The science was pretty god-awful in that book....I can work with suspension of disbelief, but there were a lot of logical flaws in the book, such as: (spoilers)
-How are bacteria which can use "garbage" (i.e. non-specific substrate) supposed to still be able to create the specific parts that the nanobots are supposed to need? Essential nutrients would still be needed.
-How are "evolving" nanobots, which use bacteria as assemblers, supposed to get the information which they have "learned" back into the bacteria? The information pathway is one-way in that respect.
-How is a virus which disrupts the bacteria that is used as assemblers able to dissolve the swarm on contact?
I thought the book was pretty decent (I finished it), but if I want a good nanotech book, I'll go back and reread The Diamond Age;)
DOS Beer: Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to read the directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only came in an 8-oz. can, but now comes in a 16-oz. can. However, the can is divided into 8 compartments of 2 oz. each, which have to be accessed separately. Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going to keep drinking it after it's no longer available.
Mac Beer: At first, came only a 16-oz. can, but now comes in a 32-oz. can. Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look identical. When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The ingredients list is not on the can. If you call to ask about the ingredients, you are told that "you don't need to know." A notice on the side reminds you to drag your empties to the trashcan.
Windows 3.1 Beer: The world's most popular. Comes in a 16-oz. can that looks a lot like Mac Beer's. Requires that you already own a DOS Beer. Claims that it allows you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously, but in reality you can only drink a few of them, very slowly, especially slowly if you are drinking the Windows Beer at the same time. Sometimes, for apparently no reason, a can of Windows Beer will explode when you open it.
OS/2 Beer: Comes in a 32-oz can. Does allow you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously. Allows you to drink Windows 3.1 Beer simultaneously too, but somewhat slower. Advertises that its cans won't explode when you open them, even if you shake them up. You never really see anyone drinking OS/2 Beer, but the manufacturer (International Beer Manufacturing) claims that 9 million six-packs have been sold.
Windows 95 Beer: A lot of people have taste-tested it and claim it's wonderful. Others say its flat. The can looks a lot like Mac Beer's can, but tastes more like Windows 3.1 Beer. It comes in 32-oz. cans, but when you look inside, the cans only have 16 oz. of beer in them. Most people will probably keep drinking Windows 3.1 Beer until their friends try Windows 95 Beer and say they like it. The ingredients list, when you look at the small print, has some of the same ingredients that come in DOS beer, even though the manufacturer claims that this is an entirely new brew.
Windows NT Beer: Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the truckload. This causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger refrigerators. The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the company promises to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's - after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength" beer, and suggested only for use in bars.
Unix Beer: Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8 oz. to 64 oz. Drinkers of Unix Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even though they claim that all the different brands taste almost identical. Sometimes the pop-tops break off when you try to open them, so you have to have your own can opener around for those occasions, in which case you either need a complete set of instructions, or a friend who has been drinking Unix Beer for several years.
AmigaDOS Beer: The company has gone out of business, but their recipe has been picked up by some weird German company, so now this beer will be an import. This beer never really sold very well because the original manufacturer didn't understand marketing. Like Unix Beer, AmigaDOS Beer fans are an extremely loyal and loud group. It originally came in a 16-oz. can, but now comes in 32-oz. cans too. When this can was originally introduced, it appeared flashy and colorful, but the design hasn't changed much over the years, so it appears dated now. Critics of this beer claim that it is only meant for watching TV anyway.
VMS Beer: Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top and sipping. However cans have been known on occasion to explode, or contain extremely un-beer-like contents. Best drunk in high pressure developmen
Well, they wouldn't have to port the drivers, since they already exist; they just work badly. My wife had a Logitech wireless mouse (which worked with no drivers). When she installed the software for her new Logitech keyboard (to take advantage of special keys), it saw the mouse, but refused to work with the keyboard. If the mouse was unplugged, it would "see" the keyboard. Apparently the driver is unhappy with Jaguar.
