Way back when, I saved up for a long long time to buy my first computer. However due to extraordinarily high expense of the Apple ][ I ended up buying an Atari 1200XL, basically an upgraded Atari 800.
I was always slightly jealous of my Apple-owning friends. They had these really cool magazines that came with software, some of the magazines even had disks inside of them! Their computers had disk drives, whereas mine had a hokeyed up tape drive since floppy drives were so expensive. Most of the time I'd spend hours typing in a program, finally get it to work, and then get yelled at to go to bed so would have to turn off the computer. Program lost. One of my friends even got published in one of the magazines for showing a GOSUB routine or something like that that allowed easy programming of text based adventures.
I was in 9th grade, so this would be 1981, and learning computers was a whole ton of fun. I only wish it were easier to get my son, now 12, interested in programming rather than just playing the games. I tried Kids Programming Language, but I fear that kids these days just don't have the patience for writing code one line at a time, pressing run to see if it works, and then tweaking the code repetitively until it works. After seeing Unreal Tournament or some modern game, it must seem a little hokey to type all this stuff in just to move an icon from one side of the screen to another, or add 2+2 etc.
My biggest joy was finally figuring out sprites on the Atari. After I figured that out I could finally make a graphical game. I think it was Craps or something lame.
Depending on the bike, this absolutely can be true. A 1000cc sportbike, like a GSXR1000 or Yamaha R1, is going to get 35 - 40 mpg, with significantly worse mileage when using lots of throttle. Your average 500 or 600 cc bike, however, will easily get 50 mpg when driven sensibly.
1. Have you ever been in NY City before? Saying that the Taxi and Police Car doesn't need to be that fast since they don't go that fast ignores the reality. A Taxi ride is generally a very fast, high acceleration game. The light turns green and it is a race to get through as many lights as possible before they all go red again. Many times it is a full on acceleration, pedal to the floor type event.
2. FL officers need vehicles that go 120 miles per hour, not miles per gallon.:-)
Just one correction, in the U.S. almost all street driven motorcycles are 4 strokes. One of the last two strokes we had was the Suzuki RD350. Anyway, due to emissions regulations we have not had many street legal two strokes in many years.
New motorcycles are being manufactured with catalytic converters to meet EU regulations. They are being sold here in the states with those converters in place. I am guessing here, but perhaps it is easier to design a motorcycle for both markets at once and keep the converter in place for the US with a corresponding bump in price (these are typically larger displacement, expensive bikes anyway) and marketability.
Average bike does 0 - 60 somewhere closer to 4 seconds. Your average sportbike does it in 3.2 seconds, with some (traction limited) getting closer to 2.9 seconds. Most motorcycle magazines stopped using the 0 - 60 because the difference between motorcycles were so small in that range.
The 1/4 mile is the current measurement for acceleration. Even a rather large Harley will do the 1/4 in 13 - 14 seconds. Most sport-tourers do it in 12 seconds, and your average sportbike will be anywhere from low 10s to 11s.
So a stock POS (6 cyl or 8 cyl) camaro is no freakin' comparison to a bike acceleration wise, and it won't get 30 mpg on a good day either unless it is downhill and downwind all the way to your destination. Try an *average* of city/highway and I remember the cars getting more like 22/26. The day a camaro can accelerate faster than just about any motorcycle in production (except a few of the smaller displacement ones) is the day that owner decided to dump a bunch of money into the engine.
The initial focus of laptops was portability so that you can do work, email or surfing the internet. All low power applications and ones where a high refresh rate is not a problem. I'd say that epaper would not make an awful laptop display for these purposes - at least once the technology is mature.
If you want to game or program & compile while on a laptop then you should accept the higher power requirements that a suitable display will require.
Tagging articles is something that I can only do from home, and when specifically allowing JavaScript for slashdot.org.
I am at work right now, and can't make any tags it due to our global JS settings. At home I usually block all JS, so I have to specifically remember to enable it. Honestly, though, all the funny tags are usually applied before I get around to the story.:-)
Really? I thought the "times" referred to multiplication. We used to say "two times two equals four", or "1 times 10 equals 10". So the previous example is consistent with that. A 10kg weight is 10 times as heavy as a 1kg weight in my book.
I don't think it is additive - e.g. you "add" the weight 9 more times to get to ten.
Re: your comments on kites being faster than windsurfers, you cannot make this claim without citing some sources. The current world record for a sail powered vessel is held by a windsurfer, after being held by a multi-hull for a few years, 48.7 knots.
