The newspaper I work for has all but stopped shooting film. As of more than a year ago, those folks in our remote offices stopped shooting film. Deadline sports and out-of-state assignments went digital shortly thereafter.
This is potentially a shame. I heard a report on NPR and perhaps here on Slashdot some months ago about the switch to digital camera's by news agencies. The feeling at the time, and perhaps still now, is that many of the best photographs over the previous century have been bad photographs, but that in retrospect ended up being masterpeices. By having these photographs in hard-copy, they were preserved for future viewers. If those same photographs were in digital format, no doubt they would have been erased the first time the photographers disk needed a little room.
Damn I wish I could come up with a concrete example of a photograph that sat unused for many years. I know it is out there...
My tachometer is needed because my car has a stick (but am I really more efficient than a computer-controlled automatic?),
I completely agree with everything you said. However, just to make an off-topic point... Yes, you *are* more efficient than a computer-controlled automatic transmission. Well, maybe you aren't, but your transmission is. Automatic trasmissions are still based on a torque-converter, which robs power when it is not in lock-up mode. The manual transmission is mechanically much more efficient.
The only "automatic" transmissions that are computer controlled and more efficient are those based on manual transmission - ala Ferrari and BMW's manumatic transmissions.
On your point of human versus computer efficiency, where transmission are concerned, would be better made comparing a "regular" automatic versus a "tiptronic" or selectable automatic. For the most part, the computer does a much better job efficiency wise, and darn close performance wise.
Are there any materials made now that can be strung 50 km into the atmosphere and not break? I am not talking anything useful, like a cable, but even just a very thin thread.
I keep thinking of bring a really huge bobbin of thread on the space shuttle, putting a weight on one end and lowering it to the earth's surface. But that is just the fisherman in me - I am sure there are physics reasons why this wouldn't work... so maybe we use a rocket to get the velocity going toward the earth.
Anyway, then we could do like ships do - you use the small line to haul up a slightly bigger line, and then the next bigger line etc. until your hawser is across the gap.
Could it be that most consumers are used to the "old" games by now and are looking for something different?
I mean, if they came out with Combat or Yar's Revenge, most people wouldn't buy them - except as a 9.95 CD of classic games from WalMart. There has to be something new and exciting to draw new buyers at the moment, and unless there is another paradigm shift towards a new kind of game - e.g. when Wolfenstein 3D came out it spawned dozens of 1st person shooters, then we are bound to get the same things hashed all over again.
Then again, I am reminded of a comment I heard the other day that reminded me of the early 20th century - "Everything that needs to be invented, has been already".
So, where are all the creative geniuses inventing new types of games? We have had 2D games forever, from side scrollers to table formats (e.g. Pac Man). Now that 3D acceleration is more common, how about some creative use of 3 dimensions? I can think of: 3D sim of Office -- you are sitting in a cube and must smash roaches as your 1st person busily codes up _____ (web pages at first, then C++ programs, finally assembly on a transmeta CPU). Or how about 3D off the wall sports -- boomerang throwing, windsurfing, killer yo-yoing.
Maybe so, but you forgot to check off the No Score + 1 Bonus button. That means your post was rated a 2, which it should not be. Now your most recent post, to which I am replying, probably will be modded down too!
How on earth does an OS trash 2 motherboards? I would be if you can prove the OS did it, that Microsoft would be willing to reimburse you for your expenses - a) to have you be quiet about it and b) to fix an obviously horrible bug.
This is not a fair statement because you would not necessarily be writing similar programs.
If you are writing a command line program for Unix, then yes, your statement could very well be true - and the Cygwin version would run inside a DOS window. However, consider that you write a similar GUI program - because Windows is more than just an OS - on Linux, say for X. How likely is it to run on every version then? Probably not likely - just like in Windows, you need to ensure that everyone is using a similar version of X, and you will have to expect differences in the WindowManagers.
I guess my point is, typically your Windows program has a much higher complexity from the start and is designed to interact with the User from a gui standpoint. Unix programs are not all necessarily designed to interact the same way. It's like apples and oranges. You could say exactly the same thing about DOS vs. Windows.
