First, when they talk about speech taking away from working memory - that is true IF what you are saying is different from what you are thinking. For example, as I write this I "hear" the words in my head, and then type them out - I could just as easily speak them as type them (more so - coffee's not cut in yet...) It's when what you are THINKING is different from what you are SAYING - if you are thinking "it's when what you are thinking..." and you are saying "it's when what you are thinking" that things get harder.
Second, speech is like a command line - it is largely modeless if it is done right. That's the big attraction; that's what most of the posters here are saying: They want to be surfing/gaming/whatever, and be able to say "computer, do this" so that they don't interrupt what they are doing. In short, they want to use speech as a low bandwidth auxillary channel. When I am in my car, I would love to be able to say to my MP3 player "Neo: play Rock-Boston-all" so that I can keep my eyes and most of my attention on the road. However, that is VASTLY different than putting most of my attention on a phone conversation whilst half-assed paying attention to the car I am tailgating.
Third, speech is a very low bandwidth output compared to other solutions: when I am typing, I have the bandwidth to change case, activate/deactivate bold (in a word processor - pity Mozilla cannot be instructed to insert a <b> on a ctrl-b) or whatever. Trying to do that with speech just wouldn't work because speech doesn't have the "out of band" channels of CTRL, SHIFT etc. Sure, you COULD try to use inflection or non-speech sounds, but then the processing gets to be even worse. (Although it would be fun to hear a Perl programmer speaking a program using Victor Borge's phonetic punctuation....)
In short, this article makes the same mistake most articles on user interaction make - it assumes there is some uber-interface, and all other interfaces are inferior. Wrong - speech where speech works, 2D where 2D works, 3D where 3D works, haptic where haptic works, etc. I wouldn't want to drive my car with a joystick, and I wouldn't want to code with a steering wheel.
I unwittingly caused a flame on WineHQ because of the DUL - my ISP had implemented filtering, and I did not know it, and one of the other users of WineHQ tried to contact me and got rejected.
I would say that IF you are filtering with the DUL, you should
Tell your users
give them a chance to opt-out
Set up a (properly secured) webmail form to shunt around the block
set your mail server to send the URL for that webmail in the rejection message
However, I do agree that the best solution is to use your ISP's mail server, and have your box set to forward the mail to your ISP's server - they (by definition) have better connectivity than you do, and their mail server can be trying to deliver the mail while you are installing a new kernel or whatever would cause your machine to reboot.
Ideally, distros would have this be a part of the normal setup - when you install any MTA, it should ask you if you want to forward your outbound mail to a different server.
Naw, they just spend all their time at Charles', eating breakfast burritos....
Extrodinary claims require extrodinary proof....
on
The Magic Box Hoax
·
· Score: 5, Informative
If anyone shows you a "magic box" but won't let you touch it, change the setup of the demonstration, or suggest other ways to test it, RUN!
This is a classic bit of snake oil - "I have this wonderful thing, and you can get a piece of it, but DON'T GO BACK THERE!"
That otherwise intelligent people fell for this just goes to show how most of us don't always act logically all the time.
Besides - pushing video over CAT-3 isn't hard: you just need enough OOMPH to deal with the attenuation, which over a few feet is not so bad. I've seen little boxes you can buy that allow you to send a VCR's output to another room over 100 feet of little thin zip-cord - all they are is a balun (balanced to unbalanced transformer) that matches the 75 ohm output of the VCR to the wire.
It's pushing that same signal over MILES of cable while somebody else is pushing a different signal over a different pair of wires in the same bundle without interfering with each other that's the tricky bit. Solve that with enough signal to noise ratio to allow multi-megabit transmission, and you will be rich. You also will be violating half a dozen laws of physics, but....
The science of turning electric power into light has really changed in the past decade. I've seen a graph in one of my engineering trade journals showing the efficency of LEDs in lumens per watt. Just a decade ago, the best LEDs were two orders of magnitude less efficent than flourescent bulbs. Now, the new generation of blue and white LEDs are more efficent than flourescent, and are approching the levels of low pressure sodium lights.
If we extrapolate from the given 5%->60% levels given in the article, that would raise incandescent lights to nearly the levels of flourescent, without the warm-up time flourescent has.
