It is not welcome. Linux is about Open Source, and allowing people to link-in binary closed drivers goes against this.
No, having a stable binary driver interface doesn't
go against it. Yes, it makes it possible to
write closed-source drivers, but it is already
possible, which has been proven by the fact that
nVidia has already done it
by providing their own (open-source)
glue layer to present a stable binary interface
for the closed-source code. Not having a
stable binary interface only does one thing:
it forces you to make some of your
code open-source. It doesn't force you to
make any of the non-trivial parts open-source.
If it were truly necessary not to have a stable
binary interface between two layers of software
in order to promote open source, then all Linux
systems already have it wrong, because glibc
and many other of the system's shared libraries
have stable
binary interfaces.
After all, it's bad to be able to run closed-source
software on Linux, right? It's bad for Linux
that it's possible to run Oracle on it, right?
It would be better if all those people who want
to run Oracle use some other operating system
instead, right? Also, it's best if no closed-source
games run on Linux, right?
To convince me that it's wrong
to have stable binary interfaces, you're going
to have to argue that it's wrong to have them
at the user level as well.
Essentially if someone owns a physical copy of software, then they are allowed to modify the code as part of their regular use, no matter what other agreements are in place.
What defines a "physical copy" of the software?
How could you possibly modify something you don't
have a copy of? It seems like if you are modifying
it, then you have a physical copy.
I have a bad feeling is that the distinction is
going to come down to the media being removable
or not, which would mean that internal hard drives
aren't "physical", which is absurd. Or maybe it
means that you must own media that contains the
software and which originally came from the
owner of the software. But what about software
that you purchase for download only? Shouldn't
the same rights apply?
This physical media distinction just seems like
really bizarre and arbitrary reasoning.
At this point, the GPL is mostly irrelevant to the Open Source movement. Once hailed as a means to safeguard the communal creation, exchange, and improvement of software, it's now being subverted by companies and individuals generating their own licenses loosely based on the GPL but permitting the commercial extension/closed-binary distribution of code for the right amount of money.
Huh? I really don't get what you're saying. You
seem to be implying that the GPL and its way of
doing open source predates other ways of doing
it and other licenses. I don't think history
agrees with you.
For one thing, some of the earliest open source
software was simply released into the public
domain. That's sort of the ultimate in permissive
licensing -- way more permissive than the GPL is.
Back in the 1980's, it was quite common
for free software
to be public domain.
Second, the GPL
seems to have originated in June 1988,
whereas the BSD license seems to have
originated in June 1989. In my mind,
that makes the BSD license and the GPL pretty
close to contemporary. Both the BSD
project and the GNU Project have histories
that stretch several years back before the late
1980's, so in a sense those dates are not
that significant and they are just
the particular point that both groups felt
it was necessary to be more formal about
the licensing.
So, my perception is that there have been three
strong open source traditions for quite some time:
(1) GPL-style, and (2) BSD-style, and (3)
public domain. The idea that non-GPL style
free or open source software is a new thing
just doesn't seem to fit with reality to me.
The text of the GPL is constrained to be the same everywhere, so that we don't get a million GPL flavors that aren't compatible with each other and increase the combinatorial problem, as happened with the Mozilla licenses.
Let me play devil's advocate for a minute.
If increasing the number of licencses
floating around
is bad, why are they writing a new version of
the GPL? I'm sure there are reasons in favor
of it, but that is what everyone says when
they create a new and incompatible license.
Sun had reasons for creating its own license
when releasing OpenSolaris. I'm sure the FSF
has reasons, but why is the FSF any different?
Why should they be treated specially?
Versions 2 and 3 will still be
different licenses even though they both
share the "GPL" name. To what extent will
code licensed under V2 be compatible
with code licensed under V3 and so on?
Can I mix code that
is under V1-or-V2-only license with code
that is under V3-or-later license? Doesn't
the V3 GPL place restrictions on the use
of code that the V2 GPL doesn't, and wouldn't
that make them incompatible? Can I take
V2-only-licensed code and incorporate it
into a V3-or-later project?
I agree the
problem goes away if one package says "V2 or
later" and the other says "V3 or later" or
something, but
the same argument can be made about all
incompatible licenses: GPL and
BSD are incompatible, but if you release
a package under both, then its code can
be mixed with other code licensed under
either, so I don't see how that's any
different either, except perhaps that
some software already says "V2 or later"
and therefore implicitly includes
V3, whereas relatively little software
is licensed under (say) both BSD and GPL.
AGain, you confiuse govenrnment and economic systems. Government is about how you enact laws. Economic systems is about who owns property and how its distributed. A democracy can very easily be a communism- they just have to vote to be one. In fact, its the most natural form of a communism, since in a communism everyone is supposed to have equal ownership- equal votes.
True, in theory a communist country can
also be democratic. But, in practice
the allocation of resources is extremely
labor-intensive. If private enterprise and
private decision-making doesn't control that
process, then the government must. Therefore,
the government has to be extremely big and
extremely powerful, and it has to have a
recognized authority to intervene in the
everyday affairs of every citizen's life
in any matter that involves the allocation
of resources. And the really huge problem
with allocation of resources is that every
decision is always very, very controversial,
because someone always feels they
are being given the short end of the stick.
Since in a communist country, the government
is making all these decisions, the government
has to have the means to enforce its decisions
even when they are bitterly opposed, which
they will often be since the government is
by definition taking from one group and
giving to another (otherwise they wouldn't
be involved).
The result is that communist countries tend
to move toward becoming totalitarian. Because
the state has such a massive role in everything,
its size and its power balloons out of control.
And
after a while they end up not being democracies.
Yes, maybe it's possible for a communist country
to be democratic and stay that way, but it just
doesn't happen very often.
Also, in my wn view there is a
second effect, too: because communism
necessarily means less individual freedom,
it tends to only be a reasonable compromise
for a country that has a relatively low
standard of living. If most people in a
country are living in serious
poverty, they are willing to give up
a lot to ensure that the
resources are spread as fairly as possible.
But once the standard of living improves and
the typical person has a reasonably comfortable
standard of living, the balance shifts and
personal freedoms become more important since
poverty is no longer a crisis. Once the
country hits the point where unequal distribution
of wealth is less of a problem than lack of
personal freedoms, the government has to do
one of two things: either it has to shrink and
give up power and give the citizens more freedoms
(which rarely happens) or it has to become even
more authoritarian and clamp down on personal
freedoms by any and
all means necessary in order to
enforce the status quo.
Speakers available for use with computers tend to have a range between ~15Hz and ~24kHz. The article says the mice sing at a frequency between 30kHz and 110kHz. Thus, the original tracks wouldn't play on most people's speakers.
Partly true, although speakers' frequency response
tends to be attenuated gradually, so that at one
frequency, it's N decibels quieter than at a
frequency an octave lower on the high end, etc.
So, the speakers may be capable of producing
110 kHz, just at a reduced level like maybe
tens of decibels quieter than the normal level
the speakers can produce. Of course, it depends
on the type of speaker. Many cheap
computer speakers are full-range (not two-way
or three-way) cone speakers with horrible
high-end frequency response. They may not even
reach to the edge of human hearing without
significant attenuation.
