I've had and XL for about 2 monthes now, and I like it a lot metter than my last Targus laptop back pack.
I got it because I needed a bag for the 17" laptop I had then from work. It's got a lot of smart features like the flip-down desk-ish thing that covers two mesh pockets (which are big enough for two half-liter bottles of water and a collapsable umbrella). There are a lot of other little side pockets for storing gatdets (iPod accessories, cell phone, USB key drive, etc).
The straps, howerver, aren't quite right. Wiating in long security lines, I notice that they put all of the weight on your shoulders and kinda squeeze in. For as long as the bag is, I would think that it should distribute more of the weight to your hips and lower back. It's not unberable, but it's not a serious hike-across-Europa pack, either. The waist strap helps, though.
That said, I still love it. It's great for daily commuting (including by bike). It's also got a nifty snap-off pocket on the front of the straps for a cell phone or MP3 player.
Also, it's frickin' huge. Like I said, 1 liter of water, a 17" laptop/cables/charger, an external 5.25" hard drive, files folder, conference notes, snacks - and it wasn't even looking full. You can live out of this thing for a week with no problem.
Remember the Bloom County...
on
Nuclear Batteries
·
· Score: 2, Funny
At the Science fair. Oliver has build a nuclear bomb as his project...
Teacher - "And where did you get the fissionable material?" Oliver - "I scraped the luminous paint off 10,000 old watch dials" Teacher (turning quickly and clapping hands) - "Class! Fire Drill!"
(and yes, I know the fuel mentioned in the article can't go critical. It's just a friggin' joke).
this makes dealing with RAW files less of PITA. However, has anyone other that Adobe been involved in the spec's creation, or is this just another case of the brilliant minds a [insert company/organization name] coming up with the "ultimate" solution to their corner of the world's problems, without really considering the broader context.
I await more information and a working open-source library...wake me when it's ready.
Ahh, this is the classic question: Who watches the watchers. I too am torn on this. As a US citizen, I'm saddened at the implicit/explicit corruption that I see at all levels of our government and society. The notion of external, "impartial" monitors holds the promise of a possible shred of legitimacy in the process this fall.
However, "impartial" is such a relative term. I'm sure the observers will be professional and sincere, but the institutions that they represent are ultimately political (and all that that implies). I fear they will simply become pawns in the struggle of an increasingly polarized and belligerent political process in the US.
In particular, if there is a Kerry win, I sure the Bush supporters will bring up the previous comments of certain European leaders giving tacit support to Kerry and claiming bias in the monitoring process, leading to essentially a call for a "do over". If there is a Bush win, I haven't figured out quite what the claim will be, but I'm sure it's in the can already.
I guess I really just want the whole thing over so we can get on with our lives, one way or another. This 18 month-long election cycle is such a waste of time, money and mental cycles.
External USB/FW drive - get the iPod
on
Portable Storage?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I've got a 40GB 3.5" hard drive in an external case with USB 2.0 and FireWire ports. The flexibility is nice, but I almost never use one set of ports. The biggest hassle is the external power supply. It's just one more brick to carry around, and it's a non-standard part, so I can't even get another one without buying another (frankly overpriced) case. Very high PITA factor.
The iPod, with an extra dock, is a far superior solution. And the bonus of playing your tunes allows you to completely separate your stuff from your employers stuff. There's no ambiguity. Personally, 25-40% of my laptop's drive is given over to music, so an iPod would be the ideal solution for me.
These amounts are small, but research groups at one of the particle accelerator rings actually noticed a distortion in the targeting of the beams due to the stretching/squashing of the surrounding land caused by the changing positions of the Sun and Moon. This caused the beam to periodically go off target.
Wow, does that mean if the human seismic/mass hypothesis in the original paper hold true, that a flash mob near a high-energy physics facility could lead to mass devastation?
Actually, I find it more interesting that we're all in shock that it FP was T+10 minutes.....
Come on, send in the Trolls!
Ahhh, the truth becomes clear. the article was posted for subscribers and inadvertently was posted for general audience. We shouldn't have been able to post. -- I stand by my original statement
while waiting for a combine to fill some wagons with corn. It was fsck'n cold, too. The LCD of my smart phone was sluggish, but, hey, this is/., so I didn't notice.
of course, I checked it last week while sitting on the same tractor while waiting for a wagon of hay, too. It was hot, but the phone was still slow.
when our agency (yes, part of the State, and all that it implies) moved last year, we had a big debate about the ceiling. Some of us came from dot-bomb world and pushed for an open, black-painted ceiling with simple suspended lights.