Now, the problem with LED vs. flourescent is cost - LEDs are much more expensive in terms of lumens per doller than flourescent. Would microstructured tungsten be any cheaper?
Any "furthur adventures" of the HHGTTG crew in Salmon would have be set before Mostly Harmless, since in Mostly Harmless Douglas destroyed the HHGTTG universe (in the sense that he killed off all the major characters save Zaphod). He did so in an especially mean-spirited way - he didn't even give Fendchurch a proper exit, just erased her like a bad core dump.
I am (as you might guess from my/. nick) a HHGTTG fan, but I was quite disappointed with MH - it felt too much like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Final Solution" - an author killing off a series that has become too popular, too much a millstone around the author's neck.
I would suggest to those who have NOT read MH to stop with So Long and Thanks for All the Fish - I think you will be much happier.
Put down that flamethrower and follow me on this before you reply.
I assert that reusable launch vehicles for normal space launches are stupid.
Every kilo of mass on the launch vehicle costs, therefor every kilo that does not DIRECTLY contribute to getting the payload into space is wasted - worse, since you have to have the fuel to boost that kilo, you increase the mass of the rocket by several MORE kilos, each of which has to boosted at least part of the way, requiring more fuel....
Now, if reusability DOESN'T increase the mass of the rocket, fine. Go for it.
However, in reality making any part of the launch vehicle reusable WILL add to the mass of the rocket, therefor reducing the payload or increasing the fuel cost.
What we need for normal launches is a dirt-dumb-cheap rocket, something we can churn out by the hundreds. I suggest a large solid fuel rocket - no expensive turbopump to machine. Make the casing out of either simple rolled metal, or possibly even a cellulose compound ("big paper rockets"), filled with solid fuel. Something designed to burn up on re-entry so that we don't spend kilogram 1 on recovery.
Now, this is only for heavy lifting - chucking stuff into orbit. Obviously, these rockets would not be man rated - you still need a man rated shuttle to put people in orbit. HOWEVER, you can now make the shuttle just a people hauler, reducing the size of the shuttle (and therefor the cost). This was the original intent of the shuttle - then the DOD got involved, demanded an increase in payload, which was WHY the shuttle had to have the SRB's added in the first place.
OK, if you've read everything this far, and you still feel like flaming, knock yourselves out.
In the article, the author complains about dead pixels (though not loudly) and expresses a wish that NEC ship monitors without dead pixels.
It won't happen. Almost all lCD monitors have dead pixels.
An LCD monitor is, in effect, an IC that is several inches square. One flaw == 1 dead transistor == 1 dead pixel. Most LCD manufacturers will quote some number of dead pixels as "acceptable" - if your display has less than that many dead pixels they won't accept it back as bad.
The only way around this is to increase the number of transistors on the display, and design some redundancy - if one transistor dies, the others for that pixel will take up the load. However, since a transistor can die on or off, it gets to be very difficult to design the circuit such that no matter how the transistor dies, the circuit works.
The problem with science is that there is always doubt, and most people don't want doubt, they want certainties.
For example: from where I sit, I cannot see into my garage - in fact, I cannot see my garage at all. Therefor, if I am to be absolutely precise, I cannot state that my car is in the garage. It could have been stolen, it could have disappeared in a puff of smoke, it could have been abducted by aliens. Each of those is a hypothesis, just like the hypothesis that the car is setting there. If I am to be precise, I cannot state for fact that my car is there or not.
However, since my garage is locked, my car is locked, and had the doors opened I probably would have heard them, the hypothesis that it was stolen is unlikely. Given the body of evidence supporting conservation of matter, the hypothesis that it went poof is unlikely. And any aliens that could reach Earth would have little use for my car, so even if the Drake equation is bunk it would seem unlikely aliens would have stolen it. The most likely hypothesis is that my car is right where I left it (relative to the Earth's surface).
However, that sort of thinking doesn't make sense to the average person. "How can you *not* know your car is out there?" And when a scientist says "I cannot conclusively disprove it", they think that means that is must be true.
