I'm not an expert on this sort of stuff so be warned this is just speculation not based on any kind of math and is full of holes
but even though it's space time that may be expanding and not the matter in the universe (the fabric on which everything sits instead of the matter on the fabric) If that expansion is somehow linked to energy and matter and time e.g. gravity is the opposite, a contraction of space time (and gravity is linked to the amount of mass) then it's possible that the expansion could be limited or finite perhaps it's all that energy being thrown off by all those stars which will eventually burn out (I could be wrong but I think we're still a bit unsure at the moment how a black hole at the center of a galaxy holds everything together)
Assuming for the moment that the expansion doesn't stop If the universe was circular (if you go far enough in one direction you end up back where you started) and nothing really can ever be considered still or at a full stop reference point then it's possible that everything would collide into a singularity at some point given enough time I know electric fields extend infinitely (although get immeasurable after a certain distance) if the same was true for gravity this would also add to the possibility of an eventual collision with a singularity given enough time think Asteroids on a much much bigger scale and in 3D (like the Amiga version)
the only definite limitless force I've heard of is the attraction of a singularity I always figured that if you could fly a ship right into one of these things (and survive to see what was going on) from an outside perspective (if you could see it) because of the stretching of space time you'd travel slower and slower the closer you got to the center (never quite getting there) the first thing to fall in would be the closest but nothing would reach the center from an outside point of view just be suspended above the center never quite reaching there
from an inside point of view looking through the window to the outside (assuming your not dead and can see through all the bent light) everything would appear to speed up and spin around 10 years on the outside in one second on the inside 1000 years for every second, and so on until things are going so fast that the eventuality is that everything on the outside (including other singularities) has fallen in at this point there would be no outside perspective as there would be nothing on the outside it would all be inside making any definition of time on the outside meaningless since nothing has reached the center at this point and there's no longer any outside point of view the only thing that's left is the inside point of view which would be every atom of matter all hitting the center at the same time
No I meant if you've already got a very highly powered PC (not every one does mind you)
then why get the same thing again in console form
XBOX Media Center is the shit if it's mythtv your talking about then fair enough
otherwise no comment;)
for the mid air mouse I think you'd be better off with something that recognises hand gestures instead (think Johnny Menomic) perhaps with some special gloves or rings to track the motion (this way you don't have to hold something in the same place for a long time)
another idea, something I saw on a Japanese film a while back (i'd be supprised if someone somewhere hasn't already invented this) was a mobile phone heatset type device that consited of 2 rings for fingers one ring goes on the little finger, the other goes on the thumb one acts as a mic, the other vibrates through the thumb for the speaker this way when you want to speak on the phone just stick a finger in one ear and put the other next to your mouth - simple
the only problem comes when you need to use someone elses phone - have you got clean fingernails?
I've never owned an Xbox myself (I always figured what's the point since it's just a glorified PC in the shape of a games console) However a certain freind of mine did a little investigation with the faulty ones he's had so far (given that he's a PC support engineer)
From the looks of things the problem appears to be a fundamental design flaw with the way the heat sink attaches to the main board typically it attaches over a large area once certain parts of the board heat up more than others this causes the board to flex and bend slightly since the heatsink spans a large area, this results in certain sections underneath the heatsink cross to become drawn or pulled away from the main heatsink ever so slightly the end result is something critical that should be in contact with the heatsink under the cross is no longer in contact, i.e. Red screen of death
when I read that all of a sudden an image popped into my head
A darlek slowly trundling down the aisle carrying a tray with a few sorted goods ANY DRINKS OR REFRESHMENTS I SAID ANY DRINKS OR RE-FRESH-MENTS (much louder this time)
a guy the next seat over starts to panic and quickly orders an orange juice
Like with everything else it has it's advantages and it's disadvantages it all depends on what you want to use it for (it's a bit like hitting a screw with a hammer and saying, hmmm this isn't going into the wall very well)
if you want something that's going to work first time, and that your not going to have to arse about setting up (e.g. a commercial environment) then go with a rpm solution like redhat or suse (this way you've always got the option of support as well at the same time)