However, of much more concern is something that's
going to limit the frequency response in a very
drastic way: the D/A converter in the sound card.
The highest frequency a D/A converter produces
(or at least that it produces in a way that's
modulated by the audio
data, but I digress...) is the nyquist
frequency, which is half the sampling
rate. So, if you have a sound card with a
48 kHz sampling rate on its D/A, which is very,
very common, then the highest possible frequency
you will get out of it is 24 kHz.
In order to produce a non-zero volume at 110 kHz,
you will need a sound card with a sampling rate
of 220 kHz, which is really quite uncommon. You
can get cards with 192 kHz sampling rates now,
so you should be able to hit up to 96 kHz,
which is only 0.2 octaves away from 110 kHz,
which is fairly close considering the entire
range from 30 kHz to 110 kHz is almost 2 octaves,
so you are only cutting out 1/10th of the
range (the way the ears hear it). So, it should
be possible to do it without super-expensive
equipment, but it won't be possible on your
average desktop PC.
Maybe Congress and the White Hosue can exercise some accountability for their totally failed energy policies (including sending us to war) by stopping the price gouging the oil corporations are abusing us with.
The US national average retail price of gasoline
has been dropping quite
steadily for the last 3 weeks.
The price as of 2005-10-27 is $2.50, whereas
on 2005-10-06, it was $2.79. That's almost
10 cents a week. I can't provide a link for
the data other this, but
you can go there, select your state and locality,
then select "Pump Price Graphs" from the left
column, select "USA Average" to show on your
graph, and look at gas prices from the last
6 months.
And the good news is, the two big events that
drove increased gas prices at the pump were
hurricane Katrina and then hurricane Rita
after that, and we have already dropped below
the level it was just before the Katrina-related
panic at the end of August.
And, there was an uptick in prices
during the month of August
and before Katrina,
but we are already down almost 10 cents/gallon
below the levels we were pre-Katrina. And if
you look at the graphs, the derivative seems
pretty close to constant, which might serve as
an indicator that the drop in prices isn't
going to stop right away.
The bottom line is, we may be below $2.50/gallon
again fairly soon. In fact, the gas station
nearest my house is already at $2.49 as of
tonight. We could even drop below $2.00/gallon
if we keep this up for another few weeks.
Only time will tell, of course.
Bottom line is, yes, the gas companies have been
making tons of money, but now prices seem to be
dropping on their own. I don't think we're
headed back to the days when gas was $1.00/gallon
or even back to the days when it was $1.50/gallon,
but we're moving in that direction steadily, at
least as of right now.
Just want to throw this in: I'm
thinking I can't
be the only person who really likes writing
code but is wholly uninterested in any form
of role-playing game or sci-fi/fantasy stuff.
Sure, I liked watching Star Trek. And,
I went to see the "Lord of the Rings" movie
because I wanted to give it a chance, and it
was really good. But that's about as far
as it goes. I didn't have much desire to see
the other two LOTR movies, although I did see
one with a friend because he wanted to see it.
I've never read a fantasy book, and I've only
read like 5 sci-fi books (and that's only if
you count both 1984 and Brave New
World as sci-fi, which is a huge stretch).
People have invited me to AD&D games, but I
just can't muster the interest. It's not like
I think there's anything wrong with it. I
mean, sure, it seems a little dorky, but then
I don't mind being dorky, and I do it regularly
in other ways.
But I just don't get all the wizards and magic
and spells and mythology and everything.
People seem to go totally ape over the stuff,
and I just don't.
For what it's worth, I have the same feelings
about period pieces. People make these movies
where they go to huge, elaborate efforts to
reproduce the costume and the buildings and
the speech and all that of some era exactly,
and I just don't get why that's interesting.
It doesn't bother me (unless it's done in a
way that's pretentious), but it neither adds
value to nor takes away value from the movie
in my opinion. Oh, and the same thing about
movies about the wild West or movies about
American Indians (like Dances With Wolves). For me, unless they have some other
interesting element, they are a total snoozefest.
I guess what it boils down to for me is this:
I just seem to be incapable of romanticizing
other periods of time or nations or cultures
or realms of existence.
And all this sci-fi and fantasy stuff seems
to be all about romanticizing stuff. Either
we're romanticizing the future, or the past,
or the ancient Chinese, or the noble savage
(as in the case of Indian movies), or something
else.
The funny thing about this is, I agree that
sci-fi and fantasy and role-playing games
are really quite common among geeks. The
effect is that, since I don't really go for
that, I feel like an outsider among geeks.
Which is ironic, since I am definitely a
geek myself. (Ask any of my friends...)
50 channels at first glance. Then you have to throw out channel 37, as it is not allowed to be used for broadcasts. I think the reason has to do with that frequency being the one where hydrogen resonates and therefore it is used for radio astronomy.
Aha! That would explain my missing channel. After
I did the math on that post, I realized there was
something wrong, because total channels I was
counting wasn't adding up and I should've been
getting a range of 2 to 69, but I kept getting
a range of 2 through 68. I couldn't figure out
my off-by-one error (and it was late and I was
sleepy), so I just glossed over it. But looking
at the chart, it would appear that the band that
has channels 21-36 goes up to 608 MHz and then
stops. And then at 614 MHz (coincidentally 6 MHz
higher, hmm...), the TV allocations start again.
I was assuming they start again at 37, but after
you've said that, it seems that the TV channel
from 614-620 MHz must be channel 38, and that
there is no such thing as a TV channel 37. It's
just missing from the series, kind of like
buildings that don't have a 13th floor (except
there is something there, but it's just not a
TV station).
And sure enough, if I look at the chart, what
is one of the things it shows between 608 MHz
and 614 MHz? It shows "RADIO ASTRONOMY". I'm
guessing that has to be hydrogen, or something
like it.
Not "6 MHz within the existing analog TV spectrum", "6 MHz within a core digital TV spectrum".
It may well be that what you say is true, but the rest of that FAQ answer is written sufficiently incoherently (or rather, they assume you already know the answer to our question) that I can't tell.
Hmm, I agree it is not exactly the pinnacle of
clarity. It requires quite a bit of effort to
make sure you're getting the right interpretation.
For me, the key statement that makes me feel
like I was pretty confident I had the
right interpretation was this one:
Because of the limited availability of spectrum and the need to accommodate all existing facilities with minimal interference among stations, however, during the transition some broadcasters would be provided DTV channels outside of this core spectrum
Here, the FAQ seems to be saying that the new
digital broadcasts could possibly
interfere with "existing facilities" but only
during the transition period. Assuming
"existing facilities" refers to analog TV
broadcasts, this implies that the digital TV
spectrum and the analog TV spectrum are one
and the same, or at least that they significantly
overlap. Also, there is this statement:
Broadcasters whose existing NTSC channels were in the core spectrum could move their DTV operations to their NTSC channel at some time in the future.