Most so-called "science" teachers just teach that water is H20, that natural gas burns in oxygen, etc. In short, they teach facts, rather than teaching the tools to THINK, and to CHECK what you think. It's easy to test if a student can regurgitate the facts you've crammed down their throat - testing if a student can actually THINK when confronted with a new situation is hard, and subject to opinion (read: "If I flunk this kid, can his parents cast doubt upon my grade?").
Until we actually start teaching kids to THINK, to constantly question what they know, and to take nothing for granted, we will have this sort of nonsense running around. And since the Industrial Revolution the purpose of public schools has been to turn out organic labor units, not thinking individuals.
And before you pat yourself on the back, smug in your superiority - when was the last time YOU actually stopped to think about your opinions, and to ask "Now, what are the underlying axioms of this belief? What truths must I hold self-evident to get to this belief? How can I test if those beliefs are true?"
I've tried to pick up a couple of these from the Creative site, and every time I try, I time out getting to the HTTPS order entry system. Is their HTTPS server DOA?
Yes, our software will upload the entire contents of the user's brain onto our servers, where we can scan through it and analyze it for marketing vulnerabilities. Privacy impact? Uhhh, NONE. We will never (snigger) share this information with anyone (sotto voice: who doesn't pay) so there is no privacy impact whatsoever!
I trust corporations who are intent on invading my privacy to prepare a proper privacy impact statement like I trust burglars to lock up after they are done.
How about we tax every product that has benefited from NASA and the space program 0.5%, and use that to fund NASA? <rant> I get so damn sick of the "gimmes" saying "Why are we wasting money on the space program when there are homeless people to feed. Excuse me, I have a call on my pager, let me get my cellphone and return this call."
Where do these people think the money goes? It goes into the economy, creating jobs (you know, those things that allow poor people to become not poor?) and therefor increasing the tax base (you know, the thing that funds all those programs you love?) </rant>
NASA was required BY LAW to share the fruits of its developments with anybody who wanted them. Had NASA held on to the technologies it developed and licensed them at fair market value, NASA would be funding the Government, rather than the other way `round.
I would like to ask you do to do me a favor, please.
Please post a list of the programs you've worked for, either in a comment in this thread, or on your journal page.
I'd like to know what to avoid.
Open suggestion to CEOs of Circuit City et. al.
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Were I the CEO of (Circuit City|Frys|Wal-Mart), I'd be pulling in my marketing director and purchasing director, and saying:
Purchasing - order in 2000 of these cards. I don't care how much they cost - get them.
Marketing - Media blitz. The slogan is "When they screw up, they arrest you. When we screw up, we make it right." Offer one of these video cards for $129.99 to anyone who can prove they ordered one from Best Buy, the order was accepted, and then canceled.
Get over to the guy who was arrested - give him a card. Ask him if he would be willing to appear in our ads.
They screwed up - let's make it REALLY hurt.
BY LUNCHTIME, PEOPLE. MOVE!
Should anyone working for one of these companies read this, please forward to the appropriate parties.
Perhaps I've been running Linux for too long, but I fail to understand why anyone would download this program, or any programs like it.
When I download a program, I ask (and answer) the following questions:
What purpose does it serve? (e.g. does it play some format I cannot currently play)
Do I already have a program that fills this need?
Will this program fill that need better?
Do I know the source of this program? Or do I get the source? (If the program is coming from bubbas_barbeque_and_warez.com, I most certainly won't be installing it until I've reviewed every line of source...)
Does a quick search of Google reveal any dirty little secrets about this program?
I just don't understand WHY people will say "Ohhhh. Shiny....." and download J. Random Program onto their system.
I have my Citizen/IBM Linux watch - not a lot of internal storage there, but it is my display device.
I have the Toshiba storage device - there's all my disk space, tucked into my jacket pocket where it is out of the way.
I have my cell phone, in an outside pocket. There's my Internet connectivity.
Now, I can check if I have mail by looking at my watch. If I need to read it, I can either view it on my watch, if it is short, or on the phone, if it is longer (I assume the phone has a larger display than the watch).
My tunes are in the storage device, and played via the watch or phone (and headphones, natch).
If I have my digital camera, I now have GIGs of storage to save the pics to.
This is not the whole solution - this is just the digitization and compression part. Your machine does the IP encapsulation and transmission.
