I bet that, at $1.50, there will be a large market for gray-/black-market imported copies to the U.S. Even if you factor in buying a DVD player with a Chinese region code, compare $1.50 to $20 and the DVD player has paid for itself within a few movies.
If you had, you may find that the patent goes a little further than just saying "take search, and add voice recognition". Oh wait - what site am I on again?
Yes, it does. It takes the probabilities that the voice recognition system outputs for various phrases (if you say "free ipod" it might recognize "free ipod" with a 90% chance and "free eye pod" with a 10% chance, since it's never totally sure what you said) and feeds them into the search engine as weights. Basically, it does use more useful information than just searching for the most likely phrase. I don't know if this would in fact help search results, since I would guess most people would prefer having to occasionally reissue a misrecognized query to having a certain percentage of their results be from a misrecognized query each time. We'll see.
How do you spell "copyright infringement"? Isn't this like taking a shelf full of books and making copies of them to save people the "trouble" (read: expense or ad impressions) of getting them themselves? I know this may have a good purpose, like providing web information to the developing world, but they've gotta see the copyright issues.
What's that honey? You say you like your Powerbook better? Nonsense, this new computer will work MUCH better, it says so right here in the information.
Note: There is on-topic content after this large rant.
Good. <rant>I'm fucking sick of Apple users. I'm so tired of whiny people babbling in their pidgin computerese about how "Macs are so much easier to use" and "they never get viruses" and "they never break". Macs do have viruses. They're not easier to use for any real definition of "easy". Most of the Mac users I know whine stuff like "Thomas, the computer's not working!" and I say "What's it doing?" and they say "I dunno, it's showing this weird thing and won't let me log on." Usually someone else left it logged on and it fell asleep and locked the workstation. But nobody ever actually reads the message to see why they can't log in. The viruses are probably written for Mac and PC in about the same proportion as other software is developed. Besides, most of the problems people have with PC's are that they never bothered to run antivirus or spyware scans. Lastly, PC's don't break either. At school I have a maybe 8-year-old (533 MHz Celeron, 64 MB RAM) eMachines desktop that's still chugging away running Gentoo Linux. It works fine.</rant>
I really don't want to hear any complaints about how I'm overlooking usability issues and how Joe Luser can't be expected to know all this. I'm just sick of listening to users. I don't know or care how to fix the problem. As long as I have a working Linux desktop, and I can get on to the network, I'm happy.
Now, about the laptops... ThinkPads are better than PowerBooks. ThinkPads are cheaper, more rugged (just Google, there are tons of survival stories), have better keyboards (no having to press Fn + Option + Command + Control + Shift + Alt + Hyper + Meta + Cokebottle just to bring the cursor to the beginning of the line), are much faster (well, just as fast, what with the MacBook and all), and look and act more like useful pieces of computer equipment than pieces of modern art. Plus, if I was getting a laptop, I would want it to be a PC so I wouldn't have to fuck with EFI, TPM, and the rest of the "Oh, we forgot the BIOS. How convenient. We weren't trying to prevent Windows from booting, it's just a pleasant coincidence!" rigamarole just to get Linux to boot. Plus they have eraser head pointing devices (TrackPoints) which are infinitely superior to trackpads (less hand movement--I used to hate them, but I tried one and they're actually quite nice). And they have multiple mouse buttons. One mouse button is ridiculous.
any unauthorized connection or attempt to connect to a computer is illegal.
Does that mean if I go to someone's website without being explicitly authorized, I can be sued? Okay, clearly not. How about if I ping the web site? Iffy. What if my browser pings the site automatically for some diagnostic purpose? What if it's running echo, chargen, discard, or any of the other traditional diagnostic daemons? Surely they haven't authorized me to use them, but they offered them. I guess my question is like the unsecured WiFi =?= public WiFi one... at what point does opening an address or specific port to the public constitute authorization to at least try to connect to it?