It's pretty unequivocal that NTSC refers to
analog television broadcasts here, and if
stations which had been temporarily
located outside the "core digital spectrum"
during the transmission are going to be
allowed to move their digital transmissions
("DTV operations") to the same frequency
that was used for their analog transmissions
("their NTSC channel"), then that implies
that at least some of the "core digital
spectrum" coincides with the NTSC (analog)
spectrum.
So, I'm still fairly confident that FAQ is
trying to say that digital channels
will be largely the same spectrum as
analog channels, but I agree it takes
quite a bit of work to be sure you really
are understanding that FAQ correctly.
Maybe instead saying "this means that... digital channels are being assigned... within the existing analog TV spectrum", I should've said, "after
reading it several times, I've concluded this
must mean that... digital channels are being
assigned" (etc., etc.).:-)
It's true that analog channels require 6MHz of bandwith. What you are mistaken on is that digital will require the same. I work for a cable company and in one 6MHz slice we can fit ten digital channels. HDTV takes up more space than digital but not as much as anolog.
The problem we are coming up against here is that
the word "channel" means two different things.
On the one hand, it means a thing you can watch
that has a single given program on it at a given
time. On the other hand, it means a chunk of
the spectrum that the FCC gives out a license
for broadcasting on.
I was using it in the latter sense (chunk of
spectrum for broadcasting), although I agree
I didn't make that clear in my post. If
you read the FCC's FAQ that I linked to,
they use the term "subchannel" for the
channels that a broadcaster can
squeeze into the 6 MHz band they're licensed
for.
Anyway, my point is that what the FCC allocates
to a broadcaster for digital is the same as
what they allocate them for analog. In both
cases, it's 6 MHz. Whether they need that
entire 6 MHz in order to broadcast an HDTV
program is another question, and I probably
didn't make it clear, but I wasn't trying
to address that.
And anyway, obviously most digital
video -- including ATSC -- uses lossy
compression for the video, so actually
there is no fixed amount of bandwidth
that is needed. It's a compromise
between quality and bandwidth. You
could fit 20 digital channels in that
6 MHz if you wanted to, or even 50
if you want the quality to be
laughably bad.
The old analog television spectrum will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
This is simply not the case. If you read
the FCC's FAQ on the subject of digital television
(which is what this is about, incidentally -- the FCC is mandating digital, but not high-def, which is only part of digital), you will see this:
Under the FCC spectrum plan, we have provided most existing broadcasters with access to a 6 MHz channel for digital broadcasting within a core digital TV spectrum, i.e., TV channels 2 to 51.
This means that the new digital channels are
being assigned to 6 MHz channels within the
existing analog TV spectrum. In
other words, they are just shuffling things
around within the same spectrum. Analog
TV is 6 MHz for one channel, and so is digital.
(Digital can have subchannels, but that is
part of the protocol, not something the FCC
worries about after they've assigned the
6 MHz bandwidth to a TV station.)
So, are they actually taking away any of the
analog spectrum? Yes, they are taking part
of it away -- a very small part. They are
taking away channels 52-69. The FCC's FAQ
says this:
during the transition some broadcasters would be provided DTV channels outside of this core spectrum (channels 52 to 69). These broadcasters would have to move their DTV operations to a channel in the core spectrum when one became available.
Translation: they are going to try to eventually
move
every channel which is in the 52-69 range down into
the 2-51 range. They are leaving 2-51 available
for television, and they are trying to reclaim
52-69.
So, is this a good thing? Well, how many TV
stations do you know of that are in the 52-69
range right now? There are very few. It's
a part of the spectrum that isn't used for
TV much right now as it is anyway. So in a way,
the FCC is basically taking this opportunity to
clean out this little-used part of the spectrum.
If you want to go into a little more detail,
check out this Adobe PDF spectrum chart. Look at the 300MHz-3GHz
line, and look at the "TV BROADCASTING" section
after the one that denotes channels 21-36. You'll
see that it goes from 614Mhz to 698MHz, and since
all TV channels are 6 MHz bandwidth, that means
84/6 = 14 channels. This means it goes with
channels 37-50 (the next 14 channels after 21-36).
And then look after that on the chart. You'll
see that 698MHz through 806MHz is allocated
for "BROADCAST" but also for "FIXED" and "MOBILE"
purposes. So apparently it's not 100% dedicated
to television right now. So the FCC is right to
say that range (channels 50 and higher) is
not part of the "core" spectrum.
Anyway, even if you don't agree that we should
give up the part of 52-69 that is allocated
to television (because apparently not all of
it is), it's still important to note that the
FCC is not auctioning off ALL of the analog
TV spectrum. Actually, there are 68 channels
total,
and it would seem they are only auctioning off
18 of them, and part of those 18 channels
aren't even allocated to TV in certain areas
right now, so it's less than 18 channels.
So, at worst, they are auctioning off 18/68 =
26.5% of the analog TV spectrum, and they
are leaving exactly 50 broadcast television
channels available.
It needs to implement every API that desired Windows applications use. In some ways it is a quality of service problem, the marginal cost between supporting 90% of apps and 100% of apps may be too expensive. Maybe 80% to 90% is too expensive. I don't pretend to know what the optimal percentage is but it is surely not 100% or even mid to high 90%s.
I disagree. There are lots of people who need
Windows for some purpose, but in order to
accomplish that purpose, they need more than
one app.
For instance, I develop for a platform
where I can do most of the work on the Macintosh
(which is what I do), but a certain amount of it
must be done on Windows.
Now, what is the stuff I have to do on Windows?
Well, I need an IDE to run, and I need a couple
of separate GUI editors to run, and I need
several different variations of the same hardware
simulator to run. And there may be one or two
other tools I need as well.
So, just to take some numbers at random, let's
assume I need 10 apps to work in order not to
need to have a Windows machine. And let's
assume that 90% of apps work under WINE.
What are the odds that all 10 apps that I need
are going to be available? Well, it's (90%)^10,
which is about 35%. Or what if only 85% of
apps work and I only need 5 apps? Then the
chances that all 5 apps will work are
(85%)^5, or about 44%.
Plus, it's not necessarily
even as good as a 35% or 44%
chance that it's workable. The apps I use
over time may change. New versions come out,
and new tools become available that I may need
to use. (In my case, one of the two GUI editors
I mentioned didn't exist a few years ago and
is now becoming the standard, plus a new compiler
is also slowly becoming the de facto standard.)
Let's say that I have 2 new required apps in a year,
and there's a 90% chance each will work. Well,
then, there's an 81% that this hypothetical
90%-of-apps version of Wine will continue to be
good enough, and there's a 19% chance that in a
year, I'll have to abandon Wine and get a
Windows box going instead.
If all that is the case, then why would I want
to go with Wine? According to those odds, there's
a better than 50% chance that after I research it,
I'll find that it can't do what I need now, and
then there's a 20% chance that even if it does
what I need now, it won't do what I need in a
year. It's much easier just to go with Windows
if Wine can only do 90% of the apps.
Naturally, Wine isn't probably going to hit 100%.
(Even Windows XP doesn't hit 100% of apps that
ran under, say, Windows 98.) But for my money,
the closer it can get to 100%, the better.
