I'm using what you're looking for, and it's called the Thinkpad X60T.
If you run Windows, you can use OneNote, which has all the features you need. You can run Linux as well, and there is an equivalent tool for "note taking" (can't remember the name off the top of my head, I've seen it on another tablet though). And these both convert your handwriting to text so you can print things out.
Did I mention I get 6 hours of battery life on average, with no power saving features enabled? I've used it on cross country trips, and am using it today to take class notes (all day without charging, no problems).
Damn bro, this spacecraft has been collecting valuable science for SEVENTEEN YEARS. I suppose you didn't bother to read the article - let's review a few quotes.
The reams of data Ulysses returned have forever changed the way scientists view our star and its effects.
"I never dared think that we would be receiving invaluable science data on a near continuous basis for more than 17 years. Ulysses has set the bar on solar science data collection quite high."
"The data and science output of this mission truly deserves to be named after the legendary explorer in Greek mythology," said Arik Posner, Ulysses program scientist...
"We will squeeze the very last drops of science out of it that we can," Marsden said. "Ulysses is a terrific old workhorse. It has produced great science and lasted much longer than we ever thought it would." I'm not sure I'd characterize this amazing mission and spacecraft as a "giant hunk of metal". What an amazing success, to have this spacecraft functioning so well for so long!
Can someone please explain what it means to "manage the nitrogen cycle?" I've seen that twice in the past two weeks and I'm not entirely sure what they are referring to, and why we need to manage it. Yes, I've tried Google and Wikipedia.
The summary and title are a bit misleading. The CoS is removing listings using the VeRO program, not getting "direct DB access" as is claimed. Still blatant abuse of the program, so their actions are definitely NOT defensible.
Interestingly people who are targeted by this can file a DMCA counter claim and bring the issue into the court system. I hope this guy does that - maybe some of the CoS's practices can finally see the light of day.
I wouldn't be so quick to judge this MyBytes site. I'd first give it some thought, before I recognize it as the typical media industry propaganda. It's interesting, however, to look at their model. Kids can "release" their tracks under "Free" licenses, even if they require people to pay for them. They also get to select what "rules" they believe media should be distributed under, with it looks like choices running the whole spectrum of "I bought it, it's mine and I can do what I want with it" to "It's wrong (morally) to share CD's".
While I hear the infernal tune in the background of this site, this site could be an interesting experiment. It keeps track of how many people download the songs without paying for them (with site credits, not money), and how many people pay for "free" tracks (among other things). I'm going to laugh real hard when their "anti-piracy" curriculum winds up teaching the media industry that people will actually pay for music that they're able to use as they desire.
I'd really like to play with this site some more, but it seems like you need IE to create a login or do downloads. Maybe my version of Flash is just out of date...
I'm all in favor of improving the baggage handling, but frankly even if you had AI's directing where the bags are supposed to go, you still have the problem of inept baggage handlers (assuming they aren't replaced by robots... unlikely in the short term).
I remember a couple months ago at ATL watching a piece of luggage fall out of one of those trucks that carry luggage from terminal to terminal. It sat there about 30 feet away from the plane on the tarmac, with other handlers riding their trucks right past it without even a second glance. I thought for sure it was going to get left behind. They had actually closed the cargo doors and everything and were driving away before someone spotted it and threw it inside.
Wow, really doing some serious research there. Check your context though. You get much higher energy yields in hemp-based biofuels, and hemp is not a major component of most what we eat.
I should have been more clear, yes. "Corn-based biofuels are clearly a bad thing. There might be others out there that are better, such as hemp." Thank you for pointing this out.
Solar technology is about as good as it gets at this point and there are some really exciting developments coming out of it. Wind and sea-based power sources are all promising as well. But the problem with all these solutions is that they are treating the symptoms of overconsumption by reducing the impact of that behavior, rather than reducing overconsumption in its own right.
I think the fundamental question is that if we were to find the hypothetical perfect clean, cheap, local, and renewable source of energy, would we be able to stop worrying about our energy consumption? I frankly have no idea and I think there is a lot of room for debate there. However, I'm becoming increasing convinced that even if our energy source was perfect, our species would still run into numerous other choke points, such as raw material shortages, food shortages, and so forth, not to mention the fact that many energy-consumption-facilitated activities can be seriously harmful to our health: driving (accidents), tv (sedentary lifestyle), etc. Plus, diminishing returns says it's going to be harder and more expensive to use technological means to reduce our energy consumption in the future.