Regardless, I think your comment was specifically made for upwind *and* downwind sailing and I am really interested in learning more about these kites. Generally speaking I think windsurfers can get closer to the wind, though not nearly as close as a proper sailboat with a keel. I know of some races where it is winner-take-all for all types of sailing vessels, including kites and windsurfers, and there is a great variation in performance depending on the wind direction, speed and course layout. I not found anything that says a kite can beat a formula board around a course, but with recent advances in both sports I'd love to be surprised!
p.s. check out the online videos for kite crashes. They can be quite dangerous, possibly more than windsurfing was when it first started out. They are not kind to untutored newbies apparently.
I couldn't wait to log in and make this same correction. Thanks Popeye.
On some sailing vessels "close hauled" is the most efficient, but only on vessels that sail faster than the wind, use apparent wind for most of their speed, and where "close hauled" describes how closely the sail is sheeted in, not absolute versus the wind direction. Windsurfers are a good example of a sailing vessel that sails fastest on a reach or broad-reach, but the apparent wind after it gets moving moves to a close hauled or close reach position, requiring the sailor to sheet in accordingly. But you would never see a tanker or large boat sailing in this fashion.
Your SUV argument is bullshit. Really. I live in the Northeast, and have in various states around here for the 25+ years I have been driving. *Even* if you live in Vermont, NH, Maine or upstate NY there is very little need for an SUV. There is maybe once per year, if that, that an Audi Quattro, Subaru AWD or anything else could not navigate with ease. All have ground clearance of 6+ inches, and you'd really need a dumping of 8+ inches *and* very poor planning in order not to make it home. In fact, most of these cars handle the snow better than SUVs due to their lighter weight and lower center of gravity. Take a look around hill country and you will see people managing quite well with used AWD cars - particularly the Subarus as they are cheap and seem to last forever.
I have lived in the lower Northeast, Mass and CT, for a long time now, where the snow levels are lower than hill country. I used to drive a Miata for 7 years and never, ever got stuck. Now I drive a Mini Cooper S and have yet to get stuck. I will say that for the first time, this year, I installed some snow tires I was given (versus the previous 15+ winters without them) and am quite happy with the results. As long as the difference in height between the ruts and the snow level doesn't reach 6 inches I can navigate just fine - if it does get that high, then the front airdam will act like a snowplow. But this has not happened locally for many years, and yet still the suburban environment here is packed with SUVs. My opinion is that the snow argument is not a rational one, but has been a very strong part of the sales pitch for these vehicles nonetheless.
So I think we will survive just fine without the SUVs. As for the water crossings in the midwest and southeast, I'd bet that is potentially part of 1/1,000,000 people's lives. Most people I know there are smart enough not to try to ford a stream that has flooded the road as the current can quickly surprise and take vehicle and/or life with it.
My wife and I have Tracfones. I think we do end up paying $.25 per minute.
90 minute airtime cards with 90 days of service are $24.95 + tax at Walmart. Using online codes I can usually add on a bonus 60 minutes or so, but worse case scenario they are $.27 per minute.
Now the thing is, we usually talk less than 30 minutes in a month, so our plan costs us somewhere less than $10 per month per phone. It is still a lot of money, considering our landline is $13 per month for unlimited local calling and our cable bill is $14 per month. In that perspective, these toys for emergencies are somewhat expensive. I'd not think that a poorer person having to decide between a home phone, cable TV or a limited account cell phone would choose to have a cell phone if they cannot afford all three.
Now I have laid this out, I am going to see if I can get another service much cheaper for more minutes.
I am pleased to read news from somewhere else than the United States. For once we get to see that another government is full of incompetents and red-tape encumbered bureaucrats.
Got any other news to share? Like about Iraq or something?
I'd prefer to be on DST year round. Since it is dark in the evening and the morning here in Connecticut anyway, going back to non-DST doesn't provide any advantages. And staying on DST would be a whole lot less effort, with an improvement in my sleep habits. The dog and my two kids seem to take weeks to get adjusted to the new time.
Actually it is not the changing of the clocks backward to non-DST in the Autumn that is the real problem. It is the move forward in the spring that is most disruptive. If I could keep my clocks the same I would. As it is, I try and keep my schedule close - getting up at 5:00 a.m. instead of 6:00 and going to bed at 10:30 instead of 11:00 (I am not perfect at it).
I disagree with this. As others have noted, I think a significant portion of unknowing people have bought these expecting them to run Windows and will quickly discover otherwise.
The upside is that some proportion of these people will stick with Linux and there will be some new influx of newbie users. You are right, of course, that for those who stick it out that they will be able to do the usual stuff just fine.
I am reminded, of course, about how useful my first computer was when I got it home. It did nothing on its own. At 12 or 13 years old I had to have my Dad drive me back to the store to buy a book on BASIC to learn how to use the thing. These computers are a whole heck of a lot nicer than that!