99% is considerably better than 98%. At 98%,
the chances it will run any 10 randomly-chosen
apps are only 82%, but at 99%, those changes
go up to over 90%.
Unless you sprung for extra storage, the space on your PDA is measured in tens of megabytes. On an iPod, it's measured in tens of gigabytes.
True in most cases. However, PDA manufacturers are
starting to get the clue. It may be a little too
late to capture much of the market, but just a
few months ago, Palm
introduced the LifeDrive
which comes from the factory with a 4 GB hard drive.
That is starting to be a decent amount of storage.
In fact, it's sort of what a lot of manufacturers
have realized is the sweet spot for a music device.
(Unlike myself, lots of users apparently don't want
to try to fit their whole music collection on their
music player.)
Now, here's the problem: the LifeDrive is priced
at $499. That's basically double what you'd pay
for the 4GB iPod nano model. Granted, the
LifeDrive does a lot more, but the question is
whether consumers need or want those things.
The big problem here is probably just that PDA
companies (at least Palm) aren't big enough
players to make a profit on a cheap device.
Apple can sell iPods for virtually no profit
as a way of getting the iTunes Music Store
off the ground, but a smaller company like
Palm can't do that. Unless they can radically
increase sales volume, they can't make a PDA
with 4GB for much less than $499 and still
make a profit. So, that makes the PDA a lot
less competitive with a dedicated music player
than it could be.
Also, keep in mind that there are reasons why
PDAs are more expensive to make. They have to
have more RAM, faster processors, and (most
importantly) a bigger screen than something like
an iPod has. The screen on the Palm LifeDrive is
320x480 pixels and 16-bit color. Any music
player's screen isn't anywhere close to that,
and it doesn't need to be for a dedicated music
player device. Even the new video iPod only
has a 320x240 screen, which is half the resolution.
Just like in laptops, a bigger screen will really
cost you.
Ontario is US' largest trading partner in the entire world, and the vast bulk of that trade is with the eastern timezone states of the US. There are vast economic reasons for them to keep to the same daylight schedule as the US.
You don't have to adopt the same daylight saving time
conventions as another area in order to trade with
it. If your clock reads one hour different from
someone you really wish to trade with,
simply shift your business's
hours of operation by an hour
in whatever direction is necessary to match up
with them. It's not as if there are laws saying
you must open or close your business at a
particular time. If a private business has an
economic reason to open or close at a particular
time, then by all means, they should go ahead
and change their schedule.
And if the government wants to encourage people
to do that, why not do a public education
campaign that would
help businesses trade people improve their
abilities to trade not just with people
in the
corresponding time zone across the border
but other foreign
trading partners as well?
I believe that film was Just Visiting (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0189192/). It naturally starred Jean Reno, since he's apparently the only Frenchman Americans can stand to watch onscreen. Actually, it looks like Jean Reno and some other cast members were even in the original French version in the same roles, and it was written and directed by the same guy.
Yes, I've seen both, and let me make a few comments.
First, both the original and the American remake
were released in the US. I'm not sure if the
original was in theaters, but it was available
on DVD. Neither did particularly well I don't
think, but then dubbed foreign films are not
usually a big commercial success. Neither
are English-language films starring Christina
Applegate, regardless of whether they are
remakes of foreign films or not.
Second, the two movies are so radically different
that they almost don't even resemble each other.
Not only are a few actors changed, but the
entire theme of the movie is completely
reworked. It's been a while since I've seen
either, but as I recall in the original French
version, the main character realizes she has a
connection to royalty and becomes a more noble
(so to speak) person because of it. In the
American version, the plot is similar to the
other version, but the movie is really all about
Christina Applegate's character developing more
girl power and I think realizing she get along
just fine
without her jerk boyfriend.
The sad thing is, I think they ditched the whole
royalty angle because they thought people who
live in a country that has never had a king (or
at least not its own king) wouldn't be able to
relate. But I think that was a mistake. Surely
anybody can relate to the idea of having something
in your identity worth living up to, whether
or not that something comes from royalty.
I'm not sure if I have a point. If I do, it's
probably that the movie didn't do poorly because
it was an adaptation for the US market. It did
poorly because it just wasn't as good a movie
as the original, even though it could've been.
Also, my other point is that it's kinda fun
to watch the original and the watch the remake.
The council also suggested that banks explore technology that can estimate a Web user's physical location and compare it to the address on file.
Could someone find the idiot administrator
or politication or member of this council that
came up with this idea and give them a nice, firm
smack
in the head with a laptop computer? It should
be easy to pull this off, because obviously
anyone who would suggest this has never heard
of laptops, and therefore wouldn't see it coming.
God forbid that I ever decide to, say, take my
laptop with me on a vacation and electronically
pay a bill while I'm out of town so my electricity
is still on when I get back or something
crazy like that. Or move to a new apartment
and be able to access my account while the
bank takes its 2 or 3 weeks to decide to process
my change of address request. Or be over
at a friend's house and check if my direct
deposit has gone through before I decide to
charge a night out on my debit card.
It's totally
inconceivable that I might want to use a
technology like, say, the internet to be
able to access things remotely.
Arghhghghhghhhh!! I just don't get why there
are so many dumb people out there
who spend their spare
time sitting around thinking
up ways to make easy things hard.
Why can't the system just generate hydrogen from my electricity and tap water?
It could, and you can buy systems
that do that
(well, that use deionized water instead of tap
water). My guess is that they did some analysis
and determined that just chemically
converting natural gas (which
is mostly methane) is cheaper than using
electricity.
Why would I want to use electricity to produce hydrogen which will net less electricity upon recombination than it required to split in the first place?
You don't, and luckily that's not what the
Honda HES (Home Energy Station)
system does either. It uses natural gas
to produce hydrogen directly. Then it uses
some of the hydrogen in a fuel cell to
produce electricity and heat water, and it
takes some of the hydrogen and compresses
it and puts it into storage tanks. And my
guess is it probably uses its own generated
electrical power to power the compressor.
Such a railway wouldn't be compatible with the
standard, but it could easily be made to work.
[1] I now unfortunately have a
burning desire to travel to Switzerland and
ride the damn thing...
Re:Maybe it is not interesting...
on
Vim 6.4 Released
·
· Score: 1
And yes, it really truely shines when we talk about remotently editing 40K file over 2800 baud modem
Actually, isn't that when one would use ed?
It's not necessary to use ed in
such a situation.
vi is already fairly efficient with
screen updates (although perhaps not as efficient
as emacs in certain cases, if I recall
correctly from 15 years ago...).
vi
even has a special mode for low baud rates.
If you're on a machine with a genuine copy of
vi, try doing a stty 300
(which registers a baud rate of
300 with the terminal) sometime, then run
vi/etc/passwd or similar. You'll
notice that it doesn't even draw an entire
screen worth of text, because that would take
way too long at 300 baud, even if your terminal
is only 25 lines or something.
As it turns out, vi automatically
does a:set window with a small
number if it notices that your terminal
is connected at a low baud rate. This
determines how many lines of your file
are actually drawn if the whole screen appears
to need to be redrawn. Saves a lot of time
when editing files at 1200 baud.