If you want something for running the latest cutting edge software and damned the consequences the sort of person that would make the attempt at building his own conservatory on the side of his house go for Gentoo
Disadvantages 1. it's source based which can mean less stable / well tested ultimately gentoo is a source based dist, which means any binary files you end up with won't have been tested and there's no guarantee of behavior as it all depends on how things have been linked
2. rpm's do some amount of checking when installing the binary, with gentoo it's assumed that whatever has been compiled is correct (unless make install throws up an error during the build process or you write some checking into the script it's not always possible to guarantee that everything is installed the way it's supposed to be admitily problems are rare but do crop up now and again
3. it takes ages to compile / install etc the trade-off here is having access to the latest stuff, so I'm happy with this one
Advantages 1. if you want to get something working that's only just been released
it takes me 5 mins to write an ebuild script
it takes much longer to write an rpm spec file
(this especially comes in handy when your trying to add / remove patches / custom graft as part of the script)
the reason for this is a lot of the common stuff has been functionalised (is that a word?) into eclass files
this makes the whole thing default to a certain common behavior unless overridden in the script
also you don't have to list all the files that should be installed as it works it out for itself all auto-magically
in an ideal scenario for rpm you'd at least have both options depending on the use of the system (do some checking, don't do some checking)
ideally I'd really like rpm to take on some of the same advantages as this one (why not?, it might need testing / change of spec files but it'd be well worth it)
2. a lot of the scripts that form the bootup are much more up-to-date
again most of the stuff in the/etc/init.d scripts has been placed into common functions referenced elsewhere
it's part of the whole "if it's not broke don't fix it" thing, which in principle gives advantages to commonality if everyone is using the same sort of
startup scripts if your writing a RPM for several dists and may be more stable / tested
but the gentoo method is much simpler to write for / more automated
3. it's sourced based
which means it'll run on pretty much anything, any weird ass bit of hardware you can throw at it (usually)
(PS3 hint hint)
Personally I'm confident I can fix most things when they go wrong in the portage tree, via an overlay (or at least have the patience to wait for it to be fixed). but for the average Joe user in an office that couldn't give a monkey's for that sort of thing something binary / rpm is better suited
There's probably lots of stuff I've missed here but the general idea is if you like home brew go to Gentoo (mmm tasty brew) If you like it plain and flat go for Red Hat
I think there was one passed recently
something to do with running with scissors I think
It would have been interesting if this had happened in one of the rougher areas
in one of those schools where every student has they're own knife / flac jacket
as standard issue
What about a system that works the other way round?
One example
You start up a copying tool such as Nero to copy the whole disk
drive sends a signal to the disk that it's copying parts or all of the disk
the chip in the disk (now being talked to by the drive) says aha you're trying to read some empty part of the disk that isn't normally used by the film therefore you're copying the whole disk
at which point it ether makes the disk too transparent or black rendering it unreadable permanently
another idea might be to store encryption keys in the chip itself
and make the disk transparent when it's being read
but I don't know how permanent the mechanism is for making the disk transparent (if it can be used on a temporary basis / flicked back and forth like a switch)
also it'd probably just be as hackable as Blu Ray (and also requiring the purchase of new drives)
so this wouldn't be much use
but the 1st method if possible could be phased in as part of new drive / disk releases
maybe I'm missing something here as I admit I'm not fully aware of the low level details of network implementation
but wouldn't it be possible to still have a Firewall but without a NAT?
i.e. instead of devices pretending to be just the one IP address that's been assigned to the router via NAT, they instead each have they're own addresses
However all communication still physically goes through the router / firewall / same device to filter out any incoming dodgy packets via SPI, or put limits on incoming communications (port filtering for given IP ranges for internal devices)
to make sure that access is only granted when requested instead of by default
forget the fancy pants spandex crap
I'm waiting for the guy in the penguin suit and army fatigues to show up
with a pen knife in one hand (for carving the word stallman into one of the foreheads of the Vista guy) and a machine gun in the other
further investigation revealed the legs of a metalic huminoid structure buried in the aftermath when freed from the wreckage it seemed to enquire about the wherabouts of Sarah connor
Do you envisige a Euro version of the console that includes the EE processor?
