So I buy a PC thinking I can upgrade it when I feel like it.
A while later, I put in some RAM. No problem.
Then I decide I want a new hard drive. But I have the old version of the hard drive controller, and to get full performance out of a new hard drive, I decide to buy a new hard drive controller to plug in.
Then I decide I want a new graphics card. But my motherbord has an AGP x slot, and the card I want uses AGP 4x, so I end up buying a new motherboard.
After that, I decided I wanted a new CPU. But I had a Pentium 3. Nowadays, I can get a P4/2ghz for cheaper than a slower P3. So I have to get yet another motherboard. And then of course I need RDRAM to get the best performance out of the new P4, so I go and buy new RAM to replace the old stuff I got way back at the beginning.
Yessir, upgrading your computer is definitely cost-effective.
I mean, the trailing edge is the edge that will hit the water first if you're talking a 20 degree angle, and if the stone skipped, the center of force would have to be behind the stone's center of gravity (otherwise it would sink).
If it skips soon enough, it could be far enough behind the center of gravity to cause the stone to flip. But I doubt it happens all the time, because I can't see getting it to flip the same speed every time. If it doesn't flip by about 180%, the stone would soon hit at a bad angle and sink. The chances of even getting three or four skips in a row would probably be ridiculously small, but I can get at least that many skips fairly consistently.
Because those measures still fail. Especially in dark places like bars where it's hard to see the anti-counterfeiting measures in the bills. Pass a half-decent phony note on a busy night, and you're almost guaranteed to get away with it.
this has been pulled of with high-quality scanners and printers in the past - just copy the note on fairly thick printer paper, then distress it a bit to give it the texture of a used bill. Hence the reason why this is being built into better scanners and laser printers nowadays. Consumer inkjet printers are also good enough to do this, but don't have the electronics to do any decent detection. This is probably the reason it's being built into Photoshop now.
Unfortunately, 2/3 of the Mars missions that have been launched so far have failed. I wouldn't call that very simple.
I think maybe a manned mission would be more reasonable once we get at least half the robots we launch to survive the landing. Considering that these rovers can probably survive harsher conditions (heat, G forces, shocks, etc.) than a human, and the systems for keeping the robot alive are a lot less complicated, we'd probably want an even higher success rate than that first.
Of course, I'm sure the technology is there, too. I'm just not sure the experience is. There are a lot of variables that we don't have a good working knowledge of between here and the Martian surface.
Not necessarily. You lose some information when encoding to MP3, but that information you lose may not be important. Take an MP3 compressed so much that you lose 90% of the information, and you will still be able to understand human speech in the recording.
Obviously binary data and human speech are incredibly different - heck, one is digital and the other is analog. That doesn't change the fact that it's theoretically possible. Of course I doubt it would be practical in any situation I can think of - you would need to encode the audio signal in such a way that it would take an incredible amount of data to convey a single bit in order to ensure that the original binary data could be reliably extracted from an mp3. But still, it's possible.
Most people I know do have difficulties getting used to and navigating simulated 3D environments. For example, beginning FPS players seem to have a lot of problems learning their way around new maps.
3D is a rather difficult problem because it'll have to be done in a way that models itself to the end user. Right now, many people have problems with operating a mouse, moving and resizing windows, etc. If 3D doesn't find an extremely intuitive way for managing these sorts of resources, it won't be particularly useful.
Also, although we live in a three-dimensional environment, the best science I've read so far suggests that our perception of it is largely two-dimensional. For example, when humans remember how an object looks, they don't memorize the 3D shape of the object, they memorize 2D images of how the object looks from various angles. There is research suggesting that when we memorize a truly 3D environment such as an office building, we really create a series of linked 2D 'maps.'
