I don't know about you, but when I'm browsing slashdot, I don't need to have a separate window with reference material. I'm not implementing some esoteric spec, I'm reading a glorified blog. Those rare moments where I post a comment with links to references, I really don't need the reference material to be visible while I type my post. Oftentimes it is sufficient to simply copy the URL of the referenced page from one tab and paste it into the slashdot tab, which wouldn't really be any easier with both pages open simultaneously.
In my years here, UTF-8 / Unicode support seems to have been the most requested site feature, by far. Maybe even the only requested feature. Though I myself have no need for anything beyond 7 bit ASCII, I can't help but have noticed that people want their crazy characters.
So finally, the good folks at slashdot have engaged in a massive site redesign. God only knows how much work went into this effort. The end result?
A giant middle finger. "You want UTF-8? Here's some whitespace instead. You're welcome!"
Thank you for that helpful tip. Now I can clearly see my desktop wallpaper on half my screen, awesome!
I knew there was a reason I bought a monitor with this many pixels. Being able to see my desktop wallpaper while I browse slashdot was well worth the extra cash.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the globe is warming. Let's call this hypothetical scenario "global warming". Let's also assume that we have no idea whatsoever why the globe is warming.
Now, let's say that we undertook efforts to cool the globe. Let's say we cut down the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Let's say we introduced reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to increase the planet's albedo. Let's say we launched giant reflective parasols into orbit, to decrease the terrestrial incidence of solar radiation.
In this hypothetical scenario, we are both ignorant of the root cause of global warming, yet at the same time able to mitigate its effects. See how that works?
Thousands of years ago, people didn't understand why it rained. That didn't stop them from building shelters that would protect them from the rain. Amazing, isn't it?
And is that a false implication? Is it not possible that a child might be (or grow up to be) homophobic, or otherwise intolerant of gays? Is it not possible that the child's peers might be homophobic, or otherwise intolerant of gays? Are you honestly unwilling to admit that there are countless reasons why a child might not want to be adopted by gay parents?
Because it's not like cities fundamentally change the way society does its everyday business. Note, cities are collections of shelters. You're right. Modern civilization is fundamentally the same as hunter-gatherer societies of old. Oh and of course, it's not like building these cities was "much more expensive and disruptive" than continuing on with hunting and the gathering.
given that the actual rise in global temperatures has been well below even the most conservative climate change projections
Sure, if by that you mean the actual rise in global temperatures (and sea levels) has outpaced even the most extreme climate change projections. You, sir, ought to read the news more. Your talking points are decades old.
Basic engineering: You have to understand the root cause of a problem before you can solve it. You don't start with an agenda and then try to fiddle with the models to make the data fit your world view.
And yet we've managed to develop heavier-than-air flight, even spaceflight, without understanding the root cause of gravity. Or, more aptly, we developed shelter from extreme weather events millenia before we had any understanding of the root cause of extreme weather whatsoever. In that instance, we most definitely did start with an agenda (protection against the elements) and nothing more than determination.
I voted for Feinstein many times, but you know what?
YOU!! It was you!! Over the past few years, I've been wondering, who the FUCK votes for people like this?
Feinstein's involvement with the Senate Intelligence Committee has been a joke ever since this NSA shit hit the fan, but her history of being a fucking idiot goes back at least to 1994 when she authored the original "scary looking gun" bill, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that outlaws guns based solely on cosmetic, non-functional features. She has also consistently voted to extend the Patriot Act, and was a co-sponsor of PIPA.
So, WOOFYGOOFY, what am I not seeing? What redeemable qualities does this ignorant oligarch possess that would explain how she has repeatedly earned your vote over the years?
Climate change might be happening. But who or what is responsible?
Let me guess. You're the kind of person that sees an 18-wheeler barreling down the highway right for you and then think "That truck might kill me. But who is driving, and why is he heading right for me?"
If you find your entirely academic question fascinating, you should study climate science and contribute to that field. In the meantime please stop distracting those of us that actually want to mitigate the effects of climate change, regardless of who or what is responsible. Or, in the truck analogy, those of us who would like to first swerve out of the way before we participate in some philosophical discussion regarding the truck driver's motives.
However, this is not necessarily "climate change caused by fossil fuels" as argued by some;
Who gives a fuck? Why is this old argument still being trotted around?
