According to their website, it was released approximately a year and a half ago.
Depending on the complexity of a project, it can take a LONG time before "outside" contributors see something that needs to be changed, AND feel confident enough in their understanding of the code to change it.
Just look at the Netscape source release - I'd say it took 4-5 YEARS before the Mozilla project became mature enough to actually produce something worth anything. (See the nightmare known as Netscape 6 and its Mozilla equivalents... NS6 and its Moz equivalent SUCKED compared to NS4.x, the end result was that I avoided Moz-based browsers for 2-3 years longer than was probably necessary.)
If you release the source to a complete and relatively mature package, you can't expect outside programmers to take it over immediately. It takes a LOT to get up to speed on a new codebase, ESPECIALLY one you didn't design. That's not to say that it will never happen, but it WILL take time.
Just a comment - The Chernobyl accident's final precipitator was pulling the control rods *out* too much. The problem is that accumulated xenon (I believe it was xenon, could have been another material) was poisoning the reaction. Then when the xenon finally "burned off", the reactor suddenly had no control rods impeding the reaction. The end result was a steam explosion that blew the lid off the reactor.
This in and of itself was Pretty Bad, but not the worst part.
The worst part was the aforementioned graphite moderator. In addition to the fact that the boiloff didn't kill the reaction due to lack of moderatore, the next thing that happened was that superheated graphite came into contact with oxygen.
Graphite is *FLAMMABLE*. And thus it started burning, and that's how Chernobyl became a true disaster.
No commercial reactor in the United States uses a flammable substance in its core. Even if someone were to make ALL of the (many of them intentional) mistakes made at Chernobyl (and then some more due to the inherent stability of LWRs compared to the RBMK-1000 graphite-moderated reactor), the accident wouldn't have ever released that much radiation due to lack of graphite to burn.
NIMBY syndrome also scuttled the Shoreham plant on Long Island.
The end result is that LI's power grid is currently running within a few percent of capacity, and is severely dependent on large underwater cables crossing the Sound. Enough that in addition to articles on the generic sorry state of the power grid, I've seen at least one IEEE Spectrum article focusing on Long Island alone.
So it's no surprise that LI got hit by the big blackout last year. In general, the blackout most likely wouldn't have happened if NIMBY syndrome hadn't caused multiple (nuclear AND non-nuclear) plants to have their plans for construction scrapped, resulting in the Northeastern power grid running dangerously close to maximum capacity with little to no margin.
Many years ago, a friend of mine implemented RSA on his HP48gx.
His intention? Try to get arrested taking it across the border as a way of protesting ITAR. (This was before encryption export restrictions were eased.)
"A group of hackers once rewrote a good chunk of the built-in applications entirely in assembly, with the goal of making it fit on a 128K memory card. Unsurprisingly, the resulting environment was many times faster and more responsive than the original version."
Your experiences with ATI/NV drivers are the exact opposite of mine.
I have so far encountered ONE bug directly attributable to NVidia's drivers. (An issue with XMMS and OpenGL vis plugins, which APPEARS to be drivers, but is exacerbated by something else on the system, as it affects my Gentoo box but not my ancient RH 7.3 box despite identical NV drivers.)
Compare, on the other hand, to the crashfest known as ATI drivers... I used to own an ATI card, NEVER AGAIN. And I keep on hearing horror stories about their drivers even now. (e.g. you need Catalyst 3.x for this game, but to play game foo you need to downgrade. For game bar neither will work, you need Catalyst 2.y.)
There is a significant chance that the 6600 is a way of salvaging "reject" 6800s in which one or more of the pipelines failed QA. (Possibly because of a dust speck or other such problems - Even in the cleanest of clean rooms there are still contaminants, which is why IC yield is NEVER 100% and is typically lower the larger the chip is.)
Solution: Rather than just junk the entire chip, disable the pipelines that don't work and sell the chip as a lower-performance one with the pipelines that do.
It was once discovered that one of the ATI cards with only 4 pipelines could be converted to 8 with only minor hardware/software modifications.
But over 50% of cards "converted" in this manner failed to work because the remaining pipelines were disabled for reasons other than pure profit. In many cases the damage was permanent.
I think even Intel did this back in the 486 days. The 486SX chip was a 486DX with a defective FPU. Instead of junking the chip, they disabled the FPU and sold it as a low-end chip.
I believe they nearly got rid if the gifted/talented (In elementary/middle school) and Honors programs at my high school because of just such complaints from parents of those kids who didn't get in.