For what it's worth, there's an interesting
article over at The Register where they ask
Bill Joy
about the creation of vi, and it seems
that he wrote the editor specifically with the
goal of making it usable at 300 baud in mind.
Because, of course, all he had at the time was
a 300 baud modem.
Re:Maybe it is not interesting...
on
Vim 6.4 Released
·
· Score: 1
And yes, it really truely shines when we talk about remotently editing 40K file over 2800 baud modem
Hmm, well, 2800 baud modem is a bit slow, but at
least you can
feel good that your modem was 16.6% faster
than the one I had...
Until a few months ago, Solaris was a proprietary, closed source system running only on Sun's
SPARC-based hardware, and on some x86-based
systems (albeit with fairly poor hardware support).
Sun had very little reason to perform ports to
other platforms, and since the source code was
not available to others under an open source
license, such ports were not performed by a
third party.
While what you say is mostly true, it
might be interesting to note that Solaris was
in fact ported to two other architectures by
Sun: Solaris 2.5.1 was ported to PowerPC,
and several years ago, Sun was the first OS
vendor to have any operating system running
on Itanium simulators. Unfortunately, neither
of these processors ever took off like the
industry thought they might, and Sun killed
both those ports. I do believe you were
able to buy the PowerPC port of Solaris for
a while, though. But then, you were also
able to buy a PowerPC port of Windows for a
short while if want to get into that...
Its been what, 2-3 years since the open-source solaris announcement came out? How much has been open sourced? AFAIK, all the have opened sourced is DTrace (a very cool tool/framework), but nay else.
Well, it's good that you said "AFAIK", because what
YK turns out to be out of date. Browse the Solaris
source code right here.
Lets see them open up the kernel internals like the thread model
FreeBSD (and I assume Solaris) can both read ext2 (and I assume 3). Both have DevFS (which Linux has had, at least in some form, I don't know how close/far apart they were).
I'm fairly sure Solaris was the first to have an
automatically-managed/dev. Solaris has
had its/dev and/devices
arrangement (in which everything in/dev
is a symlink to something in/devices,
there is no such thing as MAKEDEV
anymore, and everything is automatically
maintained) since at least Solaris 2.4, and
quite possibly since the original Solaris 2.0.
And Solaris 2.4 came out in 1994, and Solaris
2.0 came out in 1992, so it seems that Solaris
has had an automatically-managed/devmuch longer than Linux has.
In fact, it would seems that Solaris has had
an automatically-managed/dev since
before Linux even hit version 1.0 (in 1994).
Meanwhile, Linux is still dealing
with issues like
its devfs being declared obsolete before udev
(the replacement) was even out of beta.
Don't get me wrong. I think the Linux kernel
has a lot to offer. But, I think in this one
particular area, Linux is literally
10 years behind Solaris.
(By the way, if someone wants to offer corrections,
feel free to go ahead. One of the things that
makes me really uneasy about Linux is the way
that/dev management seems, from my
limited experience, to be an afterthought. If
If I were to find out that this perception of
mine is only due to ignorance, I would probably
feel like the world is a better place and
even sleep a tiny bit better at night knowing
that there are few potential headaches out there
waiting to be dealt with.)
Slashdot Mirror
No, having a stable binary driver interface doesn't go against it. Yes, it makes it possible to write closed-source drivers, but it is already possible, which has been proven by the fact that nVidia has already done it by providing their own (open-source) glue layer to present a stable binary interface for the closed-source code. Not having a stable binary interface only does one thing: it forces you to make some of your code open-source. It doesn't force you to make any of the non-trivial parts open-source.
If it were truly necessary not to have a stable binary interface between two layers of software in order to promote open source, then all Linux systems already have it wrong, because glibc and many other of the system's shared libraries have stable binary interfaces. After all, it's bad to be able to run closed-source software on Linux, right? It's bad for Linux that it's possible to run Oracle on it, right? It would be better if all those people who want to run Oracle use some other operating system instead, right? Also, it's best if no closed-source games run on Linux, right?
To convince me that it's wrong to have stable binary interfaces, you're going to have to argue that it's wrong to have them at the user level as well.
What defines a "physical copy" of the software? How could you possibly modify something you don't have a copy of? It seems like if you are modifying it, then you have a physical copy.
I have a bad feeling is that the distinction is going to come down to the media being removable or not, which would mean that internal hard drives aren't "physical", which is absurd. Or maybe it means that you must own media that contains the software and which originally came from the owner of the software. But what about software that you purchase for download only? Shouldn't the same rights apply?
This physical media distinction just seems like really bizarre and arbitrary reasoning.
Huh? I really don't get what you're saying. You seem to be implying that the GPL and its way of doing open source predates other ways of doing it and other licenses. I don't think history agrees with you.
For one thing, some of the earliest open source software was simply released into the public domain. That's sort of the ultimate in permissive licensing -- way more permissive than the GPL is. Back in the 1980's, it was quite common for free software to be public domain.
Second, the GPL seems to have originated in June 1988, whereas the BSD license seems to have originated in June 1989. In my mind, that makes the BSD license and the GPL pretty close to contemporary. Both the BSD project and the GNU Project have histories that stretch several years back before the late 1980's, so in a sense those dates are not that significant and they are just the particular point that both groups felt it was necessary to be more formal about the licensing.
So, my perception is that there have been three strong open source traditions for quite some time: (1) GPL-style, and (2) BSD-style, and (3) public domain. The idea that non-GPL style free or open source software is a new thing just doesn't seem to fit with reality to me.
Let me play devil's advocate for a minute. If increasing the number of licencses floating around is bad, why are they writing a new version of the GPL? I'm sure there are reasons in favor of it, but that is what everyone says when they create a new and incompatible license. Sun had reasons for creating its own license when releasing OpenSolaris. I'm sure the FSF has reasons, but why is the FSF any different? Why should they be treated specially?
Versions 2 and 3 will still be different licenses even though they both share the "GPL" name. To what extent will code licensed under V2 be compatible with code licensed under V3 and so on? Can I mix code that is under V1-or-V2-only license with code that is under V3-or-later license? Doesn't the V3 GPL place restrictions on the use of code that the V2 GPL doesn't, and wouldn't that make them incompatible? Can I take V2-only-licensed code and incorporate it into a V3-or-later project? I agree the problem goes away if one package says "V2 or later" and the other says "V3 or later" or something, but the same argument can be made about all incompatible licenses: GPL and BSD are incompatible, but if you release a package under both, then its code can be mixed with other code licensed under either, so I don't see how that's any different either, except perhaps that some software already says "V2 or later" and therefore implicitly includes V3, whereas relatively little software is licensed under (say) both BSD and GPL.
True, in theory a communist country can also be democratic. But, in practice the allocation of resources is extremely labor-intensive. If private enterprise and private decision-making doesn't control that process, then the government must. Therefore, the government has to be extremely big and extremely powerful, and it has to have a recognized authority to intervene in the everyday affairs of every citizen's life in any matter that involves the allocation of resources. And the really huge problem with allocation of resources is that every decision is always very, very controversial, because someone always feels they are being given the short end of the stick. Since in a communist country, the government is making all these decisions, the government has to have the means to enforce its decisions even when they are bitterly opposed, which they will often be since the government is by definition taking from one group and giving to another (otherwise they wouldn't be involved).