Otherwise, you would have to tie up your soundcard to do the audio I/O, or have some other external device driving the phone.
And this device doesn't interface just to a mike and speaker - it acts like a phone office, providing ring voltage, off-hook detection, and other signaling.
Since you are going to have some external device doing the operations, why NOT use USB? If you put Ethernet in this device, you would still need some form of NAT to interface to your ISP (either a Linksys style DSL/DOCSIS router or a firewall) and it would greatly complicate the issue.
Your interpretation of the study you cite is flawed.
All the study said was "we took a bunch of people, sorted them by the time the slept, and noticed that the people who slept less live longer".
I could also say that heart disease causes smoking, since I could take a bunch of people, sort them by the health of their hearts, and notice that the sicker folk tend to smoke.
What if, in the set of people who slept longer, there was a disproportionate number of sick individuals (sleep apnea, chronic allergies, whatever). They might be sleeping more because they are sick, and have shorter lifespans because they are sick.
The way you would prove the hypothesis that "less sleep is good for you" would be to take a set of people selected to be of the same level of general health, measure their natural sleep patterns, then take half that group and reduce their sleep time by 20%. Then wait and measure the effect on their lifespans. That way, you factor out the effects of the health of the individuals.
I have to wonder - why change the name, and the name of the resources? What was wrong with "Multi-Use Labor Element", chrystite, and smithore?
OK, I could understand if they changed the name of the planet (irata) for obvious reasons, but do they think the rest of the changes will protect them if EA decides to press the point?
If you have a server you control, and wish to be able to get an SSH session through a firewall that blocks the "standard" SSH port, place your SSH server on port 443 (https) - both are SSL, and most firewalls will happily let you establish the connection.
That said - It's not spelled Foxtrot Uniform November, it's Whiskey Oscar Romeo Kilo - if you want to download porn or waste lots of time IM'ing, then do it at home. A quick scan of/., Freshmeat et. al. while waiting for a recompile is one thing, burning huge amounts of bandwidth downloading crap it another.
Scenario #1: Microsoft dumps Apple, focuses solely upon Windows. Courts notice behavior. Courts say "Now you are going too far with the monopoly thing, Mr. Sedaka, would you please do the honors?" (cue Breaking Up Is Hard To Do).
Meanwhile, a cadre of users are pissed, and start buying products other than Microsoft. The market for such products becomes large enough to be noticed, and somebody else moves in and starts making money. This Will Not Do.
Scenario #2: MS continues support for the Mac. As a result, most Mac users use IE, Word, Office, Excel, etc. for Mac. Competition in those areas is stifled.
In addition, MS can better spread their.Net and capture and control the industry.
Slashdot Mirror
First, when they talk about speech taking away from working memory - that is true IF what you are saying is different from what you are thinking. For example, as I write this I "hear" the words in my head, and then type them out - I could just as easily speak them as type them (more so - coffee's not cut in yet...) It's when what you are THINKING is different from what you are SAYING - if you are thinking "it's when what you are thinking..." and you are saying "it's when what you are thinking" that things get harder.
Second, speech is like a command line - it is largely modeless if it is done right. That's the big attraction; that's what most of the posters here are saying: They want to be surfing/gaming/whatever, and be able to say "computer, do this" so that they don't interrupt what they are doing. In short, they want to use speech as a low bandwidth auxillary channel. When I am in my car, I would love to be able to say to my MP3 player "Neo: play Rock-Boston-all" so that I can keep my eyes and most of my attention on the road . However, that is VASTLY different than putting most of my attention on a phone conversation whilst half-assed paying attention to the car I am tailgating.
Third, speech is a very low bandwidth output compared to other solutions: when I am typing, I have the bandwidth to change case, activate/deactivate bold (in a word processor - pity Mozilla cannot be instructed to insert a <b> on a ctrl-b) or whatever. Trying to do that with speech just wouldn't work because speech doesn't have the "out of band" channels of CTRL, SHIFT etc. Sure, you COULD try to use inflection or non-speech sounds, but then the processing gets to be even worse. (Although it would be fun to hear a Perl programmer speaking a program using Victor Borge's phonetic punctuation....)