Nope. Try this one: http://slashdot.org/interview s/00/05/04/0821200.shtml - in my Ask Napster interview, I got a first post rated a #5, plus some comments about how cool that was. It still didn't do my Karma much good, which has now slipped to a low 32. fprintf
Also remember, that unlike film, we have no long term history about data storage in digital formats. I know there have been slashdot conversations about the length of time data can be stored for regular computer data on CD-ROM, but can you imagine the problem with trying to archive a feature length movie?
I can just imagine... damn I dropped the hard-drive. Well, there goes our *only* copy of XXXXXXX movie.:-)
Perhaps when comparing CDs to Tapes, but I bet there are still a whole host of audiophiles who prefer the good ole' phonograph record. I know for a while when I was selling CD players, most of the audio guys really didn't like the sound. Not rich enough.
So, there may be some reasons *not* to prefer the digital format - perhaps because it is too perfect, doesn't have the smooth shadows and surfaces and irregular shaped patterns that film has. Just a guess on my part, and also there are still lots of people, myself included, who prefer black and white film to color.
This happens all the time in other industries; e.g, Japanese car companies aren't unregulated in the US simply because they're foreign-owned.
Um, but their products are regulated, import tariffs are imposed etc. I think this is the point everyone is trying to make - the US gov't can still impose *some* sanctions.
They didn't call VW Westfalia's TANK's back in the day, though. They were overpriced, light and dangerous to anyone who owned Chevrolet Malibu.:-) Rabbits were even worse, but we loved them damnit. Drove them to school 6 miles in the snow, up hill both ways.:-)
What happens to the speed of the Internet?
on
Universal Access
·
· Score: 1
Ok, so what happens to the speed of the internet once the world's employers start providing everyone with access? Is the infrastructure currently in place to handle the influx? If not, are there existing plans to upgrade the backbone, all the routers etc. (I am not real clear on all the technology, being a newbie still) to handle the extra volume?
I'm all for universal access, but not if it means that the internet experience is unbearably slow using whatever means the company provides for access (most likely a 56k dialup).
Connecticut state law states that a notice must be posted in a conspicious place if any electronic monitoring takes place. Well, there is a big sign on every bulletin board where I work.
As a side note, listening to Dee Sneider radio this morning (yes, the guy from Twisted Sister is a DJ in Hartford, CT) they had a quiz - one of the questions was what percent of employers use electronic monitoring of employees. 78% do. Of the 78%, most monitor Email, Internet Access and keep/record/listen to Voice Mails.
What was your initial inspiration for writing the Hitchiker's guide books? Did you realize at the time that most readers just didn't "get it"? Personally, at the time I first read them they seemed *so* distant from reality, but as I get older (33 now), each rereading gets funnier and funnier. I must be getting more of the jokes now.
Finally, did you ever imagine that your books could ever have developed a cult-like following?
Flame all you want about SuSE 6.3 Evaluation - after all, it is just that, an evaluation CD. They obviously had to make choices about what was to be included on the one CD, and it was either KDE or GNOME afaik.
However please note that the full boat SuSE does include GNOME, in fact my SuSE 6.4 system is running both KDE 1.1.2 and GNOME (maybe October release?) quite nicely. I don't like either of them - instead preferring a straight Windowmaker arrangment.
The correct URL is http://cnnfn.com/poll/micropoll.html The results are overwhelmingly in favor of keeping microsoft whole. I'm not sure I disagree - there might be other non-split-up alternatives that I haven't seen yet. Just open-sourcing the code won't do it, imho.
What exactly is the difference between the "Evaluation" ISO and the boxed version? Is CD1 the ISO bit for bit? What is on the other 5 CDs?
Is anyone worried where this is going?
Relax. SuSE has been doing the.iso image thing for a long time. If you go to www.cheapbytes.com and want to get the $1.99 version of SuSE, this is what you get. Basically a completely functional version of Linux.