The result is that communist countries tend to move toward becoming totalitarian. Because the state has such a massive role in everything, its size and its power balloons out of control. And after a while they end up not being democracies. Yes, maybe it's possible for a communist country to be democratic and stay that way, but it just doesn't happen very often.
Also, in my wn view there is a second effect, too: because communism necessarily means less individual freedom, it tends to only be a reasonable compromise for a country that has a relatively low standard of living. If most people in a country are living in serious poverty, they are willing to give up a lot to ensure that the resources are spread as fairly as possible. But once the standard of living improves and the typical person has a reasonably comfortable standard of living, the balance shifts and personal freedoms become more important since poverty is no longer a crisis. Once the country hits the point where unequal distribution of wealth is less of a problem than lack of personal freedoms, the government has to do one of two things: either it has to shrink and give up power and give the citizens more freedoms (which rarely happens) or it has to become even more authoritarian and clamp down on personal freedoms by any and all means necessary in order to enforce the status quo.
Partly true, although speakers' frequency response tends to be attenuated gradually, so that at one frequency, it's N decibels quieter than at a frequency an octave lower on the high end, etc. So, the speakers may be capable of producing 110 kHz, just at a reduced level like maybe tens of decibels quieter than the normal level the speakers can produce. Of course, it depends on the type of speaker. Many cheap computer speakers are full-range (not two-way or three-way) cone speakers with horrible high-end frequency response. They may not even reach to the edge of human hearing without significant attenuation.
However, of much more concern is something that's going to limit the frequency response in a very drastic way: the D/A converter in the sound card. The highest frequency a D/A converter produces (or at least that it produces in a way that's modulated by the audio data, but I digress...) is the nyquist frequency, which is half the sampling rate. So, if you have a sound card with a 48 kHz sampling rate on its D/A, which is very, very common, then the highest possible frequency you will get out of it is 24 kHz.
In order to produce a non-zero volume at 110 kHz, you will need a sound card with a sampling rate of 220 kHz, which is really quite uncommon. You can get cards with 192 kHz sampling rates now, so you should be able to hit up to 96 kHz, which is only 0.2 octaves away from 110 kHz, which is fairly close considering the entire range from 30 kHz to 110 kHz is almost 2 octaves, so you are only cutting out 1/10th of the range (the way the ears hear it). So, it should be possible to do it without super-expensive equipment, but it won't be possible on your average desktop PC.
The US national average retail price of gasoline has been dropping quite steadily for the last 3 weeks. The price as of 2005-10-27 is $2.50, whereas on 2005-10-06, it was $2.79. That's almost 10 cents a week. I can't provide a link for the data other this, but you can go there, select your state and locality, then select "Pump Price Graphs" from the left column, select "USA Average" to show on your graph, and look at gas prices from the last 6 months.
And the good news is, the two big events that drove increased gas prices at the pump were hurricane Katrina and then hurricane Rita after that, and we have already dropped below the level it was just before the Katrina-related panic at the end of August.
And, there was an uptick in prices during the month of August and before Katrina, but we are already down almost 10 cents/gallon below the levels we were pre-Katrina. And if you look at the graphs, the derivative seems pretty close to constant, which might serve as an indicator that the drop in prices isn't going to stop right away.
The bottom line is, we may be below $2.50/gallon again fairly soon. In fact, the gas station nearest my house is already at $2.49 as of tonight. We could even drop below $2.00/gallon if we keep this up for another few weeks. Only time will tell, of course.
Bottom line is, yes, the gas companies have been making tons of money, but now prices seem to be dropping on their own. I don't think we're headed back to the days when gas was $1.00/gallon or even back to the days when it was $1.50/gallon, but we're moving in that direction steadily, at least as of right now.
Just want to throw this in: I'm thinking I can't be the only person who really likes writing code but is wholly uninterested in any form of role-playing game or sci-fi/fantasy stuff. Sure, I liked watching Star Trek. And, I went to see the "Lord of the Rings" movie because I wanted to give it a chance, and it was really good. But that's about as far as it goes. I didn't have much desire to see the other two LOTR movies, although I did see one with a friend because he wanted to see it. I've never read a fantasy book, and I've only read like 5 sci-fi books (and that's only if you count both 1984 and Brave New World as sci-fi, which is a huge stretch). People have invited me to AD&D games, but I just can't muster the interest. It's not like I think there's anything wrong with it. I mean, sure, it seems a little dorky, but then I don't mind being dorky, and I do it regularly in other ways. But I just don't get all the wizards and magic and spells and mythology and everything. People seem to go totally ape over the stuff, and I just don't.
For what it's worth, I have the same feelings about period pieces. People make these movies where they go to huge, elaborate efforts to reproduce the costume and the buildings and the speech and all that of some era exactly, and I just don't get why that's interesting. It doesn't bother me (unless it's done in a way that's pretentious), but it neither adds value to nor takes away value from the movie in my opinion. Oh, and the same thing about movies about the wild West or movies about American Indians (like Dances With Wolves). For me, unless they have some other interesting element, they are a total snoozefest.
I guess what it boils down to for me is this: I just seem to be incapable of romanticizing other periods of time or nations or cultures or realms of existence. And all this sci-fi and fantasy stuff seems to be all about romanticizing stuff. Either we're romanticizing the future, or the past, or the ancient Chinese, or the noble savage (as in the case of Indian movies), or something else.
The funny thing about this is, I agree that sci-fi and fantasy and role-playing games are really quite common among geeks. The effect is that, since I don't really go for that, I feel like an outsider among geeks. Which is ironic, since I am definitely a geek myself. (Ask any of my friends...)
Aha! That would explain my missing channel. After I did the math on that post, I realized there was something wrong, because total channels I was counting wasn't adding up and I should've been getting a range of 2 to 69, but I kept getting a range of 2 through 68. I couldn't figure out my off-by-one error (and it was late and I was sleepy), so I just glossed over it. But looking at the chart, it would appear that the band that has channels 21-36 goes up to 608 MHz and then stops. And then at 614 MHz (coincidentally 6 MHz higher, hmm...), the TV allocations start again. I was assuming they start again at 37, but after you've said that, it seems that the TV channel from 614-620 MHz must be channel 38, and that there is no such thing as a TV channel 37. It's just missing from the series, kind of like buildings that don't have a 13th floor (except there is something there, but it's just not a TV station).
And sure enough, if I look at the chart, what is one of the things it shows between 608 MHz and 614 MHz? It shows "RADIO ASTRONOMY". I'm guessing that has to be hydrogen, or something like it.