As if high school didn't hold me back enough as it was... High school without even honors math/science? *shudder*.
Thank God for taking part-time classes at Rutgers my senior year of HS when I ran out of things to take there.
Unlike 802.11b and 2.4GHZ phones which share the same 2.4 GHz ISM band, there are actually 2 or 3 rather closely-spaced (but not overlapping or even adjacent) ISM bands in the 5.4-5.8 GHz range.
All 802.11a communications is restricted to just one of these bands, while I believe the cordless phone manufacturers can choose any of the 2 or 3 ISM bands. So some of the 5.x GHz cordless phones can interfere, but some of them most definately are not overlapping.
After a few abortive attempts with desktop WLAN solutions, I have a cable run from the router downstairs up to a switch in my room. The only time my laptop ever goes wireless is when I am on campus, or surfing the net on the deck/in the living room/etc. When the laptop is on my desk, it's plugged into my 100 Mbit switch.
There's only one reason to go for G over B - Streaming DVR video. (such as MythTV) - 802.11b is not fast enough to stream high-bitrate MPEG2.
I had laser eye surgery during my junior year in college.
I'm now just over two years out, so it's been about 4 years.
Immediately after the surgery the haloing will be REALLY bad - And also you will find yourself needing artificial tears VERY often for the first week or two, and pretty often for the next few months.
The haloing and dryness were still quite noticeable but also significantly reduced after one year.
Four years later I have almost no haloing (only if I specifically look for it... Or maybe I'm just used to it.), and I only need the artificial tears once a day in the morning after I wake up, and sometimes not even then.
I'm damn glad I had it done, and on the newer lasers available the haloing and dryness goes away even faster/is less noticeable.
For most users, tactile feedback is a necessary part of the user interface. In an optimal situation, there should be NO need to look at the remote to use it. You should be able to know exactly where to push without having to look.
Take a guess why the "ancient" IBM Model M keyboard is so popular with people who use keyboards on a regular basis - it gives excellent tactile feedback, so you KNOW that your keypress has registered without any need to look.
Apple has some excellent human interfacing people in terms of on-screen UI design, but they suck at physical ergonomics... The keyboards they released around the time of the iMac and have used since then have been the most nightmarish keyboards I have ever had the misfortune to use. Oh, don't forget the nightmare that their original hockey-puck mouse was - Entire departments at my school would buy new mice and throw every single one of the stock mice away when they ordered new Macs.
I've heard of quite a few people that thought a touchscreen remote like the Pronto was the answer to their problems, and eventually wound up "downgrading" from a $300+ Pronto to a $20 Wal-Mart 8810w or $30 RS 15-2116/2117 (which happen to be a JP1 PC-programmable units, which is why they have become so popular.)
The 15-1994 remote happens to be PC-programmable. For more info, go to http://www.hifi-remote.com/ - It is MUCH better to use a proper device "upgrade" loaded into the remote than the learning functionality. You can only learn 20-30 buttons before the remote runs out of memory, but if you program it with a complete remote upgrade, you can have ALL buttons programmed for multiple devices. (I have at least 4 upgrades loaded into my 15-2116 remote via JP1.)
About the cheapest JP1-ready "out of the box" remote is the One For All 8810w (Same as their 8811, just with a different model number for Walmart's price guarantee purposes - Walmart can say they have the lowest price because only they carry that specific model number.) It's $18 plus tax.
I have an RS 15-2116. I love the feel of it, I love the flexibility, and lots of buttons. A bit more expensive at $30. I'm probably going to get an 8810w soon just as a second remote. (One for downstairs, one for upstairs.)
A JP1 cable will cost you $10-15 to build depending on your local electronics shops and what you have in your junkbox at home. I think they can be bought for $15-20 plus shipping.
The one thing I don't understand about that worry is that the "satellite" cells are described in one article as dividing before giving themselves to the muscle.
So shouldn't the satellite cells be able to replenish themselves? Examples of cases where a human has a limited supply of cells that cannot be replenished are very rare. (I can only think of female egg cells - sperm can be infinitely replenished, same thing with blood and nearly any other cell.) Oh yeah, nerve cells grow extremely slowly. There is actually an infinite supply, but that supply is replenished so slowly that it cannot cope with almost any neural injury.
Sounds like GML is even more inefficient than TIGER/Line, space-wise.
This is one of the few cases where a binary format is a Good Thing.