This situation becomes very clear in video games. Most folks don't have a hard time at all getting used to FPS games, where the action is really mostly two-dimensional. A lot of people have a slightly harder time with flight simulators, but can get the hang of it fairly easily. This still isn't really a 3D problem though - it's more of a "2 1/2 dimensional" because it's still largely 2D action that is augmented by "up" and "down", but freedom to move along the up/down axis is severely restricted so fluent thinking about the game really only requires a 2D internal model of the action combined with details about whether something is above or below oneself.
3D space combat games are where the situation really becomes clear. My own experience with them is that when I was first learning them I really didn't keep a good idea of the 3D action in the games at all. I kept an idea of where various objects were in relation to me, and didn't maintain a good concept of the overall layout of the gamespace in 3D. Not exactly Khan and his inability to strategize in three dimensions, but certainly not a fluent ability to plan and strategize in irreducibly three-dimensional environments. Watching other people learn to play these games suggests that their experience is similar.
Nothing is safe. If it doesn't allow for multiplayer or MMO, it's not marketable.
Not really much room for developing a storyline, plot, or what have you when you've got your hands full enough just trying to keep your servers from crashing under the load of a few thousand players all sitting around doing nothing but whining about how everyone else is a n00b, and whatever is left over is devoted to trying to keep on top of the cheat freaks.
guess at least now we can catch up on our reading lists.
Where have all the puzzles gone, long time passing? Where have all the puzzles gone, long time ago? Where have all the puzzles gone? Killed by 3D, every one. When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?
Arright let's get the obligatory sentiments that come out every time the FSF is mentioned out of the way for everybody.
RMS sucks, f0rK the FSF, what'd they ever do for me anyway, no more GNU software on my computer, I'm gonna go play with FreeBSD, now dammit where'd I put that compiler.
Ok, now that I've said it for all of you please feel free to talk about something that hasn't been said a million times before.
I know micro RC planes often use tiny NiMH batteries. Some of the planes weigh in as light as seven grams, and it's not uncommon for the battery to give at least 10 minutes of flying time.
Ok, ya got me on the glibc, but I'm going to maintain that RMS was originally the primary author of gcc. (The other big dev tool he wrote was really gdb.)
You can do it, but it would be virtually impossible to keep the whole mess synced up with the monitor's scan rate.
Much easier to do something like copper bars, where you change the color during the monitors horizontal retrace.
What I can't figure is, I had a copper bars program that depended on changing colors during horizontal retrace, and it worked perfectly on the LCD panel of a laptop. Are the LCD panels designed to act like a computer monitor complete with a little pause after drawing each line?
Don't be so quick to cast the radical big mouthed hippie aside. He is certainly an iconoclast, I hear he has an abrasive personality, and he annoys a whole lot of people by being one of those rare types who sticks firmly to idealism rather than pragmatism. Don't let all that get in the way of your realizing just how valuable he is.
If it weren't for the radical big-mouthed hippie and his radical big-mouthed hippie ideas, there would be no FSF, no GPL. Linux would have never caught on because with no glibc an' all that, nobody would have plugged all that stuff into Linux in order to make it useful. I doubt Linux would have even become a truly viable kernel for non-recreational hacking use without GNU.
His radical big-mouthed hippie way of thinking is the way of thinking that gave us something like the GPL, and I seriously doubt that the GPL could have come out of a mind that doesn't work like RMS's. Someone less idealist would have come up with a much weaker license, probably something more like a BSD or MIT license. Someone less abrasive and bull-headed never would have started the project to begin with.
So unless you're a long-time FreeBSD user or a hardcore Windows geek, grow up and quit whining about RMS. Linux wrote a great kernel, but GNU has done more to make Linux (GNU/Linux, whatever) a viable OS and getting this whole movement to go mainstream than any other body. RMS started gathering all the fuel, Linus is just the guy who lit the match.
Considering the overall development costs that Windows must incur, I imagine that translation costs are a drop in the bucket. Maybe that near 100% profit margin becomes a near 95% profit margin for some languages, 80% for others. I can't imagine it'd be much worse than that, and it's still a huge profit margin given how many copies they sell.
Any way you cut it, they're making off like bandits on this.