It's things like this that give Logitech a bad rap (especially when their boxes clain that they work with OSX.)
The thing is, digital downloads *are* nearly pure profit. Music downloads can't be compared to pharmacuticals because there are next to no production costs involved; you get a finished product for about the same cost as going to the drug manufacturer and turning on the lights;)
The other part of the equation that annoys people is that the music industry *also* sells a physical counterpart. For years it was the *only* thing they sold. So for the RIAA to come along and sell a new format of their content (which costs next to nothing to produce) and then say they need this additional oncome to cover costs (which they got by without before) is rather disingenous.
"3) Pay whatever big money it'll take to get stars like Elton John, Ludacris, Eminem, Shania Twain to work on designing an entirely new player from the ground up...."
R-i-i-g-h-t, that's how you beat Apple's great design, by asking *songwriters* to design your player. This is akin to asking the chef to build the table his dinner sits on. Sure, he'll get the job done, but you're probably better off asking a master carpenter....
Back when things seemed very grim for Apple (about 1997 or so), there was a webring/mailing list called MacMarines, specifically geared towards getting the positive word out about Macs. (The slogan was "Fighting back for the Mac!")
Yes, I was a member, and yes, I've mellowed a lot since then.;-)
I had the same thought...but nt in terms of Sony making a player that might have better features. They would release a player with the Walkman name on it...a brand that's still pretty much synonymous with portable audio, even after all this time. It could be killer for their marketing....
"There is a downside to this technology though. By measuring how close a song is to previous hits, you are guaranteeing that all new songs will be similar to old hits."
True. Of course, it may not be similarity that you'll notice. It's very interesting to note in the article that the statistical clusters grouped some very different sounding artists together, such as U2 and Beethoven. The software doesn't seem to group similar *sounding* music, but rather music that has similar structures.
You can also fill it with legal MP3s. I have about 15 gigs of MP3s, all legal - it's my CD collection. As far as why they used ATRAC, I believe it would be because (1) it yields smaller file size, and (2) it's their format (no licensing).
Does it really make sense? Not really, we all know what a screaming success Minidiscs were. But hey, it's not us making the business decisions.
They're claiming undercutting because the Sony can store 13,000 songs (as opposed to 10,000 on the Apple) for $99 less. Plus, they're anticipating price drops in the future whent Sony ramps up HD usage....Nevermind that it's 13,000 ATRAC songs. *shrug*
You know what the Commodore name tells me? That I'll be able to daisy-chain multiple devices together, but it'll use a serial port. The next version will probably be faster, but will have its serial port slowed down to maintain compatability with legacy hardware. *grin*
Yeah, I was a TRS-80 Color Computer user, and to this day I'm still jealous of all the software that those damn Commie 64s got. So how did I fix it? I became a Mac user. Ah, irony.
Exactly. I work at a print/copy shop, and the last color machines we had (Xerox DocuColor 3535) served as document scanners as well as copiers/printers. Place your document in the feeder, select "scan" from the menu, pick your resolution, and press the big green button. When it completes, you log into the printer's internal web services page (reachable from it's own IP address) and select how you want to download your files...JPEG, TIF, or PDF. I loved the PDF feature....too bad the 3535 was absolutely horrendous at everything else for high end color.
This feature isn't available on every Xerox color (we don't have it on our new 2045, unfortunately), so you'll have to check around a little. Check with print shops and see if their Xeroxes have a "scan to file" capability.
It strikes me as similar to the game they used to play with computer manufactureres - "you didn't play along with us, so now your prices will go up. " Now it's just been shifted to the consumer. The other similarity being that those price hikes wouldn't work without market dominance....
then it's OK for you to write viruses and trojans (like weatherbug).
From everything I've read, WeatherBug isn't a trojan...it's adware and will put banners on your desktop for the service it provides, but they're rather up-front about that.
His complaints with the Dock are pretty much true for me, but miss my number one complaint: lack of organization. Sure, you can place icons by similar icons, but I want more...I want pop-up windows back!
