Duracell lobby? Give me an effing break. There are no nuclear batteries because:
1. No one has designed one that works well and is safe.
2. Most proposed designs are ridiculously expensive. (Unless you want to pay thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars for a battery that'll power a cell phone.)
The solution is already here: bigger batteries. Guess what, you can double the battery life of a laptop by making the battery twice as big. Sure, it'll weigh more, but that's not exacly a "limiting factor".
"Of course, by those standards, most Americans must be addicted to work, sex, and TV as well."
So you're telling me that the average American has sex 5 times a day? Well, that makes me feel a lot better.:(
"Examples included the ability to retract unread messages" Are you saying that men want the ability to "retract" unborn babies? Hmmm, you might be on to something there.
"a way to track the forwarding of their own email" A way to find out who else your SO is sleeping with?
There are two reasons why this is wrong. First, many open source developers don't make use of existing cross-platform tools. Example: if you need a GUI, don't write different platform-specific code for every platform, just use FLTK. Need threads, use OpenThreads. That's what these libraries were designed for. If the Octave developers had done this, maybe it wouldn't take six months to get the latest version to compile for Windows.
Second, VC++ is not the Windows compiler. It amazes me when developers who use Linux don't even know about MinGW, or think that it is dead. Most Linux projects will build with MinGW with only minimal changes to the makefiles. From the article: "Many of the GNU projects are ported to a wide variety of platforms, even to undeserving once[sic] like cygwin and mingw." Guess what, Mr. Drepper, if the code was written properly in the first place, you wouldn't have to "port" the project to MinGW at all.
I would argue that not writing a cross-platform project that works with Windows and Mac, is harmful. And since when are Windows developers a "minority". Maybe on/., but not in the real world.
That's Slashdot for ya. I get modded "Troll" for pointing out plagiarism. And this isn't the first time I've seen the "article summary" posted by someone turn out to be just the first paragraph of the linked article. I went to the original article, which was on space.com, not MSNBC, and posted a comment to let them know about this problem.
"Twin Girls With a Pearl Earring" should not have won. It is mirror images of the exact same model rendered twice. Every wrinkle in their clothing is exactly the same. And he (or she?) put some sort of weird head scarf on her so he wouldn't have to render hair. Shame on you, Rene Bui.
Sure, it's better than anything I could do, but it pales in comparison to the others.
"If your body needs calcium, you'll crave some orange juice or vegetables."
Actually orange juice naturally has very little calcium in it. The calcium is added to it. Also, I just read an article in Scientific American that said there's not thought to be a connection between food cravings and most nutrient deficiencies.
Why is there so much plagiarism on/.? The two sentences supposedly written by mknewman, were actually written by Leonard David, the author of the article. Why give credit to someone for cutting and pasting?
"Gigabytes experiments with quadruple GPU's on one motherboard"
Not using apostrophes for posesives is bad. Using apostrophes for plurals is also bad. Actually, abreviations, such as GPU, used to be pluralized with "'s", but this is no longer the preferred way. Go ahead and mod me off-topic if you like, but these errors really make it hard to understand the content.
Why is it that Google is scanning copyright-protected works?
Ummm... they're not. They said they will start with non-copyrighted works. They'll probably need to do a deal with the publishers (like Amazon has) to start scanning copyrighted works. Where they might get into trouble, though, is if they think something is not copyrighted when it is. Apparently, this is not a trivial thing to determine.
They don't require special equipment or power sources to use. True. One of the few advantages.
One book is very cheap compared to a digital book reader. You don't need a digital reader for every book. That's the whole point.
Can be dropped, kicked, thrown, sat on, with no real damage. Can have pages torn out, scribbling on the pages, and can smell like chemicals (mostly true for medical and chemistry books.)
Can be partially destroyed without total data loss. Can't be backed up cheaply and easily (and legally).
Can even stand a fair amount of water damage, with proper care for recovery. See above.
But there's a big difference here: google is not making the full text of copyrighted texts available. This is just FUD from publishers who want to have a monopoly on works without copyright protection. They also want to prevent the fair use rights of google on copyrighted works. I'm getting rather sick of their whining.
Well, since Microsoft probably advertises on every major TV news network, you won't see it there. You won't hear about it on NPR either, because they advertise there too. (If you don't believe me, just search the NPR archives to see how many stories were done on the European MS anti-trust case.) So the general public will probably be shielded from this unpleasantness.