Others (dare I say the more traditionalist), pushed for a "regular" dropped acoustical tile ceiling. In the end, management <sarcasm>in a fit of Solomon-like wisdom</sarcasm> decided on a compromise. So now we have what is euphemistically known as The Open Grid(tm), or what we call the worst of both worlds. It's the grid-work of the suspended ceiling with half the tiles taken out.
Not only does it not suppress noise like a full dropped ceiling, it also brings the crappie, glare-producing overhead florescent lights that always seem to reflect off your screen.
It all became a moot point when Clear Channel Broadcasting moved their Morning Zoo(tm) broadcast to a studio one floor above us. Their noise effectively drowns out our ambient noise so well that everyone wears headphones all day and uses IM for all internal group communication....
Re:Don't ticket me - control my car's max speed
on
Road Marker Marks You
·
· Score: 1
I agree to a point. The problem I have is the case of the pregnant couple rushing to get to the hospital (which happened to me). a car with an absolute limit with no override can become more of a liability than it solves.
which would also be a great design. Even cooler if you could have some mini-rc satellite droids (w/ video&audio telemetry) that could come be controlled from the PC. Then, to be able to control the whole thing from the web....
Alan Cooper, author of "The Inmates are Running the Asylum" and other texts put it this way:
Q: What do you get when you cross a camera and a computer? A: A computer.
His point is that from an interface and place-in-the-world point of view, most products that have been digitally enhanced tend to remain closer to their technology roots than their analog counterparts (with all of the usability, and I would say ethical, challenges inherient in a technologist-driven system).
That said, this is pretty frickin' cool, but the double-edged sword presented by this innovation seems both particularly sharp and far reaching. I really hope we get this one right.
In that they're both hydrocarbons? IANAC(hemist), but I've always though that diesel was toward the "heavy" less-refined end of the fuel product spectrum compared to kerosene (and jet fuel) and gasoline. I could be way off base, though. Chemistry class was a long time ago.
I would think that the DoD would be interested in a fuel processing/fuel-cell system that would be able to take any hydrogen-rich fluid (alcohol, vegetable oil, etc) that could be found in the field and converted into on-demand fuel. Wasn't there some talk a couple years about "tunable" scrubbers for the hydrogen generation process?
or, rather, 1994, I worked in a marketing firm dealing with hirez scans for pre-press. We were _so_ geeked when we got two Micronet 1GB external SCSI drives (giga-bricks). The art directors fought tooth and nail over them, but we, as tech support, of course needed one for our...ahem...duties.
I seem to remember they cost about $1200 each, too. 1000x increase in storage in 10 years for the same $$...
on a side note, I just trashed an ancient SCSI 230MB Syquest drive that's been taking up space in my closet. I got 256MB USB 2.0 pen drive for less than 1/3 of the price of a single cartritge for the thing...
If only the tree defense would excuse their shoddy maintenance on their nuclear plant. they let a slow boric acid drip eat almost all they way through the reactor cap.
makes me wonder what their sys-admin policies are, too...
If M$ apps have a zero learnign curve, why is there such a flourshing industry around M$ admin training (e.g, a Google search for "Exchange Admin Training" returns 474,000 hits).
Let's face it, M$'s (and most other large software companies) poor quality (in products, in documentation, etc) is the driver for a number of secondary industries. It's the real core of their business model, and it's one they've been nurturing for 15 years.
What I like about OSS is the fact that I can generally find the most obscure, detailed technical fix FOR FREE, fairly quickly by doing a couple google searches. The M$ model is based on service contracts (*ching*), support vendors (*cha-ching*), and over-priced consultants who are for the most part, idiots (*cha-cha-ching*!)
Actually, Plenum-grade cable is only required when running cable through air-handling spaces. Suspended ceiling in office spaces are often used this way, and during a fire situation PVC vapors would be spread around. That's why non-toxic grade sheathing is required in these spaces.
I don't believe that you need plenum grade sheathing in non-air handeling walls. Typically in a fire situation, the fumes released from burning carpet and furniture are much more of the problem than a relativly small amount of cable sheathing.
That said, if you can afford to install plenum-grade cable, go right ahead - it's only money and if it buys you some piece of mind, great. Your electrician might not be happy with you, though, because the teflon sheathing of plenum-grade cable is much stiffer and harder to work with.
Slashdot Mirror
I've had and XL for about 2 monthes now, and I like it a lot metter than my last Targus laptop back pack.