When I look at it that way it makes a whole lot more sense from a practical point of view to modify my behavior to simply use less energy. I could spend a few hundred bucks on a super-efficient water heater, or I could take shorter showers. I could invest in a fuel efficient car, or I could just drive less. I'm constantly amazed at how much energy I can save just by completely turning off my devices. Doing this is cheaper and easier than upgrading to newer technology, and fights the root of the problem of overconsumption. It's even better if I can do both.
I'm not surprised that biofuels actually make the situation worse. I've been saying that all along; our nation's approach to biofuels (particularly using corn) was a poorly thought out political move to cater to the corporate farm lobby. It was really convenient in that it allowed politicians to act "green" and look like they were moving away from supporting big bad Middle East oil (which is in large part financed by American companies under American-supported governments... that's a discussion for another day). Maybe this report will finally start convincing people that biofuels really, really aren't a proper solution to environmental problems. The only way to REALLY hit the root of the problem is to reduce consumption of stuff. I'm not going to pretend that's easy or even practical, but this talk about biofuels, alternative energy, etc. is just pussy-footing around the real issue that we as a species are consuming more than this planet can support.
It's also important to note that the VAST majority of our petroleum imports don't actually come from the Middle East! The DOE says so itself. Our top two petroleum importing countries are... Canada and Mexico!
Biofuels were never about being a real solution. It was always about political capital for politicians and special interests. Now we at least have more science to show how messed up biofuels really are.
Concurred. I would not travel with anything other than my Thinkpad. The X60's are thin, light, durable, and reliable. Plus, they don't stand out that much like some other laptops (such as a Mac), which is a good thing.
In my experience with my X60 (and my T60 for that matter) I've been able to carry them around without a case.
I'd also second the comments that some have been making about backing up your most important documents onto flash drives. It might be useful even for data you want to share with people back home, since internet connections may not always be available and reliable. To paraphrase the quote, never underestimate the bandwidth of a flash drive on a FedEx plane.
First, the parent needs to be modded troll. Lay off the stereotypes, will ya?
Second, it's kind of silly for you to state that you've only flown ONCE in the past 6-7 years, and then proceed to make comments about the entire TSA. I, for instance, fly three or four times a year, including a couple international trips. My experience with the screeners has been generally positive. Usually they are quite cordial, though I have run into a few unfriendly ones. I've only been taken aside for extra screening once - and I'm an Arab with a beard.
Since 9/11, I've flown through CDG. The security there was rude and somewhat intimidating. Since 9/11, I've flown through ATL, Sea-Tac, JFK, a bunch of regional airports. The TSA folks at the smaller airports are actually quite nice people. I've seen a lot of improvement in their operation over the past few years as well in terms of getting people through quickly and clearly explaining what will be expected of people. I don't mind having to take off my shoes, and having to keep my liquids in a plastic bag helps me pack lighter. Make the best of it; it's not that bad.
I've been through Israeli security as well. You try being an Arab crossing that border when the IDF soldier at passport control is having a bad day, and you'll never complain about the TSA again!:)
If it's ok for the advertisers to hit me with a concentrated beam of sound energy, then it's ok for me to hit the advertiser's speaker with a concentrated beam of kinetic energy, right?
My college, just like every other organization, runs on email. Yes, we use Facebook messages and IM to communicate, too. But the vast majority of our communication related to school is via email. If a group is advertising an event via Facebook, they'll post the message there and send out an email to their listserv as well. Facebook, sms, and IM are useful in personal communication but there is something more official about an email that I don't think will make it "lose out" any time soon to those alternatives. That, and you can't download your wall posts with an external program or without internet access (a problem especially at a school that encourages international travel so much).
Go for Player/Stage. It's an open source HAL for robotics. We used it in the lab I used to work for; it's very easy to use and has great documentation and community support. The biggest benefit of Player is the ability to use Stage to simulate your robot - code that runs fine in the Stage simulator will work just the same in real life. That's super important if you have a short development cycle for your project, and for this type of "robot adventure racing". Always remember the team that won the DARPA grand challenge was the one that spent the most time (by far) in testing.