If you want to get a lot of the extra libraries, games, X-applications etc. you would want to buy the full distribution. But it is only $29.95 from www.chumbo.com and it includes 60 days of support (which is completely unnecessary - mine expired without a single call). As far as I am concerned it is the best deal in Linux land.
Call me an idiot then. Win98 partition on a dual Pentium II 400. I need it for running my son's games, and it is easier developing DOS games using native DJGPP than using the Unix-for-DOS version.
:-)
If I didn't have to pay for Win2k, I'd load that up instead just for the SMP support. Windows has its uses - although I only boot into it once a week or so.
I went through the same thought process as you, and ended up with two alternatives:
1) Send a plea for help to your local LUG, and surely someone locally will offer to host you very cheaply/free.
2) (the option I chose) Set up a free Nameserver, and a web page redirection.
http://www.capibara.com has links to lots of free stuff. I use them for domain name redirection to my homepage (also free) on http://www.linuxstart.com/~dualpentium
Nameserving, which you will need to have the users on the web recognize your domain name can be done at http://www.granitecanyon.com. It takes a little poking around to figure out how to configure your DNS record, but once you have it figured out you only need to contact your registrar (the people you bought the domain from) to change nameservers.
Finally, find yourself some free webhosting and email. Sure, the email won't go to "yourname@yourdomain.org", but for free, who can complain? Anyway, I use www.mail.com and www.mailandnews.com for my mail. Free web space is hosted any number of places - personally I like www.linuxstart.com
Any questions, feel free to email me at fprintf@iname - dot - com. (change the -dot- to.)
Slashdot Mirror
The newspaper I work for has all but stopped shooting film. As of more than a year ago, those folks in our remote offices stopped shooting film. Deadline sports and out-of-state assignments went digital shortly thereafter.
This is potentially a shame. I heard a report on NPR and perhaps here on Slashdot some months ago about the switch to digital camera's by news agencies. The feeling at the time, and perhaps still now, is that many of the best photographs over the previous century have been bad photographs, but that in retrospect ended up being masterpeices. By having these photographs in hard-copy, they were preserved for future viewers. If those same photographs were in digital format, no doubt they would have been erased the first time the photographers disk needed a little room.
Damn I wish I could come up with a concrete example of a photograph that sat unused for many years. I know it is out there...
My tachometer is needed because my car has a stick (but am I really more efficient than a computer-controlled automatic?),
I completely agree with everything you said. However, just to make an off-topic point... Yes, you *are* more efficient than a computer-controlled automatic transmission. Well, maybe you aren't, but your transmission is. Automatic trasmissions are still based on a torque-converter, which robs power when it is not in lock-up mode. The manual transmission is mechanically much more efficient.
The only "automatic" transmissions that are computer controlled and more efficient are those based on manual transmission - ala Ferrari and BMW's manumatic transmissions.
On your point of human versus computer efficiency, where transmission are concerned, would be better made comparing a "regular" automatic versus a "tiptronic" or selectable automatic. For the most part, the computer does a much better job efficiency wise, and darn close performance wise.
Stuart
*I dislike selectable automatics*
Are there any materials made now that can be strung 50 km into the atmosphere and not break? I am not talking anything useful, like a cable, but even just a very thin thread.
I keep thinking of bring a really huge bobbin of thread on the space shuttle, putting a weight on one end and lowering it to the earth's surface. But that is just the fisherman in me - I am sure there are physics reasons why this wouldn't work... so maybe we use a rocket to get the velocity going toward the earth.
Anyway, then we could do like ships do - you use the small line to haul up a slightly bigger line, and then the next bigger line etc. until your hawser is across the gap.
Stuart
Could it be that most consumers are used to the "old" games by now and are looking for something different?
I mean, if they came out with Combat or Yar's Revenge, most people wouldn't buy them - except as a 9.95 CD of classic games from WalMart. There has to be something new and exciting to draw new buyers at the moment, and unless there is another paradigm shift towards a new kind of game - e.g. when Wolfenstein 3D came out it spawned dozens of 1st person shooters, then we are bound to get the same things hashed all over again.