I don't think talking about what an operating system is and is not is really a good way to be framing any arguments here. Nor is talking about what should or should not be packaged with an OS.
If we say it's absolutely wrong for MS to include Media Player with Windows, we're also saying that Apple is wrong to include iTunes and Quicktime, and the various Linux distros are wrong to include whatever media players they choose to include with their distros. I, for one, am fine with these packages being included with my OS. When we're talking making computers usable for new users who may not know what choices are out there in the first place, it is probably a Good Thing.
It's much more realisitc to start with the fact that Microsoft is abusing their monopoly status - among other things- by including Windows Media Player with Windows, as well as by including it in the way that they do. Microsoft should lose the right/priviledge of packaging WMP (and IE) with Windows for the same reason we take priviledges away from children: they've shown they can't use that priviledge responsibly.
With a near 100% profit margin on Windows, enough money in their coffers to end world hunger if they ever felt like it, and the various versions of Windows having several hundred dollar price tags, I don't think Microsoft has much to fear from a $20 per copy fee.
And firmer means are kind of scary to implement. Even the EU is so Windows-dependent that a ban on imports until Media Player is removed could cause some serious problems if Microsoft decides to wait it out instead of complying right away.
Slashdot probably isn't really the best forum for questions about OS X Server. It's not something people really need to buy for home use. Few businesses I know of run OS X servers. And most importantly, it is quite definitely not GNU/Linux.
Also, are you sure having remote root access is a bug and not a feature? It's a huge huge security risk, esp. for a business setting.
Slashdot Mirror
So I buy a PC thinking I can upgrade it when I feel like it.
A while later, I put in some RAM. No problem.
Then I decide I want a new hard drive. But I have the old version of the hard drive controller, and to get full performance out of a new hard drive, I decide to buy a new hard drive controller to plug in.
Then I decide I want a new graphics card. But my motherbord has an AGP x slot, and the card I want uses AGP 4x, so I end up buying a new motherboard.
After that, I decided I wanted a new CPU. But I had a Pentium 3. Nowadays, I can get a P4/2ghz for cheaper than a slower P3. So I have to get yet another motherboard. And then of course I need RDRAM to get the best performance out of the new P4, so I go and buy new RAM to replace the old stuff I got way back at the beginning.
Yessir, upgrading your computer is definitely cost-effective.
I mean, the trailing edge is the edge that will hit the water first if you're talking a 20 degree angle, and if the stone skipped, the center of force would have to be behind the stone's center of gravity (otherwise it would sink).
If it skips soon enough, it could be far enough behind the center of gravity to cause the stone to flip. But I doubt it happens all the time, because I can't see getting it to flip the same speed every time. If it doesn't flip by about 180%, the stone would soon hit at a bad angle and sink. The chances of even getting three or four skips in a row would probably be ridiculously small, but I can get at least that many skips fairly consistently.
Because those measures still fail. Especially in dark places like bars where it's hard to see the anti-counterfeiting measures in the bills. Pass a half-decent phony note on a busy night, and you're almost guaranteed to get away with it.
this has been pulled of with high-quality scanners and printers in the past - just copy the note on fairly thick printer paper, then distress it a bit to give it the texture of a used bill. Hence the reason why this is being built into better scanners and laser printers nowadays. Consumer inkjet printers are also good enough to do this, but don't have the electronics to do any decent detection. This is probably the reason it's being built into Photoshop now.
They want you to get an account to be able to download the Helix Player binaries.
(Call me paranoid, but I'm just not sure I trust a project which claims to be OSS and then wants me to tell them who I am before I d/l their software)
Unfortunately, 2/3 of the Mars missions that have been launched so far have failed. I wouldn't call that very simple.
I think maybe a manned mission would be more reasonable once we get at least half the robots we launch to survive the landing. Considering that these rovers can probably survive harsher conditions (heat, G forces, shocks, etc.) than a human, and the systems for keeping the robot alive are a lot less complicated, we'd probably want an even higher success rate than that first.
