You have it all wrong. Criticism of Linus is not ammo for MS (bindacceptance of anything Linus says or does, could).
What MS could and probably WILL use agaisnt the FOSS community, is Linus' criticism of reverse engineering of proprietary protocols. MS can now say "Even Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, condemns reverse engineering of our file formats." They could use Linus' quotes in court, in PR, etc. Linus handed MS a great Christmas present ahead of time.
I think you are just speculating. We don't know what would be the flux or the energy (MeV) of these gamma rays, because we are talking of an event that could happen sometimes in the future. Depending on the flux/concentration of the rays, a living at a certain depth under the water might save you.
With regards to the event the article speculates about, we can not be certain ALL acquatic life was wiped out. It is true that the great majority of life is to be found in the shallow layers of water, but SOME species live much deeper. Case in point are the anaerobic bacteria living near H2S "springs" in the deepest parts of ocean beds. These microbes, btw. are considered to be the oldest species in existence. They might have even survived the runaway ice age considered to have kiled off... ok, I am going offtopic. Point is, we don't know anything with certainty about surviving a gamma burst situation. The only thing that we know FOR SURE, and I would be really surprised if you disagreed with me on this, is that we would have a greater likelyhood of surviving if we were in the undergrounds under a 100 story skyscraper. I calculate that, in such a case, we would find about 20-30 m of concrete and iron over our head, which is roughly equivalent to 500-1000 m of water, as for gamma ray shielding. Please this graph for reference.
As for the earth not being a healthy place: you might not like it, but humans are the worst (or best?) kind of rats when it comes to surviving. No wonder we pollute this planet like there's no tomorrow, when we know that we will survive even if we will have to resort to bio-engineered crops, special acquafarms, greenhouses etc. Sure, many will die off, and probably almost all species, but humanity as a whole will go on, albeit a bit "diminished".
Anyway, you may find out that we agree more than it would seem.
I imagine the gamma rays would have problems going through several layers of iron and concrete, and such buildings do exist, with peaople in them. It IS conceivable that someone would survive a gamma burst. In that sense, that plot device you mention, while it almost complelled me to go buy the book you mention, doesn't seem to work. A gamma burst would not be able to completely wipe out a civilization, at least not any house-dwelling civ.
About a monthagoI was all fired up to buy a Mac Mini. However, since I do a lot of embedded development (microcontrollers and FPGAs), the need for a rock-solid serial and parallel ports is mandatory. Most USB to rs232 and USB to parallel converters are not good enough for the JTAG probes and dev boards I need to work with.
Therefore, I didn't buy the Mac Mini. However, I have seriously started looking at an EPIA based system with the Nehemiah core. Solid performance, and all my devtools are supported. Apple could have had my money, but they preferred to be snotty about these "old" ports.
Interestingly enough, my Olivetti M10 has always been capable of 20 hours work from 4 AA zinc-carbon batteries.
And while you might think I am justkidding, I say to hell with increased CPU performance, when they are not capable of making laptops that would last longer from a single recharge. They should be called lap-burners, with all that heat they dissipate. You'd think that, with increased performance per CPU cycle, some laptop manufacturer would havedivided the CPU frequency, to save energy at the expense of performance - often NOT the main property of a laptop.
Gaming is the only real reason to stay away from Macs.
Not only. The great majority (all?) EDA tools (electronic design automation) and embedded programming/management/in-circuit emulators and programmers are for Win32. Plus, typically, on a Mac you don't have a parallel and a serial port, which are often used by these tools (expecially JTAG-based). A USB-to-serial or USB-to-palallel device often doesn't work well.
And these are EXACTLY the reasons I curbed my urge to get me a Mac Mini.
Wow, shit, dude, you're really messed up. I won't even go into your argument (you don't seem to know the first thing about embedded design anyway), but you are the quintessential self-righteous geek.
Try to relax a little, make friends, maybe even a girlfriend. Chill out.