If the climate is changing, and the effects of that change will have an impact on the human race, it behooves us to study the effects of that change in order to better adapt to the new climate.
Talking about why it's changing is an academic exercise and is irrelevant in the context of "what do we do about climate change?" If climate is changing because the Flying Spaghetti Monster was feeling chilly, does that mean that it's okay to just sit back and let the Maldives sink into the ocean?
Well, I have an odd setup in my living room. I'm stuck in a crappy apartment that has baseboard heaters on both "long walls" of the living room, preventing furniture from being pushed up flush against the wall. With the couch on one side, it's not a big deal. On the other side, however, I didn't want to have a 4" gap behind my wall unit, mainly because the living room isn't big enough to waste space like that. I ended up wall-mounting these guys just above the baseboard heater, which looks pretty nice. TV wall-mounted directly above. I punched a hole in the back of the middle cabinet and cut a bit of the top part away near the middle for cable runs. A cheapo cable-cover runs from that cut-away part up to the TV, hiding both the cut and the cables. There's a power outlet and coax directly behind the middle cabinet as well, so that's where I put my cable modem and my wireless router. Of course, I didn't want my desktop just sitting on the floor, cables running up to the cabinet, so I just stuck it in there with the cable modem and router. But let me tell you, 600W is a bit too much for a "wooden" (have you ever cut through a piece of IKEA furniture? It's fucking amazing!) cabinet with literally no airflow. So I tried adding some really ghetto airflow solution, but that still wasn't enough to keep things running at moderate load. Eventually, I just took the door off the middle cabinet. And the side off my PC case. Now it's loud as fuck, but it doesn't overheat anymore. And it looks really ugly, or, well, nerdy at least. In hindsight, it would've been better off if I had just left it outside the cabinet, but I refuse to back down now. I'll move the 600W desktop somewhere else, somewhere where it can actually get some fresh air. The Gateway craptop I bought should be "good enough" for what I need (Netflix, youtube, web browsing, and the occasional game of Civ5), without the jet engine / convection oven that I hope to finally evict tomorrow night.
TL;DR - This is the strangest post I've ever made to slashdot. But seriously, take a circular saw to a 1" thick piece of IKEA "wood". It's a honeycomb structure made of cardboard. There isn't even any fiberboard/particleboard in it. It's just paper.
I ordered it yesterday for $450. Thanks for making me look it up again; today it's selling for $370. Story of my life.
Anyway, it's a 2GHz quad core (A6) with 6GB DDR3 and Radeon 8400 GPU. Googling around suggested that it would run a bit hotter than the embedded kits I was looking at, but it should still work.
I was also thinking about waiting for the xi3 Z3RO PRO, but it doesn't ship until November (I'll believe it when I see it) and it's a whopping $550. I figured, why wait when I can have a comparable system (with more RAM!) for $100 less, today. Or, well, yesterday. Today it would be $180 less.
Granted, a laptop is bigger than one of these little cube computers, and has fans. But it's replacing a gigantic HP desktop that sounds like a tornado, so at this point anything would be an improvement.
There's plenty of low-level documentation, including a full bill-of-materials, so you can see for yourself if their chipset supports that configuration.
Additionally, the people keeping an eye on their forums are actually rather responsive, so you could just try asking them yourself.
That being said, the new AMD G-Series SoC is even nicer than their G-Series APU. You can go quad-core, with faster clock speeds, and the GPU is bumped up to the HD 8400E. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a single distributor of systems based around the G-Series SoC. AMD offers evaluation kits, but I think those are more geared towards OEMs than consumers.
The GizmoBoard is also an open source single board computer that you can purchase for $200.
But it's a 64-bit dual-core AMD APU with an integrated Radeon HD 6250. Considerably more powerful than the Minnowboard, but still runs on 10W.
Even an article about the MinnowBoard can't help shouting out the GizmoBoard:
At the heart of the MinnowBoard is one of Intel’s less powerful processors: the Atom E640T. Running at 1GHz, the single-core chip offers a 32-bit x86 implementation – already putting it on the back foot compared to the dual-core 64-bit APU found on rival AMD’s Gizmo, the closest device for comparison – while generating a surprisingly small amount of heat, allowing for passive cooling through a compact heat sink.
Basically, MinnowBoard has been outdated for some time now. Not sure why this spam is on the front page.