Of course, I'm sure the technology is there, too. I'm just not sure the experience is. There are a lot of variables that we don't have a good working knowledge of between here and the Martian surface.
Not necessarily. You lose some information when encoding to MP3, but that information you lose may not be important. Take an MP3 compressed so much that you lose 90% of the information, and you will still be able to understand human speech in the recording.
Obviously binary data and human speech are incredibly different - heck, one is digital and the other is analog. That doesn't change the fact that it's theoretically possible. Of course I doubt it would be practical in any situation I can think of - you would need to encode the audio signal in such a way that it would take an incredible amount of data to convey a single bit in order to ensure that the original binary data could be reliably extracted from an mp3. But still, it's possible.
How about we just run around the city at night and play rock-paper-scissors at each other?
Do we really need cell phones to have a good LARP?
Most people I know do have difficulties getting used to and navigating simulated 3D environments. For example, beginning FPS players seem to have a lot of problems learning their way around new maps.
3D is a rather difficult problem because it'll have to be done in a way that models itself to the end user. Right now, many people have problems with operating a mouse, moving and resizing windows, etc. If 3D doesn't find an extremely intuitive way for managing these sorts of resources, it won't be particularly useful.
Also, although we live in a three-dimensional environment, the best science I've read so far suggests that our perception of it is largely two-dimensional. For example, when humans remember how an object looks, they don't memorize the 3D shape of the object, they memorize 2D images of how the object looks from various angles. There is research suggesting that when we memorize a truly 3D environment such as an office building, we really create a series of linked 2D 'maps.'
This situation becomes very clear in video games. Most folks don't have a hard time at all getting used to FPS games, where the action is really mostly two-dimensional. A lot of people have a slightly harder time with flight simulators, but can get the hang of it fairly easily. This still isn't really a 3D problem though - it's more of a "2 1/2 dimensional" because it's still largely 2D action that is augmented by "up" and "down", but freedom to move along the up/down axis is severely restricted so fluent thinking about the game really only requires a 2D internal model of the action combined with details about whether something is above or below oneself.
3D space combat games are where the situation really becomes clear. My own experience with them is that when I was first learning them I really didn't keep a good idea of the 3D action in the games at all. I kept an idea of where various objects were in relation to me, and didn't maintain a good concept of the overall layout of the gamespace in 3D. Not exactly Khan and his inability to strategize in three dimensions, but certainly not a fluent ability to plan and strategize in irreducibly three-dimensional environments. Watching other people learn to play these games suggests that their experience is similar.
But we have been for several years now.
Nothing is safe. If it doesn't allow for multiplayer or MMO, it's not marketable.
Not really much room for developing a storyline, plot, or what have you when you've got your hands full enough just trying to keep your servers from crashing under the load of a few thousand players all sitting around doing nothing but whining about how everyone else is a n00b, and whatever is left over is devoted to trying to keep on top of the cheat freaks.
guess at least now we can catch up on our reading lists.
Where have all the puzzles gone, long time passing?
Where have all the puzzles gone, long time ago?
Where have all the puzzles gone?
Killed by 3D, every one.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
No way. James Buchanan was way worse.
Arright let's get the obligatory sentiments that come out every time the FSF is mentioned out of the way for everybody.
RMS sucks, f0rK the FSF, what'd they ever do for me anyway, no more GNU software on my computer, I'm gonna go play with FreeBSD, now dammit where'd I put that compiler.
Ok, now that I've said it for all of you please feel free to talk about something that hasn't been said a million times before.
I know micro RC planes often use tiny NiMH batteries. Some of the planes weigh in as light as seven grams, and it's not uncommon for the battery to give at least 10 minutes of flying time.
They're posted several times over further down.
And don't forget to leave bitTorrent running for a while after the download completes to help speed up the download for people after you.
If we get everyone to use bitTorrent instead of the PBS site, maybe we can slashdot half the Internet instead of just one site. =D
Ok, ya got me on the glibc, but I'm going to maintain that RMS was originally the primary author of gcc. (The other big dev tool he wrote was really gdb.)
