What's the military got to do with household lighting applications? They have their own, completely separate set of requirements which will of necessity be different from household requirements.
The interesting thing here is that when people see a flashing red light, they tend to think 'slow moving vehicle' rather than cyclist. This is a double-edged sword - on the one hand, it makes (most) people go more slowly and cautiously, which is good whether you are a cyclist, pedestrian or horse rider (yes, I've come across one at night!). On the other hand, it makes people think 'slow moving vehicle', which many cyclists are definitely not. The number of times I see stupid motor vehicle drivers overtake me dangerously because they have assumed I am going slowly without actually observing that I'm not is astounding. There are many reasons cyclists could be going very fast - good bike, fit cyclist, downhill, tailwind etc. or a combination of these.
I don't understand this - fluorescents easily beat all *mass produced* white LEDs with good colour rendering in efficiency, and as long as you don't believe the manufacturers' 'incandescent equivant ratings', are a perfect replacement for incandescents. I know there are laboratory LEDs which have higher efficiency, but these are a long way off being mass produced at reasonable prices. I'm all in favour of pushing technology, but prescribing that it must be 'solid state' is completely wrong.
It reminds me of the old UK cycle-lighting regulations, which basically stated you had to have a light bulb conforming to one of about 3 standards, all incandescent. Once efficient red LEDs came along, it was ages before the regulations changed to make them technically legal - long after everyone in their right mind stopped using the legal versions.
I think this idea should lead to a real advance in quality of the included packages, which will serve the users very well whilst the GNU/Linux pond is small compared to the other ponds there. However as others have pointed out, different distros have different priorities. As soon as the pond becomes sufficiently large that each sub-community (i.e. distro) is big enough to stand on its own two feet there will be an incentive to 'go it alone' as far as release schedules are concerned.
So for me I'd say this idea is well worth a punt. If it doesn't work out, there's the option of not repeating it.
However I'm not convinced that RHEL and Debian are similar enough in their priorities for it to work well with them. They both deliberately choose older (hence more stable, better tested) versions of software. Ubuntu is better aligned with OpenSuse, Fedora, Mandriva and a large number of the more minor distros (PCLinux OS, Mint, Mepis etc.).
When drinking beer, do you factor in the time it takes to drink it, as well as the cost of the beer itself? How about going out to dinner? Do you tack on an additional $100/hr for your time? My time costs £100 per hour, so you can be very sure that for a 20-minute pint I'm not going to be drinking some cheap, nasty rubbish. In fact the more slowly I intend to drink it, the more expensive I go. Cheap and nasty beer should only be drunk in a hurry, preferably without stopping to pay a visit to your taste buds.
Not sure what makes you think it's fine at home - my ISP (eclipse.net.uk) throttles bittorrent traffic, and every time I try to leave a download going overnight I find my connection totally dead in the morning, with no traffic at all. Seems like they are trying very hard to stop it. Not I desperately *want* to be a responsible internet user and use P2P to download linux distros (especially the smaller ones who can least afford to provide bandwidth) but it's very hard. One day I'll switch to a different ISP. But who? Where is there reliable information about who does and doesn't throttle bittorrent, which doesn't get out of date?
In all seriousness, this type of confusion is *exactly* what Microsoft intended when they wanted to call it this. Get people to inadvertently get it the wrong way round so that people think it's the same thing and so forth. Basically just another type of FUD.
I can't help thinking that we are seeing a tide starting to turn in mainland Europe - governments and public organisations are starting to wake up. It's a case of 2 steps forward, one step back, but progress none-the-less.
Now if only the Dutch could export this way of thinking across the North Sea to us non-mainland Europeans, we'd all be happy......
For cargo planes at least, you can make a lot of savings if you don't have to support human survival on board. For example you don't need to pressurise the cabin (thus saving weight of air), nor provide toilets, sound insulation, heating systems, safety equipment etc.. With a redesign of plane you don't even need to provide standing room - you could fit cargo into a wing shape that didn't have the tube bit in the middle, thus making it more aerodynamic. You wouldn't be limited by how long people can tolerate being on board, so for cargo you could fly a plane say from England to New Zealand non-stop at a much slower speed, thus saving on fuel consumed, thus saving on weight of fuel you need to supply when you take off and so forth. It also becomes more economical to have smaller point-to-point cargo deliveries which don't incur the energy and handling costs of bringing a plane to land at a major hub, sorting the cargo onto an onward flight and shoving it back up in the air again.