From some of the rumours I've been hearing (BBC radio 1) quite a lot of individuals have canceled they're orders in the UK and instead opted for an American imports including the EE processor
to avoid any conflicts with some of the older PS2 game titles
(and yes I am aware that Sony will be punishing those individuals that choose to follow this course of action)
personally I'm holding off for the time being until some form of comparison can be made between the 2 different versions of the console in terms of compatibility for the PS2 (and I'm pretty sure someone on a website - probably linked to from slashdot, will be running with this eventually)
at the very least I would have liked to have seen some form of optional add-in board, even if it had increased the cost
e.g. release the minimal version of the PS3 without the board
and the max version of the PS3 (larger HD) with the board
(although at the moment only the max version of the PS3 will be released in the UK I believe)
I think the real question on every one's mind is
by the time we actually discover one of these things on course with the earth
will sean connery still be alive to save the day? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_(film)
bah forget your namby pamby satalite based lasers
what you want is a big MOON Laser
it doesn't say anything about those now does it?
How about bouncing a Death Ray of the mirror they left up there on the moon's surface during the 60's?
(I wonder how many power stations you'd need for that to stay coherent)
I was about to say the same thing
SL works because you can make / build whatever you want and use it wherever you want and script it
the only thing that's bought from Linden really is the Land
here's an idea
I'm not sure if the PS3 has 3d Support under Linux yet
but how about running the new Linux client for SL on the PS3?
problem solved
It has to be said the serious question that's on everyone's mind at the moment
will it include sexual harassment?
not to mention realdoll's (emphasis on the real) claiming for half the property as part of a divorce settlement
a grave issue for all lonely Geeks out there
Somewhere in the near future as a whole platoon of zombie crazed ethically challenged robot soldiers encroaches upon your house as part of a large scale invasion from another country
the scariest moment will come when you notice that each one has the "EA Games Live" Logo attached to the front
with the stark realisation that each one is remotely controlled by a muderous crazed spotty nosed teenager in his bedroom, with his new copy of BattleField 2143 "It's in the kill"
I think under Gentoo it's just a shortcut to a file in a different location but okay then emerge -u world run the etc-update script (just to be safe) and now relax:)
I think we can come up with a few more interesting uses for this stuff
set up some invisible walls on the pavement, fun with the neighbours (good one for the students)
want to start your own cult? How about walking across a transparent platform in mid air or just above water made of this stuff Jesus eat your heart out
Now you too can have an invisible aeroplane just like wonderwoman
How about donning a superman outfit, fit a platform to the roof of your car and see how many accidents you can cause, when onlookers see a real life superhero flying down the street
worried about weapons of mass destruction appearing on the news? new and improved (mostly) invisible nukes, watch out for that healthy green glow
want a flying / hovering car of the future, how about invisible wheels? (watch out for those pot holes)
I wonder if 2 way mirrors would be less noticible from the mirror side, using this stuff since you could probably increase the amount of reflective mirror material on one side while maintaing the same level of brightness from the other side
because of the decreased reflectivity maybe
Great now we're only 2 letters away from Graphite based Transistors
and as soon as that's ready, grab yourself some epaper and a pencil
and get ready to design your own quad core 64bit WHSmith CPU
how about that for Linux from Scratch
true hardcore means no erasors
Slashdot Mirror
I'm all for the brown noise theory myself
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note
just because it'd be a hell of a thing to watch
I'm not an expert on this sort of stuff so be warned this is just speculation
not based on any kind of math and is full of holes
but even though it's space time that may be expanding and not the matter in the universe
(the fabric on which everything sits instead of the matter on the fabric)
If that expansion is somehow linked to energy and matter and time
e.g. gravity is the opposite, a contraction of space time (and gravity is linked to the amount of mass)
then it's possible that the expansion could be limited or finite
perhaps it's all that energy being thrown off by all those stars which will eventually burn out
(I could be wrong but I think we're still a bit unsure at the moment how a black hole at the center of a galaxy holds everything together)
Assuming for the moment that the expansion doesn't stop