The LCD in question was active matrix.
You can do it, but it would be virtually impossible to keep the whole mess synced up with the monitor's scan rate.
Much easier to do something like copper bars, where you change the color during the monitors horizontal retrace.
What I can't figure is, I had a copper bars program that depended on changing colors during horizontal retrace, and it worked perfectly on the LCD panel of a laptop. Are the LCD panels designed to act like a computer monitor complete with a little pause after drawing each line?
Don't be so quick to cast the radical big mouthed hippie aside. He is certainly an iconoclast, I hear he has an abrasive personality, and he annoys a whole lot of people by being one of those rare types who sticks firmly to idealism rather than pragmatism. Don't let all that get in the way of your realizing just how valuable he is.
If it weren't for the radical big-mouthed hippie and his radical big-mouthed hippie ideas, there would be no FSF, no GPL. Linux would have never caught on because with no glibc an' all that, nobody would have plugged all that stuff into Linux in order to make it useful. I doubt Linux would have even become a truly viable kernel for non-recreational hacking use without GNU.
His radical big-mouthed hippie way of thinking is the way of thinking that gave us something like the GPL, and I seriously doubt that the GPL could have come out of a mind that doesn't work like RMS's. Someone less idealist would have come up with a much weaker license, probably something more like a BSD or MIT license. Someone less abrasive and bull-headed never would have started the project to begin with.
So unless you're a long-time FreeBSD user or a hardcore Windows geek, grow up and quit whining about RMS. Linux wrote a great kernel, but GNU has done more to make Linux (GNU/Linux, whatever) a viable OS and getting this whole movement to go mainstream than any other body. RMS started gathering all the fuel, Linus is just the guy who lit the match.
No, MS sells OS+Software.
Most everyone sells OS+Software nowadays. I haven't bought an OS that didn't come with a fairly decent array of toys and tools since MS-DOS days.
Considering the overall development costs that Windows must incur, I imagine that translation costs are a drop in the bucket. Maybe that near 100% profit margin becomes a near 95% profit margin for some languages, 80% for others. I can't imagine it'd be much worse than that, and it's still a huge profit margin given how many copies they sell.
Any way you cut it, they're making off like bandits on this.
Umm. .they already did. On the last version of Office.
I don't think talking about what an operating system is and is not is really a good way to be framing any arguments here. Nor is talking about what should or should not be packaged with an OS.
If we say it's absolutely wrong for MS to include Media Player with Windows, we're also saying that Apple is wrong to include iTunes and Quicktime, and the various Linux distros are wrong to include whatever media players they choose to include with their distros. I, for one, am fine with these packages being included with my OS. When we're talking making computers usable for new users who may not know what choices are out there in the first place, it is probably a Good Thing.
It's much more realisitc to start with the fact that Microsoft is abusing their monopoly status - among other things- by including Windows Media Player with Windows, as well as by including it in the way that they do. Microsoft should lose the right/priviledge of packaging WMP (and IE) with Windows for the same reason we take priviledges away from children: they've shown they can't use that priviledge responsibly.
With a near 100% profit margin on Windows, enough money in their coffers to end world hunger if they ever felt like it, and the various versions of Windows having several hundred dollar price tags, I don't think Microsoft has much to fear from a $20 per copy fee.
And firmer means are kind of scary to implement. Even the EU is so Windows-dependent that a ban on imports until Media Player is removed could cause some serious problems if Microsoft decides to wait it out instead of complying right away.
Where's Keanu Reeves when you need him?
Have you asked Apple yet?
Slashdot probably isn't really the best forum for questions about OS X Server. It's not something people really need to buy for home use. Few businesses I know of run OS X servers. And most importantly, it is quite definitely not GNU/Linux.
Also, are you sure having remote root access is a bug and not a feature? It's a huge huge security risk, esp. for a business setting.