Interestingly enough, there's enough documentation on the Garmin MapSource.IMG format in existence that in theory someone could create an open-source application to use either official Garmin MapSource data, or MapSource-format data generated from open sources (such as the TIGER/Line data)
Dick has set enough world records in his brother's aircraft already.
I would not be surprised if there is future cooperation between XCor and Scaled (maybe even an existing project that is under wraps.)
XCor is primarily a rocket engine development company, which is working on solving many of the safety and reliability problems with liquid-fueled rockets that caused Burt to choose a hybrid rocket for SS1.
Scaled is primarily an airframe company - It's not often that they become involved in propulsion development. (Which is why SS1's rocket is a relatively simple one, albeit one that is elegant in its simplicity.)
Guess who developed the airframe for XCor's current testbed? Burt.
Care to take any guesses who is going to be responsible for final design and construction of the Xerus airframe? My money is on Burt Rutan.
The EZ-Rocket is not the Xerus. (I believe that is what XCor is calling their planned suborbital craft.)
Their suborbital craft has not even begun construction, I believe. They're still in the engine development and testing phase. The EZ-Rocket is by no means a suborbital craft and never will be. It's merely a good testbed for some of their engines. (It happens to use two of their 400-lb thrust engines.)
So far, if you look at their site, they have only racked up 0.2 minutes of running time on their 1800lb engine design, which is likely what their suborbital craft will use.
Belkin makes cheapo WLAN cards, my dad has one. We used to have a Belkin AP, but it broke. Was a POS to begin with, crashed every week or so even after a firmware upgrade (used to crash daily).
What's so odd about a handset being approved in Finland? Perhaps the user is Finnish?
Slashdot Mirror
According to their website, it was released approximately a year and a half ago.
Depending on the complexity of a project, it can take a LONG time before "outside" contributors see something that needs to be changed, AND feel confident enough in their understanding of the code to change it.
Just look at the Netscape source release - I'd say it took 4-5 YEARS before the Mozilla project became mature enough to actually produce something worth anything. (See the nightmare known as Netscape 6 and its Mozilla equivalents... NS6 and its Moz equivalent SUCKED compared to NS4.x, the end result was that I avoided Moz-based browsers for 2-3 years longer than was probably necessary.)
If you release the source to a complete and relatively mature package, you can't expect outside programmers to take it over immediately. It takes a LOT to get up to speed on a new codebase, ESPECIALLY one you didn't design. That's not to say that it will never happen, but it WILL take time.
Considering the author of that site can't even spell the word "conductor" right, I'm going to relegate that to the "cold fusion" nutcase pile.
Just a comment - The Chernobyl accident's final precipitator was pulling the control rods *out* too much. The problem is that accumulated xenon (I believe it was xenon, could have been another material) was poisoning the reaction. Then when the xenon finally "burned off", the reactor suddenly had no control rods impeding the reaction. The end result was a steam explosion that blew the lid off the reactor.
This in and of itself was Pretty Bad, but not the worst part.
The worst part was the aforementioned graphite moderator. In addition to the fact that the boiloff didn't kill the reaction due to lack of moderatore, the next thing that happened was that superheated graphite came into contact with oxygen.
Graphite is *FLAMMABLE*. And thus it started burning, and that's how Chernobyl became a true disaster.
No commercial reactor in the United States uses a flammable substance in its core. Even if someone were to make ALL of the (many of them intentional) mistakes made at Chernobyl (and then some more due to the inherent stability of LWRs compared to the RBMK-1000 graphite-moderated reactor), the accident wouldn't have ever released that much radiation due to lack of graphite to burn.
NIMBY syndrome also scuttled the Shoreham plant on Long Island.
The end result is that LI's power grid is currently running within a few percent of capacity, and is severely dependent on large underwater cables crossing the Sound. Enough that in addition to articles on the generic sorry state of the power grid, I've seen at least one IEEE Spectrum article focusing on Long Island alone.
So it's no surprise that LI got hit by the big blackout last year. In general, the blackout most likely wouldn't have happened if NIMBY syndrome hadn't caused multiple (nuclear AND non-nuclear) plants to have their plans for construction scrapped, resulting in the Northeastern power grid running dangerously close to maximum capacity with little to no margin.
Many years ago, a friend of mine implemented RSA on his HP48gx.
His intention? Try to get arrested taking it across the border as a way of protesting ITAR. (This was before encryption export restrictions were eased.)