It's not a function, it's a machine code instruction. This means you also can't override it by simply changing the CpuId function in some DLL. You'd have to trap the instruction itself.
AUGH! First it was "Where do you want to go today?", now it's "Do you know where I can go?"... Next, it will be "Do you know where I will take you today?", and then who knows what. This is a cryptic, subconscious way for Microsoft to convince us that DRM and restrictions (like 8 versions of Vista, with 7 that suck) are good. You *will* be taken where they want. Resistance is futile, etc, etc...
many women keep their cell phones in their purse/bag
Well that's just stupid. My mom does that and every time I call her, I have to call twice: once so she can dig the phone out of the bag just as it stops ringing, and again so she can actually answer it. If I'm lucky, as it's ringing the second time, my phone beeps at me, and she has called me back at the same time. It's ridiculous. Just put your phone in your pocket or a belt clip.
At this point, I'd never apply for the job in the first place. If this hits mainstream media, they're probably going to have a huge shortage of applicants very soon. (Unless they're weirdos who *want* RFID chips implanted in them.
Here, I did two (because there are at least 2 quite different routes):
phoenix tom # traceroute google.com
traceroute: Warning: google.com has multiple addresses; using 72.14.207.99
traceroute to 72.14.207.99 (72.14.207.99), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 squirrel (10.42.0.3) 1.375 ms 1.094 ms 1.063 ms
2 10.9.99.1 (10.9.99.1) 79.353 ms 83.219 ms 83.997 ms
3 at-1-2-0-1718.CORE-RTR1.BOS.verizon-gni.net (130.81.9.241) 78.404 ms 75.700 ms 72.539 ms
4 130.81.20.84 (130.81.20.84) 67.415 ms 63.912 ms 59.964 ms
5 so-6-0-0-0.PEER-RTR1.BOS.verizon-gni.net (130.81.17.169) 27.983 ms 33.004 ms 27.986 ms
6 so-9-1.car1.Boston1.Level3.net (4.79.0.33) 35.747 ms 27.691 ms 27.961 ms
7 ae-2-56.mp2.Boston1.Level3.net (4.68.100.161) 76.152 ms 63.684 ms ae-2-54.mp2.Boston1.Level3.net (4.68.100.97) 35.987 ms
8 ae-0-0.bbr2.NewYork1.Level3.net (64.159.1.42) 39.451 ms so-0-0-0.bbr1.NewYork1.Level3.net (64.159.4.182) 80.120 ms ae-0-0.bbr2.NewYork1.Level3.net (64.159.1.42) 35.657 ms
9 ae-11-53.car1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.68.97.84) 34.576 ms 35.671 ms ae-21-52.car1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.68.97.52) 36.666 ms
10 4.78.164.70 (4.78.164.70) 35.791 ms 39.789 ms 39.974 ms
11 72.14.236.219 (72.14.236.219) 56.772 ms 49.116 ms 48.352 ms
12 66.249.94.74 (66.249.94.74) 94.219 ms 80.020 ms 80.321 ms
13 66.249.94.92 (66.249.94.92) 48.350 ms 66.249.94.96 (66.249.94.96) 52.227 ms 49.391 ms
14 72.14.236.134 (72.14.236.134) 60.407 ms 55.273 ms 55.916 ms
15 72.14.207.99 (72.14.207.99) 50.010 ms 50.787 ms 55.452 ms
phoenix tom # traceroute google.com
traceroute: Warning: google.com has multiple addresses; using 64.233.187.99
traceroute to 64.233.187.99 (64.233.187.99), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 squirrel (10.42.0.3) 1.825 ms 1.362 ms 1.180 ms
2 10.9.99.1 (10.9.99.1) 83.544 ms 77.554 ms 72.417 ms