If the universe was circular (if you go far enough in one direction you end up back where you started)
and nothing really can ever be considered still or at a full stop reference point
then it's possible that everything would collide into a singularity at some point given enough time
I know electric fields extend infinitely (although get immeasurable after a certain distance) if the same was true for gravity
this would also add to the possibility of an eventual collision with a singularity given enough time
think Asteroids on a much much bigger scale and in 3D (like the Amiga version)
the only definite limitless force I've heard of is the attraction of a singularity
I always figured that if you could fly a ship right into one of these things (and survive to see what was going on)
from an outside perspective (if you could see it) because of the stretching of space time you'd travel slower and slower the closer
you got to the center (never quite getting there) the first thing to fall in would be the closest
but nothing would reach the center from an outside point of view just be suspended above the center never quite reaching there
from an inside point of view looking through the window to the outside (assuming your not dead and can see through all the bent light)
everything would appear to speed up and spin around
10 years on the outside in one second on the inside
1000 years for every second, and so on until things are going so fast that the eventuality is that everything on the outside
(including other singularities) has fallen in
at this point there would be no outside perspective as there would be nothing on the outside it would all be inside
making any definition of time on the outside meaningless
since nothing has reached the center at this point and there's no longer any outside point of view
the only thing that's left is the inside point of view
which would be every atom of matter all hitting the center at the same time
(not every one does mind you) then why get the same thing again in console form XBOX Media Center is the shit if it's mythtv your talking about then fair enough
otherwise no comment
for the mid air mouse I think you'd be better off with something that recognises hand gestures instead (think Johnny Menomic) perhaps with some special gloves or rings to track the motion (this way you don't have to hold something in the same place for a long time)
another idea, something I saw on a Japanese film a while back (i'd be supprised if someone somewhere hasn't already invented this) was a mobile phone heatset type device that consited of 2 rings for fingers
one ring goes on the little finger, the other goes on the thumb
one acts as a mic, the other vibrates through the thumb for the speaker
this way when you want to speak on the phone just stick a finger in one ear and put the other next to your mouth - simple
the only problem comes when you need to use someone elses phone - have you got clean fingernails?
I've never owned an Xbox myself (I always figured what's the point since it's just a glorified PC in the shape of a games console)
- on-a-xbox-360/
However a certain freind of mine did a little investigation with the faulty ones he's had so far (given that he's a PC support engineer)
From the looks of things the problem appears to be a fundamental design flaw with the way the heat sink attaches to the main board
typically it attaches over a large area
once certain parts of the board heat up more than others this causes the board to flex and bend slightly
since the heatsink spans a large area, this results in certain sections underneath the heatsink cross to become drawn or pulled away from the main heatsink ever so slightly
the end result is something critical that should be in contact with the heatsink under the cross is no longer in contact, i.e. Red screen of death
http://www.hiptechblog.com/2006/10/30/cook-an-egg
when I read that all of a sudden an image popped into my head
A darlek slowly trundling down the aisle carrying a tray with a few sorted goods
ANY DRINKS OR REFRESHMENTS
I SAID ANY DRINKS OR RE-FRESH-MENTS (much louder this time)
a guy the next seat over starts to panic and quickly orders an orange juice
Like with everything else it has it's advantages and it's disadvantages
/etc/init.d scripts has been placed into common functions referenced elsewhere
it all depends on what you want to use it for
(it's a bit like hitting a screw with a hammer and saying, hmmm this isn't going into the wall very well)
if you want something that's going to work first time, and that your not going to have to arse about setting up
(e.g. a commercial environment) then go with a rpm solution like redhat or suse (this way you've always got the option of support as well at the same time)
If you want something for running the latest cutting edge software and damned the consequences
the sort of person that would make the attempt at building his own conservatory on the side of his house go for Gentoo
Disadvantages
1. it's source based
which can mean less stable / well tested
ultimately gentoo is a source based dist, which means any binary files you end up with won't have been tested
