Bob was someone's Pet Project. It was released not because Microsoft thought it would sell, but for personal reasons. Sure it bombed. For one thing, the computers of the time weren't powerful enough to run it. For another, the users of the time weren't clueless enough to think they needed it. Now we have even more powerful computers and even less clueful users, but the damage is already done.
The legacy of Microsoft Bob lived on until fairly recently, in the Office Assistant and XP's search requester.
If you have a hot date planned, why would you be wearing any underwear at all? You want to be single-insulated, so you can slip her one without the faffing and fumbling!
The thing is, though, that e ** (j * PI) == -1 is just an equation. If you know how pi, e and j are defined, and more to the point you know the series expansions of e ** x, cos(x) and sin(x), then it's really not all that magical -- just a special case of how e ** (j * x) == cos(x) + j * sin(x). And when x = pi, cos(x) == -1 and sin(x) = 0. That's all there is to it! It shouldn't even surprise you. Even powers have reflective symmetry about the Y-axis (like cos), odd powers have spin symmetry about the origin (like sin). If you can expand the sine function to an infinite series, then the terms which make it up can contain only odd powers of x (anything else would spoil the symmetry), whereas the terms which make up the co-sine must contain only even powers of x. Now, successive powers of j go 1, j, -1, -j, 1, j, -1, -j, 1..... a nice progression, interleaving the alternation of sign and "realness". If you put a j into any infinite series expansion, you'll find all the even powers coming out real, the odd powers coming out imaginary and the signs alternating in each progression. But this is all just because j * j == -1 and -1 * -1 = 1.
If you want something really interesting, consider why the slope of a graph and the area enclosed by a graph, the axes and some ordinate should be inverses of each other.
Who cares what it's short for? It's just a place to stick configuration files, is all. You know, you can over-analyse. Then people might start to call you anal-retentive. And if you retain what comes out of your anus, that makes you full of shit.
Or, strictly speaking, it's where your Linux distributor has hopefully tweaked all the sources for the software so it sticks all its configuration files there, rather than in some random directory such as/usr/local/foo/conf/ if you compiled it yourself from source. (Yes, you, the people with the Amphibian fetish, I'm looking at you!)
Re:Does Vista have anything we need?
on
Is Vista a Trap?
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· Score: 1
You also need to bear in mind that the Amiga's OS was (mostly) in ROM, so not susceptible to being mucked about with by rogue software. In the worst case, you would have to hard-reset and reinstall everything from a write-protected floppy. The Amiga couldn't write to write-protected floppies. Some machines of the day actually implemented write-protect in software, and with a little persuasion would happily stomp all over a write-protected disk; a fact which was used to implement some particularly nasty copy-protection schemes and could have been used for even nastier viruses. The Amiga could, however, read the write-protect switch on an I/O port; if one of these schemes detected a write-protected disk, it would stop what it was doing and insist for you to unprotect the disk before continuing.
Really? I got the BBC stuff working with Xine. But I do have to run it in the standalone player, despite installing the gxine plugin. Perhaps it's a file-association thing?
Microsoft would enforce it by making access to the source code a precondition for digitally signing any driver. You want to run your code on our system? Show us the source or go screw yourselves.
I'm sure I've heard that line before somewhere, actually.....
Re:Does Vista have anything we need?
on
Is Vista a Trap?
·
· Score: 1
Well, people will either have to pay for (or pirate; I don't see the proportion of paid-up software changing anytime soon) Vista, or give up the games. And I wouldn't bet on anyone giving up gaming.
In the worst case, Microsoft could easily afford to pay game developers to write Vista-only games -- or, more likely, bully them into doing so. Because if the payware WINE forks improve sufficiently, Linux -- or FreeBSD, whose licence allows you to take without giving back; how about a game on a bootable DVD, even with its own OS? -- might turn out to be a more attractive option for those still tied to Windows.
Re:Here is a real desc. of op-amps, not a crap one
on
500-in-1 Electronics Kits?
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· Score: 3, Informative
Yes. And it's not really a short circuit, because no current flows through it.
The reason why the input voltage difference is nearly zero when negative feedback is applied, is because the amplifier is operating linearly. So actually, the difference between the two input voltages is the output voltage, divided by the open-loop gain. But the open-loop gain is huge, so the input voltage difference will be tiny.