Full disclosure: I almost got the GizmoBoard as an HTPC, but the 2GB RAM and lack of HDMI really turned me off. HDMI can be cobbled together (there's a high-speed connector that actually exposes HDMI lines, but you'd have to wire it to a female connector yourself), but swapping out four 96-FBGA surface-mount packages to upgrade the RAM to 4GB just seemed like more rework than I wanted to sign up for.
Encrypting the connection between Google and the users isn't going to accomplish anything when the NSA already has full access to Google's servers.
Too little, too late. Way too late.
Roads are for cars.
Bike paths are for bikes.
Sidewalks are for pedestrians.
Tell ya what... How bout you don't walk in the road, and I don't drive on the sidewalk. Deal?
Alas, I can already hear it coming. "Oh my town doesn't have sidewalks! Oh we don't have bike paths here!"
So you're saying that if, instead, there were no roads, that it would be acceptable for cars to take the sidewalk instead?
I agree with what you're saying though. The problem is that people simply don't pay attention to their immediate surroundings. A thousand years ago, if you were going somewhere, that's all you were doing. There was no cell phone to distract you. There was no newspaper to distract you. There was nothing to distract you except your immediate surroundings. Over the years, we've gone to great lengths to craft distractions for ourselves, and this is the inevitable result. Honestly, I only see this problem getting worse as time goes on, until we craft ourselves a way to augment our ability to pay attention. For example, using your wearable computer to provide you with distractions while at the same time relying on it to keep an eye out on your immediate surroundings so you don't have to.
That's why I don't engage in violent behavior because my panties are in a twist. As much as I want to strangle the lot of you, I haven't.
Now, I'm living up to my end of the bargain. What about you and your parked-at-a-green-light brethren? What excuse do you have for failing to hold up your end?
Slashdot Mirror
Raises the question.
I don't know about you, but when I'm browsing slashdot, I don't need to have a separate window with reference material. I'm not implementing some esoteric spec, I'm reading a glorified blog. Those rare moments where I post a comment with links to references, I really don't need the reference material to be visible while I type my post. Oftentimes it is sufficient to simply copy the URL of the referenced page from one tab and paste it into the slashdot tab, which wouldn't really be any easier with both pages open simultaneously.
I didn't think so.
In my years here, UTF-8 / Unicode support seems to have been the most requested site feature, by far. Maybe even the only requested feature. Though I myself have no need for anything beyond 7 bit ASCII, I can't help but have noticed that people want their crazy characters.
So finally, the good folks at slashdot have engaged in a massive site redesign. God only knows how much work went into this effort. The end result?
A giant middle finger. "You want UTF-8? Here's some whitespace instead. You're welcome!"
Thank you for that helpful tip. Now I can clearly see my desktop wallpaper on half my screen, awesome!
I knew there was a reason I bought a monitor with this many pixels. Being able to see my desktop wallpaper while I browse slashdot was well worth the extra cash.
Oh, I forgot to test out one thing though...
How's the UTF-8 support?
It looks great on my 14" SVGA CRT.
On my 1920x1080 LCD, it looks retarded. There's as much whitespace running down the sides as there is content running down the middle.
Apparently "Web 2.0" involves designing sites for 9:16 devices. I think someone got that aspect ratio inverted somewhere along the line.
Lighten up, Francis.
Apparently I didn't throw in enough stereotyped social groups for my joke to be obvious.
Steve Mann (Wearcam, Eyetap, etc.) has been the first living cyborg since at least the 80s.
Starting to remind me of IRC. As soon as I connect to Undernet, I still join #WhileYoureWhoisingMeImDoingYour17YearOldSisterInTheAss out of habit.
It would seem, based on your research, that elderly southeast Asian women have the biggest dicks out of anyone.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the globe is warming. Let's call this hypothetical scenario "global warming". Let's also assume that we have no idea whatsoever why the globe is warming.
Now, let's say that we undertook efforts to cool the globe. Let's say we cut down the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Let's say we introduced reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to increase the planet's albedo. Let's say we launched giant reflective parasols into orbit, to decrease the terrestrial incidence of solar radiation.
In this hypothetical scenario, we are both ignorant of the root cause of global warming, yet at the same time able to mitigate its effects. See how that works?