Hmm, I agree it is not exactly the pinnacle of clarity. It requires quite a bit of effort to make sure you're getting the right interpretation. For me, the key statement that makes me feel like I was pretty confident I had the right interpretation was this one:
Here, the FAQ seems to be saying that the new digital broadcasts could possibly interfere with "existing facilities" but only during the transition period. Assuming "existing facilities" refers to analog TV broadcasts, this implies that the digital TV spectrum and the analog TV spectrum are one and the same, or at least that they significantly overlap. Also, there is this statement:
It's pretty unequivocal that NTSC refers to analog television broadcasts here, and if stations which had been temporarily located outside the "core digital spectrum" during the transmission are going to be allowed to move their digital transmissions ("DTV operations") to the same frequency that was used for their analog transmissions ("their NTSC channel"), then that implies that at least some of the "core digital spectrum" coincides with the NTSC (analog) spectrum.
So, I'm still fairly confident that FAQ is trying to say that digital channels will be largely the same spectrum as analog channels, but I agree it takes quite a bit of work to be sure you really are understanding that FAQ correctly. Maybe instead saying "this means that ... digital channels are being assigned ... within the existing analog TV spectrum", I should've said, "after
reading it several times, I've concluded this
must mean that ... digital channels are being
assigned" (etc., etc.). :-)
The problem we are coming up against here is that the word "channel" means two different things. On the one hand, it means a thing you can watch that has a single given program on it at a given time. On the other hand, it means a chunk of the spectrum that the FCC gives out a license for broadcasting on.
I was using it in the latter sense (chunk of spectrum for broadcasting), although I agree I didn't make that clear in my post. If you read the FCC's FAQ that I linked to, they use the term "subchannel" for the channels that a broadcaster can squeeze into the 6 MHz band they're licensed for.
Anyway, my point is that what the FCC allocates to a broadcaster for digital is the same as what they allocate them for analog. In both cases, it's 6 MHz. Whether they need that entire 6 MHz in order to broadcast an HDTV program is another question, and I probably didn't make it clear, but I wasn't trying to address that.
And anyway, obviously most digital video -- including ATSC -- uses lossy compression for the video, so actually there is no fixed amount of bandwidth that is needed. It's a compromise between quality and bandwidth. You could fit 20 digital channels in that 6 MHz if you wanted to, or even 50 if you want the quality to be laughably bad.
The article summary says:
This is simply not the case. If you read the FCC's FAQ on the subject of digital television (which is what this is about, incidentally -- the FCC is mandating digital, but not high-def, which is only part of digital), you will see this:
This means that the new digital channels are being assigned to 6 MHz channels within the existing analog TV spectrum. In other words, they are just shuffling things around within the same spectrum. Analog TV is 6 MHz for one channel, and so is digital. (Digital can have subchannels, but that is part of the protocol, not something the FCC worries about after they've assigned the 6 MHz bandwidth to a TV station.)
So, are they actually taking away any of the analog spectrum? Yes, they are taking part of it away -- a very small part. They are taking away channels 52-69. The FCC's FAQ says this:
Translation: they are going to try to eventually move every channel which is in the 52-69 range down into the 2-51 range. They are leaving 2-51 available for television, and they are trying to reclaim 52-69.
So, is this a good thing? Well, how many TV stations do you know of that are in the 52-69 range right now? There are very few. It's a part of the spectrum that isn't used for TV much right now as it is anyway. So in a way, the FCC is basically taking this opportunity to clean out this little-used part of the spectrum.
If you want to go into a little more detail, check out this Adobe PDF spectrum chart. Look at the 300MHz-3GHz line, and look at the "TV BROADCASTING" section after the one that denotes channels 21-36. You'll see that it goes from 614Mhz to 698MHz, and since all TV channels are 6 MHz bandwidth, that means 84/6 = 14 channels. This means it goes with channels 37-50 (the next 14 channels after 21-36). And then look after that on the chart. You'll see that 698MHz through 806MHz is allocated for "BROADCAST" but also for "FIXED" and "MOBILE" purposes. So apparently it's not 100% dedicated to television right now. So the FCC is right to say that range (channels 50 and higher) is not part of the "core" spectrum.
Anyway, even if you don't agree that we should give up the part of 52-69 that is allocated to television (because apparently not all of it is), it's still important to note that the FCC is not auctioning off ALL of the analog TV spectrum. Actually, there are 68 channels total, and it would seem they are only auctioning off 18 of them, and part of those 18 channels aren't even allocated to TV in certain areas right now, so it's less than 18 channels. So, at worst, they are auctioning off 18/68 = 26.5% of the analog TV spectrum, and they are leaving exactly 50 broadcast television channels available.
I disagree. There are lots of people who need Windows for some purpose, but in order to accomplish that purpose, they need more than one app.
For instance, I develop for a platform where I can do most of the work on the Macintosh (which is what I do), but a certain amount of it must be done on Windows. Now, what is the stuff I have to do on Windows? Well, I need an IDE to run, and I need a couple of separate GUI editors to run, and I need several different variations of the same hardware simulator to run. And there may be one or two other tools I need as well.
So, just to take some numbers at random, let's assume I need 10 apps to work in order not to need to have a Windows machine. And let's assume that 90% of apps work under WINE. What are the odds that all 10 apps that I need are going to be available? Well, it's (90%)^10, which is about 35%. Or what if only 85% of apps work and I only need 5 apps? Then the chances that all 5 apps will work are (85%)^5, or about 44%.
Plus, it's not necessarily even as good as a 35% or 44% chance that it's workable. The apps I use over time may change. New versions come out, and new tools become available that I may need to use. (In my case, one of the two GUI editors I mentioned didn't exist a few years ago and is now becoming the standard, plus a new compiler is also slowly becoming the de facto standard.) Let's say that I have 2 new required apps in a year, and there's a 90% chance each will work. Well, then, there's an 81% that this hypothetical 90%-of-apps version of Wine will continue to be good enough, and there's a 19% chance that in a year, I'll have to abandon Wine and get a Windows box going instead.
If all that is the case, then why would I want to go with Wine? According to those odds, there's a better than 50% chance that after I research it, I'll find that it can't do what I need now, and then there's a 20% chance that even if it does what I need now, it won't do what I need in a year. It's much easier just to go with Windows if Wine can only do 90% of the apps.
Naturally, Wine isn't probably going to hit 100%. (Even Windows XP doesn't hit 100% of apps that ran under, say, Windows 98.) But for my money, the closer it can get to 100%, the better. 99% is considerably better than 98%. At 98%, the chances it will run any 10 randomly-chosen apps are only 82%, but at 99%, those changes go up to over 90%.
True in most cases. However, PDA manufacturers are starting to get the clue. It may be a little too late to capture much of the market, but just a few months ago, Palm introduced the LifeDrive which comes from the factory with a 4 GB hard drive. That is starting to be a decent amount of storage. In fact, it's sort of what a lot of manufacturers have realized is the sweet spot for a music device. (Unlike myself, lots of users apparently don't want to try to fit their whole music collection on their music player.)
Now, here's the problem: the LifeDrive is priced at $499. That's basically double what you'd pay for the 4GB iPod nano model. Granted, the LifeDrive does a lot more, but the question is whether consumers need or want those things.