In short, this article makes the same mistake most articles on user interaction make - it assumes there is some uber-interface, and all other interfaces are inferior. Wrong - speech where speech works, 2D where 2D works, 3D where 3D works, haptic where haptic works, etc. I wouldn't want to drive my car with a joystick, and I wouldn't want to code with a steering wheel.
I would say that IF you are filtering with the DUL, you should
However, I do agree that the best solution is to use your ISP's mail server, and have your box set to forward the mail to your ISP's server - they (by definition) have better connectivity than you do, and their mail server can be trying to deliver the mail while you are installing a new kernel or whatever would cause your machine to reboot.
Ideally, distros would have this be a part of the normal setup - when you install any MTA, it should ask you if you want to forward your outbound mail to a different server.
As somebody else above said, you should use your powers for good - see if you can get James to consent to a /. interview.
Naw, they just spend all their time at Charles', eating breakfast burritos....
If anyone shows you a "magic box" but won't let you touch it, change the setup of the demonstration, or suggest other ways to test it, RUN !
This is a classic bit of snake oil - "I have this wonderful thing, and you can get a piece of it, but DON'T GO BACK THERE!"
That otherwise intelligent people fell for this just goes to show how most of us don't always act logically all the time.
Besides - pushing video over CAT-3 isn't hard: you just need enough OOMPH to deal with the attenuation, which over a few feet is not so bad. I've seen little boxes you can buy that allow you to send a VCR's output to another room over 100 feet of little thin zip-cord - all they are is a balun (balanced to unbalanced transformer) that matches the 75 ohm output of the VCR to the wire.
It's pushing that same signal over MILES of cable while somebody else is pushing a different signal over a different pair of wires in the same bundle without interfering with each other that's the tricky bit. Solve that with enough signal to noise ratio to allow multi-megabit transmission, and you will be rich. You also will be violating half a dozen laws of physics, but....
The science of turning electric power into light has really changed in the past decade. I've seen a graph in one of my engineering trade journals showing the efficency of LEDs in lumens per watt. Just a decade ago, the best LEDs were two orders of magnitude less efficent than flourescent bulbs. Now, the new generation of blue and white LEDs are more efficent than flourescent, and are approching the levels of low pressure sodium lights.
If we extrapolate from the given 5%->60% levels given in the article, that would raise incandescent lights to nearly the levels of flourescent, without the warm-up time flourescent has.
Now, the problem with LED vs. flourescent is cost - LEDs are much more expensive in terms of lumens per doller than flourescent. Would microstructured tungsten be any cheaper?
Any "furthur adventures" of the HHGTTG crew in Salmon would have be set before Mostly Harmless, since in Mostly Harmless Douglas destroyed the HHGTTG universe (in the sense that he killed off all the major characters save Zaphod). He did so in an especially mean-spirited way - he didn't even give Fendchurch a proper exit, just erased her like a bad core dump.
/. nick) a HHGTTG fan, but I was quite disappointed with MH - it felt too much like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Final Solution" - an author killing off a series that has become too popular, too much a millstone around the author's neck.
I am (as you might guess from my
I would suggest to those who have NOT read MH to stop with So Long and Thanks for All the Fish - I think you will be much happier.
Put down that flamethrower and follow me on this before you reply.
I assert that reusable launch vehicles for normal space launches are stupid.
Every kilo of mass on the launch vehicle costs, therefor every kilo that does not DIRECTLY contribute to getting the payload into space is wasted - worse, since you have to have the fuel to boost that kilo, you increase the mass of the rocket by several MORE kilos, each of which has to boosted at least part of the way, requiring more fuel....
Now, if reusability DOESN'T increase the mass of the rocket, fine. Go for it.
However, in reality making any part of the launch vehicle reusable WILL add to the mass of the rocket, therefor reducing the payload or increasing the fuel cost.
What we need for normal launches is a dirt-dumb-cheap rocket, something we can churn out by the hundreds. I suggest a large solid fuel rocket - no expensive turbopump to machine. Make the casing out of either simple rolled metal, or possibly even a cellulose compound ("big paper rockets"), filled with solid fuel. Something designed to burn up on re-entry so that we don't spend kilogram 1 on recovery.