"A group of hackers once rewrote a good chunk of the built-in applications entirely in assembly, with the goal of making it fit on a 128K memory card. Unsurprisingly, the resulting environment was many times faster and more responsive than the original version."
More info please?
(proud HP48gx owner here)
There are a few LaTeX packages designed to make creating PDF slideshow presentations easy.
Some of the examples I've seen are significantly better than PP, especially for engineering presentations. (Anything with formulas and graphs...)
Your experiences with ATI/NV drivers are the exact opposite of mine.
I have so far encountered ONE bug directly attributable to NVidia's drivers. (An issue with XMMS and OpenGL vis plugins, which APPEARS to be drivers, but is exacerbated by something else on the system, as it affects my Gentoo box but not my ancient RH 7.3 box despite identical NV drivers.)
Compare, on the other hand, to the crashfest known as ATI drivers... I used to own an ATI card, NEVER AGAIN. And I keep on hearing horror stories about their drivers even now. (e.g. you need Catalyst 3.x for this game, but to play game foo you need to downgrade. For game bar neither will work, you need Catalyst 2.y.)
There is a significant chance that the 6600 is a way of salvaging "reject" 6800s in which one or more of the pipelines failed QA. (Possibly because of a dust speck or other such problems - Even in the cleanest of clean rooms there are still contaminants, which is why IC yield is NEVER 100% and is typically lower the larger the chip is.)
Solution: Rather than just junk the entire chip, disable the pipelines that don't work and sell the chip as a lower-performance one with the pipelines that do.
It was once discovered that one of the ATI cards with only 4 pipelines could be converted to 8 with only minor hardware/software modifications.
But over 50% of cards "converted" in this manner failed to work because the remaining pipelines were disabled for reasons other than pure profit. In many cases the damage was permanent.
I think even Intel did this back in the 486 days. The 486SX chip was a 486DX with a defective FPU. Instead of junking the chip, they disabled the FPU and sold it as a low-end chip.
I believe they nearly got rid if the gifted/talented (In elementary/middle school) and Honors programs at my high school because of just such complaints from parents of those kids who didn't get in.
As if high school didn't hold me back enough as it was... High school without even honors math/science? *shudder*.
Thank God for taking part-time classes at Rutgers my senior year of HS when I ran out of things to take there.
Unlike 802.11b and 2.4GHZ phones which share the same 2.4 GHz ISM band, there are actually 2 or 3 rather closely-spaced (but not overlapping or even adjacent) ISM bands in the 5.4-5.8 GHz range.
All 802.11a communications is restricted to just one of these bands, while I believe the cordless phone manufacturers can choose any of the 2 or 3 ISM bands. So some of the 5.x GHz cordless phones can interfere, but some of them most definately are not overlapping.
I have to fully agree with you.
After a few abortive attempts with desktop WLAN solutions, I have a cable run from the router downstairs up to a switch in my room. The only time my laptop ever goes wireless is when I am on campus, or surfing the net on the deck/in the living room/etc. When the laptop is on my desk, it's plugged into my 100 Mbit switch.
There's only one reason to go for G over B - Streaming DVR video. (such as MythTV) - 802.11b is not fast enough to stream high-bitrate MPEG2.
Ugh... Belkin's WLAN products have the worst quality control I've ever experienced...
We had an 11b router, crashed all the time. A firmware update fixed the crashing, for about 6 months. Then the thing just outright died permanently.
I had laser eye surgery during my junior year in college.
I'm now just over two years out, so it's been about 4 years.
Immediately after the surgery the haloing will be REALLY bad - And also you will find yourself needing artificial tears VERY often for the first week or two, and pretty often for the next few months.
The haloing and dryness were still quite noticeable but also significantly reduced after one year.
Four years later I have almost no haloing (only if I specifically look for it... Or maybe I'm just used to it.), and I only need the artificial tears once a day in the morning after I wake up, and sometimes not even then.
I'm damn glad I had it done, and on the newer lasers available the haloing and dryness goes away even faster/is less noticeable.
At least not if it's as you describe.
For most users, tactile feedback is a necessary part of the user interface. In an optimal situation, there should be NO need to look at the remote to use it. You should be able to know exactly where to push without having to look.
Take a guess why the "ancient" IBM Model M keyboard is so popular with people who use keyboards on a regular basis - it gives excellent tactile feedback, so you KNOW that your keypress has registered without any need to look.