"[...] and the move from broadcast TV to broadband TV."
I predict that one day, we will be able to stream TV shows through our existing cable lines in real time. And when that day comes, just remember you heard it here first.
This contest is bizarre. You're allowed to take someone else's code, make a few trivial optimizations to it, and resubmit it. If the new code is a tiny bit faster, you win! What the hell kind of programming contest is that? That's like me taking a draft of a novel by a famous author, fixing a few typos, and claiming a Nobel Prize in literature. Are they trying to jump on the OSS bandwagon to seem more hip with the younger crowd?
And the worst part is that, as far as I can tell, there's no prize money! No way am I spending hours racking my brain just to get a blue ribbon and help to advertise their product.
I don't think this card costs anywhere near $1000. They could probably sell it for $800. I mean, it's not like they had to do a lot of R&D to stick another memory module in the 6800 Ultra; you're just paying for the extra RAM. But the market for this is probably limited to research applications and scrawny rich geeks with an irrational desire to own the absolute fastest computer, and they'll probably pay whatever nVidia charges them.
Those just looks so much faster than my desktop. If they really sell these things for less than $500, I wonder if geeks will start hacking these and using them for low-cost desktop computers (running Linux, of course.)
Slashdot Mirror
Duracell lobby? Give me an effing break. There are no nuclear batteries because:
1. No one has designed one that works well and is safe.
2. Most proposed designs are ridiculously expensive. (Unless you want to pay thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars for a battery that'll power a cell phone.)
The solution is already here: bigger batteries. Guess what, you can double the battery life of a laptop by making the battery twice as big. Sure, it'll weigh more, but that's not exacly a "limiting factor".
"Of course, by those standards, most Americans must be addicted to work, sex, and TV as well."
:(
So you're telling me that the average American has sex 5 times a day? Well, that makes me feel a lot better.
"Examples included the ability to retract unread messages"
Are you saying that men want the ability to "retract" unborn babies? Hmmm, you might be on to something there.
"a way to track the forwarding of their own email"
A way to find out who else your SO is sleeping with?
Yeah, mod this "Flamebait". Because nothing is more inflamatory than mentioning the infamous Megabeaver. [/sarcasm]
I'm starting to think that the moderator criteria should include a genetic test for autism.
There are two reasons why this is wrong. First, many open source developers don't make use of existing cross-platform tools. Example: if you need a GUI, don't write different platform-specific code for every platform, just use FLTK. Need threads, use OpenThreads. That's what these libraries were designed for. If the Octave developers had done this, maybe it wouldn't take six months to get the latest version to compile for Windows.
/., but not in the real world.
Second, VC++ is not the Windows compiler. It amazes me when developers who use Linux don't even know about MinGW, or think that it is dead. Most Linux projects will build with MinGW with only minimal changes to the makefiles. From the article:
"Many of the GNU projects are ported to a wide variety of platforms, even to undeserving once[sic] like cygwin and mingw."
Guess what, Mr. Drepper, if the code was written properly in the first place, you wouldn't have to "port" the project to MinGW at all.
I would argue that not writing a cross-platform project that works with Windows and Mac, is harmful. And since when are Windows developers a "minority". Maybe on
Women are twice as likely as men to feel "nervous and afraid" if we learn life exists -- 27% vs. 13%
I think this could be said about just about anything.
Women are twice as likely as men to feel "nervous and afraid" if there are no almond M&Ms left in the vending machine.
Women are twice as likely as men to feel "nervous and afraid" if their favorite sitcom is cancelled.
Women are twice as likely as men to feel "nervous and afraid" if they have to pee when they're away from home.
Women are twice as likely as men to feel "nervous and afraid" if there is no beer left in the fridge.
Well, that last one doesn't quite work. But that's about the only situation I can think of where the tables are turned.
That's Slashdot for ya. I get modded "Troll" for pointing out plagiarism. And this isn't the first time I've seen the "article summary" posted by someone turn out to be just the first paragraph of the linked article. I went to the original article, which was on space.com, not MSNBC, and posted a comment to let them know about this problem.
Yeah! And it's Wednesday where I live, you insensitive clod!