While I agree with the general point your post is trying to make, why does everybody put this issue as a Gnome vs. KDE thing? IT IS NOT! Slackware will still support xfce, fvwm, blackbox and KDE. And maybe some more than that.
So, it's not like Pat decided Gnome was a mess and KDE was not, he decided all other windowing managers were not a mess - except Gnome - to build.
That's true, Flash RAM has typically a write cycle rate of 10.000 to 10E6. Although nowadays you will have a hard time finding Flash RAM that can take less than 100.000 cycles.
Now, let's take an average Flash-based MP3 player: 512 MB, which is about 8 hours of music. If you "recharge" that unit 10.000 times (even if we suppose that you NEVER listen to a single song more than once) that's 80.000 hours of listening.
If you listen to music 24 hours a day, you will be able to listen to music for 9 years 1 month and 17 days approximately, non-stop.
This, of course, supposing this MP3 player got the crappiest Flash RAM. If, most likely, it has something a bit more contemporary, you'll be listening to music for over 90 years continually.
Interesting, actually. I have in mind to make a fanless computer with a VIA EPIA-based mini ITX mobo and a CF for hard drive. I hope the whole thing will be smaller than your toaster.
The battery type. Many of the existing MP3 players use proprietary accumulators. It becomes a problem once you have to replace them, which you certainly will, as there is a limited number of times you can recharge them.
That's why, for me, a very important information is whether an MP3 player uses normal AA or AAA batteries. If it does, it's a winner, because I know I will always be able to find *cheap* Li-ion replacements for my gadget.
They can be software based MP3 players, yes, but that sofware doesn't need any OS. I have seen several Atmel AVR-based projects of MP3 players. None of them needed any OS.
You know, in a way I tend to agree with MS here, in the sense that I always thought moving parts are a bad thing for mobile entertainment devices. Idealy, if it is possible, I'd like my MP3 player to be fully solid state tech. Less power consumption, more rugged, and perhaps higher data density.
Of course, when the price factors in he equation, HD starts to look much more attractive...
Not only that, but it has been noted that, in areas where the ratio of men VS. women is expecially high, like in some parts of India, there is a heightened agressiveness and hence, lower security, higher violent crime rates etc.
I am puzzled why would they support Itanium and not support SPARC. You might have your political ideas about Sun, but the fact still is that SPARC is many times more poplular CPU than Itanium. In fact, I'd go as far as to state that Itanium is, for all intents and purposes, stillborn. SPARC, on the other hand, seems to have some juice in it, expecially with Niagara and the more advanced Fujitsu cores.
I don't see logic in such choice. I mean, even for testing: most everyone has a SPARC-based workstation laying around, while only a handful possess an Itanium-based anything. It must be easier to develop for and test SPARC-based builds./me shakes head in disbelief
For heaven's sake, when did Slashdot become Politically Correct (TM)?
Call them what they are, terrorists. Or if "terrorists" is not acceptable, then how about "necromancers festering on people's grief and death"? That's pretty accurate.
Is this what I have heard of called as Alpha Reburst? I have seen a pretty detaiiled documentary about it. It's the greatest energy transition phenomenon in cosmos.
While I agree with most all you said, I very strongly disagree with RPM packager,
The package and patch management infrastructure of HP-UX is par none. I should know, as my job has been for a long time, package management, patch management for Linux, Solaris and HP-UX. Nowhere did I experience the ease of managing complex patch dependancies, as in HP-UX.
Slashdot Mirror
You have it all wrong. Criticism of Linus is not ammo for MS (bindacceptance of anything Linus says or does, could).
What MS could and probably WILL use agaisnt the FOSS community, is Linus' criticism of reverse engineering of proprietary protocols. MS can now say "Even Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, condemns reverse engineering of our file formats." They could use Linus' quotes in court, in PR, etc. Linus handed MS a great Christmas present ahead of time.
