Laugh all you want at the retro-ness of the word 'cyberspace', of course, but let me just say this: I was born in 1986, so during my childhood the internet grew with me. I only barely remember there being a time when the internet was not widely used.
Consequently, I essentially do think of the internet as a 'place', or least I imagine that an MRI scan would see the same area of my brain lighting up. And why not? It's infinitely more democratised, instantaneous and ubiquitous than any other prior communication medium.
Which, at least in my subconscious, makes me think of it as closer to real life and place than to '0s and 1s on wires and in computers' in the same way I think about real life itself as such, rather than 'matter and energy bumping around in a universe of space-time'.
I honestly do not know anyone who uses a Bluetooth headset regularly. I only make a handful of calls a day, lasting 3-4 minutes at most, so a Bluetooth headset would just be more trouble than it's worth.
In Unix/X parlance, the 'window manager' is distinct from, and higher-level than, the 'windowing system'. XFree86 and X.org are display servers like Wayland but have also taken over the job of being a windowing system. In contrast, examples of window managers are twm, openbox, compiz, etc.
Then again there's HDMI 1.0, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, then for cables there's Standard, Standard with Ethernet, High Speed, plus converter cables to/from DVI, DisplayPort, VGA, and then of course there's HDCP...
...It's always going to be confusing to 90% of people no matter what.
Addendum: with an Arduino you could do it even cheaper and you could build it this weekend, although it would involve more DIY software dev and result in less overall capability (with a Raspberry Pi and a tiny USB wifi module you could read RSS feeds or email, etc).
Arduino would be about $20; Longtech makes a cheap 128x64 LCD for $17, keyboard would be $10, and if you fabbed the case yourself for free, total cost would be about $50.
Perhaps you should try building one with a Raspberry Pi (once they're released)? A credit card-sized 700 MHz ARMv6 board with SD storage, USB, and it can run off a pair of AA's. You could connect a small cheap 128x64 monochrome LCD like this one from Sparkfun to the GPIO, hook up a keyboard, and run a minimal Debian distribution.
$25 for the Raspberry Pi, $40 or so for the LCD, $10 for the keyboard; throw another $25 in to order a 3D-printed plastic case, use an old 1 GB SD card....total cost would be around $100.
What a dumbass argument. You realise iOS is also built atop Unix, right? Please take a stock iOS device and show me how one can wget, curl, or any other commands you mentioned.
Remember when thin clients were all the rage, guys? Remember Bill Joy telling us the network is the computer? It was true!
Well, kinda...
As it turns out, internet access isn't ubiquitous, at least not yet. In the age of 4G smartphones and tablets we'd like to think it's ubiquitous, but you really only notice that it's not when you have a system like a Chrome OS laptop that literally does not function at all without a network connection.
Even if it were available all the time (airplanes, underground, in the wilderness) it's still not fast enough. And even if it were fast enough, presently we have to deal with usage caps.
Chrome OS is an idea way too far ahead of its time. Right now there's no reason to ditch native software that works perfectly well.
This isn't an either-or situation. The TSA's perpetrated a number of civil liberties violations, yes. On the other hand, some kind of free market libertarian fantasy should not come at the expense of public safety either.
The TSA needs to be re-imagined, but we shouldn't revert to the system we had before. But c'mon. A free market system has no incentive to improve in this kind of situation (oh, you died in a terrorist attack? Fine, go to some other airport next time!)
Lack of support for 20 year-old standard is usually just annoying as hell, but in this case it's actually caused the summary to be wrong. For a site that frequently discusses such topics as technology, math and language (for all of which Unicode is an important part—at least insofar as even being able to TALK about these subjects) there is absolutely no excuse for not doing Unicode.
As far as I'm concerned Slashdot ought to be able to render MathML too.
To most people, if you say "Amazon", all they think is "books"
This is absolutely not true anymore. In fact I would say it's basically the opposite now: the least tech-savvy people I know are unaware that Amazon used to only sell books.
Around 1971, could anyone have imagined this is where we would be in 2011? Having no ships of our own and hitching rides from the Ruskies' spacecraft originally designed in the 1960s?
AT&T U-Verse traffic is not included in the cap. Since video is by far one of the most bandwidth-intensive type of data online, essentially this is a cap on all services competing with U-Verse: iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, MLB.tv, you name it.
Get real. This is in no way, shape, or form, network neutrality.
This is pretty amazing, although as I write this it remains to be seen if the capsule re-enters correctly. If so, SpaceX will probably combine its next two missions into one. The first upcoming mission is to perform an ISS flyby, followed by a docking. If all goes well with today's mission (and I expect it will!) then the mission in spring 2011 will be an unmanned resupply mission to the ISS.
It's worth noting, though, that the Falcon 9 / Dragon platform is probably not going to be the one taking us to the moon or elsewhere outside of Earth orbit; it was designed to be cheap and fast to develop, which is exactly why SpaceX was able to fly this mission whilst Orion got cancelled. It would take some really heavy modification to even do a lunar flyby.
For now, though, it seems like exactly what we need. If these flights prove to be reliable and inexpensive, then the supply and personnel lines to the ISS are secured, and it'll probably pave the way for Bigelow's space station to launch in a couple years.
Slashdot Mirror
Japanese streets are narrow, but they don't allow on-street parking, so the full street is available for driving.
That's very wrong; it's not as universal in Japan as in the US, but parallel parking is still quite common.
than superbowl does its entire season
The Super Bowl lasts an entire season now?
Is 209 GB really that significant? 200k people means presumably that 209 GB is spread over many, many business-class connections.
