"How this magnetic brake works (Score:4, Interesting)"
Very, very informative -- you have actual hard-to-find knowledge and you are sharing it without arrogance and without parochial agenda. Thank you, Animats.
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Interestingly, if you Google "non-linear magnetic steel," you get exactly one entry (and if you Google "nonlinear magnetic steel," you get zero -- oddly).
That entry is precisely the reference you made to the simulation site.
So I have been thwarted in understanding what "non-linear magnetic steel" is.
Look...If you really want to be able to go to any web browser and use Office, just set up GoToMyPC, LogMeIn, or any of those web services that allow you to remote control your computer from a browser with minimum hassle. The performance is fine, you have access to all your files, security is very good, etc.
"A few vocal customers [whiners] are saying the Nano is more susceptible to scratching," Apple's Dowling says. "But we've received very few reports from consumers [la la la la we can't hear you], and we do not believe it's a widespread issue [we can make it go away by jawboning]."
The Nano is made with "the same high-quality polycarbonate plastic [fine Corinthian leather]" used for other iPods. "If customers are concerned about scratching," he says, "they should use one of the many cases that are now becoming available [cover up the damage]."
It seems these may be just as much what is NOT next for Apple as what may be next for Apple. These either exist (ipod phone -- Apple/Motorola) or they are things that Jobs actively claims to detest (e.g. a media player).
Since the guy probably isn't working from knowledge, not wanting to get his ass sued, these are just random musings of someone that once had inside knowledge and draws nicely.
Mod parent up. This is the only intelligent comment on the 3dsolar display. Let's have some RTFA and critical thinking here, people.
Careful reading will show that 3dsolar is an egregious hype engine and that their display is NOT 3d, but rather a virtual display that floats in midair. As parent says, it seems very similar to the helios display in effect, although the technology may be different. I'm extremely skeptical that this is anything but conceptware.
...or we're going to x-ray lithography immediately if not sooner to stay on the IC shrinkage curve... or we're going to need GaAs to meet IC speed requirements across the board.
I'm sure there will come a day when there will be large applications that need a different infrastructure from the Web, but why will the Web go away as opposed to co-exit?
Now if Microsoft controlled the Web, then we could look forward to being pushed into more capability than we need as soon as possible.
Why are you making stuff up? Or are you learning about image processing from Cliff Claven at Cheers?
Take a look at the background section of US Patent 6771837 for some actual facts. Here is a non-mathematical excerpt if you find math tiresome:
"Image rescaling or image resizing is a frequently required function in digital image processing systems. This function utilizes digital filtering of input picture elements (pixels) to generate output pixels. Because the eye is sensitive to changes in signal phase, the most commonly used filters in image rescaling are linear phase Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filters. The rescaling process is achieved by varying the input signal sampling rate. More specifically, the sampling rate is increased in order to enlarge an image, or decreased in order to shrink an image."
Your apparent certainty is touching, but combining it with correctness would be more impressive.
This is simply mistaken. Indeed any zooming method has to invent pixels, but some pixels are just better than others. Besides, your psychovisual apparatus can be pleasantly fooled. Just zoom a small avi to full screen and slowly move backwards from the monitor. The artifacts become increasingly acceptable and it can be more pleasant to watch that way.
Additionally, compare today's LCD monitors to those of a few years ago that didn't use, say, Genesis chips, but used funky scaling methods to match resolutions with the raster. Zooming method does matter.
Also, I don't know what "guess and check logic" is. I think you made it up to sound clued-in.
1. Type a keyword (or several) into the google toolbar 2. hit alt-enter (shortcut to feeling lucky)
I've experimented with this method and the newer one and I find the older one to be much more useful. The new method is less apt to give you a wrong page, but the old method turns out to be outstandingly accurate.
The newer method never works with obscure websites, but the other one does very frequently. Try "cgnet" by both methods, for example.
Another advantage to the alt-enter method is that you can get to the right internal links in one click. Try "ford explorer" both ways.
BTW, the newer feature has been available since v2.0.113 (2004-07-30), so it's not exactly news.