Then again, I am reminded of a comment I heard the other day that reminded me of the early 20th century - "Everything that needs to be invented, has been already".
So, where are all the creative geniuses inventing new types of games? We have had 2D games forever, from side scrollers to table formats (e.g. Pac Man). Now that 3D acceleration is more common, how about some creative use of 3 dimensions? I can think of: 3D sim of Office -- you are sitting in a cube and must smash roaches as your 1st person busily codes up _____ (web pages at first, then C++ programs, finally assembly on a transmeta CPU). Or how about 3D off the wall sports -- boomerang throwing, windsurfing, killer yo-yoing.
:-)
htt p://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.mortmain.com /decss.txt+DeCSS+txt&hl=en
is a link to just one cached page.
Maybe so, but you forgot to check off the No Score + 1 Bonus button. That means your post was rated a 2, which it should not be. Now your most recent post, to which I am replying, probably will be modded down too!
uhhh stuart huh huh huh
Since Apple has trademarked the look of the Imac, has Microsoft trademarked the look of Windows programs?
If Gnumeric looks just like Excel, and Evolution like Outlook, can a lawsuit be far behind?
How on earth does an OS trash 2 motherboards? I would be if you can prove the OS did it, that Microsoft would be willing to reimburse you for your expenses - a) to have you be quiet about it and b) to fix an obviously horrible bug.
Let us know!
This is not a fair statement because you would not necessarily be writing similar programs.
If you are writing a command line program for Unix, then yes, your statement could very well be true - and the Cygwin version would run inside a DOS window. However, consider that you write a similar GUI program - because Windows is more than just an OS - on Linux, say for X. How likely is it to run on every version then? Probably not likely - just like in Windows, you need to ensure that everyone is using a similar version of X, and you will have to expect differences in the WindowManagers.
I guess my point is, typically your Windows program has a much higher complexity from the start and is designed to interact with the User from a gui standpoint. Unix programs are not all necessarily designed to interact the same way. It's like apples and oranges. You could say exactly the same thing about DOS vs. Windows.
Nope. Try this one: http://slashdot.org/interview s/00/05/04/0821200.shtml - in my Ask Napster interview, I got a first post rated a #5, plus some comments about how cool that was. It still didn't do my Karma much good, which has now slipped to a low 32. fprintf
Also remember, that unlike film, we have no long term history about data storage in digital formats. I know there have been slashdot conversations about the length of time data can be stored for regular computer data on CD-ROM, but can you imagine the problem with trying to archive a feature length movie?
:-)
I can just imagine... damn I dropped the hard-drive. Well, there goes our *only* copy of XXXXXXX movie.
Perhaps when comparing CDs to Tapes, but I bet there are still a whole host of audiophiles who prefer the good ole' phonograph record. I know for a while when I was selling CD players, most of the audio guys really didn't like the sound. Not rich enough.
:-)
So, there may be some reasons *not* to prefer the digital format - perhaps because it is too perfect, doesn't have the smooth shadows and surfaces and irregular shaped patterns that film has. Just a guess on my part, and also there are still lots of people, myself included, who prefer black and white film to color.
Just call me a Luddite.
This happens all the time in other industries; e.g, Japanese car companies aren't unregulated in the US simply because they're foreign-owned.
Um, but their products are regulated, import tariffs are imposed etc. I think this is the point everyone is trying to make - the US gov't can still impose *some* sanctions.
They didn't call VW Westfalia's TANK's back in the day, though. They were overpriced, light and dangerous to anyone who owned Chevrolet Malibu. :-) Rabbits were even worse, but we loved them damnit. Drove them to school 6 miles in the snow, up hill both ways. :-)
Ok, so what happens to the speed of the internet once the world's employers start providing everyone with access? Is the infrastructure currently in place to handle the influx? If not, are there existing plans to upgrade the backbone, all the routers etc. (I am not real clear on all the technology, being a newbie still) to handle the extra volume?
I'm all for universal access, but not if it means that the internet experience is unbearably slow using whatever means the company provides for access (most likely a 56k dialup).