and there's no guarantee of behavior as it all depends on how things have been linked
2. rpm's do some amount of checking when installing the binary, with gentoo it's assumed that whatever has been compiled is correct
(unless make install throws up an error during the build process or you write some checking into the script it's not always possible to guarantee that everything is installed the way it's supposed to be
admitily problems are rare but do crop up now and again
3. it takes ages to compile / install etc
the trade-off here is having access to the latest stuff, so I'm happy with this one
Advantages
1. if you want to get something working that's only just been released
it takes me 5 mins to write an ebuild script
it takes much longer to write an rpm spec file
(this especially comes in handy when your trying to add / remove patches / custom graft as part of the script)
the reason for this is a lot of the common stuff has been functionalised (is that a word?) into eclass files
this makes the whole thing default to a certain common behavior unless overridden in the script
also you don't have to list all the files that should be installed as it works it out for itself all auto-magically
in an ideal scenario for rpm you'd at least have both options depending on the use of the system (do some checking, don't do some checking)
ideally I'd really like rpm to take on some of the same advantages as this one (why not?, it might need testing / change of spec files but it'd be well worth it)
2. a lot of the scripts that form the bootup are much more up-to-date
again most of the stuff in the
it's part of the whole "if it's not broke don't fix it" thing, which in principle gives advantages to commonality if everyone is using the same sort of
startup scripts if your writing a RPM for several dists and may be more stable / tested
but the gentoo method is much simpler to write for / more automated
3. it's sourced based
which means it'll run on pretty much anything, any weird ass bit of hardware you can throw at it (usually)
(PS3 hint hint)
Personally I'm confident I can fix most things when they go wrong in the portage tree, via an overlay (or at least have the patience to wait for it to be fixed). but for the average Joe user in an office that couldn't give a monkey's for that sort of thing something binary / rpm is better suited
There's probably lots of stuff I've missed here but the general idea is
if you like home brew go to Gentoo (mmm tasty brew)
If you like it plain and flat go for Red Hat
I think there was one passed recently
... hilarity ensues
something to do with running with scissors I think
It would have been interesting if this had happened in one of the rougher areas
in one of those schools where every student has they're own knife / flac jacket
as standard issue
take that Mother F**** down
wow I guess in the future everyone will be wearing silver tinted / tin shades
(along with the standard issue tin foil hat)
What about a system that works the other way round?
One example
You start up a copying tool such as Nero to copy the whole disk
drive sends a signal to the disk that it's copying parts or all of the disk
the chip in the disk (now being talked to by the drive) says aha you're trying to read some empty part of the disk that isn't normally used by the film therefore you're copying the whole disk
at which point it ether makes the disk too transparent or black rendering it unreadable permanently
another idea might be to store encryption keys in the chip itself
and make the disk transparent when it's being read
but I don't know how permanent the mechanism is for making the disk transparent (if it can be used on a temporary basis / flicked back and forth like a switch)
also it'd probably just be as hackable as Blu Ray (and also requiring the purchase of new drives)
so this wouldn't be much use
but the 1st method if possible could be phased in as part of new drive / disk releases
maybe I'm missing something here as I admit I'm not fully aware of the low level details of network implementation
but wouldn't it be possible to still have a Firewall but without a NAT?
i.e. instead of devices pretending to be just the one IP address that's been assigned to the router via NAT, they instead each have they're own addresses
However all communication still physically goes through the router / firewall / same device to filter out any incoming dodgy packets via SPI, or put limits on incoming communications (port filtering for given IP ranges for internal devices) to make sure that access is only granted when requested instead of by default
forget the fancy pants spandex crap
I'm waiting for the guy in the penguin suit and army fatigues to show up
with a pen knife in one hand (for carving the word stallman into one of the foreheads of the Vista guy) and a machine gun in the other
Does this mean we're going to start seeing the enemy in disco balls suits, with dark goggles?
well at least the terrorists should be easy to spot now
how much for just the camp voice synthesizer?
or perhaps they've now got a new camp plugin for festival?
