Please - use something standard, like Han Solos per Debian release, or Libraries of Congress per Windows service pack, or Volkswagens per Windows exploit.
The fundamental problem with this sort of a device is not technical.
Assume for the moment you could build a device that could accurately read the driver's impairment level from any source - alcohol, drugs, sleep deprivation, cell phone, nudie magazine, screaming kids in the back seat, whatever. Assume for the moment this device is failure proof, fool proof, and cannot be misled.
Now, there are two primary use cases for this device:
The person requiring its purchase is the person who will be checked by it.
In this case, the person it will be checking has proven they are willing to accept responsibility for their actions, and so the need for the device is fairly minimal - such a person is likely already going to limit their driving if they have been chemically altered, and all this device is going to do is allow them to drive when the are a little altered, as they will not have to leave the "safety margin" they otherwise would have left.
The person requiring its purchase is planning on it checking somebody else.
In this case, you open up the whole barrel of worms of legal rights, but most importantly the person being checked will either be
a responsible person (as above) in which case, again, this device will just allow them to push closer to the limit, or
they will be an irresponsible person, and thus will be highly motivated to disable the device, as it is forcing them to suffer the consequences of their actions.
Actually, the saying around here is "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes" - the weather can change from 35C and sunny to 10C and storming like hell in 30 minutes.
However, *normally* the weather is such that the average Kansas is just as able to predict it as the meteorologists on TV for all that matters - what will happen in the next couple of hours. And as for our signature piece - again, any Kansas can look at the skys and say either "No immediate threat" or "Uhhhh....", and most of us have special radios that alert us when Things Are About To Get Weird.
You are correct that a good movie critic needs to understand the elements of movie making in order to better judge movies. I did not say otherwise.
However, when a movie critic starts to obsess over the elements of movie making over the entertainment value of a movie, that is when I have a problem.
Allow me the analogy of a food critic - yes, a good food critic must understand the elements of presentation, the use of contrasting flavors, the different preparation methods, and so on, in order to best judge the meal.
However, when such a person starts to overlook the simple concepts of "Does this taste good?", "Does this satisfy my hunger?", and "Was this worth the money?", and instead goes on about a meal composed of nothing but watercress and cucumbers, albeit artfully arranged on a pretty blue plate and fitted with a faux-French name, then that person is no longer a food critic. And when that person pans the food at a place like Lambert's solely because it "lacks presentation" and doesn't have a name only a food critic can love, then I rightfully call bullshit on them.
Likewise, too many movie critics obsess over the elements of movie making completely ignoring the most important question: was the movie entertaining? And those are the movie critics that most seem to follow the algorithm I presented.
Ebert *used* to be one of the good ones - he and Siskel were good about realizing that the most artfully filmed movie is still no good if it is not entertaining. However, over time Ebert has drifted away from that simple criteria, and has become more a review of movies for movie reviews.
Lastly, if he does not wish to assign a numerical value to a movie, then he should grow a pair and say to the papers "No, I will NOT assign a number to the movies. Deal with it."
Oh Please! The algorithm for a movie critic is simple.
First, you ask yourself "Was this film made for movie critics?" - in other words, lots of "character development" (i.e. pointless talking that does not REALLY develop the character), lots of "stunning camera work" (e.g. artsy shots of rotting fruit), and so on. If yes, then you blither on about the film, and how it is a shame that nobody in "the mainstream" will "get it" - thus assuring your street cred with other movie critics. The people who make your column pay (the common man) won't care. Next movie.
Failing that, you ask yourself "Is this film likely to be a popular success?" - such as a Terminator movie, or Back to the Future. If so, you give it a good review, so that the people who actually make your column a success won't stop reading you. It won't hurt your movie critic street cred: the other movie critics will understand - they will be doing the same thing. Next movie.
Lastly, if there is some question as to whether the movie will be a success, you do one of two things: You either give it
a glowing write-up but a poor numerical rating, or
a high numerical rating but a poor write-up.