Connecticut state law states that a notice must be posted in a conspicious place if any electronic monitoring takes place. Well, there is a big sign on every bulletin board where I work.
As a side note, listening to Dee Sneider radio this morning (yes, the guy from Twisted Sister is a DJ in Hartford, CT) they had a quiz - one of the questions was what percent of employers use electronic monitoring of employees. 78% do. Of the 78%, most monitor Email, Internet Access and keep/record/listen to Voice Mails.
Was it your decision, your manager, your lawyers or record company that made the call to go after the Napster users?
"We don't dislike Lesstif ";
Are you speaking for RedHat here, or the group of developers that you directly work with? Just curious.
What was your initial inspiration for writing the Hitchiker's guide books? Did you realize at the time that most readers just didn't "get it"? Personally, at the time I first read them they seemed *so* distant from reality, but as I get older (33 now), each rereading gets funnier and funnier. I must be getting more of the jokes now.
Finally, did you ever imagine that your books could ever have developed a cult-like following?
Flame all you want about SuSE 6.3 Evaluation - after all, it is just that, an evaluation CD. They obviously had to make choices about what was to be included on the one CD, and it was either KDE or GNOME afaik.
However please note that the full boat SuSE does include GNOME, in fact my SuSE 6.4 system is running both KDE 1.1.2 and GNOME (maybe October release?) quite nicely. I don't like either of them - instead preferring a straight Windowmaker arrangment.
The correct URL is http://cnnfn.com/poll/micropoll.html The results are overwhelmingly in favor of keeping microsoft whole. I'm not sure I disagree - there might be other non-split-up alternatives that I haven't seen yet. Just open-sourcing the code won't do it, imho.
What exactly is the difference between the "Evaluation" ISO and the boxed version? Is CD1 the ISO bit for bit? What is on the other 5 CDs?
.iso image thing for a long time. If you go to www.cheapbytes.com and want to get the $1.99 version of SuSE, this is what you get. Basically a completely functional version of Linux.
Is anyone worried where this is going?
Relax. SuSE has been doing the
If you want to get a lot of the extra libraries, games, X-applications etc. you would want to buy the full distribution. But it is only $29.95 from www.chumbo.com and it includes 60 days of support (which is completely unnecessary - mine expired without a single call). As far as I am concerned it is the best deal in Linux land.
SuSE posted the news of its 6.4 distribution *weeks* ago, not yesterday
.iso image for the SuSE 6.4 Evaluation CD, not the whole 6 CD SuSE 6.4 distribution.
Actually, Lenz Grimmer just posted news of the iso 2 days ago, to both the SuSE-english list, and Linux Weekly News.
Remember, this is the downloadable
Call me an idiot then. Win98 partition on a dual Pentium II 400. I need it for running my son's games, and it is easier developing DOS games using native DJGPP than using the Unix-for-DOS version.
:-)
If I didn't have to pay for Win2k, I'd load that up instead just for the SMP support. Windows has its uses - although I only boot into it once a week or so.
I went through the same thought process as you, and ended up with two alternatives:
.)
1) Send a plea for help to your local LUG, and surely someone locally will offer to host you very cheaply/free.
2) (the option I chose) Set up a free Nameserver, and a web page redirection.
http://www.capibara.com has links to lots of free stuff. I use them for domain name redirection to my homepage (also free) on http://www.linuxstart.com/~dualpentium
Nameserving, which you will need to have the users on the web recognize your domain name can be done at http://www.granitecanyon.com. It takes a little poking around to figure out how to configure your DNS record, but once you have it figured out you only need to contact your registrar (the people you bought the domain from) to change nameservers.
Finally, find yourself some free webhosting and email. Sure, the email won't go to "yourname@yourdomain.org", but for free, who can complain? Anyway, I use www.mail.com and www.mailandnews.com for my mail. Free web space is hosted any number of places - personally I like www.linuxstart.com
Any questions, feel free to email me at fprintf@iname - dot - com. (change the -dot- to