My OS9 setup has 7 pop-up windows at the bottom of the screen, organized into categories. I can either click on a tab to get at every program for a certain function (like Internet or MP3s), or have easy drag-and-drop access for other programs. Even the lowly Apple Menu allowed for hierarchial folders so *everything* didn't have to be in the main list....how about the same thing for the Dock?
A report in Connected Home Magazine has suggested...support for Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio (WMA) format to the iPod by mid-year."
This same website keeps getting trotted out as evidence of WMA support. I've done a little looking, and every other mention of WMA support for the iPod refers to this site. How about a little more evidence before that keeps getting repeated, eh guys?
Coffee made at home is 130-140 degrees. Coffee at 185 degrees will cause third degree burns in 2 to 7 seconds.
Only in the land of the brave. Other places, coffee is supposed to be brewed at 197-205F (92-96C), and served at no lower temperature than 176-187F (80-86C) for regular coffee and a few degrees lower for espresso.
I'll keep that in mind for my travels, good stuff to know.
Never ever should coffee be served at as low a temperature as 130-140F, and definitely not made that way We've hit upon the distinction that we agree on; coffee needs to be made at a temp just below boiling. What temperature coffee should be held and served at is another thing, and definitely open to interpretation. I've found that a burned tongue gets in the way of my coffee enjoyment.
Slashdot Mirror
The science was pretty god-awful in that book....I can work with suspension of disbelief, but there were a lot of logical flaws in the book, such as: (spoilers) -How are bacteria which can use "garbage" (i.e. non-specific substrate) supposed to still be able to create the specific parts that the nanobots are supposed to need? Essential nutrients would still be needed. -How are "evolving" nanobots, which use bacteria as assemblers, supposed to get the information which they have "learned" back into the bacteria? The information pathway is one-way in that respect. -How is a virus which disrupts the bacteria that is used as assemblers able to dissolve the swarm on contact? I thought the book was pretty decent (I finished it), but if I want a good nanotech book, I'll go back and reread The Diamond Age ;)
Which reminds me of this one....
If Operating Systems Were Beers:
DOS Beer:
Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to read the directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only came in an 8-oz. can, but now comes in a 16-oz. can. However, the can is divided into 8 compartments of 2 oz. each, which have to be accessed separately. Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going to keep drinking it after it's no longer available.
Mac Beer:
At first, came only a 16-oz. can, but now comes in a 32-oz. can. Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look identical. When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The ingredients list is not on the can. If you call to ask about the ingredients, you are told that "you don't need to know." A notice on the side reminds you to drag your empties to the trashcan.
Windows 3.1 Beer:
The world's most popular. Comes in a 16-oz. can that looks a lot like Mac Beer's. Requires that you already own a DOS Beer. Claims that it allows you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously, but in reality you can only drink a few of them, very slowly, especially slowly if you are drinking the Windows Beer at the same time. Sometimes, for apparently no reason, a can of Windows Beer will explode when you open it.
OS/2 Beer:
Comes in a 32-oz can. Does allow you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously. Allows you to drink Windows 3.1 Beer simultaneously too, but somewhat slower. Advertises that its cans won't explode when you open them, even if you shake them up. You never really see anyone drinking OS/2 Beer, but the manufacturer (International Beer Manufacturing) claims that 9 million six-packs have been sold.
Windows 95 Beer:
A lot of people have taste-tested it and claim it's wonderful. Others say its flat. The can looks a lot like Mac Beer's can, but tastes more like Windows 3.1 Beer. It comes in 32-oz. cans, but when you look inside, the cans only have 16 oz. of beer in them. Most people will probably keep drinking Windows 3.1 Beer until their friends try Windows 95 Beer and say they like it. The ingredients list, when you look at the small print, has some of the same ingredients that come in DOS beer, even though the manufacturer claims that this is an entirely new brew.
Windows NT Beer:
Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the truckload. This causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger refrigerators. The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the company promises to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's - after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength" beer, and suggested only for use in bars.