That way, you are covered no matter what: if the movie is a success, you point to your glowing review (or high rating), and say "See! I told you this was a good movie!". If it is a total flop at the box office, you point to your poor rating (or bad review), and say "See! I told you this was going to be a flop!" Either way, you conveniently ignore the part of your review that was incorrect.
So, Ebert just did the third option: he knows the movie will be a box office success, but he doesn't know what the fans will say after they've seen the movie, especially a few months afterwards, when the blush is off the rose. So, he gives the movie a good numerical rating, but then gives it a poor review. So, right now, when the movie is popular, he can point to the high rating and say "See! I know what I am talking about - you want to read ALL my reviews, and my web site, and my books, and....". Months from now, when rationality rears its unwelcome head and people start saying "Yes, the visuals were stunning, but I've heard more convincing delivery of dialog in pornos" he can point to his text reviews and say "See! I know what I am talking about - you want to read ALL my reviews, and my web site, and my books, and....".
There has been a similar trend here in Kansas to try to make the weather "sexier" by having meaningless 3D animations.
Let's face it - weather is usually BORING, and can usually be summed up in very few words: "It was sunny and hot today. Tomorrow will be sunny and hot at first, with the possibility of storms in the evening. Over the next week it will probably be sunny and hot, with possible storms in the evenings, until midweek, when it may rain."
However, since "news" is no longer news but infotainment, they have to make the weather interesting. Hence, fancy 3D swoops and rendered clouds that really add nothing to the presentation, but look "cool" to the NonMindO generation.
Now, here they will have animated 2D graphs showing the movement of fronts and pressure zones, and *that* is useful.
Of course, when our weather gets the least bit "interesting", then they break in and you would think that We Are All Going To Die - "There is a MASSIVE storm just outside Goodland, moving east at 50 MPH - TAKE SHELTER AT ONCE! We have had reports (from untrained spotters) of basketball sized hail, 1000MPH wind gusts, tornados, flaming meteors, and Elvis."
It is funny to me, because as a ham I can listen to (and participate in) the storm spotter nets - and it is funny to hear a trained spotter report dime sized hail, and then 50 minutes later (when the skys are clear) hear the TV report golf-ball sized hail in the same area.
(OT: Goodland, KS is like Greenland - the name is highly ironic, as Goodland is the place were it usually is the hottest, coldest, and windiest in Kansas, with the largest hail and such.)
Analog input is a good source of randomness, *IF*.
IF the input source of the analog converter has a low autocorrelation - in other words, what has gone before has little or no bearing on what is happening now. Crinkling cellophane into a mic *by itself* is a poor choice for randomness because of the relatively long periods of quiet, and because the microphone and input circuits will "color" the signal (specifically, the signal will be low passed by the input circuits and bandpassed by the microphone's response curve, both of which increase the autocorrelation of the signal).
IF after getting the signal, you then run the signal through a process that will increase the entropy of the signal - like most compression algorithms will (although compression algorithms will still add some non-randomness to the signal in the form of the framing data for the algorithm).
Most modern motherboard chipsets include a noise diode RNG in them - this is a device which uses the thermal noise of a diode to create real, genuine random numbers. Why are you messing around with your sound card if you have one of these?
As others have pointed out, under Linux and *BSD you have a great source of good random numbers,/dev/random - and/dev/urandom if you need random-ish number in greater quantities than/dev/random spits them out./dev/random pulls its entropy from network events, keystrokes, disk access, hardware RNGs (like the afore-mentioned noise diode sources), and many other sources, and applies very strong entropy increasing algorithms to them.
So why do you wish to re-invent the wheel, when you can get a nice one already made?
The idea that you are getting all this freshwater "free of charge" is wrong. All sweating pipes are is rain by another name. If you pull enough water out of the air to supply the water needs of California's farm irrigation, then you have pulled water out that would have rained down upon Arizona (for example).