For what it's worth, I just looked at the bottom of my T60 and it's from Lenovo Singapore. Granted, it's made in China, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a laptop these days that isn't.
I love my T60, too, by the way. Runs great with Ubuntu as well.
Last week was the Robotics Science and Systems conference, also at GA Tech. Some of the biggest robotics researchers worldwide (such as the guy who lead the team that won the DARPA Grand Challenge last year) were all there to talk about the latest advances in the field... I think they were originally scheduled to be the same weekend; oh well.
You know, the parent made a pretty insightful comment in some respects. Technology does kind of have a video game/hardware effect on life, but not really in the way I think the above meant. Technology allows us to do more with our resources (time, etc). But, it can come at the cost of being able to do too much. If you don't know how to handle your ability to do so much, your life is definitely not going to be easier; you'll always feel overworked, overstressed, overwhelmed. Technology has generally made our lives much easier for most individual activities, so easy in fact it's easy to take on too many activities and start hating technology because you're overworked.
To use the overused example, look at technology. My girlfriend is in Southeast Asia right now, but I'm able to talk to her almost every day thanks to modern communication equipment. Yeah, I'd say technology has made that a whole lot easier (and improved my quality of life, to boot). The flipside of that, of course, is the endless supply of email, phone calls, etc, that so many people seem to be plagued with, but that's not an issue with the technology. It's an issue with the people who use it.
So, to sum up, it's not the technology, it's the people who use it! Technology makes life much easier if you don't take advantage of it to pile more and more things to do onto your plate!
Actually, that's what Player does. It functions as a hardware abstraction layer for all the bits and pieces of the robot (motors, sensors, etc) and gives programmers a standard interface to work with. I work on machine vision; there are others in my lab that work on multi-robot collaboration. Thankfully Player handles a lot of the type of things that you mentioned (obstacle avoidance, path planning) so we don't have to. Getting robots to show a semblance of thinking is hard enough on its own.;)
I don't believe I've actually seen anything for arms before... Then again, I've never explicitly gone looking. But I have a feeling there's probably not much since, as you said, it's more geared toward mobile robots. Here's a list of supported devices: clicky.
But there does exist another large robotics library that is completely free called Player. The project even has two complete simulators, Stage (for 2D simulation of many robots) and Gazebo (for 3D simulation of a smaller number of robots). Great project for any aspiring roboticists out there.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm using what you're looking for, and it's called the Thinkpad X60T.
If you run Windows, you can use OneNote, which has all the features you need. You can run Linux as well, and there is an equivalent tool for "note taking" (can't remember the name off the top of my head, I've seen it on another tablet though). And these both convert your handwriting to text so you can print things out.
Did I mention I get 6 hours of battery life on average, with no power saving features enabled? I've used it on cross country trips, and am using it today to take class notes (all day without charging, no problems).
Can someone please explain what it means to "manage the nitrogen cycle?" I've seen that twice in the past two weeks and I'm not entirely sure what they are referring to, and why we need to manage it. Yes, I've tried Google and Wikipedia.
The summary and title are a bit misleading. The CoS is removing listings using the VeRO program, not getting "direct DB access" as is claimed. Still blatant abuse of the program, so their actions are definitely NOT defensible.
Interestingly people who are targeted by this can file a DMCA counter claim and bring the issue into the court system. I hope this guy does that - maybe some of the CoS's practices can finally see the light of day.
I wouldn't be so quick to judge this MyBytes site. I'd first give it some thought, before I recognize it as the typical media industry propaganda. It's interesting, however, to look at their model. Kids can "release" their tracks under "Free" licenses, even if they require people to pay for them. They also get to select what "rules" they believe media should be distributed under, with it looks like choices running the whole spectrum of "I bought it, it's mine and I can do what I want with it" to "It's wrong (morally) to share CD's".
While I hear the infernal tune in the background of this site, this site could be an interesting experiment. It keeps track of how many people download the songs without paying for them (with site credits, not money), and how many people pay for "free" tracks (among other things). I'm going to laugh real hard when their "anti-piracy" curriculum winds up teaching the media industry that people will actually pay for music that they're able to use as they desire.
I'd really like to play with this site some more, but it seems like you need IE to create a login or do downloads. Maybe my version of Flash is just out of date...