[blockquote]"My parents' generation started the Vietnam war, our protests stopped it and got a President to resign in shame. Look at what your (cowardly anonymous GP) generation did - RE-ELECTED the worst President in history who started an even more senseless war just so he and his oil buddies could get rich at the expense of his country."[/blockquote]
#1, in case you haven't noticed, voter participation by those under 40 is quite dismal in the United States. So in reality it *is* your generation that re-elected Bushie. You cannot blame something that happened on the generation that happens to be in their 20s - 40s at the time it happened. This country is run by dirty old men mostly of the "peace" generation.
#2, this site is visited by many people from different countries. When you speak of what each generation has accomplished, perhaps you could frame it as your United States point of view.
Gotta love the right to "bare arms". Be careful, though, because when you start to bare other more naughty bits you can get in trouble with the constabulary.
Bingo. My motherboard just died on a prebuilt machine with OEM software. In replacing the motherboard I will lose my activation on XP... my alternatives are pay $150 for a motherboard from the manufacturer, or pay $50 for an equivalent motherboard from another manufacturer plus $100 for a copy of Windows XP (even though I supposedly own a legitimate, currently activated soft copy already).
F*cked. Up. And Vista is just extending that to other items that touch the bios.
That thing is wickedly fast! Holy smokes, you were going very very quickly in just a few frames of that video. I am thankful you did not get seriously hurt.
Hope you get better soon, and never mind the few extra bucks to fix the bike/smashed car on top of the $40k already spent!
Those of us who are wetshavers (typically using the old style double edged single blade) would tell you to stop watsting your money. Better shaves for a small increase in shaving time and less facial irritation.
see http://www.youtube.com/user/mantic59 for some very informative videos (if a little boring and monotone). I switched a few months ago after watching these videos from a 3 blade system and couldn't be happier.
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Way back when, I saved up for a long long time to buy my first computer. However due to extraordinarily high expense of the Apple ][ I ended up buying an Atari 1200XL, basically an upgraded Atari 800.
I was always slightly jealous of my Apple-owning friends. They had these really cool magazines that came with software, some of the magazines even had disks inside of them! Their computers had disk drives, whereas mine had a hokeyed up tape drive since floppy drives were so expensive. Most of the time I'd spend hours typing in a program, finally get it to work, and then get yelled at to go to bed so would have to turn off the computer. Program lost. One of my friends even got published in one of the magazines for showing a GOSUB routine or something like that that allowed easy programming of text based adventures.
I was in 9th grade, so this would be 1981, and learning computers was a whole ton of fun. I only wish it were easier to get my son, now 12, interested in programming rather than just playing the games. I tried Kids Programming Language, but I fear that kids these days just don't have the patience for writing code one line at a time, pressing run to see if it works, and then tweaking the code repetitively until it works. After seeing Unreal Tournament or some modern game, it must seem a little hokey to type all this stuff in just to move an icon from one side of the screen to another, or add 2+2 etc.
My biggest joy was finally figuring out sprites on the Atari. After I figured that out I could finally make a graphical game. I think it was Craps or something lame.
Oh the joys of reminiscing. Kids these days...
Except Gov. Rell doesn't have any balls anyway. She doesn't need them.
Depending on the bike, this absolutely can be true. A 1000cc sportbike, like a GSXR1000 or Yamaha R1, is going to get 35 - 40 mpg, with significantly worse mileage when using lots of throttle. Your average 500 or 600 cc bike, however, will easily get 50 mpg when driven sensibly.
Two corrections.
:-)
1. Have you ever been in NY City before? Saying that the Taxi and Police Car doesn't need to be that fast since they don't go that fast ignores the reality. A Taxi ride is generally a very fast, high acceleration game. The light turns green and it is a race to get through as many lights as possible before they all go red again. Many times it is a full on acceleration, pedal to the floor type event.
2. FL officers need vehicles that go 120 miles per hour, not miles per gallon.
Just one correction, in the U.S. almost all street driven motorcycles are 4 strokes. One of the last two strokes we had was the Suzuki RD350. Anyway, due to emissions regulations we have not had many street legal two strokes in many years.
New motorcycles are being manufactured with catalytic converters to meet EU regulations. They are being sold here in the states with those converters in place. I am guessing here, but perhaps it is easier to design a motorcycle for both markets at once and keep the converter in place for the US with a corresponding bump in price (these are typically larger displacement, expensive bikes anyway) and marketability.