I think you are just speculating. We don't know what would be the flux or the energy (MeV) of these gamma rays, because we are talking of an event that could happen sometimes in the future. Depending on the flux/concentration of the rays, a living at a certain depth under the water might save you.
With regards to the event the article speculates about, we can not be certain ALL acquatic life was wiped out. It is true that the great majority of life is to be found in the shallow layers of water, but SOME species live much deeper. Case in point are the anaerobic bacteria living near H2S "springs" in the deepest parts of ocean beds. These microbes, btw. are considered to be the oldest species in existence. They might have even survived the runaway ice age considered to have kiled off... ok, I am going offtopic. Point is, we don't know anything with certainty about surviving a gamma burst situation. The only thing that we know FOR SURE, and I would be really surprised if you disagreed with me on this, is that we would have a greater likelyhood of surviving if we were in the undergrounds under a 100 story skyscraper. I calculate that, in such a case, we would find about 20-30 m of concrete and iron over our head, which is roughly equivalent to 500-1000 m of water, as for gamma ray shielding. Please this graph for reference.
As for the earth not being a healthy place: you might not like it, but humans are the worst (or best?) kind of rats when it comes to surviving. No wonder we pollute this planet like there's no tomorrow, when we know that we will survive even if we will have to resort to bio-engineered crops, special acquafarms, greenhouses etc. Sure, many will die off, and probably almost all species, but humanity as a whole will go on, albeit a bit "diminished".
Anyway, you may find out that we agree more than it would seem.
I imagine the gamma rays would have problems going through several layers of iron and concrete, and such buildings do exist, with peaople in them. It IS conceivable that someone would survive a gamma burst. In that sense, that plot device you mention, while it almost complelled me to go buy the book you mention, doesn't seem to work. A gamma burst would not be able to completely wipe out a civilization, at least not any house-dwelling civ.
What do you think?
About a monthagoI was all fired up to buy a Mac Mini. However, since I do a lot of embedded development (microcontrollers and FPGAs), the need for a rock-solid serial and parallel ports is mandatory. Most USB to rs232 and USB to parallel converters are not good enough for the JTAG probes and dev boards I need to work with.
Therefore, I didn't buy the Mac Mini. However, I have seriously started looking at an EPIA based system with the Nehemiah core. Solid performance, and all my devtools are supported. Apple could have had my money, but they preferred to be snotty about these "old" ports.
Interestingly enough, my Olivetti M10 has always been capable of 20 hours work from 4 AA zinc-carbon batteries.
And while you might think I am justkidding, I say to hell with increased CPU performance, when they are not capable of making laptops that would last longer from a single recharge. They should be called lap-burners, with all that heat they dissipate. You'd think that, with increased performance per CPU cycle, some laptop manufacturer would havedivided the CPU frequency, to save energy at the expense of performance - often NOT the main property of a laptop.
Gaming is the only real reason to stay away from Macs.
Not only. The great majority (all?) EDA tools (electronic design automation) and embedded programming/management/in-circuit emulators and programmers are for Win32. Plus, typically, on a Mac you don't have a parallel and a serial port, which are often used by these tools (expecially JTAG-based). A USB-to-serial or USB-to-palallel device often doesn't work well.
And these are EXACTLY the reasons I curbed my urge to get me a Mac Mini.
Wow, shit, dude, you're really messed up. I won't even go into your argument (you don't seem to know the first thing about embedded design anyway), but you are the quintessential self-righteous geek.
Try to relax a little, make friends, maybe even a girlfriend. Chill out.
While I agree with the general point your post is trying to make, why does everybody put this issue as a Gnome vs. KDE thing? IT IS NOT! Slackware will still support xfce, fvwm, blackbox and KDE. And maybe some more than that.
So, it's not like Pat decided Gnome was a mess and KDE was not, he decided all other windowing managers were not a mess - except Gnome - to build.
