Sony is DEAD to me. I will NEVER buy another product with their name on it. There are just too many other companies out there that "get it". I hope HD-DVD wins out over BLUE-RAY, cause I won't have anything to do with BLUE-RAY so long as Sony's name is on it.
I owned one of those machines. They actually did give a good picture, as good as the laser disks (now would you consider laser video disks a flop today?) The only problem was that the disks were fragile and prone to skip after many playings. Also you had to replace the stylus in the machine after a while (I didn't have mine long enough to have to do this... the format went bust first). The disks sold for a fraction of what laser disks and vhs tapes went for (Kmart and Walmart hadn't yet discovered home video). So I owned TWO failed video formats, CED and Laserdisk. (Anybody know how to fix a broken Sony laserdisk player with a stuck disk tray so I can copy the rest of my collection to DVD-R ?)
The ia32 / x86 dates back further than the 8086/8088. These processors were built on top of the 8080/8085, and will actually RUN 8080/8085 code that has been re-assembled for the 8086 (with a little help of a translator). The register set of the 8086 is backward compatible with the 8080 and so is the instruction set. That is for every 8080 instruction there is an similar 8086 instruction or sequence of instructions that can be directly substituted.
Even the 8080 was built on top of an older structure. The 8080 is backward compatible with the older 8008 cpu and will run 8008 code that has been re-assembled. In this case the instruction set is IDENTICAL, only the machine op-codes have been changed. More registers were added, and the address space expanded, but otherwise the two chips are brothers.
So... you can actually take an 8008 assembly language progaram and re-build it to run on the Pentium4 as the 8008 is a subset of the P4!
Prices for uranium have been low for a while so many mines were shut down. That's changing. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/business/28urani um.html So the US has domestic sources for uranium, just they have been shut down waiting for the prices to rise so money could be made.
If you do any embedded work, knowledge of assembler will come in handy. Some low cost debugging tools do not support source debugging and you have to look at your breakpoints in machine (assembler) code.
Also the day will come when a bit of code looks like it should work but doesn't because the compiler screwed up and optimized your logic out of existance. THEN you need to be able to compare the generated machine (assembler) code against your source code to find the problem. This has happened to me several times (AVR-GCC).
We have had satellites orbiting our planet outside the atmosphere for over half a century now. Most have been solar powered. Measurement of the output of those solar panels would indicate if there has been any increase in solar output.
Do that and watch the number of mortgage forecloses go up a few thousand percent as many white collar workers can no longer afford their homes. The housing market will die out putting builders out of work as a 10 year backlog of unsold homes hits the market with no takers. Auto workers will go out of work as the market for luxury cars and suv's dries up (but think of how this will help global warming!). Maybe in a few years things will level out, but the president that presides of this disaster will go down in history right next to Herbert Hoover.
But the BBC shouldn't worry. What gets posted to youtube is in a crappy highly compressed format that looks like garbage compared to a DVD. After seeing something I like on youtube, I'd rather buy the DVD than keep the piss-poor a/v file from youtube.
While having two or more drives in a system would reduce the MTBF on the system as a whole, a raid array still makes sense as cheap insurance. You still should back things up because data loss doesn't only happen due to disk failure, there is the human error element too! As soon as one drive in a raid1 array fails, you should replace BOTH drives at once, first rebuilding the array after replacing the bad drive, and again after replacing the other original drive. Of course at the time you have a failure the exact same make/model hard disks you had in the array are probably no longer available. Just buy something as large or larger and create partitions as large or larger than on the original. When you are done replacing both drives, everything will be identical again.
Having a hot spare drive in a raid1 array isn't the best idea as the spare is aging at the same rate as the two in use. If the hot spare was kept totally powered down until needed this might make sense (but then it's not really a 'HOT' spare is it?).
The real advantage of raid isn't protection from data loss (backups are the only way to do that), but rather a good way to recover from the loss of a drive with minimal down time while the data is being restored (since rebuilding the array can sometimes be done while the array is in use, though I'd rather bring the system down to level 1 while rebuilding).
I'm sure an increase in bus speed is in the works. The 200mhz speed represents a DDR speed of 400mhz, and until DDR2 this was the limit. DDR2 should offer a higher native bus speed and AMD will probably get this to work by the time the 65nm parts go mainstream. We can hope.
The citizen using the radar gun probably did NOT have an FCC license to operate the thing. It's a TRANSMITTER and all transmitters need a license. (There once was a case where speeding tickets were thrown out of court because the POLICE didn't have a license to operate the radar! Maybe the speeder in that case worked for the FCC?)
I'd take the issue of a cop going above the speed limit with a grain of salt, unless the cop was driving like he was drunk or on drugs. We should hold the police to a higher standard of behavior, but at the same time expect that they have been trained to drive safely and remain in control of their vehicles, even at higher speeds. Cops that have not had such training shouldn't be driving in a chase situation.
So, the guys at Mackerelvision respond... DRM "increases" value for the consumer. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Up is down. Black is white. ....And they get killed at the next Zebra crossing.