I have to question your response to the light analogy. Suppose the bench-sitter is casting a shadow on something the owner of the light wants to see. Would you then say is stealing light?
This is all very complicated.
1. Stealing bandwidth suggests you are depriving someone of the use of that bandwidth (if they pay by the kB -- which is unlikely -- then it's theft of service, not theft of bandwidth).
2. Connection resources are perishable -- if they don't get used, they never will. So in that case it's more like dumpster-diving.
3. In fact, strictly speaking you are not using bandwidth per se. The analog bandwidth of the signal doesn't change with usage.
If you are stealing anything, you are stealing something like time slots on the wire. This will slow down another user's connection if they are queued for the wire and won't if they aren't (in the extreme case, suppose you're the only one using the AP).
The definition of "need" for the wire is slippery, because the effect will be to slow down their effective throughput, perhaps imperceptibly. If the pipe is hardly loaded or not at all, your presence is essentially irrelevant. Are you stealing power if you put a cup in a river that is serving a generator?
Now if you're really loading the wire, say uploading a file, then it moves in the direction of theft. Quantity is quality.
In most cases, I would say using someone's AP without their permission is more like trespassing. In the case of the library, which is a public institution, it is not even that.
This is an excellent tool for forgers, too. A forger, who otherwise might not know the correct stroke order of a signature he was trying to copy, could use this tool to find it out and improve his forgery.
Re:Hey, yet another way to make MREs more disgusti
on
Just Add, Umm, Water
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· Score: 1
Eventually SMTP protocols will be enhanced, but that activity is independent of other anti-spam activity in the meantime.
There's nothing wrong with monitoring outgoing traffic in the cable/DSL modem if the user has the option to control the blocking rules. All good (software) personal firewalls have this capability.
I like to know when some piece of commercial software suddenly decides to phone home. It's also potentially a good trojan warning.
This is actually a very good idea. It's the ISPs who choose which modems to use and their interests lie in reining back bandwidth usage, so they can put pressure on the modem manufacturers.
OK. Where's the real dirt?
on
Birth of the iPod
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· Score: 3, Interesting
There was some gossip in the article, but not enough. I'm sure there was more to his leaving than just not thinking the product would be successful.
It's excruciatingly unpleasant to work with Jobs; that's widely known.
By Andy Hertzfeld, on how he was inducted into the original Macintosh team:
... [Jobs] walked over to my desk, found the power cord to my Apple II, and gave it a sharp tug, pulling it out of the socket, causing my machine to lose power and the code I was working on to vanish. He unplugged my monitor and put it on top of the computer, and then picked both of them up and started walking away. "Come with me. I'm going to take you to your new desk."
Well, you're not exactly moving the ball with your mind. It's a bit of a hoax, although a very cool one. I had a chance to play it in San Francisco.
The game device reads your brain activity and your partner's and then "decides" how to move the ball based on the relative activity. The motive force is supplied by a motor in the table which is coupled to the ball, magnetically I think.
You can set up a "conference room" in Indiatimes Messenger that lets people from different networks communicate with each other. Of course, you are watching and you have to invite the participants specifically.
Speaking of literal translations... While literally correct, "shooting booth" is not the idiomatic translation of "Schiessbude." Native English speakers say "shooting gallery," or "shooting range."
One assumes that storage is allocated on the fly in all these systems, as opposed to giving each user an entire allocation at account origination time. Consequently, the players only have to increase storage on an actuarial basis.
However, Gmail encourages its users to approach e-mail in a new and storage-intensive way, i.e. to "never" delete messages and use search to recover them. The incumbents have standard user interfaces and are not attempting to change their users' usage paradigms. Thus, users of the incumbent systems won't be particularly apt to increase their storage requirements even if more storage is available.
This suggests that the incumbents are not dramatically increasing their costs by permitting larger e-mail storage and that the average Gmail user will have significantly higher storage requirements than users of the incumbent systems.
I also question the extent to which Gmail will become the primary account for people who currently use Yahoo Mail and Hotmail. People don't switch e-mail addresses lightly.