That's true, Flash RAM has typically a write cycle rate of 10.000 to 10E6. Although nowadays you will have a hard time finding Flash RAM that can take less than 100.000 cycles.
Now, let's take an average Flash-based MP3 player: 512 MB, which is about 8 hours of music. If you "recharge" that unit 10.000 times (even if we suppose that you NEVER listen to a single song more than once) that's 80.000 hours of listening.
If you listen to music 24 hours a day, you will be able to listen to music for 9 years 1 month and 17 days approximately, non-stop.
This, of course, supposing this MP3 player got the crappiest Flash RAM. If, most likely, it has something a bit more contemporary, you'll be listening to music for over 90 years continually.
Interesting, actually. I have in mind to make a fanless computer with a VIA EPIA-based mini ITX mobo and a CF for hard drive. I hope the whole thing will be smaller than your toaster.
The battery type. Many of the existing MP3 players use proprietary accumulators. It becomes a problem once you have to replace them, which you certainly will, as there is a limited number of times you can recharge them.
That's why, for me, a very important information is whether an MP3 player uses normal AA or AAA batteries. If it does, it's a winner, because I know I will always be able to find *cheap* Li-ion replacements for my gadget.
And I didn't say the HD-based stuff is not tough, I just said I think with solid state tech, it would be tougher. See? Comparative form.
P4 heater jokes are still fair game with me.
They can be software based MP3 players, yes, but that sofware doesn't need any OS. I have seen several Atmel AVR-based projects of MP3 players. None of them needed any OS.
You know, in a way I tend to agree with MS here, in the sense that I always thought moving parts are a bad thing for mobile entertainment devices. Idealy, if it is possible, I'd like my MP3 player to be fully solid state tech. Less power consumption, more rugged, and perhaps higher data density.
Of course, when the price factors in he equation, HD starts to look much more attractive...
why isn't there a Linux mp3 player?
Maybe because... an MP3 player doesn't NEED a freaking OS?
Seriously, with these mindless Linux plugs you guys just support the "Does your toaster run Linux?"-jokes, and heavens know we are fed up with them.
Not only that, but it has been noted that, in areas where the ratio of men VS. women is expecially high, like in some parts of India, there is a heightened agressiveness and hence, lower security, higher violent crime rates etc.
Parent is currently moderated as "Interesting"!
I am puzzled why would they support Itanium and not support SPARC. You might have your political ideas about Sun, but the fact still is that SPARC is many times more poplular CPU than Itanium. In fact, I'd go as far as to state that Itanium is, for all intents and purposes, stillborn. SPARC, on the other hand, seems to have some juice in it, expecially with Niagara and the more advanced Fujitsu cores.
/me shakes head in disbelief
I don't see logic in such choice. I mean, even for testing: most everyone has a SPARC-based workstation laying around, while only a handful possess an Itanium-based anything. It must be easier to develop for and test SPARC-based builds.
For heaven's sake, when did Slashdot become Politically Correct (TM)?
Call them what they are, terrorists. Or if "terrorists" is not acceptable, then how about "necromancers festering on people's grief and death"? That's pretty accurate.
Anyway.. CLIs make me most productive 'cause of the lack of distraction.
Three letters: IRC
Is this what I have heard of called as Alpha Reburst? I have seen a pretty detaiiled documentary about it. It's the greatest energy transition phenomenon in cosmos.
ROFL!
Please, tell me this was a smart joke.
Talking of which: I kinda lost track (no pun intended) of the mars rovers. Are now they stuck, are the solar cells clogged with dust?
Somehow, part of me hopes at least one of them still crawls about on the red planet.
While I agree with most all you said, I very strongly disagree with RPM packager,
The package and patch management infrastructure of HP-UX is par none. I should know, as my job has been for a long time, package management, patch management for Linux, Solaris and HP-UX. Nowhere did I experience the ease of managing complex patch dependancies, as in HP-UX.