Now, there's a thought. If you applied the same inputs to a second op-amp on the same chip (so, hopefully, having the same open-loop gain), would you get a sane voltage at the output, even with no negative feedback?
It depends on your intention. As long as the copy you were going to make is strictly in accordance with your Statutory Right of Fair Dealing / Fair Use (which may vary between jurisdictions; check applicable local statutes and relevant case law), then you have the right to do so because you own the disc.
If there's no non-stick, you have to make your own in the traditional way: by adding just a few ml. of cooking oil, heating the wok till the oil begins to smoulder and then wiping it around with a (thickly-folded, so you don't burn your fingers) paper towel. The partly-oxidised oil forms some sort of chemical bond with the hot metal. You have to do this every time you cook in the wok, until it's black.
In the UK, non-stick cookware (made to last a couple of years) is generally cheaper than non-non-stick cookware (made to last forever).
The non-stick coating (so good, it won't even stick to the pan) would do the rust-protection thing. Although, you can get away with a few pinholes in a dish..... just as a speck of dirt on a lens won't block out as much of the image as you might expect. Sky TV dishes are perforated to save weight and minimise wind effects.
Re your sig: Everyone in Britain (and France, too) learns to drive in a manual car.
Well, the whole point is they're designed not to burn! Under fault conditions, electronic apparatus usually overheats; and the last thing you want it bursting into flames. PCB board, when it gets hot, generally just tends to smoulder a bit and cut off its own air supply. Usually, it's the overheating component that fails first; and once it goes open-circuit, the heat source is removed and the unpleasant fumes stop.
The important phrase is "without the authority of the copyright holder". If you own the disc, you are entitled by sole virtue of ownership to use it for its rightful purpose -- which (assuming it is just an ordinary, home-viewing sell-through disc) is to watch the movie stored on it, in private. The copyright holder cannot prevent you from doing that, without rendering the disc unfit for its rightful purpose (and therefore owing you a refund of the purchase price you paid).
Go ahead and decrypt. Either you do have the authority of the copyright holder, or the disc is unfit for purpose and you are owed a full refund. In either case, you will find your purchase receipt very helpful.
If you damage company equipment by using it for other purposes than it was intended for, it's entirely reasonable for the company to expect you to pay for it to be repaired -- and to stop the cost out of your wages.
You don't need to be quite so heavy-handed about it.
Put Linux, Flash, Java, VLC and assorted codecs on a few machines in the canteen. Make it known that those machines, and no others, are to be used for accessing non-work-related sites. Then have the IT department invoice employees for computer repairs necessitated as a consequence of visiting any NWR sites on their workstations.
I just wonder, how many of the Windows drivers for "the cheapest shit" were actually developed using pirated copies of Windows?
Now, Vista supposedly is going to be harder to pirate; and if Microsoft have to certify drivers before users can install them, then this will give them another way to check up on who is running unauthorised software.
There could be Interesting Times ahead. My money is on Microsoft continuing to turn a blind eye just as long as the pirates aren't making drivers for Other Operating Systems; but a crack to install uncertified drivers might be worth an each-way, if you're passing the bookies on your way to somewhere important.
If they're serious about selling ten million units, then they might want to think about reserving a special STD code just for iPhones. (This will require the co-operation of the telcos and the number issuing authority, but it's probably a big enough undertaking.) And plug it ceaselessly, so members of the general public know that all numbers with a particular prefix are iPhones. Or at least SIMs that were sold inside iPhones..... I think people would be more likely to put the SIM out of a cheap phone into an expensive one than the other way around, though! (Except temporarily..... I wouldn't take an iPhone to Glastonbury.)
If you could make iTunes capable of handling non-DRM music next to DRM music, you run the risk of creating an exploit whereby somebody figures out how to fool iTunes into thinking that all the music should be DRM-free.
The music already comes down from the server "unencumbered" (but encrypted against a key known only to the user who paid for it). It is the iTunes client which adds the Digital Restrictions Management. All hacks demonstrated so far have been based on intercepting the stream from server to client before it gets DRM-wrapped, and have not attempted to break the first encryption layer.
Even if someone could persuade the iTunes client not to DRM-wrap a downloaded song that should be DRM-wrapped, that really wouldn't be any different from any of the hacks that have already been tried.
Another possible reason that I haven't heard anybody mention yet is that perhaps the labels have told Apple flat out that they themselves don't want non-DRM music being sold side-by-side with their offerings, as it would, if nothing else, give a bad impression and create negative customer feedback.