The First thing I did when setting up my NetGear router was to change the password. I don't know if I can change the login name (need to check that). I also added blocks to certain web sites to keep the kids out of trouble.
Things like this make me want to build my own router with an old computer running Linux or 'BSD. Only problem would be getting Roaring Penguin to work with Bellsouth (AT&T!) dsl. (G-D PPPOE)!) Except that the Netgear box uses SO much less power than an old computer. Anybody know of a good and cheap low power platform to build a Linux router on? (no soldering required!)
Hopefully Linux will handle this correctly if you have the latest kernel or init scripts installed and have your timezone location set correctly. M$ will use this as an excuse to force everyone to upgrade to Vista!
Guess what? VGA == RGB (almost). Now component video is Y+(B-Y)+(R-Y) or just the demodulated but un-dematrixed version of S-Video. S-video is Y + ((B-Y)+(R-Y)+subcarrier)). S-video simply transmits the color subcarrier on its' own wire so you don't need a comb filter to pull it out of the Y signal. This also removes any limits on the bandwidth of the Y signal. With both component video and S-video the monitor must still go though the de-matrix process to generate good old RGB to display the image. So why not just SEND the monitor the RGB in the first place! In other words, what the hell is wrong with VGA! (Note that VGA != RGB since true RGB puts composite sync onto the G signal which must be extracted, while VGA uses two more wires to send the vertical and horizontal sync over. Both S-video and component video also put composite sync onto the Y signal).
If Apple were to make an iPod with a user interchangeable flash card such as a compact flash cartridge or a Memory stick the limitations of how much flash the unit held would be gone. Filled up your flash?, just remove it and plug in a new one. (Gee,which memory stick did I put that podcast on?). They'd have to put some flash in the unit soldered to the circuit board to hold the OS and user settings, only the music would be on the interchangeable flash. This would allow an infinite amount of storage, though not all on line at once. Plus as denser devices become available, just plug them in for an instant upgrade (Nah, Apple wouldn't like THAT).
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because when they come up for re-election I'm voting for the other guy!
PS: I live in the 'sunshine state' and I'm pissed!
PPS: Common IBM, show some backbone and lobby back!
Sony is DEAD to me. I will NEVER buy another product with their name on it.
There are just too many other companies out there that "get it".
I hope HD-DVD wins out over BLUE-RAY, cause I won't have anything
to do with BLUE-RAY so long as Sony's name is on it.
I owned one of those machines. They actually did give a good picture, as good as the laser disks
(now would you consider laser video disks a flop today?) The only problem was that the disks were fragile and prone to skip after many playings. Also you had to replace the stylus in the machine after a while (I didn't have mine long enough to have to do this... the format went bust first). The disks sold for a fraction of what laser disks and vhs tapes went for (Kmart and Walmart hadn't yet discovered home video).
So I owned TWO failed video formats, CED and Laserdisk. (Anybody know how to fix a broken Sony laserdisk player with a stuck disk tray so I can copy the rest of my collection to DVD-R ?)
The ia32 / x86 dates back further than the 8086/8088. These processors were built
on top of the 8080/8085, and will actually RUN 8080/8085 code that has been re-assembled
for the 8086 (with a little help of a translator). The register set of the 8086 is
backward compatible with the 8080 and so is the instruction set. That is for every
8080 instruction there is an similar 8086 instruction or sequence of instructions that can
be directly substituted.
Even the 8080 was built on top of an older structure. The 8080 is backward compatible with
the older 8008 cpu and will run 8008 code that has been re-assembled. In this case the
instruction set is IDENTICAL, only the machine op-codes have been changed. More registers
were added, and the address space expanded, but otherwise the two chips are brothers.
So... you can actually take an 8008 assembly language progaram and re-build it to run on
the Pentium4 as the 8008 is a subset of the P4!
Prices for uranium have been low for a while so many mines were shut down.i um.html
That's changing. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/business/28uran
So the US has domestic sources for uranium, just they have been shut down
waiting for the prices to rise so money could be made.
If you do any embedded work, knowledge of assembler will come in handy.
Some low cost debugging tools do not support source debugging and you
have to look at your breakpoints in machine (assembler) code.
Also the day will come when a bit of code looks like it should work but
doesn't because the compiler screwed up and optimized your logic out of
existance. THEN you need to be able to compare the generated machine (assembler)
code against your source code to find the problem. This has happened to me
several times (AVR-GCC).
I wrote code using linked lists back in the early '90's.
I saw other code with linked lists as far back as the
late '70's at D.E.C. (digital).
Why doesn't this A.O. try an patent the wheel barrow?
I had a sata connector on my asus mb break off when I pulled a drive out
and it hit the cable of another drive and broke off the mb connector.
We have had satellites orbiting our planet outside the atmosphere for over half a century now. Most have been solar powered. Measurement of the output of those solar panels would indicate if there has been any increase in solar output.