The big problem here is probably just that PDA companies (at least Palm) aren't big enough players to make a profit on a cheap device. Apple can sell iPods for virtually no profit as a way of getting the iTunes Music Store off the ground, but a smaller company like Palm can't do that. Unless they can radically increase sales volume, they can't make a PDA with 4GB for much less than $499 and still make a profit. So, that makes the PDA a lot less competitive with a dedicated music player than it could be.
Also, keep in mind that there are reasons why PDAs are more expensive to make. They have to have more RAM, faster processors, and (most importantly) a bigger screen than something like an iPod has. The screen on the Palm LifeDrive is 320x480 pixels and 16-bit color. Any music player's screen isn't anywhere close to that, and it doesn't need to be for a dedicated music player device. Even the new video iPod only has a 320x240 screen, which is half the resolution. Just like in laptops, a bigger screen will really cost you.
You don't have to adopt the same daylight saving time conventions as another area in order to trade with it. If your clock reads one hour different from someone you really wish to trade with, simply shift your business's hours of operation by an hour in whatever direction is necessary to match up with them. It's not as if there are laws saying you must open or close your business at a particular time. If a private business has an economic reason to open or close at a particular time, then by all means, they should go ahead and change their schedule.
And if the government wants to encourage people to do that, why not do a public education campaign that would help businesses trade people improve their abilities to trade not just with people in the corresponding time zone across the border but other foreign trading partners as well?
Yes, I've seen both, and let me make a few comments.
First, both the original and the American remake were released in the US. I'm not sure if the original was in theaters, but it was available on DVD. Neither did particularly well I don't think, but then dubbed foreign films are not usually a big commercial success. Neither are English-language films starring Christina Applegate, regardless of whether they are remakes of foreign films or not.
Second, the two movies are so radically different that they almost don't even resemble each other. Not only are a few actors changed, but the entire theme of the movie is completely reworked. It's been a while since I've seen either, but as I recall in the original French version, the main character realizes she has a connection to royalty and becomes a more noble (so to speak) person because of it. In the American version, the plot is similar to the other version, but the movie is really all about Christina Applegate's character developing more girl power and I think realizing she get along just fine without her jerk boyfriend.
The sad thing is, I think they ditched the whole royalty angle because they thought people who live in a country that has never had a king (or at least not its own king) wouldn't be able to relate. But I think that was a mistake. Surely anybody can relate to the idea of having something in your identity worth living up to, whether or not that something comes from royalty.
I'm not sure if I have a point. If I do, it's probably that the movie didn't do poorly because it was an adaptation for the US market. It did poorly because it just wasn't as good a movie as the original, even though it could've been. Also, my other point is that it's kinda fun to watch the original and the watch the remake.
From the article:
Could someone find the idiot administrator or politication or member of this council that came up with this idea and give them a nice, firm smack in the head with a laptop computer? It should be easy to pull this off, because obviously anyone who would suggest this has never heard of laptops, and therefore wouldn't see it coming.
God forbid that I ever decide to, say, take my laptop with me on a vacation and electronically pay a bill while I'm out of town so my electricity is still on when I get back or something crazy like that. Or move to a new apartment and be able to access my account while the bank takes its 2 or 3 weeks to decide to process my change of address request. Or be over at a friend's house and check if my direct deposit has gone through before I decide to charge a night out on my debit card.
It's totally inconceivable that I might want to use a technology like, say, the internet to be able to access things remotely. Arghhghghhghhhh!! I just don't get why there are so many dumb people out there who spend their spare time sitting around thinking up ways to make easy things hard.
It could, and you can buy systems that do that (well, that use deionized water instead of tap water). My guess is that they did some analysis and determined that just chemically converting natural gas (which is mostly methane) is cheaper than using electricity.
You don't, and luckily that's not what the Honda HES (Home Energy Station) system does either. It uses natural gas to produce hydrogen directly. Then it uses some of the hydrogen in a fuel cell to produce electricity and heat water, and it takes some of the hydrogen and compresses it and puts it into storage tanks. And my guess is it probably uses its own generated electrical power to power the compressor.
What about cog railways, like this one [1]?
Such a railway wouldn't be compatible with the standard, but it could easily be made to work.
[1] I now unfortunately have a burning desire to travel to Switzerland and ride the damn thing...
It's not necessary to use ed in such a situation. vi is already fairly efficient with screen updates (although perhaps not as efficient as emacs in certain cases, if I recall correctly from 15 years ago...).
vi even has a special mode for low baud rates. If you're on a machine with a genuine copy of vi, try doing a stty 300 (which registers a baud rate of 300 with the terminal) sometime, then run vi /etc/passwd or similar. You'll
notice that it doesn't even draw an entire
screen worth of text, because that would take
way too long at 300 baud, even if your terminal
is only 25 lines or something.
As it turns out, vi automatically does a :set window with a small
number if it notices that your terminal
is connected at a low baud rate. This
determines how many lines of your file
are actually drawn if the whole screen appears
to need to be redrawn. Saves a lot of time
when editing files at 1200 baud.
For what it's worth, there's an interesting article over at The Register where they ask Bill Joy about the creation of vi, and it seems that he wrote the editor specifically with the goal of making it usable at 300 baud in mind. Because, of course, all he had at the time was a 300 baud modem.
Hmm, well, 2800 baud modem is a bit slow, but at least you can feel good that your modem was 16.6% faster than the one I had...
While what you say is mostly true, it might be interesting to note that Solaris was in fact ported to two other architectures by Sun: Solaris 2.5.1 was ported to PowerPC, and several years ago, Sun was the first OS vendor to have any operating system running on Itanium simulators. Unfortunately, neither of these processors ever took off like the industry thought they might, and Sun killed both those ports. I do believe you were able to buy the PowerPC port of Solaris for a while, though. But then, you were also able to buy a PowerPC port of Windows for a short while if want to get into that...
Well, it's good that you said "AFAIK", because what YK turns out to be out of date. Browse the Solaris source code right here.
OK, here's the directory with the dispatcher stuff and here's thread.c specifically.
I'm fairly sure Solaris was the first to have an automatically-managed /dev. Solaris has
had its /dev and /devices
arrangement (in which everything in /dev
is a symlink to something in /devices,
there is no such thing as MAKEDEV
anymore, and everything is automatically
maintained) since at least Solaris 2.4, and
quite possibly since the original Solaris 2.0.
And Solaris 2.4 came out in 1994, and Solaris
2.0 came out in 1992, so it seems that Solaris
has had an automatically-managed /dev
much longer than Linux has.
In fact, it would seems that Solaris has had an automatically-managed /dev since
before Linux even hit version 1.0 (in 1994).
Meanwhile, Linux is still dealing
with issues like
its devfs being declared obsolete before udev
(the replacement) was even out of beta.
Don't get me wrong. I think the Linux kernel
has a lot to offer. But, I think in this one
particular area, Linux is literally
10 years behind Solaris.
(By the way, if someone wants to offer corrections, feel free to go ahead. One of the things that makes me really uneasy about Linux is the way that /dev management seems, from my
limited experience, to be an afterthought. If
If I were to find out that this perception of
mine is only due to ignorance, I would probably
feel like the world is a better place and
even sleep a tiny bit better at night knowing
that there are few potential headaches out there
waiting to be dealt with.)