Unix Beer:
Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8 oz. to 64 oz. Drinkers of Unix Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even though they claim that all the different brands taste almost identical. Sometimes the pop-tops break off when you try to open them, so you have to have your own can opener around for those occasions, in which case you either need a complete set of instructions, or a friend who has been drinking Unix Beer for several years.
AmigaDOS Beer:
The company has gone out of business, but their recipe has been picked up by some weird German company, so now this beer will be an import. This beer never really sold very well because the original manufacturer didn't understand marketing. Like Unix Beer, AmigaDOS Beer fans are an extremely loyal and loud group. It originally came in a 16-oz. can, but now comes in 32-oz. cans too. When this can was originally introduced, it appeared flashy and colorful, but the design hasn't changed much over the years, so it appears dated now. Critics of this beer claim that it is only meant for watching TV anyway.
VMS Beer:
Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top and sipping. However cans have been known on occasion to explode, or contain extremely un-beer-like contents. Best drunk in high pressure developmen
....Star Whores!
Well, they wouldn't have to port the drivers, since they already exist; they just work badly. My wife had a Logitech wireless mouse (which worked with no drivers). When she installed the software for her new Logitech keyboard (to take advantage of special keys), it saw the mouse, but refused to work with the keyboard. If the mouse was unplugged, it would "see" the keyboard. Apparently the driver is unhappy with Jaguar.
It's things like this that give Logitech a bad rap (especially when their boxes clain that they work with OSX.)
The thing is, digital downloads *are* nearly pure profit. Music downloads can't be compared to pharmacuticals because there are next to no production costs involved; you get a finished product for about the same cost as going to the drug manufacturer and turning on the lights ;)
The other part of the equation that annoys people is that the music industry *also* sells a physical counterpart. For years it was the *only* thing they sold. So for the RIAA to come along and sell a new format of their content (which costs next to nothing to produce) and then say they need this additional oncome to cover costs (which they got by without before) is rather disingenous.
I was amazed at step three...
"3) Pay whatever big money it'll take to get stars like Elton John, Ludacris, Eminem, Shania Twain to work on designing an entirely new player from the ground up...."
R-i-i-g-h-t, that's how you beat Apple's great design, by asking *songwriters* to design your player. This is akin to asking the chef to build the table his dinner sits on. Sure, he'll get the job done, but you're probably better off asking a master carpenter....
The whole Mac/Marines analogy is very accurate..
;-)
Back when things seemed very grim for Apple (about 1997 or so), there was a webring/mailing list called MacMarines, specifically geared towards getting the positive word out about Macs. (The slogan was "Fighting back for the Mac!")
Yes, I was a member, and yes, I've mellowed a lot since then.
I had the same thought...but nt in terms of Sony making a player that might have better features. They would release a player with the Walkman name on it...a brand that's still pretty much synonymous with portable audio, even after all this time. It could be killer for their marketing....
"There is a downside to this technology though. By measuring how close a song is to previous hits, you are guaranteeing that all new songs will be similar to old hits."
True. Of course, it may not be similarity that you'll notice. It's very interesting to note in the article that the statistical clusters grouped some very different sounding artists together, such as U2 and Beethoven. The software doesn't seem to group similar *sounding* music, but rather music that has similar structures.
Well, 62 miles high..
"Since humans are inherently horny, there is no question that some space tourists would take the trip just so they could join the 62-Mile-High Club."
If this was the first thing you thought of, raise your hand?
I thought so.
You can also fill it with legal MP3s. I have about 15 gigs of MP3s, all legal - it's my CD collection. As far as why they used ATRAC, I believe it would be because (1) it yields smaller file size, and (2) it's their format (no licensing).
Does it really make sense? Not really, we all know what a screaming success Minidiscs were. But hey, it's not us making the business decisions.
Thus, the ONLY way this new device could be useful to consumers is if they infringe copyrights and download music illegally.