Laugh all you want at the retro-ness of the word 'cyberspace', of course, but let me just say this: I was born in 1986, so during my childhood the internet grew with me. I only barely remember there being a time when the internet was not widely used. Consequently, I essentially do think of the internet as a 'place', or least I imagine that an MRI scan would see the same area of my brain lighting up. And why not? It's infinitely more democratised, instantaneous and ubiquitous than any other prior communication medium. Which, at least in my subconscious, makes me think of it as closer to real life and place than to '0s and 1s on wires and in computers' in the same way I think about real life itself as such, rather than 'matter and energy bumping around in a universe of space-time'.
I honestly do not know anyone who uses a Bluetooth headset regularly. I only make a handful of calls a day, lasting 3-4 minutes at most, so a Bluetooth headset would just be more trouble than it's worth.
D. The article makes reference to Ten Forward. Plus TNG was currently on the air at the time so it would have made the most sense.
In Unix/X parlance, the 'window manager' is distinct from, and higher-level than, the 'windowing system'. XFree86 and X.org are display servers like Wayland but have also taken over the job of being a windowing system. In contrast, examples of window managers are twm, openbox, compiz, etc.
It's already my new desktop
Then again there's HDMI 1.0, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, then for cables there's Standard, Standard with Ethernet, High Speed, plus converter cables to/from DVI, DisplayPort, VGA, and then of course there's HDCP...
...It's always going to be confusing to 90% of people no matter what.
Addendum: with an Arduino you could do it even cheaper and you could build it this weekend, although it would involve more DIY software dev and result in less overall capability (with a Raspberry Pi and a tiny USB wifi module you could read RSS feeds or email, etc).
Arduino would be about $20; Longtech makes a cheap 128x64 LCD for $17, keyboard would be $10, and if you fabbed the case yourself for free, total cost would be about $50.
Perhaps you should try building one with a Raspberry Pi (once they're released)? A credit card-sized 700 MHz ARMv6 board with SD storage, USB, and it can run off a pair of AA's. You could connect a small cheap 128x64 monochrome LCD like this one from Sparkfun to the GPIO, hook up a keyboard, and run a minimal Debian distribution.
$25 for the Raspberry Pi, $40 or so for the LCD, $10 for the keyboard; throw another $25 in to order a 3D-printed plastic case, use an old 1 GB SD card....total cost would be around $100.
This would explain the massive proliferation of companies whose sole business is murdering innocent civilians, right?
I guess you've never heard of Union Carbide, United Fruit, etc.
What a dumbass argument. You realise iOS is also built atop Unix, right? Please take a stock iOS device and show me how one can wget, curl, or any other commands you mentioned.
This does NOT fix images that are out of focus. This fixes motion blur. The two are entirely unrelated.
I would not trust the electric company with my refrigerator either
I hate to break it to you, but...
Remember when thin clients were all the rage, guys? Remember Bill Joy telling us the network is the computer? It was true!
Well, kinda...
As it turns out, internet access isn't ubiquitous, at least not yet. In the age of 4G smartphones and tablets we'd like to think it's ubiquitous, but you really only notice that it's not when you have a system like a Chrome OS laptop that literally does not function at all without a network connection.
Even if it were available all the time (airplanes, underground, in the wilderness) it's still not fast enough. And even if it were fast enough, presently we have to deal with usage caps.
Chrome OS is an idea way too far ahead of its time. Right now there's no reason to ditch native software that works perfectly well.
This isn't an either-or situation. The TSA's perpetrated a number of civil liberties violations, yes. On the other hand, some kind of free market libertarian fantasy should not come at the expense of public safety either.
The TSA needs to be re-imagined, but we shouldn't revert to the system we had before. But c'mon. A free market system has no incentive to improve in this kind of situation (oh, you died in a terrorist attack? Fine, go to some other airport next time!)
Lack of support for 20 year-old standard is usually just annoying as hell, but in this case it's actually caused the summary to be wrong. For a site that frequently discusses such topics as technology, math and language (for all of which Unicode is an important part—at least insofar as even being able to TALK about these subjects) there is absolutely no excuse for not doing Unicode.
As far as I'm concerned Slashdot ought to be able to render MathML too.
To most people, if you say "Amazon", all they think is "books"
This is absolutely not true anymore. In fact I would say it's basically the opposite now: the least tech-savvy people I know are unaware that Amazon used to only sell books.
Around 1971, could anyone have imagined this is where we would be in 2011? Having no ships of our own and hitching rides from the Ruskies' spacecraft originally designed in the 1960s?
AT&T U-Verse traffic is not included in the cap. Since video is by far one of the most bandwidth-intensive type of data online, essentially this is a cap on all services competing with U-Verse: iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, MLB.tv, you name it. Get real. This is in no way, shape, or form, network neutrality.
There is definitely not a 1440x900 BTO option for the current 13". You're thinking of the Macbook Air.
You've obviously never worked in IT support then.
Tell that to Dan Brown.
This is pretty amazing, although as I write this it remains to be seen if the capsule re-enters correctly. If so, SpaceX will probably combine its next two missions into one. The first upcoming mission is to perform an ISS flyby, followed by a docking. If all goes well with today's mission (and I expect it will!) then the mission in spring 2011 will be an unmanned resupply mission to the ISS. It's worth noting, though, that the Falcon 9 / Dragon platform is probably not going to be the one taking us to the moon or elsewhere outside of Earth orbit; it was designed to be cheap and fast to develop, which is exactly why SpaceX was able to fly this mission whilst Orion got cancelled. It would take some really heavy modification to even do a lunar flyby. For now, though, it seems like exactly what we need. If these flights prove to be reliable and inexpensive, then the supply and personnel lines to the ISS are secured, and it'll probably pave the way for Bigelow's space station to launch in a couple years.