So now you create even more drought inland in order to supply the needs of the coasts. As a resident of the inlands, <sarcasm> thank you oh so very much!</sarcacm>
It's only 1500 mAh, your average NiMH AA is at 2300 mAh each. This battery must be puny.
An external battery pack would be a cool option. 2 AA's in a small tube with wire could provide nearly 10 hours.
10 hours IF AND ONLY IF the pad runs on 1.25VDC, and you parallel the 2 AAs to get 1.25VDC @ 4600mAh.
If, as is more likely, the device runs on about 7VDC, you would need 12 2300mAh AAs running series/parallel (2 parallel strings of 6 batteries in series) to give you that time.
Remember - amp-hours ARE NOT energy - they are CHARGE. You need to take amp-hours times voltage to get units of energy (watt-hours).
This is just fertilizing the Astroturf - think of it as fanservice for all the MicroTurfers who contribute so many clicks to/. trying to talk up Windows.
You may consider the moderation history of this comment as a demonstration....
But how long until it can overlay the map with the red arrows emanating from Redmond, and play the martial marching music, and the rousing speeches about liberating the world for the Fatherland?
The wizardess gets an automatic -1 on any male opponent's Concentration - so opposing spellcasters cannot complete their spells as easily.
The gals faking the sleepover - well, at least they are getting to sit down. Anybody who has worked a trade show will tell you standing up in the booth all day WILL make your feet sore - especially if you are wearing dress shoes when you usually weare sneakers (I speak from experience!)
This is about mobile computing - i.e. palm-top computers, PDAs, and other almost embedded systems - not your client's Powerbook, or your client's x86 computer.
But Microsoft has brainwashed you into believing that all desktop computing is all computing, and that all computing is desktop computing - the idea that a mobile platform is different than a desktop is suppressed - is an "un-idea".
And before you respond "but porting software from Windows to Windows Embedded is easy" - no, it is not. There are enough differences between Windows Desktop and Windows Embedded that the effort of maintaining one code base between the two is non-trivial - and is about the same as porting your program to Qt or GTK and using that to build both the desktop version and the mobile version.
This is the great triumph that Microsoft has won - it is not merely a question of them being "The Only Choice", but rather that the whole idea of "choice" is suppressed.
I can just see the lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act now:
"I have no fingers, you insensitive clod!"
Seriously - what if you have no meaningful fingerprints - you have no hands, or your fingers had been burned and thus have no meaningful prints, etc. ?
What do they print then? And do the rest of us want to be in the room at the time?
Enamored? No, more like "enraged" - if you are running Javascript disabled you simply cannot view any aspect of the story - unless you use the "View->Use Style->None" option of Mozilla to strip all the stupid formatting BS out.
Once again: it is FINE to use JS to enhance your web site, but making it a REQUIRED part of your site is foolish.
It would have been nice if the article had some background information on Haiku - what it was, why they aren't using a window manager that already has the features they just implemented, and so on.
Even if the story submitter did not include such information, would it have been so hard for the *cough*editor*cough* to have added that information at the end of the post?
Or was the idea of adding simple information (as opposed to inflammatory commentary) unappealing to the *cough*editors*cough*?
The purpose of email is communication - never forget that.
So, in order to answer the question "Is sending $FOO in email evil?" answer the question "Is sending $FOO communicating more than text/plain would?"
If all you are communicating is "Don't park in the west parking lot tomorrow because we are going to repaint the lines" then an HTML mail does not communicate any more than a text mail, and so is a bad idea.
If you are communicating "Don't park in the highlighted area <img=foo.gif> because we will be filling in the pothole" then an HTML email may communicate more than text/plain - however is it perhaps better still to put the information up on an internal web page and mail a link?
Slashdot Mirror
"Per minute?"
Please - use something standard, like Han Solos per Debian release, or Libraries of Congress per Windows service pack, or Volkswagens per Windows exploit.
Assume for the moment you could build a device that could accurately read the driver's impairment level from any source - alcohol, drugs, sleep deprivation, cell phone, nudie magazine, screaming kids in the back seat, whatever. Assume for the moment this device is failure proof, fool proof, and cannot be misled.
