsoft would do a hostile takeover of Google. IIRC, Microsoft would have to own 51% of the company by buying shares of the IPO (or acquiring them later on, etc). This is only possible if Google releases 51% of their shares when they go public. The company I work for recently went public and did not want to have to worry about a hostile takeover (we're relatively small - our competitors would gobble us up if they had the chance) so they only released ~ 30% of their shares. And they haven't become obsessed with the stock price; we're just as committed to providing quality products to our customers.
Uhh... what about space? Going to the moon? Neil Armstrong? The sixties weren't that long ago. Also, what about technology? One could argue that the technology explosion is the latest great new frontier even though it isn't exploration in the traditional sense. I believe the human race is pursuing many, many frontiers right now. Artificial intelligence, deep sea exploration, medical science, just to name a few.
No, we've learned that nothing is more important than human life. What good is exploration if the explorer dies before the rest of us can learn from their experiences (e.g. midflight)?