Now, this is only for heavy lifting - chucking stuff into orbit. Obviously, these rockets would not be man rated - you still need a man rated shuttle to put people in orbit. HOWEVER, you can now make the shuttle just a people hauler, reducing the size of the shuttle (and therefor the cost). This was the original intent of the shuttle - then the DOD got involved, demanded an increase in payload, which was WHY the shuttle had to have the SRB's added in the first place.
OK, if you've read everything this far, and you still feel like flaming, knock yourselves out.
In the article, the author complains about dead pixels (though not loudly) and expresses a wish that NEC ship monitors without dead pixels.
It won't happen. Almost all lCD monitors have dead pixels.
An LCD monitor is, in effect, an IC that is several inches square. One flaw == 1 dead transistor == 1 dead pixel. Most LCD manufacturers will quote some number of dead pixels as "acceptable" - if your display has less than that many dead pixels they won't accept it back as bad.
The only way around this is to increase the number of transistors on the display, and design some redundancy - if one transistor dies, the others for that pixel will take up the load. However, since a transistor can die on or off, it gets to be very difficult to design the circuit such that no matter how the transistor dies, the circuit works.
The problem with science is that there is always doubt, and most people don't want doubt, they want certainties.
For example: from where I sit, I cannot see into my garage - in fact, I cannot see my garage at all. Therefor, if I am to be absolutely precise, I cannot state that my car is in the garage. It could have been stolen, it could have disappeared in a puff of smoke, it could have been abducted by aliens. Each of those is a hypothesis, just like the hypothesis that the car is setting there. If I am to be precise, I cannot state for fact that my car is there or not.
However, since my garage is locked, my car is locked, and had the doors opened I probably would have heard them, the hypothesis that it was stolen is unlikely. Given the body of evidence supporting conservation of matter, the hypothesis that it went poof is unlikely. And any aliens that could reach Earth would have little use for my car, so even if the Drake equation is bunk it would seem unlikely aliens would have stolen it. The most likely hypothesis is that my car is right where I left it (relative to the Earth's surface).
However, that sort of thinking doesn't make sense to the average person. "How can you *not* know your car is out there?" And when a scientist says "I cannot conclusively disprove it", they think that means that is must be true.
Most so-called "science" teachers just teach that water is H20, that natural gas burns in oxygen, etc. In short, they teach facts, rather than teaching the tools to THINK, and to CHECK what you think. It's easy to test if a student can regurgitate the facts you've crammed down their throat - testing if a student can actually THINK when confronted with a new situation is hard, and subject to opinion (read: "If I flunk this kid, can his parents cast doubt upon my grade?").
Until we actually start teaching kids to THINK, to constantly question what they know, and to take nothing for granted, we will have this sort of nonsense running around. And since the Industrial Revolution the purpose of public schools has been to turn out organic labor units, not thinking individuals.
And before you pat yourself on the back, smug in your superiority - when was the last time YOU actually stopped to think about your opinions, and to ask "Now, what are the underlying axioms of this belief? What truths must I hold self-evident to get to this belief? How can I test if those beliefs are true?"
So let's see the Hensen Creatureworks bring Tux to fully animated life!
I saw the story, and had to check with my Tivo. It had already seen the show in the listings and was ready to record as per standing orders.
/. not covered this, the Tivo would have recorded it. That's the difference between a VCR and a Tivo.
Even had
BTW, since chrisd didn't spoil it, I will - Edison doesn't die....
I've tried to pick up a couple of these from the Creative site, and every time I try, I time out getting to the HTTPS order entry system. Is their HTTPS server DOA?
I trust corporations who are intent on invading my privacy to prepare a proper privacy impact statement like I trust burglars to lock up after they are done.
How about we tax every product that has benefited from NASA and the space program 0.5%, and use that to fund NASA?
<rant>
I get so damn sick of the "gimmes" saying "Why are we wasting money on the space program when there are homeless people to feed. Excuse me, I have a call on my pager, let me get my cellphone and return this call."
Where do these people think the money goes? It goes into the economy, creating jobs (you know, those things that allow poor people to become not poor?) and therefor increasing the tax base (you know, the thing that funds all those programs you love?)