I don't think they lose pay when they go on strike in France. If they ever tried to introduce such a measure then the whole country would go on strike.
I seem to remember that Mark Shuttleworth chose Gnome not because of any technical reasons, but because they have a rigid 6 month release schedule which makes planning for commercial support much easier. I personally would love to see KDE switch to a similar release model (at least once KDE4 is officially released) then get the same level of attention from Canonical/Ubuntu. This would be much better for both KDE and for Ubuntu, in my opinion.
Are they gonna start regarding KDE as first-class citizen? 'Cos Gutsy Kubuntu is a joke. And GNOME IMO is totally evil.
Couldn't agree more. I have tried very hard, and on a number of occasions over the last 4 years, to like Gnome but in the end it's just too much hard work and I revert back to KDE which seems just so much better for what *I* want. OK this is my personal opinion and I don't want to start a flame war, but KDE in gutsy seems to be lacking the polish which is very evident in Gnome. Compiz works fine in KDE but requires a bit of manual fettling, for example. Even the behaviour of the update tool seems a lot slicker in Gnome - there's no reason this couldn't be done in KDE, it's just a matter of polish. If I had the time and experience I'd help out with polishing KDE, as it stands I can only really submit bug reports and hope that they get some attention who does have the time and experience.
Yes you're essentially correct in how CDMA works. I'm not sure you could defeat it with a shift and average approach though - the spectral distribution of the orthogonal code will be wide (essentially flat if it looks like white noise) so although you could use this approach to filter out specific spectral components, it won't filter out the whole code. It would only decrease by a small amount the probability of correctly decoding the signal. Assuming that probability is asymptotically close to 1 (which is after all the whole point) then this wouldn't be a problem.
Uhh this makes no sense. Let's say the sound is distorted on a +/-10 scale, 0 being the original. If the values are e.g. +4, -1, +9 the average would be (+4-1+9)/3 = +4 not +12...
You've misunderstood the mathematics behind the addition of 'random' numbers. IIRC, the average deviation from a point increases with the square root of the number of random numbers added. In you're example it gives 4 instead of 12 as you say, but this doesn't negate the principle that the average deviation gets worse the more errors you add - it just isn't linear.
If the noise is packetized, then three samples and simply pick whichever two of them agree
You've missed the point here too - if two of them happen to agree (there's no guarantee they will, but it might happen) then that tells you they had the same error introduced into them, not that they had zero error introduced. You'll almost certainly get 3 different numbers in any case. We're talking about analog(ue) noise being introduced here not digital errors, although the analog(ue) signal is represented digitally and manifests itself as digital differences from the unpolluted signal.
I don't whether this has ever been tried with audio files, but the techniques used in CDMA radio communications might work here. Essentially, you would need to add a small amount of noise to the audio signal, however it's not true random noise and can be decoded to reveal a signature, or watermark. If you combine two files with different 'noise' signatures, then both signatures can still be extracted with a high probability of a correct result. Only as you combine a large number of similar files does the probability of correctly decoding the signatures of the components decrease. However by that time, you've added a large amount of noise to the audio file and it will probably sound bad anyway, so no-one will want to download it.
The downside is that by definition the noise you add has to be audible. Note that for a long time audio cassettes sold very well despite their awful noise characteristics, so this may be acceptable to all but the strictest of audiophiles.
I wonder if they have always been white - wikipedia's article doesn't say much of the history, maybe a local who has lived in the area for 30 years would be able to comment. Not sure whether such a person would be reading slashdot though.......
The turbines in Altamont Pass are known to kill quite a lot of birds, but this is partly because of their location in a bird migration path, and partly due to their design. The turbines there are of quite old designs, and in particular they are fairly small and fast rotating. Birds tend to have a hard time working out where they can and can't fly, and often get it wrong.