I got it because I needed a bag for the 17" laptop I had then from work. It's got a lot of smart features like the flip-down desk-ish thing that covers two mesh pockets (which are big enough for two half-liter bottles of water and a collapsable umbrella). There are a lot of other little side pockets for storing gatdets (iPod accessories, cell phone, USB key drive, etc).
The straps, howerver, aren't quite right. Wiating in long security lines, I notice that they put all of the weight on your shoulders and kinda squeeze in. For as long as the bag is, I would think that it should distribute more of the weight to your hips and lower back. It's not unberable, but it's not a serious hike-across-Europa pack, either. The waist strap helps, though.
That said, I still love it. It's great for daily commuting (including by bike). It's also got a nifty snap-off pocket on the front of the straps for a cell phone or MP3 player.
Also, it's frickin' huge. Like I said, 1 liter of water, a 17" laptop/cables/charger, an external 5.25" hard drive, files folder, conference notes, snacks - and it wasn't even looking full. You can live out of this thing for a week with no problem.
At the Science fair. Oliver has build a nuclear bomb as his project...
Teacher - "And where did you get the fissionable material?"
Oliver - "I scraped the luminous paint off 10,000 old watch dials"
Teacher (turning quickly and clapping hands) - "Class! Fire Drill!"
(and yes, I know the fuel mentioned in the article can't go critical. It's just a friggin' joke).
this makes dealing with RAW files less of PITA. However, has anyone other that Adobe been involved in the spec's creation, or is this just another case of the brilliant minds a [insert company/organization name] coming up with the "ultimate" solution to their corner of the world's problems, without really considering the broader context.
I await more information and a working open-source library...wake me when it's ready.
Ahh, this is the classic question: Who watches the watchers. I too am torn on this. As a US citizen, I'm saddened at the implicit/explicit corruption that I see at all levels of our government and society. The notion of external, "impartial" monitors holds the promise of a possible shred of legitimacy in the process this fall.
However, "impartial" is such a relative term. I'm sure the observers will be professional and sincere, but the institutions that they represent are ultimately political (and all that that implies). I fear they will simply become pawns in the struggle of an increasingly polarized and belligerent political process in the US.
In particular, if there is a Kerry win, I sure the Bush supporters will bring up the previous comments of certain European leaders giving tacit support to Kerry and claiming bias in the monitoring process, leading to essentially a call for a "do over". If there is a Bush win, I haven't figured out quite what the claim will be, but I'm sure it's in the can already.
I guess I really just want the whole thing over so we can get on with our lives, one way or another. This 18 month-long election cycle is such a waste of time, money and mental cycles.
I've got a 40GB 3.5" hard drive in an external case with USB 2.0 and FireWire ports. The flexibility is nice, but I almost never use one set of ports. The biggest hassle is the external power supply. It's just one more brick to carry around, and it's a non-standard part, so I can't even get another one without buying another (frankly overpriced) case. Very high PITA factor.
The iPod, with an extra dock, is a far superior solution. And the bonus of playing your tunes allows you to completely separate your stuff from your employers stuff. There's no ambiguity. Personally, 25-40% of my laptop's drive is given over to music, so an iPod would be the ideal solution for me.
Don't be evil.
that would be a good start. we'll work out the perk from there. leave your answer on your home page. I'll be in touch.
wicked cool....
Actually, I find it more interesting that we're all in shock that it FP was T+10 minutes.....
Come on, send in the Trolls!
Ahhh, the truth becomes clear. the article was posted for subscribers and inadvertently was posted for general audience. We shouldn't have been able to post.
--
I stand by my original statement
stunned silence from the peanut gallery? A chance to slam MS and no takers?
/.ers are above shooting fish in a barrel?
Could it be that even
not likely...
I didn't know it was April 1st again so soon...
while waiting for a combine to fill some wagons with corn. It was fsck'n cold, too. The LCD of my smart phone was sluggish, but, hey, this is /., so I didn't notice.
of course, I checked it last week while sitting on the same tractor while waiting for a wagon of hay, too. It was hot, but the phone was still slow.
when our agency (yes, part of the State, and all that it implies) moved last year, we had a big debate about the ceiling. Some of us came from dot-bomb world and pushed for an open, black-painted ceiling with simple suspended lights.
Others (dare I say the more traditionalist), pushed for a "regular" dropped acoustical tile ceiling. In the end, management <sarcasm>in a fit of Solomon-like wisdom</sarcasm> decided on a compromise. So now we have what is euphemistically known as The Open Grid(tm), or what we call the worst of both worlds. It's the grid-work of the suspended ceiling with half the tiles taken out.