"Max Headroom"
Do that and watch the number of mortgage forecloses go up a few thousand percent as many white collar workers can no longer afford their homes. The housing market will die out putting builders out of work as a 10 year backlog of unsold homes hits the market with no takers. Auto workers will go out of work as the market for luxury cars and suv's dries up (but think of how this will help global warming!). Maybe in a few years things will level out, but the president that presides of this disaster will go down in history right next to Herbert Hoover.
The new software still won't be able to avoid sand-traps, though."
Guess they won't be playing much golf.
Hey captain do we have a sextant on this tub?
Yes, but she's ah, occupied at the moment.
On Linux use youtube-dl (python script)
But the BBC shouldn't worry. What gets posted to youtube is in a crappy
highly compressed format that looks like garbage compared to a DVD. After
seeing something I like on youtube, I'd rather buy the DVD than keep the
piss-poor a/v file from youtube.
While having two or more drives in a system would reduce the MTBF on the system as a whole, a raid array still makes sense as cheap insurance. You still should back things up because data loss doesn't only happen due to disk failure, there is the human error element too! As soon as one drive in a raid1 array fails, you should replace BOTH drives at once, first rebuilding the array after replacing the bad drive, and again after replacing the other original drive. Of course at the time you have a failure the exact same make/model hard disks you had in the array are probably no longer available. Just buy something as large or larger and create partitions as large or larger than on the original. When you are done replacing both drives, everything will be identical again.
Having a hot spare drive in a raid1 array isn't the best idea as the spare is aging at the same rate as the two in use. If the hot spare was kept totally powered down until needed this might make sense (but then it's not really a 'HOT' spare is it?).
The real advantage of raid isn't protection from data loss (backups are the only way to do that), but rather a good way to recover from the loss of a drive with minimal down time while the data is being restored (since rebuilding the array can sometimes be done while the array is in use, though I'd rather bring the system down to level 1 while rebuilding).
Also ovens, microwaves, garage door openers, maybe ceiling fans.
I'm sure an increase in bus speed is in the works.
The 200mhz speed represents a DDR speed of 400mhz, and until DDR2
this was the limit. DDR2 should offer a higher native bus speed
and AMD will probably get this to work by the time the 65nm parts
go mainstream. We can hope.
More like his role in "Real Genius" I think.
The citizen using the radar gun probably did NOT have an FCC license to operate the thing.
It's a TRANSMITTER and all transmitters need a license. (There once was a case where speeding tickets were thrown out of court because the POLICE didn't have a license to operate the radar!
Maybe the speeder in that case worked for the FCC?)
I'd take the issue of a cop going above the speed limit with a grain of salt, unless the cop
was driving like he was drunk or on drugs. We should hold the police to a higher standard of behavior, but at the same time expect that they have been trained to drive safely and remain in control of their vehicles, even at higher speeds. Cops that have not had such training shouldn't be driving in a chase situation.
So, the guys at Mackerelvision respond... DRM "increases" value for the consumer. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Up is down. Black is white. ....And they get killed at the next Zebra crossing.
The First thing I did when setting up my NetGear router was to change the password.
I don't know if I can change the login name (need to check that).
I also added blocks to certain web sites to keep the kids out of trouble.
Things like this make me want to build my own router with an old computer running Linux or
'BSD. Only problem would be getting Roaring Penguin to work with Bellsouth (AT&T!) dsl.
(G-D PPPOE)!) Except that the Netgear box uses SO much less power than an old computer.
Anybody know of a good and cheap low power platform to build a Linux router on?
(no soldering required!)
Hopefully Linux will handle this correctly if you have the latest
kernel or init scripts installed and have your timezone location set
correctly. M$ will use this as an excuse to force everyone to upgrade
to Vista!
Guess what? VGA == RGB (almost). Now component video is Y+(B-Y)+(R-Y) or just the demodulated but un-dematrixed version of S-Video. S-video is Y + ((B-Y)+(R-Y)+subcarrier)). S-video simply transmits the color subcarrier on its' own wire so you don't need a comb filter to pull it out of the Y signal. This also removes any limits on the bandwidth of the Y signal. With both component video and S-video the monitor must still go though the de-matrix process to generate good old RGB to display the image. So why not just SEND the monitor the RGB in the first place!
In other words, what the hell is wrong with VGA! (Note that VGA != RGB since true RGB puts composite sync onto the G signal which must be extracted, while VGA uses two more wires to send the vertical and horizontal sync over. Both S-video and component video also put composite sync onto the Y signal).
Let's see.... Galileo comes to mind when I think of the
of how the Church was intolerant during the dark ages
and during its' end.
If Apple were to make an iPod with a user interchangeable flash card such as a
compact flash cartridge or a Memory stick the limitations of how much flash the unit held would be gone. Filled up your flash?, just remove it and plug in a new one. (Gee,which memory stick did I put that podcast on?). They'd have to put some flash in the unit soldered to the circuit board to hold the OS and user settings, only the music would be on the interchangeable flash. This would allow an infinite amount of storage, though not all on line at once. Plus as denser devices become available, just plug them in for an instant upgrade (Nah, Apple wouldn't like THAT).