further investigation revealed the legs of a metalic huminoid structure buried in the aftermath
when freed from the wreckage it seemed to enquire about the wherabouts of Sarah connor
you're probably right, and I do agree that the software emulation will gradually get better over timep s3_has_less_functionality_than_us_japan/
p s3_has_less_functionality_than_us_japan/
However it's the comments from Sony that they're going to be focusing on new content rather than backwards compatibility that's a little worrying
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/02/23/european_
also given that we're paying more for less
after a bit of googling, found a couple of links on backwards compatibility so far
not necessarily EE related, but just backwards compatibility in general
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/02/23/european_
http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/745/745439p1.html
also a youtube on this, although I believe this problem has been fixed now http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoCD9TwLrVs
Do you envisige a Euro version of the console that includes the EE processor?
From some of the rumours I've been hearing (BBC radio 1) quite a lot of individuals have canceled they're orders in the UK and instead opted for an American imports including the EE processor
to avoid any conflicts with some of the older PS2 game titles
(and yes I am aware that Sony will be punishing those individuals that choose to follow this course of action)
personally I'm holding off for the time being until some form of comparison can be made between the 2 different versions of the console in terms of compatibility for the PS2 (and I'm pretty sure someone on a website - probably linked to from slashdot, will be running with this eventually)
at the very least I would have liked to have seen some form of optional add-in board, even if it had increased the cost
e.g. release the minimal version of the PS3 without the board
and the max version of the PS3 (larger HD) with the board
(although at the moment only the max version of the PS3 will be released in the UK I believe)
I think the real question on every one's mind is
by the time we actually discover one of these things on course with the earth
will sean connery still be alive to save the day?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_(film)
bah forget your namby pamby satalite based lasers
what you want is a big MOON Laser
it doesn't say anything about those now does it?
How about bouncing a Death Ray of the mirror they left up there on the moon's surface during the 60's? (I wonder how many power stations you'd need for that to stay coherent)
I was about to say the same thing
SL works because you can make / build whatever you want and use it wherever you want and script it
the only thing that's bought from Linden really is the Land
here's an idea
I'm not sure if the PS3 has 3d Support under Linux yet
but how about running the new Linux client for SL on the PS3?
problem solved
It has to be said the serious question that's on everyone's mind at the moment
will it include sexual harassment?
not to mention realdoll's (emphasis on the real) claiming for half the property as part of a divorce settlement
a grave issue for all lonely Geeks out there
Somewhere in the near future as a whole platoon of zombie crazed ethically challenged robot soldiers encroaches upon your house as part of a large scale invasion from another country
the scariest moment will come when you notice that each one has the "EA Games Live" Logo attached to the front with the stark realisation that each one is remotely controlled by a muderous crazed spotty nosed teenager in his bedroom, with his new copy of BattleField 2143 "It's in the kill"
I think under Gentoo it's just a shortcut to a file in a different location :)
but okay then
emerge -u world
run the etc-update script (just to be safe)
and now relax
lets see now...
emerge -u world
yep that should do it
and relax
I think we can come up with a few more interesting uses for this stuff
set up some invisible walls on the pavement, fun with the neighbours
(good one for the students)
want to start your own cult?
How about walking across a transparent platform in mid air or just above water made of this stuff
Jesus eat your heart out
Now you too can have an invisible aeroplane just like wonderwoman
How about donning a superman outfit, fit a platform to the roof of your car
and see how many accidents you can cause, when onlookers see a real life superhero flying down the street
worried about weapons of mass destruction appearing on the news?
new and improved (mostly) invisible nukes, watch out for that healthy green glow
want a flying / hovering car of the future, how about invisible wheels?
(watch out for those pot holes)
I wonder if 2 way mirrors would be less noticible from the mirror side, using this stuff
since you could probably increase the amount of reflective mirror material on one side while maintaing the same level of brightness from the other side
because of the decreased reflectivity maybe
Great now we're only 2 letters away from Graphite based Transistors
and as soon as that's ready, grab yourself some epaper and a pencil
and get ready to design your own quad core 64bit WHSmith CPU
how about that for Linux from Scratch
true hardcore means no erasors