Now we're getting to the real reason. The major record labels don't like the idea of the general public seeing Another Way It Could Be Done. It would lead them to question why, if some mangers don't have dogs in them, does theirs need one?
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I've never had trouble with KWord.
And there isn't a Free viewer for Word documents. There's a gratis viewer but it only runs on Windows, and does not include Source Code.
Bob was someone's Pet Project. It was released not because Microsoft thought it would sell, but for personal reasons. Sure it bombed. For one thing, the computers of the time weren't powerful enough to run it. For another, the users of the time weren't clueless enough to think they needed it. Now we have even more powerful computers and even less clueful users, but the damage is already done.
The legacy of Microsoft Bob lived on until fairly recently, in the Office Assistant and XP's search requester.
If you have a hot date planned, why would you be wearing any underwear at all? You want to be single-insulated, so you can slip her one without the faffing and fumbling!
The thing is, though, that e ** (j * PI) == -1 is just an equation. If you know how pi, e and j are defined, and more to the point you know the series expansions of e ** x, cos(x) and sin(x), then it's really not all that magical -- just a special case of how e ** (j * x) == cos(x) + j * sin(x). And when x = pi, cos(x) == -1 and sin(x) = 0. That's all there is to it! It shouldn't even surprise you. Even powers have reflective symmetry about the Y-axis (like cos), odd powers have spin symmetry about the origin (like sin). If you can expand the sine function to an infinite series, then the terms which make it up can contain only odd powers of x (anything else would spoil the symmetry), whereas the terms which make up the co-sine must contain only even powers of x. Now, successive powers of j go 1, j, -1, -j, 1, j, -1, -j, 1 ..... a nice progression, interleaving the alternation of sign and "realness". If you put a j into any infinite series expansion, you'll find all the even powers coming out real, the odd powers coming out imaginary and the signs alternating in each progression. But this is all just because j * j == -1 and -1 * -1 = 1.
If you want something really interesting, consider why the slope of a graph and the area enclosed by a graph, the axes and some ordinate should be inverses of each other.
If the God of the Old Testament really existed, it would be necessary to destroy Him.
Q. What's the worst thing about being an atheist?
A. There's no Hell for the Protestants to burn in!
Who cares what it's short for? It's just a place to stick configuration files, is all. You know, you can over-analyse. Then people might start to call you anal-retentive. And if you retain what comes out of your anus, that makes you full of shit.
/usr/local/foo/conf/ if you compiled it yourself from source. (Yes, you, the people with the Amphibian fetish, I'm looking at you!)
Or, strictly speaking, it's where your Linux distributor has hopefully tweaked all the sources for the software so it sticks all its configuration files there, rather than in some random directory such as
You also need to bear in mind that the Amiga's OS was (mostly) in ROM, so not susceptible to being mucked about with by rogue software. In the worst case, you would have to hard-reset and reinstall everything from a write-protected floppy. The Amiga couldn't write to write-protected floppies. Some machines of the day actually implemented write-protect in software, and with a little persuasion would happily stomp all over a write-protected disk; a fact which was used to implement some particularly nasty copy-protection schemes and could have been used for even nastier viruses. The Amiga could, however, read the write-protect switch on an I/O port; if one of these schemes detected a write-protected disk, it would stop what it was doing and insist for you to unprotect the disk before continuing.
Really? I got the BBC stuff working with Xine. But I do have to run it in the standalone player, despite installing the gxine plugin. Perhaps it's a file-association thing?
What if there was a LAW demanding it? No driver source code = your product banned from sale.
Microsoft would enforce it by making access to the source code a precondition for digitally signing any driver. You want to run your code on our system? Show us the source or go screw yourselves.
.....
I'm sure I've heard that line before somewhere, actually
Well, people will either have to pay for (or pirate; I don't see the proportion of paid-up software changing anytime soon) Vista, or give up the games. And I wouldn't bet on anyone giving up gaming.
In the worst case, Microsoft could easily afford to pay game developers to write Vista-only games -- or, more likely, bully them into doing so. Because if the payware WINE forks improve sufficiently, Linux -- or FreeBSD, whose licence allows you to take without giving back; how about a game on a bootable DVD, even with its own OS? -- might turn out to be a more attractive option for those still tied to Windows.
Yes. And it's not really a short circuit, because no current flows through it.