Thousands of years ago, people didn't understand why it rained. That didn't stop them from building shelters that would protect them from the rain. Amazing, isn't it?
And is that a false implication? Is it not possible that a child might be (or grow up to be) homophobic, or otherwise intolerant of gays? Is it not possible that the child's peers might be homophobic, or otherwise intolerant of gays? Are you honestly unwilling to admit that there are countless reasons why a child might not want to be adopted by gay parents?
given that the actual rise in global temperatures has been well below even the most conservative climate change projections
Sure, if by that you mean the actual rise in global temperatures (and sea levels) has outpaced even the most extreme climate change projections. You, sir, ought to read the news more. Your talking points are decades old.
Basic engineering: You have to understand the root cause of a problem before you can solve it. You don't start with an agenda and then try to fiddle with the models to make the data fit your world view.
And yet we've managed to develop heavier-than-air flight, even spaceflight, without understanding the root cause of gravity. Or, more aptly, we developed shelter from extreme weather events millenia before we had any understanding of the root cause of extreme weather whatsoever. In that instance, we most definitely did start with an agenda (protection against the elements) and nothing more than determination.
I voted for Feinstein many times, but you know what?
YOU !! It was you!! Over the past few years, I've been wondering, who the FUCK votes for people like this?
Feinstein's involvement with the Senate Intelligence Committee has been a joke ever since this NSA shit hit the fan, but her history of being a fucking idiot goes back at least to 1994 when she authored the original "scary looking gun" bill, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that outlaws guns based solely on cosmetic, non-functional features. She has also consistently voted to extend the Patriot Act, and was a co-sponsor of PIPA.
So, WOOFYGOOFY, what am I not seeing? What redeemable qualities does this ignorant oligarch possess that would explain how she has repeatedly earned your vote over the years?
Climate change might be happening. But who or what is responsible?
Let me guess. You're the kind of person that sees an 18-wheeler barreling down the highway right for you and then think "That truck might kill me. But who is driving, and why is he heading right for me?"
If you find your entirely academic question fascinating, you should study climate science and contribute to that field. In the meantime please stop distracting those of us that actually want to mitigate the effects of climate change, regardless of who or what is responsible. Or, in the truck analogy, those of us who would like to first swerve out of the way before we participate in some philosophical discussion regarding the truck driver's motives.
However, this is not necessarily "climate change caused by fossil fuels" as argued by some;
Who gives a fuck? Why is this old argument still being trotted around?
If the climate is changing, and the effects of that change will have an impact on the human race, it behooves us to study the effects of that change in order to better adapt to the new climate.
Talking about why it's changing is an academic exercise and is irrelevant in the context of "what do we do about climate change?" If climate is changing because the Flying Spaghetti Monster was feeling chilly, does that mean that it's okay to just sit back and let the Maldives sink into the ocean?
Well, I have an odd setup in my living room. I'm stuck in a crappy apartment that has baseboard heaters on both "long walls" of the living room, preventing furniture from being pushed up flush against the wall. With the couch on one side, it's not a big deal. On the other side, however, I didn't want to have a 4" gap behind my wall unit, mainly because the living room isn't big enough to waste space like that. I ended up wall-mounting these guys just above the baseboard heater, which looks pretty nice. TV wall-mounted directly above. I punched a hole in the back of the middle cabinet and cut a bit of the top part away near the middle for cable runs. A cheapo cable-cover runs from that cut-away part up to the TV, hiding both the cut and the cables. There's a power outlet and coax directly behind the middle cabinet as well, so that's where I put my cable modem and my wireless router. Of course, I didn't want my desktop just sitting on the floor, cables running up to the cabinet, so I just stuck it in there with the cable modem and router. But let me tell you, 600W is a bit too much for a "wooden" (have you ever cut through a piece of IKEA furniture? It's fucking amazing!) cabinet with literally no airflow. So I tried adding some really ghetto airflow solution, but that still wasn't enough to keep things running at moderate load. Eventually, I just took the door off the middle cabinet. And the side off my PC case. Now it's loud as fuck, but it doesn't overheat anymore. And it looks really ugly, or, well, nerdy at least. In hindsight, it would've been better off if I had just left it outside the cabinet, but I refuse to back down now. I'll move the 600W desktop somewhere else, somewhere where it can actually get some fresh air. The Gateway craptop I bought should be "good enough" for what I need (Netflix, youtube, web browsing, and the occasional game of Civ5), without the jet engine / convection oven that I hope to finally evict tomorrow night.