I'm all in favor of improving the baggage handling, but frankly even if you had AI's directing where the bags are supposed to go, you still have the problem of inept baggage handlers (assuming they aren't replaced by robots... unlikely in the short term).
I remember a couple months ago at ATL watching a piece of luggage fall out of one of those trucks that carry luggage from terminal to terminal. It sat there about 30 feet away from the plane on the tarmac, with other handlers riding their trucks right past it without even a second glance. I thought for sure it was going to get left behind. They had actually closed the cargo doors and everything and were driving away before someone spotted it and threw it inside.
Wow, really doing some serious research there. Check your context though. You get much higher energy yields in hemp-based biofuels, and hemp is not a major component of most what we eat.
I should have been more clear, yes. "Corn-based biofuels are clearly a bad thing. There might be others out there that are better, such as hemp." Thank you for pointing this out.
Solar technology is about as good as it gets at this point and there are some really exciting developments coming out of it. Wind and sea-based power sources are all promising as well. But the problem with all these solutions is that they are treating the symptoms of overconsumption by reducing the impact of that behavior, rather than reducing overconsumption in its own right.
I think the fundamental question is that if we were to find the hypothetical perfect clean, cheap, local, and renewable source of energy, would we be able to stop worrying about our energy consumption? I frankly have no idea and I think there is a lot of room for debate there. However, I'm becoming increasing convinced that even if our energy source was perfect, our species would still run into numerous other choke points, such as raw material shortages, food shortages, and so forth, not to mention the fact that many energy-consumption-facilitated activities can be seriously harmful to our health: driving (accidents), tv (sedentary lifestyle), etc. Plus, diminishing returns says it's going to be harder and more expensive to use technological means to reduce our energy consumption in the future.
When I look at it that way it makes a whole lot more sense from a practical point of view to modify my behavior to simply use less energy. I could spend a few hundred bucks on a super-efficient water heater, or I could take shorter showers. I could invest in a fuel efficient car, or I could just drive less. I'm constantly amazed at how much energy I can save just by completely turning off my devices. Doing this is cheaper and easier than upgrading to newer technology, and fights the root of the problem of overconsumption. It's even better if I can do both.
I'm not surprised that biofuels actually make the situation worse. I've been saying that all along; our nation's approach to biofuels (particularly using corn) was a poorly thought out political move to cater to the corporate farm lobby. It was really convenient in that it allowed politicians to act "green" and look like they were moving away from supporting big bad Middle East oil (which is in large part financed by American companies under American-supported governments... that's a discussion for another day). Maybe this report will finally start convincing people that biofuels really, really aren't a proper solution to environmental problems. The only way to REALLY hit the root of the problem is to reduce consumption of stuff. I'm not going to pretend that's easy or even practical, but this talk about biofuels, alternative energy, etc. is just pussy-footing around the real issue that we as a species are consuming more than this planet can support.
It's also important to note that the VAST majority of our petroleum imports don't actually come from the Middle East! The DOE says so itself. Our top two petroleum importing countries are... Canada and Mexico!
Biofuels were never about being a real solution. It was always about political capital for politicians and special interests. Now we at least have more science to show how messed up biofuels really are.
Um... it seems that Microsoft is on board, actually, according to the article.
:)
Though I do admit that it is a bit surprising.
Concurred. I would not travel with anything other than my Thinkpad. The X60's are thin, light, durable, and reliable. Plus, they don't stand out that much like some other laptops (such as a Mac), which is a good thing.
In my experience with my X60 (and my T60 for that matter) I've been able to carry them around without a case.
I'd also second the comments that some have been making about backing up your most important documents onto flash drives. It might be useful even for data you want to share with people back home, since internet connections may not always be available and reliable. To paraphrase the quote, never underestimate the bandwidth of a flash drive on a FedEx plane.
First, the parent needs to be modded troll. Lay off the stereotypes, will ya?
:)
Second, it's kind of silly for you to state that you've only flown ONCE in the past 6-7 years, and then proceed to make comments about the entire TSA. I, for instance, fly three or four times a year, including a couple international trips. My experience with the screeners has been generally positive. Usually they are quite cordial, though I have run into a few unfriendly ones. I've only been taken aside for extra screening once - and I'm an Arab with a beard.