</rant>
NASA was required BY LAW to share the fruits of its developments with anybody who wanted them. Had NASA held on to the technologies it developed and licensed them at fair market value, NASA would be funding the Government, rather than the other way `round.
I would like to ask you do to do me a favor, please.
Please post a list of the programs you've worked for, either in a comment in this thread, or on your journal page.
I'd like to know what to avoid.
Should anyone working for one of these companies read this, please forward to the appropriate parties.
When I download a program, I ask (and answer) the following questions:
I just don't understand WHY people will say "Ohhhh. Shiny....." and download J. Random Program onto their system.
Consider this hypothetical example:
I have my Citizen/IBM Linux watch - not a lot of internal storage there, but it is my display device.
I have the Toshiba storage device - there's all my disk space, tucked into my jacket pocket where it is out of the way.
I have my cell phone, in an outside pocket. There's my Internet connectivity.
Now, I can check if I have mail by looking at my watch. If I need to read it, I can either view it on my watch, if it is short, or on the phone, if it is longer (I assume the phone has a larger display than the watch).
My tunes are in the storage device, and played via the watch or phone (and headphones, natch).
If I have my digital camera, I now have GIGs of storage to save the pics to.
Sounds like a good thing to me.
This is not the whole solution - this is just the digitization and compression part. Your machine does the IP encapsulation and transmission.
Otherwise, you would have to tie up your soundcard to do the audio I/O, or have some other external device driving the phone.
And this device doesn't interface just to a mike and speaker - it acts like a phone office, providing ring voltage, off-hook detection, and other signaling.
Since you are going to have some external device doing the operations, why NOT use USB? If you put Ethernet in this device, you would still need some form of NAT to interface to your ISP (either a Linksys style DSL/DOCSIS router or a firewall) and it would greatly complicate the issue.
Your interpretation of the study you cite is flawed.
All the study said was "we took a bunch of people, sorted them by the time the slept, and noticed that the people who slept less live longer".
I could also say that heart disease causes smoking, since I could take a bunch of people, sort them by the health of their hearts, and notice that the sicker folk tend to smoke.
What if, in the set of people who slept longer, there was a disproportionate number of sick individuals (sleep apnea, chronic allergies, whatever). They might be sleeping more because they are sick, and have shorter lifespans because they are sick.
The way you would prove the hypothesis that "less sleep is good for you" would be to take a set of people selected to be of the same level of general health, measure their natural sleep patterns, then take half that group and reduce their sleep time by 20%. Then wait and measure the effect on their lifespans. That way, you factor out the effects of the health of the individuals.
Obviously, you've not been to Denver in the recent past - there already is no O2, just smog.
I have to wonder - why change the name, and the name of the resources? What was wrong with "Multi-Use Labor Element", chrystite, and smithore?
OK, I could understand if they changed the name of the planet (irata) for obvious reasons, but do they think the rest of the changes will protect them if EA decides to press the point?
If you have a server you control, and wish to be able to get an SSH session through a firewall that blocks the "standard" SSH port, place your SSH server on port 443 (https) - both are SSL, and most firewalls will happily let you establish the connection.
/., Freshmeat et. al. while waiting for a recompile is one thing, burning huge amounts of bandwidth downloading crap it another.
That said - It's not spelled Foxtrot Uniform November, it's Whiskey Oscar Romeo Kilo - if you want to download porn or waste lots of time IM'ing, then do it at home. A quick scan of
Let's think this through, OK?
.Net and capture and control the industry.
Scenario #1: Microsoft dumps Apple, focuses solely upon Windows. Courts notice behavior. Courts say "Now you are going too far with the monopoly thing, Mr. Sedaka, would you please do the honors?" (cue Breaking Up Is Hard To Do).
Meanwhile, a cadre of users are pissed, and start buying products other than Microsoft. The market for such products becomes large enough to be noticed, and somebody else moves in and starts making money. This Will Not Do.
Scenario #2: MS continues support for the Mac. As a result, most Mac users use IE, Word, Office, Excel, etc. for Mac. Competition in those areas is stifled.
In addition, MS can better spread their
Which course of action would YOU take?