TL;DR - This is the strangest post I've ever made to slashdot. But seriously, take a circular saw to a 1" thick piece of IKEA "wood". It's a honeycomb structure made of cardboard. There isn't even any fiberboard/particleboard in it. It's just paper.
Gateway NE72206u 17.3" Laptop
I ordered it yesterday for $450. Thanks for making me look it up again; today it's selling for $370. Story of my life.
Anyway, it's a 2GHz quad core (A6) with 6GB DDR3 and Radeon 8400 GPU. Googling around suggested that it would run a bit hotter than the embedded kits I was looking at, but it should still work.
I was also thinking about waiting for the xi3 Z3RO PRO, but it doesn't ship until November (I'll believe it when I see it) and it's a whopping $550. I figured, why wait when I can have a comparable system (with more RAM!) for $100 less, today. Or, well, yesterday. Today it would be $180 less.
Granted, a laptop is bigger than one of these little cube computers, and has fans. But it's replacing a gigantic HP desktop that sounds like a tornado, so at this point anything would be an improvement.
I have no idea! But here's a link to their site.
There's plenty of low-level documentation, including a full bill-of-materials, so you can see for yourself if their chipset supports that configuration.
Additionally, the people keeping an eye on their forums are actually rather responsive, so you could just try asking them yourself.
That being said, the new AMD G-Series SoC is even nicer than their G-Series APU. You can go quad-core, with faster clock speeds, and the GPU is bumped up to the HD 8400E. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a single distributor of systems based around the G-Series SoC. AMD offers evaluation kits, but I think those are more geared towards OEMs than consumers.
But it's a 64-bit dual-core AMD APU with an integrated Radeon HD 6250. Considerably more powerful than the Minnowboard, but still runs on 10W.
Even an article about the MinnowBoard can't help shouting out the GizmoBoard:
At the heart of the MinnowBoard is one of Intel’s less powerful processors: the Atom E640T. Running at 1GHz, the single-core chip offers a 32-bit x86 implementation – already putting it on the back foot compared to the dual-core 64-bit APU found on rival AMD’s Gizmo, the closest device for comparison – while generating a surprisingly small amount of heat, allowing for passive cooling through a compact heat sink.
Source
Basically, MinnowBoard has been outdated for some time now. Not sure why this spam is on the front page.
Full disclosure: I almost got the GizmoBoard as an HTPC, but the 2GB RAM and lack of HDMI really turned me off. HDMI can be cobbled together (there's a high-speed connector that actually exposes HDMI lines, but you'd have to wire it to a female connector yourself), but swapping out four 96-FBGA surface-mount packages to upgrade the RAM to 4GB just seemed like more rework than I wanted to sign up for.
Not sure what IDS is supposed to be, but how is a nice LCD monitor supposed to be a security tool?
Encrypting the connection between Google and the users isn't going to accomplish anything when the NSA already has full access to Google's servers.
Too little, too late. Way too late.
Roads are for cars.
Bike paths are for bikes.
Sidewalks are for pedestrians.
Tell ya what... How bout you don't walk in the road, and I don't drive on the sidewalk. Deal?
Alas, I can already hear it coming. "Oh my town doesn't have sidewalks! Oh we don't have bike paths here!"
So you're saying that if, instead, there were no roads, that it would be acceptable for cars to take the sidewalk instead?
I agree with what you're saying though. The problem is that people simply don't pay attention to their immediate surroundings. A thousand years ago, if you were going somewhere, that's all you were doing. There was no cell phone to distract you. There was no newspaper to distract you. There was nothing to distract you except your immediate surroundings. Over the years, we've gone to great lengths to craft distractions for ourselves, and this is the inevitable result. Honestly, I only see this problem getting worse as time goes on, until we craft ourselves a way to augment our ability to pay attention. For example, using your wearable computer to provide you with distractions while at the same time relying on it to keep an eye out on your immediate surroundings so you don't have to.
That's why I don't engage in violent behavior because my panties are in a twist. As much as I want to strangle the lot of you, I haven't.
Now, I'm living up to my end of the bargain. What about you and your parked-at-a-green-light brethren? What excuse do you have for failing to hold up your end?