Since 9/11, I've flown through CDG. The security there was rude and somewhat intimidating. Since 9/11, I've flown through ATL, Sea-Tac, JFK, a bunch of regional airports. The TSA folks at the smaller airports are actually quite nice people. I've seen a lot of improvement in their operation over the past few years as well in terms of getting people through quickly and clearly explaining what will be expected of people. I don't mind having to take off my shoes, and having to keep my liquids in a plastic bag helps me pack lighter. Make the best of it; it's not that bad.
I've been through Israeli security as well. You try being an Arab crossing that border when the IDF soldier at passport control is having a bad day, and you'll never complain about the TSA again!
So we're going to have YouTube-like commenting?
Is this the future of scientific discourse?
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those things! ...sorry.
If it's ok for the advertisers to hit me with a concentrated beam of sound energy, then it's ok for me to hit the advertiser's speaker with a concentrated beam of kinetic energy, right?
Who tagged this "Stern but fair"? Please explain how this is "fair" and not just more of Putin's power grab?
My college, just like every other organization, runs on email. Yes, we use Facebook messages and IM to communicate, too. But the vast majority of our communication related to school is via email. If a group is advertising an event via Facebook, they'll post the message there and send out an email to their listserv as well. Facebook, sms, and IM are useful in personal communication but there is something more official about an email that I don't think will make it "lose out" any time soon to those alternatives. That, and you can't download your wall posts with an external program or without internet access (a problem especially at a school that encourages international travel so much).
"Duke is our evil twin; State is our retarded cousin."
(and as a geek, let me say congrats to Prof Hawari and his team)
Go for Player/Stage. It's an open source HAL for robotics. We used it in the lab I used to work for; it's very easy to use and has great documentation and community support. The biggest benefit of Player is the ability to use Stage to simulate your robot - code that runs fine in the Stage simulator will work just the same in real life. That's super important if you have a short development cycle for your project, and for this type of "robot adventure racing". Always remember the team that won the DARPA grand challenge was the one that spent the most time (by far) in testing.
I love my T60, too, by the way. Runs great with Ubuntu as well.
Last week was the Robotics Science and Systems conference, also at GA Tech. Some of the biggest robotics researchers worldwide (such as the guy who lead the team that won the DARPA Grand Challenge last year) were all there to talk about the latest advances in the field... I think they were originally scheduled to be the same weekend; oh well.
You know, the parent made a pretty insightful comment in some respects. Technology does kind of have a video game/hardware effect on life, but not really in the way I think the above meant. Technology allows us to do more with our resources (time, etc). But, it can come at the cost of being able to do too much. If you don't know how to handle your ability to do so much, your life is definitely not going to be easier; you'll always feel overworked, overstressed, overwhelmed. Technology has generally made our lives much easier for most individual activities, so easy in fact it's easy to take on too many activities and start hating technology because you're overworked.
To use the overused example, look at technology. My girlfriend is in Southeast Asia right now, but I'm able to talk to her almost every day thanks to modern communication equipment. Yeah, I'd say technology has made that a whole lot easier (and improved my quality of life, to boot). The flipside of that, of course, is the endless supply of email, phone calls, etc, that so many people seem to be plagued with, but that's not an issue with the technology. It's an issue with the people who use it.
So, to sum up, it's not the technology, it's the people who use it! Technology makes life much easier if you don't take advantage of it to pile more and more things to do onto your plate!
Actually, that's what Player does. It functions as a hardware abstraction layer for all the bits and pieces of the robot (motors, sensors, etc) and gives programmers a standard interface to work with. I work on machine vision; there are others in my lab that work on multi-robot collaboration. Thankfully Player handles a lot of the type of things that you mentioned (obstacle avoidance, path planning) so we don't have to. Getting robots to show a semblance of thinking is hard enough on its own. ;)
I don't believe I've actually seen anything for arms before... Then again, I've never explicitly gone looking. But I have a feeling there's probably not much since, as you said, it's more geared toward mobile robots. Here's a list of supported devices: clicky.
But there does exist another large robotics library that is completely free called Player. The project even has two complete simulators, Stage (for 2D simulation of many robots) and Gazebo (for 3D simulation of a smaller number of robots). Great project for any aspiring roboticists out there.