Now, there are two primary use cases for this device:
In this case, the person it will be checking has proven they are willing to accept responsibility for their actions, and so the need for the device is fairly minimal - such a person is likely already going to limit their driving if they have been chemically altered, and all this device is going to do is allow them to drive when the are a little altered, as they will not have to leave the "safety margin" they otherwise would have left.
In this case, you open up the whole barrel of worms of legal rights, but most importantly the person being checked will either be
Actually, the saying around here is "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes" - the weather can change from 35C and sunny to 10C and storming like hell in 30 minutes.
However, *normally* the weather is such that the average Kansas is just as able to predict it as the meteorologists on TV for all that matters - what will happen in the next couple of hours.
And as for our signature piece - again, any Kansas can look at the skys and say either "No immediate threat" or "Uhhhh....", and most of us have special radios that alert us when Things Are About To Get Weird.
You are correct that a good movie critic needs to understand the elements of movie making in order to better judge movies. I did not say otherwise.
However, when a movie critic starts to obsess over the elements of movie making over the entertainment value of a movie, that is when I have a problem.
Allow me the analogy of a food critic - yes, a good food critic must understand the elements of presentation, the use of contrasting flavors, the different preparation methods, and so on, in order to best judge the meal.
However, when such a person starts to overlook the simple concepts of "Does this taste good?", "Does this satisfy my hunger?", and "Was this worth the money?", and instead goes on about a meal composed of nothing but watercress and cucumbers, albeit artfully arranged on a pretty blue plate and fitted with a faux-French name, then that person is no longer a food critic. And when that person pans the food at a place like Lambert's solely because it "lacks presentation" and doesn't have a name only a food critic can love, then I rightfully call bullshit on them.
Likewise, too many movie critics obsess over the elements of movie making completely ignoring the most important question: was the movie entertaining? And those are the movie critics that most seem to follow the algorithm I presented.
Ebert *used* to be one of the good ones - he and Siskel were good about realizing that the most artfully filmed movie is still no good if it is not entertaining. However, over time Ebert has drifted away from that simple criteria, and has become more a review of movies for movie reviews.
Lastly, if he does not wish to assign a numerical value to a movie, then he should grow a pair and say to the papers "No, I will NOT assign a number to the movies. Deal with it."
First, you ask yourself "Was this film made for movie critics?" - in other words, lots of "character development" (i.e. pointless talking that does not REALLY develop the character), lots of "stunning camera work" (e.g. artsy shots of rotting fruit), and so on. If yes, then you blither on about the film, and how it is a shame that nobody in "the mainstream" will "get it" - thus assuring your street cred with other movie critics. The people who make your column pay (the common man) won't care. Next movie.
Failing that, you ask yourself "Is this film likely to be a popular success?" - such as a Terminator movie, or Back to the Future. If so, you give it a good review, so that the people who actually make your column a success won't stop reading you. It won't hurt your movie critic street cred: the other movie critics will understand - they will be doing the same thing. Next movie.
Lastly, if there is some question as to whether the movie will be a success, you do one of two things: You either give it
- a glowing write-up but a poor numerical rating, or
- a high numerical rating but a poor write-up.
That way, you are covered no matter what: if the movie is a success, you point to your glowing review (or high rating), and say "See! I told you this was a good movie!". If it is a total flop at the box office, you point to your poor rating (or bad review), and say "See! I told you this was going to be a flop!" Either way, you conveniently ignore the part of your review that was incorrect.So, Ebert just did the third option: he knows the movie will be a box office success, but he doesn't know what the fans will say after they've seen the movie, especially a few months afterwards, when the blush is off the rose. So, he gives the movie a good numerical rating, but then gives it a poor review. So, right now, when the movie is popular, he can point to the high rating and say "See! I know what I am talking about - you want to read ALL my reviews, and my web site, and my books, and....". Months from now, when rationality rears its unwelcome head and people start saying "Yes, the visuals were stunning, but I've heard more convincing delivery of dialog in pornos" he can point to his text reviews and say "See! I know what I am talking about - you want to read ALL my reviews, and my web site, and my books, and....".