3 at-1-2-0-1719.CORE-RTR2.BOS.verizon-gni.net (130.81.9.245) 69.335 ms 74.807 ms 63.827 ms
4 so-7-0-0-0.CORE-RTR1.BOS.verizon-gni.net (130.81.18.186) 70.784 ms 69.190 ms 62.549 ms
5 130.81.20.84 (130.81.20.84) 61.461 ms 64.456 ms 66.874 ms
6 so-6-2-0-0.BB-RTR2.NY325.verizon-gni.net (130.81.12.121) 48.729 ms 47.240 ms 49.369 ms
7 so-7-0-0-0.PEER-RTR1.NY111.verizon-gni.net (130.81.17.131) 69.129 ms 75.273 ms 76.344 ms
8 so-6-0-0.pr2.lga1.us.above.net (64.125.13.33) 76.382 ms 73.561 ms 71.330 ms
9 so-5-0-0.cr2.lga1.us.above.net (64.125.27.138) 79.563 ms 79.947 ms 85.149 ms
10 so-1-0-0.mpr2.iad1.us.above.net (64.125.28.65) 146.020 ms 145.121 ms 142.770 ms
11 so-3-0-0.mpr2.iad5.us.above.net (64.125.28.14) 45.179 ms 50.721 ms 46.601 ms
12 216.200.151.110.available.above.net (216.200.151.110) 49.554 ms 37.912 ms 59.869 ms
13 216.239.46.248 (216.239.46.248) 58.487 ms 40.417 ms 41.803 ms
14 72.14.238.232 (72.14.238.232) 84.446 ms 82.150 ms 87.385 ms
15 72.14.238.97 (72.14.238.97) 62.033 ms 72.14.238.235 (72.14.238.235) 51.628 ms 72.14.238.233 (72.14.238.233) 94.620 ms
16 64.233.175.99 (64.233.175.99) 67.777 ms 63.810 ms 66.249.95.125 (66.249.95.125) 51.729 ms
17 72.14.236.15 (72.14.236.15) 82.722 ms 90.601 ms 91.623 ms
18 216.239.49.222 (216.239.49.222) 56.323 ms 57.346 ms 62.467 ms
19 64.233.187.99 (64.233.187.99) 59.591 ms 57.733 ms 57.993 ms
my laptop is under a constant 100% CPU load due to constant recompiling.
Oh, you're not the only one!;-)
Personally I prefer to run compiles overnight while it's plugged in, but... to each his own. BTW, powermgr is great at minimizing the impact of compilation to your battery life. Just set PORTAGE_NICENESS to a positive value and then select a CPU governor that ignores nice time. Then compiles won't make your CPU run faster, but your own processes will.
I'd be glad to add features to do such things to powermgr; just tell me what package is required and the command to execute, and I'll add support for it. Personally, I only have an Asus laptop, so the Dell, IBM, Omnibook, and Toshiba features were mostly added by reading the man pages for the respective tools. Thus I would need a good description of how to activate a feature before I can implement it.
Once you know how, post it in the SF.net tracker, or, if you can't, email it to me at thomastuttle(at)users.sourceforge.net.
Thanks.;-) The code is pretty good, given that it was my first attempt at a not-tiny, not-CGI project in Perl. Sorry about the linkage, but it saves me from having to update the link on the homepage (powermgr.sf.net) every time I put out a new release.
I'll take a look at the Gentoo-specific issues; if you could file a bug report on the tracker or, in lieu of that, send me an email at thomastuttle(at)users.sourceforge.net, I'll probably get to it sooner.
This is probably due to a timing issue where powermgr is still checking the system when you plug it back in the second time; I'll take a look at it. Please post bug reports on the SF.net tracker or, if you don't have a SF.net login, email them to thomastuttle(at)users.sourceforge.net. I'd be glad to try to fix any problems you have.