Not only does it not suppress noise like a full dropped ceiling, it also brings the crappie, glare-producing overhead florescent lights that always seem to reflect off your screen.
It all became a moot point when Clear Channel Broadcasting moved their Morning Zoo(tm) broadcast to a studio one floor above us. Their noise effectively drowns out our ambient noise so well that everyone wears headphones all day and uses IM for all internal group communication....
I agree to a point. The problem I have is the case of the pregnant couple rushing to get to the hospital (which happened to me). a car with an absolute limit with no override can become more of a liability than it solves.
which would also be a great design. Even cooler if you could have some mini-rc satellite droids (w/ video&audio telemetry) that could come be controlled from the PC. Then, to be able to control the whole thing from the web....
Sounds like my new summer project...
Alan Cooper, author of "The Inmates are Running the Asylum" and other texts put it this way:
Q: What do you get when you cross a camera and a computer?
A: A computer.
His point is that from an interface and place-in-the-world point of view, most products that have been digitally enhanced tend to remain closer to their technology roots than their analog counterparts (with all of the usability, and I would say ethical, challenges inherient in a technologist-driven system).
That said, this is pretty frickin' cool, but the double-edged sword presented by this innovation seems both particularly sharp and far reaching. I really hope we get this one right.
"Why can't you use your powers for Good?"
p0rn...lots o' p0rn
I had a customer tell me that's all the web is good for
The article did mention that the material has a 2cm bend radius, so it still might have a problem if it gets crushed.
In that they're both hydrocarbons? IANAC(hemist), but I've always though that diesel was toward the "heavy" less-refined end of the fuel product spectrum compared to kerosene (and jet fuel) and gasoline. I could be way off base, though. Chemistry class was a long time ago.
I would think that the DoD would be interested in a fuel processing/fuel-cell system that would be able to take any hydrogen-rich fluid (alcohol, vegetable oil, etc) that could be found in the field and converted into on-demand fuel. Wasn't there some talk a couple years about "tunable" scrubbers for the hydrogen generation process?
"never underestimate the effective bandwidth of a station wagon full of backup tapes"
and I just thre away a 300 baud US Robotics modem last week thinking "surely I'll never need this again"....who knew
or, rather, 1994, I worked in a marketing firm dealing with hirez scans for pre-press. We were _so_ geeked when we got two Micronet 1GB external SCSI drives (giga-bricks). The art directors fought tooth and nail over them, but we, as tech support, of course needed one for our...ahem...duties.
I seem to remember they cost about $1200 each, too. 1000x increase in storage in 10 years for the same $$...
on a side note, I just trashed an ancient SCSI 230MB Syquest drive that's been taking up space in my closet. I got 256MB USB 2.0 pen drive for less than 1/3 of the price of a single cartritge for the thing...
If only the tree defense would excuse their shoddy maintenance on their nuclear plant. they let a slow boric acid drip eat almost all they way through the reactor cap.
makes me wonder what their sys-admin policies are, too...
If M$ apps have a zero learnign curve, why is there such a flourshing industry around M$ admin training (e.g, a Google search for "Exchange Admin Training" returns 474,000 hits).
Let's face it, M$'s (and most other large software companies) poor quality (in products, in documentation, etc) is the driver for a number of secondary industries. It's the real core of their business model, and it's one they've been nurturing for 15 years.
What I like about OSS is the fact that I can generally find the most obscure, detailed technical fix FOR FREE, fairly quickly by doing a couple google searches. The M$ model is based on service contracts (*ching*), support vendors (*cha-ching*), and over-priced consultants who are for the most part, idiots (*cha-cha-ching*!)
In the ether...gawd, don't tell me SCO is claiming right to Ethernet, too.
Oh, where will it end....
Actually, Plenum-grade cable is only required when running cable through air-handling spaces. Suspended ceiling in office spaces are often used this way, and during a fire situation PVC vapors would be spread around. That's why non-toxic grade sheathing is required in these spaces.
I don't believe that you need plenum grade sheathing in non-air handeling walls. Typically in a fire situation, the fumes released from burning carpet and furniture are much more of the problem than a relativly small amount of cable sheathing.
That said, if you can afford to install plenum-grade cable, go right ahead - it's only money and if it buys you some piece of mind, great. Your electrician might not be happy with you, though, because the teflon sheathing of plenum-grade cable is much stiffer and harder to work with.