There has been a similar trend here in Kansas to try to make the weather "sexier" by having meaningless 3D animations.
Let's face it - weather is usually BORING, and can usually be summed up in very few words: "It was sunny and hot today. Tomorrow will be sunny and hot at first, with the possibility of storms in the evening. Over the next week it will probably be sunny and hot, with possible storms in the evenings, until midweek, when it may rain."
However, since "news" is no longer news but infotainment, they have to make the weather interesting. Hence, fancy 3D swoops and rendered clouds that really add nothing to the presentation, but look "cool" to the NonMindO generation.
Now, here they will have animated 2D graphs showing the movement of fronts and pressure zones, and *that* is useful.
Of course, when our weather gets the least bit "interesting", then they break in and you would think that We Are All Going To Die - "There is a MASSIVE storm just outside Goodland, moving east at 50 MPH - TAKE SHELTER AT ONCE! We have had reports (from untrained spotters) of basketball sized hail, 1000MPH wind gusts, tornados, flaming meteors, and Elvis."
It is funny to me, because as a ham I can listen to (and participate in) the storm spotter nets - and it is funny to hear a trained spotter report dime sized hail, and then 50 minutes later (when the skys are clear) hear the TV report golf-ball sized hail in the same area.
(OT: Goodland, KS is like Greenland - the name is highly ironic, as Goodland is the place were it usually is the hottest, coldest, and windiest in Kansas, with the largest hail and such.)
Analog input is a good source of randomness, *IF*.
/dev/random - and /dev/urandom if you need random-ish number in greater quantities than /dev/random spits them out. /dev/random pulls its entropy from network events, keystrokes, disk access, hardware RNGs (like the afore-mentioned noise diode sources), and many other sources, and applies very strong entropy increasing algorithms to them.
IF the input source of the analog converter has a low autocorrelation - in other words, what has gone before has little or no bearing on what is happening now. Crinkling cellophane into a mic *by itself* is a poor choice for randomness because of the relatively long periods of quiet, and because the microphone and input circuits will "color" the signal (specifically, the signal will be low passed by the input circuits and bandpassed by the microphone's response curve, both of which increase the autocorrelation of the signal).
IF after getting the signal, you then run the signal through a process that will increase the entropy of the signal - like most compression algorithms will (although compression algorithms will still add some non-randomness to the signal in the form of the framing data for the algorithm).
Most modern motherboard chipsets include a noise diode RNG in them - this is a device which uses the thermal noise of a diode to create real, genuine random numbers. Why are you messing around with your sound card if you have one of these?
As others have pointed out, under Linux and *BSD you have a great source of good random numbers,
So why do you wish to re-invent the wheel, when you can get a nice one already made?
The idea that you are getting all this freshwater "free of charge" is wrong. All sweating pipes are is rain by another name. If you pull enough water out of the air to supply the water needs of California's farm irrigation, then you have pulled water out that would have rained down upon Arizona (for example).
So now you create even more drought inland in order to supply the needs of the coasts. As a resident of the inlands, <sarcasm> thank you oh so very much!</sarcacm>
10 hours IF AND ONLY IF the pad runs on 1.25VDC, and you parallel the 2 AAs to get 1.25VDC @ 4600mAh.
If, as is more likely, the device runs on about 7VDC, you would need 12 2300mAh AAs running series/parallel (2 parallel strings of 6 batteries in series) to give you that time.
Remember - amp-hours ARE NOT energy - they are CHARGE. You need to take amp-hours times voltage to get units of energy (watt-hours).
This is just fertilizing the Astroturf - think of it as fanservice for all the MicroTurfers who contribute so many clicks to /. trying to talk up Windows.