The reason why the input voltage difference is nearly zero when negative feedback is applied, is because the amplifier is operating linearly. So actually, the difference between the two input voltages is the output voltage, divided by the open-loop gain. But the open-loop gain is huge, so the input voltage difference will be tiny.
Now, there's a thought. If you applied the same inputs to a second op-amp on the same chip (so, hopefully, having the same open-loop gain), would you get a sane voltage at the output, even with no negative feedback?
Perhaps all those Virgin Media customers will still be able to get Sky One after all, using just a wok from the kitchen?!
It depends on your intention. As long as the copy you were going to make is strictly in accordance with your Statutory Right of Fair Dealing / Fair Use (which may vary between jurisdictions; check applicable local statutes and relevant case law), then you have the right to do so because you own the disc.
If there's no non-stick, you have to make your own in the traditional way: by adding just a few ml. of cooking oil, heating the wok till the oil begins to smoulder and then wiping it around with a (thickly-folded, so you don't burn your fingers) paper towel. The partly-oxidised oil forms some sort of chemical bond with the hot metal. You have to do this every time you cook in the wok, until it's black.
In the UK, non-stick cookware (made to last a couple of years) is generally cheaper than non-non-stick cookware (made to last forever).
The non-stick coating (so good, it won't even stick to the pan) would do the rust-protection thing. Although, you can get away with a few pinholes in a dish ..... just as a speck of dirt on a lens won't block out as much of the image as you might expect. Sky TV dishes are perforated to save weight and minimise wind effects.
Re your sig: Everyone in Britain (and France, too) learns to drive in a manual car.
Well, the whole point is they're designed not to burn! Under fault conditions, electronic apparatus usually overheats; and the last thing you want it bursting into flames. PCB board, when it gets hot, generally just tends to smoulder a bit and cut off its own air supply. Usually, it's the overheating component that fails first; and once it goes open-circuit, the heat source is removed and the unpleasant fumes stop.
The important phrase is "without the authority of the copyright holder". If you own the disc, you are entitled by sole virtue of ownership to use it for its rightful purpose -- which (assuming it is just an ordinary, home-viewing sell-through disc) is to watch the movie stored on it, in private. The copyright holder cannot prevent you from doing that, without rendering the disc unfit for its rightful purpose (and therefore owing you a refund of the purchase price you paid).
Go ahead and decrypt. Either you do have the authority of the copyright holder, or the disc is unfit for purpose and you are owed a full refund. In either case, you will find your purchase receipt very helpful.
If you damage company equipment by using it for other purposes than it was intended for, it's entirely reasonable for the company to expect you to pay for it to be repaired -- and to stop the cost out of your wages.
You don't need to be quite so heavy-handed about it.
Put Linux, Flash, Java, VLC and assorted codecs on a few machines in the canteen. Make it known that those machines, and no others, are to be used for accessing non-work-related sites. Then have the IT department invoice employees for computer repairs necessitated as a consequence of visiting any NWR sites on their workstations.
I just wonder, how many of the Windows drivers for "the cheapest shit" were actually developed using pirated copies of Windows?
Now, Vista supposedly is going to be harder to pirate; and if Microsoft have to certify drivers before users can install them, then this will give them another way to check up on who is running unauthorised software.
There could be Interesting Times ahead. My money is on Microsoft continuing to turn a blind eye just as long as the pirates aren't making drivers for Other Operating Systems; but a crack to install uncertified drivers might be worth an each-way, if you're passing the bookies on your way to somewhere important.
If they're serious about selling ten million units, then they might want to think about reserving a special STD code just for iPhones. (This will require the co-operation of the telcos and the number issuing authority, but it's probably a big enough undertaking.) And plug it ceaselessly, so members of the general public know that all numbers with a particular prefix are iPhones. Or at least SIMs that were sold inside iPhones ..... I think people would be more likely to put the SIM out of a cheap phone into an expensive one than the other way around, though! (Except temporarily ..... I wouldn't take an iPhone to Glastonbury.)
Even if someone could persuade the iTunes client not to DRM-wrap a downloaded song that should be DRM-wrapped, that really wouldn't be any different from any of the hacks that have already been tried.Now we're getting to the real reason. The major record labels don't like the idea of the general public seeing Another Way It Could Be Done. It would lead them to question why, if some mangers don't have dogs in them, does theirs need one?