Average bike does 0 - 60 somewhere closer to 4 seconds. Your average sportbike does it in 3.2 seconds, with some (traction limited) getting closer to 2.9 seconds. Most motorcycle magazines stopped using the 0 - 60 because the difference between motorcycles were so small in that range.
The 1/4 mile is the current measurement for acceleration. Even a rather large Harley will do the 1/4 in 13 - 14 seconds. Most sport-tourers do it in 12 seconds, and your average sportbike will be anywhere from low 10s to 11s.
So a stock POS (6 cyl or 8 cyl) camaro is no freakin' comparison to a bike acceleration wise, and it won't get 30 mpg on a good day either unless it is downhill and downwind all the way to your destination. Try an *average* of city/highway and I remember the cars getting more like 22/26. The day a camaro can accelerate faster than just about any motorcycle in production (except a few of the smaller displacement ones) is the day that owner decided to dump a bunch of money into the engine.
It looks like for commenting, at least, that the last time that UID was used was in 2004. Nice way for them to get that through the pipeline!
Huh? Why?
The initial focus of laptops was portability so that you can do work, email or surfing the internet. All low power applications and ones where a high refresh rate is not a problem. I'd say that epaper would not make an awful laptop display for these purposes - at least once the technology is mature.
If you want to game or program & compile while on a laptop then you should accept the higher power requirements that a suitable display will require.
http://www.laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/highlights.shtml describes the power management/consumption pretty well. Very low power requirements compared with current laptops.
Tagging articles is something that I can only do from home, and when specifically allowing JavaScript for slashdot.org.
:-)
I am at work right now, and can't make any tags it due to our global JS settings. At home I usually block all JS, so I have to specifically remember to enable it. Honestly, though, all the funny tags are usually applied before I get around to the story.
Ok, delete my post. I re-read yours and now it makes sense.
Really? I thought the "times" referred to multiplication. We used to say "two times two equals four", or "1 times 10 equals 10". So the previous example is consistent with that. A 10kg weight is 10 times as heavy as a 1kg weight in my book.
I don't think it is additive - e.g. you "add" the weight 9 more times to get to ten.
Re: your comments on kites being faster than windsurfers, you cannot make this claim without citing some sources. The current world record for a sail powered vessel is held by a windsurfer, after being held by a multi-hull for a few years, 48.7 knots.
The current kite sailing record is 47.92 knots according to http://www.sailspeedrecords.com/content/view/18/20/. The current outright speed record over 500 metres is held by Finian Maynard on a windsurfer, according to http://www.sailspeedrecords.com/content/view/14/16/
Regardless, I think your comment was specifically made for upwind *and* downwind sailing and I am really interested in learning more about these kites. Generally speaking I think windsurfers can get closer to the wind, though not nearly as close as a proper sailboat with a keel. I know of some races where it is winner-take-all for all types of sailing vessels, including kites and windsurfers, and there is a great variation in performance depending on the wind direction, speed and course layout. I not found anything that says a kite can beat a formula board around a course, but with recent advances in both sports I'd love to be surprised!
p.s. check out the online videos for kite crashes. They can be quite dangerous, possibly more than windsurfing was when it first started out. They are not kind to untutored newbies apparently.
I couldn't wait to log in and make this same correction. Thanks Popeye.
On some sailing vessels "close hauled" is the most efficient, but only on vessels that sail faster than the wind, use apparent wind for most of their speed, and where "close hauled" describes how closely the sail is sheeted in, not absolute versus the wind direction. Windsurfers are a good example of a sailing vessel that sails fastest on a reach or broad-reach, but the apparent wind after it gets moving moves to a close hauled or close reach position, requiring the sailor to sheet in accordingly. But you would never see a tanker or large boat sailing in this fashion.
Your SUV argument is bullshit. Really. I live in the Northeast, and have in various states around here for the 25+ years I have been driving. *Even* if you live in Vermont, NH, Maine or upstate NY there is very little need for an SUV. There is maybe once per year, if that, that an Audi Quattro, Subaru AWD or anything else could not navigate with ease. All have ground clearance of 6+ inches, and you'd really need a dumping of 8+ inches *and* very poor planning in order not to make it home. In fact, most of these cars handle the snow better than SUVs due to their lighter weight and lower center of gravity. Take a look around hill country and you will see people managing quite well with used AWD cars - particularly the Subarus as they are cheap and seem to last forever.
I have lived in the lower Northeast, Mass and CT, for a long time now, where the snow levels are lower than hill country. I used to drive a Miata for 7 years and never, ever got stuck. Now I drive a Mini Cooper S and have yet to get stuck. I will say that for the first time, this year, I installed some snow tires I was given (versus the previous 15+ winters without them) and am quite happy with the results. As long as the difference in height between the ruts and the snow level doesn't reach 6 inches I can navigate just fine - if it does get that high, then the front airdam will act like a snowplow. But this has not happened locally for many years, and yet still the suburban environment here is packed with SUVs. My opinion is that the snow argument is not a rational one, but has been a very strong part of the sales pitch for these vehicles nonetheless.