Um, no. It encodes other formats to ATRAC as they're imported to the player.
They're claiming undercutting because the Sony can store 13,000 songs (as opposed to 10,000 on the Apple) for $99 less. Plus, they're anticipating price drops in the future whent Sony ramps up HD usage. ...Nevermind that it's 13,000 ATRAC songs. *shrug*
You know what the Commodore name tells me? That I'll be able to daisy-chain multiple devices together, but it'll use a serial port. The next version will probably be faster, but will have its serial port slowed down to maintain compatability with legacy hardware. *grin* Yeah, I was a TRS-80 Color Computer user, and to this day I'm still jealous of all the software that those damn Commie 64s got. So how did I fix it? I became a Mac user. Ah, irony.
Exactly. I work at a print/copy shop, and the last color machines we had (Xerox DocuColor 3535) served as document scanners as well as copiers/printers. Place your document in the feeder, select "scan" from the menu, pick your resolution, and press the big green button. When it completes, you log into the printer's internal web services page (reachable from it's own IP address) and select how you want to download your files...JPEG, TIF, or PDF. I loved the PDF feature....too bad the 3535 was absolutely horrendous at everything else for high end color.
This feature isn't available on every Xerox color (we don't have it on our new 2045, unfortunately), so you'll have to check around a little. Check with print shops and see if their Xeroxes have a "scan to file" capability.
That was sort of my point....clutter on someone's bust (-;
Well, they did say that marketing like this was a "clutter buster" (emphasis on "bust").
It strikes me as similar to the game they used to play with computer manufactureres - "you didn't play along with us, so now your prices will go up. " Now it's just been shifted to the consumer. The other similarity being that those price hikes wouldn't work without market dominance....
then it's OK for you to write viruses and trojans (like weatherbug).
From everything I've read, WeatherBug isn't a trojan...it's adware and will put banners on your desktop for the service it provides, but they're rather up-front about that.
Perhaps you mean WeatherCast?
...could be rolled up inside a pen...
...a bending radius of 2 cm.
That's a damn big pen.
That's why I use DragThing.
Perfect! Thanks for the tip.
Apple made it so damn impossible to turn off the Dock
I'm doing the next best thing...(a) Making it tiny, (b) making it hide, and (c) moving it to the left side of my screen.
His complaints with the Dock are pretty much true for me, but miss my number one complaint: lack of organization. Sure, you can place icons by similar icons, but I want more...I want pop-up windows back!
My OS9 setup has 7 pop-up windows at the bottom of the screen, organized into categories. I can either click on a tab to get at every program for a certain function (like Internet or MP3s), or have easy drag-and-drop access for other programs. Even the lowly Apple Menu allowed for hierarchial folders so *everything* didn't have to be in the main list....how about the same thing for the Dock?
A report in Connected Home Magazine has suggested...support for Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio (WMA) format to the iPod by mid-year."
This same website keeps getting trotted out as evidence of WMA support. I've done a little looking, and every other mention of WMA support for the iPod refers to this site. How about a little more evidence before that keeps getting repeated, eh guys?
Has anyone read Snowcrash (by Neal Steavenson)...?
Asking that question on Slashdot seems akin to walking into the Vatican and asking, "Hey, anyone here Catholic?"
Coffee made at home is 130-140 degrees. Coffee at 185 degrees will cause third degree burns in 2 to 7 seconds.
Only in the land of the brave. Other places, coffee is supposed to be brewed at 197-205F (92-96C), and served at no lower temperature than 176-187F (80-86C) for regular coffee and a few degrees lower for espresso.
I'll keep that in mind for my travels, good stuff to know.
Never ever should coffee be served at as low a temperature as 130-140F, and definitely not made that way
We've hit upon the distinction that we agree on; coffee needs to be made at a temp just below boiling. What temperature coffee should be held and served at is another thing, and definitely open to interpretation. I've found that a burned tongue gets in the way of my coffee enjoyment.