However good the Gmail paradigm may be, it's one of those things like power windows that you have to use to "grok." There's also a bit of a learning curve that might be enough to further discourage users who are perfectly happy where they are.
Microsoft will be no less able to stay up to date with patches than McAfee or anyone else. This will be a product that has its own revenue stream that depends directly on its efficacy. Microsoft will fund the updates to the level necessary to keep up.
Keeping the OS up to date -- unfortunately -- is not as important to their revenues.
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"How this magnetic brake works (Score:4, Interesting)"
Very, very informative -- you have actual hard-to-find knowledge and you are sharing it without arrogance and without parochial agenda. Thank you, Animats.
---
Interestingly, if you Google "non-linear magnetic steel," you get exactly one entry (and if you Google "nonlinear magnetic steel," you get zero -- oddly).
That entry is precisely the reference you made to the simulation site.
So I have been thwarted in understanding what "non-linear magnetic steel" is.
Can someone help?
SMS is text-only. You can't send a (graphical) barcode over SMS.
MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) permits graphics.
In addition to Smartmachine and Skidata, are the cell phone providers also going to get in on the gravy train?
Too many pigs at the trough.
What would be particularly interesting is to examine the movies it failed on and attempt to understand why.
Look...If you really want to be able to go to any web browser and use Office, just set up GoToMyPC, LogMeIn, or any of those web services that allow you to remote control your computer from a browser with minimum hassle. The performance is fine, you have access to all your files, security is very good, etc.
"A few vocal customers [whiners] are saying the Nano is more susceptible to scratching," Apple's Dowling says. "But we've received very few reports from consumers [la la la la we can't hear you], and we do not believe it's a widespread issue [we can make it go away by jawboning]."
The Nano is made with "the same high-quality polycarbonate plastic [fine Corinthian leather]" used for other iPods. "If customers are concerned about scratching," he says, "they should use one of the many cases that are now becoming available [cover up the damage]."
Since the guy probably isn't working from knowledge, not wanting to get his ass sued, these are just random musings of someone that once had inside knowledge and draws nicely.
Not a quality post at all.
Never assume malice when conspiracy will do.
Mod parent up. This is the only intelligent comment on the 3dsolar display. Let's have some RTFA and critical thinking here, people.
Careful reading will show that 3dsolar is an egregious hype engine and that their display is NOT 3d, but rather a virtual display that floats in midair. As parent says, it seems very similar to the helios display in effect, although the technology may be different. I'm extremely skeptical that this is anything but conceptware.
I'm sure there will come a day when there will be large applications that need a different infrastructure from the Web, but why will the Web go away as opposed to co-exit?
Now if Microsoft controlled the Web, then we could look forward to being pushed into more capability than we need as soon as possible.
Take a look at the background section of US Patent 6771837 for some actual facts. Here is a non-mathematical excerpt if you find math tiresome:
"Image rescaling or image resizing is a frequently required function in digital image processing systems. This function utilizes digital filtering of input picture elements (pixels) to generate output pixels. Because the eye is sensitive to changes in signal phase, the most commonly used filters in image rescaling are linear phase Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filters. The rescaling process is achieved by varying the input signal sampling rate. More specifically, the sampling rate is increased in order to enlarge an image, or decreased in order to shrink an image."
Your apparent certainty is touching, but combining it with correctness would be more impressive.
Additionally, compare today's LCD monitors to those of a few years ago that didn't use, say, Genesis chips, but used funky scaling methods to match resolutions with the raster. Zooming method does matter.
Also, I don't know what "guess and check logic" is. I think you made it up to sound clued-in.
1. Type a keyword (or several) into the google toolbar
2. hit alt-enter (shortcut to feeling lucky)
I've experimented with this method and the newer one and I find the older one to be much more useful. The new method is less apt to give you a wrong page, but the old method turns out to be outstandingly accurate.
The newer method never works with obscure websites, but the other one does very frequently. Try "cgnet" by both methods, for example.