You may consider the moderation history of this comment as a demonstration....
But how long until it can overlay the map with the red arrows emanating from Redmond, and play the martial marching music, and the rousing speeches about liberating the world for the Fatherland?
Well, let's see.
The wizardess gets an automatic -1 on any male opponent's Concentration - so opposing spellcasters cannot complete their spells as easily.
The gals faking the sleepover - well, at least they are getting to sit down. Anybody who has worked a trade show will tell you standing up in the booth all day WILL make your feet sore - especially if you are wearing dress shoes when you usually weare sneakers (I speak from experience!)
Even a broken clock is right twice a day - once if it is a twenty-four hour clock.
And you, sir are a part of the problem.
This is about mobile computing - i.e. palm-top computers, PDAs, and other almost embedded systems - not your client's Powerbook, or your client's x86 computer.
But Microsoft has brainwashed you into believing that all desktop computing is all computing, and that all computing is desktop computing - the idea that a mobile platform is different than a desktop is suppressed - is an "un-idea".
And before you respond "but porting software from Windows to Windows Embedded is easy" - no, it is not. There are enough differences between Windows Desktop and Windows Embedded that the effort of maintaining one code base between the two is non-trivial - and is about the same as porting your program to Qt or GTK and using that to build both the desktop version and the mobile version.
This is the great triumph that Microsoft has won - it is not merely a question of them being "The Only Choice", but rather that the whole idea of "choice" is suppressed.
No, it is time to get developers to realize that there are other platforms one can use for a mobile computing platform that are NOT Windows.
Hey zplork, looks like that funny car has a problem again.
What, solar panels dirty again? We just cleaned them last week!
Naw, it's stuck in the sand.
Fuggit - let AAA* take car of it!
(*AAA - Aries Automobile Association).
I can just see the lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act now:
"I have no fingers, you insensitive clod!"
Seriously - what if you have no meaningful fingerprints - you have no hands, or your fingers had been burned and thus have no meaningful prints, etc. ?
What do they print then? And do the rest of us want to be in the room at the time?
And which does not work without Javascript.
Enamored? No, more like "enraged" - if you are running Javascript disabled you simply cannot view any aspect of the story - unless you use the "View->Use Style->None" option of Mozilla to strip all the stupid formatting BS out.
Once again: it is FINE to use JS to enhance your web site, but making it a REQUIRED part of your site is foolish.
Where to begin with the jokes?
But penguins cannot fly!
Great! Now we can re-shoot Hitchcock's "The Birds" with the [RI|MP]AA as the stars!
Now I'll have to wash all those core dumps off my car!
SQUAWCK! We are the Borg. SQUAWCK! Resistance is futile! SQUAWCK! 4 of 99 wants a cracker! SQUAWCK!
A robotic parrot/web server is the perfect gift for a data pirate - when will ThinkGeek carry them?
Do they use RFC 1149?
Could Microsoft buy Linux? No.
Therefore, would Microsoft buy RedHat? No.
It would have been nice if the article had some background information on Haiku - what it was, why they aren't using a window manager that already has the features they just implemented, and so on.
Even if the story submitter did not include such information, would it have been so hard for the *cough*editor*cough* to have added that information at the end of the post?
Or was the idea of adding simple information (as opposed to inflammatory commentary) unappealing to the *cough*editors*cough*?
Except that Wil's account is CleverNickName, and ever since he set up his own web log he really hasn't been posting here much.
The purpose of email is communication - never forget that.
So, in order to answer the question "Is sending $FOO in email evil?" answer the question "Is sending $FOO communicating more than text/plain would?"
If all you are communicating is "Don't park in the west parking lot tomorrow because we are going to repaint the lines" then an HTML mail does not communicate any more than a text mail, and so is a bad idea.
If you are communicating "Don't park in the highlighted area <img=foo.gif> because we will be filling in the pothole" then an HTML email may communicate more than text/plain - however is it perhaps better still to put the information up on an internal web page and mail a link?