Apple has some excellent human interfacing people in terms of on-screen UI design, but they suck at physical ergonomics... The keyboards they released around the time of the iMac and have used since then have been the most nightmarish keyboards I have ever had the misfortune to use. Oh, don't forget the nightmare that their original hockey-puck mouse was - Entire departments at my school would buy new mice and throw every single one of the stock mice away when they ordered new Macs.
I've heard of quite a few people that thought a touchscreen remote like the Pronto was the answer to their problems, and eventually wound up "downgrading" from a $300+ Pronto to a $20 Wal-Mart 8810w or $30 RS 15-2116/2117 (which happen to be a JP1 PC-programmable units, which is why they have become so popular.)
The 15-1994 remote happens to be PC-programmable. For more info, go to http://www.hifi-remote.com/ - It is MUCH better to use a proper device "upgrade" loaded into the remote than the learning functionality. You can only learn 20-30 buttons before the remote runs out of memory, but if you program it with a complete remote upgrade, you can have ALL buttons programmed for multiple devices. (I have at least 4 upgrades loaded into my 15-2116 remote via JP1.)
About the cheapest JP1-ready "out of the box" remote is the One For All 8810w (Same as their 8811, just with a different model number for Walmart's price guarantee purposes - Walmart can say they have the lowest price because only they carry that specific model number.) It's $18 plus tax.
I have an RS 15-2116. I love the feel of it, I love the flexibility, and lots of buttons. A bit more expensive at $30. I'm probably going to get an 8810w soon just as a second remote. (One for downstairs, one for upstairs.)
A JP1 cable will cost you $10-15 to build depending on your local electronics shops and what you have in your junkbox at home. I think they can be bought for $15-20 plus shipping.
Some devices support discrete on/off codes. (i.e. "if it's on don't do anything, if it's off turn on")
:(
Unfortunately such devices are typically rare and expensive.
The one thing I don't understand about that worry is that the "satellite" cells are described in one article as dividing before giving themselves to the muscle.
So shouldn't the satellite cells be able to replenish themselves? Examples of cases where a human has a limited supply of cells that cannot be replenished are very rare. (I can only think of female egg cells - sperm can be infinitely replenished, same thing with blood and nearly any other cell.) Oh yeah, nerve cells grow extremely slowly. There is actually an infinite supply, but that supply is replenished so slowly that it cannot cope with almost any neural injury.
Sounds like GML is even more inefficient than TIGER/Line, space-wise.
.IMG format in existence that in theory someone could create an open-source application to use either official Garmin MapSource data, or MapSource-format data generated from open sources (such as the TIGER/Line data)
This is one of the few cases where a binary format is a Good Thing.
Interestingly enough, there's enough documentation on the Garmin MapSource
And everything is now available from the Census Bureau's FTP site.
What he bought was the 1997 TIGER/Line dataset on CD.
More recent versions can be simply downloaded.
I don't think Dick cares, at all.
Dick has set enough world records in his brother's aircraft already.
I would not be surprised if there is future cooperation between XCor and Scaled (maybe even an existing project that is under wraps.)
XCor is primarily a rocket engine development company, which is working on solving many of the safety and reliability problems with liquid-fueled rockets that caused Burt to choose a hybrid rocket for SS1.
Scaled is primarily an airframe company - It's not often that they become involved in propulsion development. (Which is why SS1's rocket is a relatively simple one, albeit one that is elegant in its simplicity.)
Guess who developed the airframe for XCor's current testbed? Burt.
Care to take any guesses who is going to be responsible for final design and construction of the Xerus airframe? My money is on Burt Rutan.
The EZ-Rocket is not the Xerus. (I believe that is what XCor is calling their planned suborbital craft.)
Their suborbital craft has not even begun construction, I believe. They're still in the engine development and testing phase. The EZ-Rocket is by no means a suborbital craft and never will be. It's merely a good testbed for some of their engines. (It happens to use two of their 400-lb thrust engines.)
So far, if you look at their site, they have only racked up 0.2 minutes of running time on their 1800lb engine design, which is likely what their suborbital craft will use.
In the US, 911 is the phone number you dial in an emergency.
There's always been a suspicion that Sept. 11 was chosen because of the fact that the US writes it that way. Symbolism and all that stuff...
Belkin makes cheapo WLAN cards, my dad has one. We used to have a Belkin AP, but it broke. Was a POS to begin with, crashed every week or so even after a firmware upgrade (used to crash daily).
What's so odd about a handset being approved in Finland? Perhaps the user is Finnish?