Modern turbine designs have taken these problems (and many others) into account and now kill very few birds - probably fewer than are killed by flying into electricity pylons. The main design changes are that they are much larger and slower rotating, so birds tend to judge the motion correctly and avoid them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Altamont Pass turbines are painted grey to reduce their visual impact against the sky, which also reduces their visibility to birds. Modern ones tend to be painted white, which makes them more visible.
On a recent visit to Denmark I was very impressed by the size and sheer number of turbines, turning gracefully, slowly and fairly unobtrusively. Occasionally there would be a small, faster-rotating one of an older design. These were noticeably more distracting and attention-grabbing - particularly in the peripheral vision (which after all is designed to look for rapid movement from predators). It's these older designs that have lead to most of the complaints from local residents, and understandably so.
Give me a modern turbine at the bottom of my garden any day - they are also virtually silent unlike their older cousins.
Has anyone tried running both under wine?
on
OpenOffice Bloated?
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· Score: 1
It seems that the only way to discount the tricks that Microsoft play to favour their applications would be to run on a non-Microsoft platform. As MS Office is only available for Windows, this would presumably mean wine (or Crossover Office). MS Office works under wine, I don't know about the Windows port of Open Office (the only fair comparison really) but as both it and wine are fully Open Source, it should be possibly to make it work.
I agree Bugzilla's default web interface sucks big time. But if you look at what various projects that use Bugzilla have done to it, it can be made to look really slick. Look at KDE's http://bugs.kde.org/> or even Ubuntu's http://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/> versions for example. I just wish the default installation were slicker than it is. The underlying technology is excellent.
Slashdot Mirror
What's the military got to do with household lighting applications? They have their own, completely separate set of requirements which will of necessity be different from household requirements.
The interesting thing here is that when people see a flashing red light, they tend to think 'slow moving vehicle' rather than cyclist. This is a double-edged sword - on the one hand, it makes (most) people go more slowly and cautiously, which is good whether you are a cyclist, pedestrian or horse rider (yes, I've come across one at night!). On the other hand, it makes people think 'slow moving vehicle', which many cyclists are definitely not. The number of times I see stupid motor vehicle drivers overtake me dangerously because they have assumed I am going slowly without actually observing that I'm not is astounding. There are many reasons cyclists could be going very fast - good bike, fit cyclist, downhill, tailwind etc. or a combination of these.
It reminds me of the old UK cycle-lighting regulations, which basically stated you had to have a light bulb conforming to one of about 3 standards, all incandescent. Once efficient red LEDs came along, it was ages before the regulations changed to make them technically legal - long after everyone in their right mind stopped using the legal versions.
So for me I'd say this idea is well worth a punt. If it doesn't work out, there's the option of not repeating it.
However I'm not convinced that RHEL and Debian are similar enough in their priorities for it to work well with them. They both deliberately choose older (hence more stable, better tested) versions of software. Ubuntu is better aligned with OpenSuse, Fedora, Mandriva and a large number of the more minor distros (PCLinux OS, Mint, Mepis etc.).
And liquid Nitrogen is cheaper to buy than beer. I know what I'll be having with my next meal now...
Not sure what makes you think it's fine at home - my ISP (eclipse.net.uk) throttles bittorrent traffic, and every time I try to leave a download going overnight I find my connection totally dead in the morning, with no traffic at all. Seems like they are trying very hard to stop it. Not I desperately *want* to be a responsible internet user and use P2P to download linux distros (especially the smaller ones who can least afford to provide bandwidth) but it's very hard. One day I'll switch to a different ISP. But who? Where is there reliable information about who does and doesn't throttle bittorrent, which doesn't get out of date?
Sorry I missed off the humour tags here.
In all seriousness, this type of confusion is *exactly* what Microsoft intended when they wanted to call it this. Get people to inadvertently get it the wrong way round so that people think it's the same thing and so forth. Basically just another type of FUD.
I can't help thinking that we are seeing a tide starting to turn in mainland Europe - governments and public organisations are starting to wake up. It's a case of 2 steps forward, one step back, but progress none-the-less.