So I think we will survive just fine without the SUVs. As for the water crossings in the midwest and southeast, I'd bet that is potentially part of 1/1,000,000 people's lives. Most people I know there are smart enough not to try to ford a stream that has flooded the road as the current can quickly surprise and take vehicle and/or life with it.
My wife and I have Tracfones. I think we do end up paying $.25 per minute.
90 minute airtime cards with 90 days of service are $24.95 + tax at Walmart. Using online codes I can usually add on a bonus 60 minutes or so, but worse case scenario they are $.27 per minute.
Now the thing is, we usually talk less than 30 minutes in a month, so our plan costs us somewhere less than $10 per month per phone. It is still a lot of money, considering our landline is $13 per month for unlimited local calling and our cable bill is $14 per month. In that perspective, these toys for emergencies are somewhat expensive. I'd not think that a poorer person having to decide between a home phone, cable TV or a limited account cell phone would choose to have a cell phone if they cannot afford all three.
Now I have laid this out, I am going to see if I can get another service much cheaper for more minutes.
I suspect not also. But your comment definitely made me laugh out loud. /sorry, can't add anything of value. Nicely done though.
I am pleased to read news from somewhere else than the United States. For once we get to see that another government is full of incompetents and red-tape encumbered bureaucrats.
Got any other news to share? Like about Iraq or something?
I'd prefer to be on DST year round. Since it is dark in the evening and the morning here in Connecticut anyway, going back to non-DST doesn't provide any advantages. And staying on DST would be a whole lot less effort, with an improvement in my sleep habits. The dog and my two kids seem to take weeks to get adjusted to the new time.
Actually it is not the changing of the clocks backward to non-DST in the Autumn that is the real problem. It is the move forward in the spring that is most disruptive. If I could keep my clocks the same I would. As it is, I try and keep my schedule close - getting up at 5:00 a.m. instead of 6:00 and going to bed at 10:30 instead of 11:00 (I am not perfect at it).
I disagree with this. As others have noted, I think a significant portion of unknowing people have bought these expecting them to run Windows and will quickly discover otherwise.
The upside is that some proportion of these people will stick with Linux and there will be some new influx of newbie users. You are right, of course, that for those who stick it out that they will be able to do the usual stuff just fine.
I am reminded, of course, about how useful my first computer was when I got it home. It did nothing on its own. At 12 or 13 years old I had to have my Dad drive me back to the store to buy a book on BASIC to learn how to use the thing. These computers are a whole heck of a lot nicer than that!
[blockquote]"My parents' generation started the Vietnam war, our protests stopped it and got a President to resign in shame. Look at what your (cowardly anonymous GP) generation did - RE-ELECTED the worst President in history who started an even more senseless war just so he and his oil buddies could get rich at the expense of his country."[/blockquote]
#1, in case you haven't noticed, voter participation by those under 40 is quite dismal in the United States. So in reality it *is* your generation that re-elected Bushie. You cannot blame something that happened on the generation that happens to be in their 20s - 40s at the time it happened. This country is run by dirty old men mostly of the "peace" generation.
#2, this site is visited by many people from different countries. When you speak of what each generation has accomplished, perhaps you could frame it as your United States point of view.
Gotta love the right to "bare arms". Be careful, though, because when you start to bare other more naughty bits you can get in trouble with the constabulary.
Bingo. My motherboard just died on a prebuilt machine with OEM software. In replacing the motherboard I will lose my activation on XP... my alternatives are pay $150 for a motherboard from the manufacturer, or pay $50 for an equivalent motherboard from another manufacturer plus $100 for a copy of Windows XP (even though I supposedly own a legitimate, currently activated soft copy already).
F*cked. Up. And Vista is just extending that to other items that touch the bios.
That thing is wickedly fast! Holy smokes, you were going very very quickly in just a few frames of that video. I am thankful you did not get seriously hurt.
Hope you get better soon, and never mind the few extra bucks to fix the bike/smashed car on top of the $40k already spent!
Those of us who are wetshavers (typically using the old style double edged single blade) would tell you to stop watsting your money. Better shaves for a small increase in shaving time and less facial irritation.
see http://www.youtube.com/user/mantic59 for some very informative videos (if a little boring and monotone). I switched a few months ago after watching these videos from a 3 blade system and couldn't be happier.