"Twin Girls With a Pearl Earring" should not have won. It is mirror images of the exact same model rendered twice. Every wrinkle in their clothing is exactly the same. And he (or she?) put some sort of weird head scarf on her so he wouldn't have to render hair. Shame on you, Rene Bui.
Sure, it's better than anything I could do, but it pales in comparison to the others.
"If your body needs calcium, you'll crave some orange juice or vegetables."
Actually orange juice naturally has very little calcium in it. The calcium is added to it. Also, I just read an article in Scientific American that said there's not thought to be a connection between food cravings and most nutrient deficiencies.
Why is there so much plagiarism on /.? The two sentences supposedly written by mknewman, were actually written by Leonard David, the author of the article. Why give credit to someone for cutting and pasting?
"Others like me, myself included[...]"
;)
I know what's wrong: you're schizophrenic.
"Gigabytes experiments with quadruple GPU's on one motherboard"
Not using apostrophes for posesives is bad. Using apostrophes for plurals is also bad. Actually, abreviations, such as GPU, used to be pluralized with "'s", but this is no longer the preferred way. Go ahead and mod me off-topic if you like, but these errors really make it hard to understand the content.
7. Better cultural acceptance (I'm *so* tired of walking into a lan party and getting flamed for my mac.)
Um... if you go to lan parties, I'd say mainstream cultural acceptance is pretty much a lost cause for you.
So how do you write down your password in those paperless offices that Microsoft is always talking about? Carve it into the desk with a letter opener?
Why is it that Google is scanning copyright-protected works?
Ummm... they're not. They said they will start with non-copyrighted works. They'll probably need to do a deal with the publishers (like Amazon has) to start scanning copyrighted works. Where they might get into trouble, though, is if they think something is not copyrighted when it is. Apparently, this is not a trivial thing to determine.
Plus they don't go obsolete.
No, they decompose.
They don't require special equipment or power sources to use.
True. One of the few advantages.
One book is very cheap compared to a digital book reader.
You don't need a digital reader for every book. That's the whole point.
Can be dropped, kicked, thrown, sat on, with no real damage.
Can have pages torn out, scribbling on the pages, and can smell like chemicals (mostly true for medical and chemistry books.)
Can be partially destroyed without total data loss.
Can't be backed up cheaply and easily (and legally).
Can even stand a fair amount of water damage, with proper care for recovery.
See above.
But there's a big difference here: google is not making the full text of copyrighted texts available. This is just FUD from publishers who want to have a monopoly on works without copyright protection. They also want to prevent the fair use rights of google on copyrighted works. I'm getting rather sick of their whining.
Well, since Microsoft probably advertises on every major TV news network, you won't see it there. You won't hear about it on NPR either, because they advertise there too. (If you don't believe me, just search the NPR archives to see how many stories were done on the European MS anti-trust case.) So the general public will probably be shielded from this unpleasantness.
Hopefully that guy has already started his job search. I don't think Microsoft US is going to like this.
"May you whittle your gene pool alongside us."
How do you whittle a pool? Maybe if you'd said "whittle your gene stick"...
"[...] and the move from broadcast TV to broadband TV."
I predict that one day, we will be able to stream TV shows through our existing cable lines in real time. And when that day comes, just remember you heard it here first.
This contest is bizarre. You're allowed to take someone else's code, make a few trivial optimizations to it, and resubmit it. If the new code is a tiny bit faster, you win! What the hell kind of programming contest is that? That's like me taking a draft of a novel by a famous author, fixing a few typos, and claiming a Nobel Prize in literature. Are they trying to jump on the OSS bandwagon to seem more hip with the younger crowd?
And the worst part is that, as far as I can tell, there's no prize money! No way am I spending hours racking my brain just to get a blue ribbon and help to advertise their product.
can you email it to me? plz!!! LOL!!!
I don't think this card costs anywhere near $1000. They could probably sell it for $800. I mean, it's not like they had to do a lot of R&D to stick another memory module in the 6800 Ultra; you're just paying for the extra RAM. But the market for this is probably limited to research applications and scrawny rich geeks with an irrational desire to own the absolute fastest computer, and they'll probably pay whatever nVidia charges them.
Those just looks so much faster than my desktop. If they really sell these things for less than $500, I wonder if geeks will start hacking these and using them for low-cost desktop computers (running Linux, of course.)