Now if only the Dutch could export this way of thinking across the North Sea to us non-mainland Europeans, we'd all be happy......
No, they must mean that their stinking Office product is shortly to support the OpenOffice XML format, i.e. ODF. Well who'd have guessed it?
For cargo planes at least, you can make a lot of savings if you don't have to support human survival on board. For example you don't need to pressurise the cabin (thus saving weight of air), nor provide toilets, sound insulation, heating systems, safety equipment etc.. With a redesign of plane you don't even need to provide standing room - you could fit cargo into a wing shape that didn't have the tube bit in the middle, thus making it more aerodynamic. You wouldn't be limited by how long people can tolerate being on board, so for cargo you could fly a plane say from England to New Zealand non-stop at a much slower speed, thus saving on fuel consumed, thus saving on weight of fuel you need to supply when you take off and so forth. It also becomes more economical to have smaller point-to-point cargo deliveries which don't incur the energy and handling costs of bringing a plane to land at a major hub, sorting the cargo onto an onward flight and shoving it back up in the air again.
Oh hang on.........
Now I come to think of it, you may be right here. So the quality of the audio wouldn't suffer, just the ability to reliably extract the watermarks.
Yes you're essentially correct in how CDMA works. I'm not sure you could defeat it with a shift and average approach though - the spectral distribution of the orthogonal code will be wide (essentially flat if it looks like white noise) so although you could use this approach to filter out specific spectral components, it won't filter out the whole code. It would only decrease by a small amount the probability of correctly decoding the signal. Assuming that probability is asymptotically close to 1 (which is after all the whole point) then this wouldn't be a problem.
I don't whether this has ever been tried with audio files, but the techniques used in CDMA radio communications might work here. Essentially, you would need to add a small amount of noise to the audio signal, however it's not true random noise and can be decoded to reveal a signature, or watermark. If you combine two files with different 'noise' signatures, then both signatures can still be extracted with a high probability of a correct result. Only as you combine a large number of similar files does the probability of correctly decoding the signatures of the components decrease. However by that time, you've added a large amount of noise to the audio file and it will probably sound bad anyway, so no-one will want to download it.
The downside is that by definition the noise you add has to be audible. Note that for a long time audio cassettes sold very well despite their awful noise characteristics, so this may be acceptable to all but the strictest of audiophiles.
Have you thought of actually turning them off??? Even in standby or hibernate, computers draw a significant amount of power.
>Now look at IBM -- for them to base their business around Vista would make them *completely* under the control of Microsoft.
Note that this applies to All users of Vista, not just IBM.
Just in case you were thinking of upgrading.....
I wonder if they have always been white - wikipedia's article doesn't say much of the history, maybe a local who has lived in the area for 30 years would be able to comment. Not sure whether such a person would be reading slashdot though.......
Modern turbine designs have taken these problems (and many others) into account and now kill very few birds - probably fewer than are killed by flying into electricity pylons. The main design changes are that they are much larger and slower rotating, so birds tend to judge the motion correctly and avoid them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Altamont Pass turbines are painted grey to reduce their visual impact against the sky, which also reduces their visibility to birds. Modern ones tend to be painted white, which makes them more visible.
On a recent visit to Denmark I was very impressed by the size and sheer number of turbines, turning gracefully, slowly and fairly unobtrusively. Occasionally there would be a small, faster-rotating one of an older design. These were noticeably more distracting and attention-grabbing - particularly in the peripheral vision (which after all is designed to look for rapid movement from predators). It's these older designs that have lead to most of the complaints from local residents, and understandably so.
Give me a modern turbine at the bottom of my garden any day - they are also virtually silent unlike their older cousins.
Just curious, I've not tried myself.
Or it won't have quite the correct results.
I agree Bugzilla's default web interface sucks big time. But if you look at what various projects that use Bugzilla have done to it, it can be made to look really slick. Look at KDE's http://bugs.kde.org/> or even Ubuntu's http://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/> versions for example. I just wish the default installation were slicker than it is. The underlying technology is excellent.