Another advantage to the alt-enter method is that you can get to the right internal links in one click. Try "ford explorer" both ways.
BTW, the newer feature has been available since v2.0.113 (2004-07-30), so it's not exactly news.
Wonder how long it'll take for the graphics card manufacturers to glom onto the idea and kill this innovative company.
Of course, one of the entrenched guys could buy it, too.
I have to question your response to the light analogy. Suppose the bench-sitter is casting a shadow on something the owner of the light wants to see. Would you then say is stealing light?
This is all very complicated.
1. Stealing bandwidth suggests you are depriving someone of the use of that bandwidth (if they pay by the kB -- which is unlikely -- then it's theft of service, not theft of bandwidth).
2. Connection resources are perishable -- if they don't get used, they never will. So in that case it's more like dumpster-diving.
3. In fact, strictly speaking you are not using bandwidth per se. The analog bandwidth of the signal doesn't change with usage.
If you are stealing anything, you are stealing something like time slots on the wire. This will slow down another user's connection if they are queued for the wire and won't if they aren't (in the extreme case, suppose you're the only one using the AP).
The definition of "need" for the wire is slippery, because the effect will be to slow down their effective throughput, perhaps imperceptibly. If the pipe is hardly loaded or not at all, your presence is essentially irrelevant. Are you stealing power if you put a cup in a river that is serving a generator?
Now if you're really loading the wire, say uploading a file, then it moves in the direction of theft. Quantity is quality.
In most cases, I would say using someone's AP without their permission is more like trespassing. In the case of the library, which is a public institution, it is not even that.
This is an excellent tool for forgers, too. A forger, who otherwise might not know the correct stroke order of a signature he was trying to copy, could use this tool to find it out and improve his forgery.
Do you think they'll call them P-rations?
There's nothing wrong with monitoring outgoing traffic in the cable/DSL modem if the user has the option to control the blocking rules. All good (software) personal firewalls have this capability.
I like to know when some piece of commercial software suddenly decides to phone home. It's also potentially a good trojan warning.
This is actually a very good idea. It's the ISPs who choose which modems to use and their interests lie in reining back bandwidth usage, so they can put pressure on the modem manufacturers.
It's excruciatingly unpleasant to work with Jobs; that's widely known.
One of endless examples:
By Andy Hertzfeld, on how he was inducted into the original Macintosh team:
I'd like to know much more about the iPod story.
The game device reads your brain activity and your partner's and then "decides" how to move the ball based on the relative activity. The motive force is supplied by a motor in the table which is coupled to the ball, magnetically I think.
It's a simple download like the other services.
Speaking of literal translations ... While literally correct, "shooting booth" is not the idiomatic translation of "Schiessbude." Native English speakers say "shooting gallery," or "shooting range."
That's lovely, Cliff, but there's no word "rig" in French.
One assumes that storage is allocated on the fly in all these systems, as opposed to giving each user an entire allocation at account origination time. Consequently, the players only have to increase storage on an actuarial basis.
However, Gmail encourages its users to approach e-mail in a new and storage-intensive way, i.e. to "never" delete messages and use search to recover them. The incumbents have standard user interfaces and are not attempting to change their users' usage paradigms. Thus, users of the incumbent systems won't be particularly apt to increase their storage requirements even if more storage is available.
This suggests that the incumbents are not dramatically increasing their costs by permitting larger e-mail storage and that the average Gmail user will have significantly higher storage requirements than users of the incumbent systems.
I also question the extent to which Gmail will become the primary account for people who currently use Yahoo Mail and Hotmail. People don't switch e-mail addresses lightly.
However good the Gmail paradigm may be, it's one of those things like power windows that you have to use to "grok." There's also a bit of a learning curve that might be enough to further discourage users who are perfectly happy where they are.
Microsoft will be no less able to stay up to date with patches than McAfee or anyone else. This will be a product that has its own revenue stream that depends directly on its efficacy. Microsoft will fund the updates to the level necessary to keep up.
Keeping the OS up to date -- unfortunately -- is not as important to their revenues.
this can be plugged into a USB port.