There's no particular emphasis on laptops; it's just that laptops are the main use for it. It would probably work just as well on a desktop, but it would be less useful, because its main "feature" is the ability to automatically select profiles. If you just want to set up a CPU governor in the kernel to keep your CPU cooler when idle, you don't need powermgr. Also, more laptops have proprietary (non-ACPI and non-cpufreq) systems with nonstandard driver interfaces, and powermgr allows you to use, for example, the Dell laptop extensions, in the same way you would use the regular ACPI features.
Never mind... the $18 is only a one-year promotional price, then it jumps to $36. And I got a similar deal with Verizon, it was something like $10 off first three months or something. Shorter and less, but mine's still cheaper in the long run. And it doesn't have a 2-year contract.
Slashdot Mirror
Code Monkey.mp3 mirrored here.
I bet that, at $1.50, there will be a large market for gray-/black-market imported copies to the U.S. Even if you factor in buying a DVD player with a Chinese region code, compare $1.50 to $20 and the DVD player has paid for itself within a few movies.
Otherwise, this sounds like a great idea.
Yes, it does. It takes the probabilities that the voice recognition system outputs for various phrases (if you say "free ipod" it might recognize "free ipod" with a 90% chance and "free eye pod" with a 10% chance, since it's never totally sure what you said) and feeds them into the search engine as weights. Basically, it does use more useful information than just searching for the most likely phrase. I don't know if this would in fact help search results, since I would guess most people would prefer having to occasionally reissue a misrecognized query to having a certain percentage of their results be from a misrecognized query each time. We'll see.
How do you spell "copyright infringement"? Isn't this like taking a shelf full of books and making copies of them to save people the "trouble" (read: expense or ad impressions) of getting them themselves? I know this may have a good purpose, like providing web information to the developing world, but they've gotta see the copyright issues.
If you had published your email, I'm sure you'd have 500 encrypted "Hello, world!" emails from other Slashdot readers.
I would like to be one of many to say... yay for common sense! Really. Games are games.
Note: There is on-topic content after this large rant.
Good. <rant>I'm fucking sick of Apple users. I'm so tired of whiny people babbling in their pidgin computerese about how "Macs are so much easier to use" and "they never get viruses" and "they never break". Macs do have viruses. They're not easier to use for any real definition of "easy". Most of the Mac users I know whine stuff like "Thomas, the computer's not working!" and I say "What's it doing?" and they say "I dunno, it's showing this weird thing and won't let me log on." Usually someone else left it logged on and it fell asleep and locked the workstation. But nobody ever actually reads the message to see why they can't log in. The viruses are probably written for Mac and PC in about the same proportion as other software is developed. Besides, most of the problems people have with PC's are that they never bothered to run antivirus or spyware scans. Lastly, PC's don't break either. At school I have a maybe 8-year-old (533 MHz Celeron, 64 MB RAM) eMachines desktop that's still chugging away running Gentoo Linux. It works fine.</rant>
I really don't want to hear any complaints about how I'm overlooking usability issues and how Joe Luser can't be expected to know all this. I'm just sick of listening to users. I don't know or care how to fix the problem. As long as I have a working Linux desktop, and I can get on to the network, I'm happy.
Now, about the laptops... ThinkPads are better than PowerBooks. ThinkPads are cheaper, more rugged (just Google, there are tons of survival stories), have better keyboards (no having to press Fn + Option + Command + Control + Shift + Alt + Hyper + Meta + Cokebottle just to bring the cursor to the beginning of the line), are much faster (well, just as fast, what with the MacBook and all), and look and act more like useful pieces of computer equipment than pieces of modern art. Plus, if I was getting a laptop, I would want it to be a PC so I wouldn't have to fuck with EFI, TPM, and the rest of the "Oh, we forgot the BIOS. How convenient. We weren't trying to prevent Windows from booting, it's just a pleasant coincidence!" rigamarole just to get Linux to boot. Plus they have eraser head pointing devices (TrackPoints) which are infinitely superior to trackpads (less hand movement--I used to hate them, but I tried one and they're actually quite nice). And they have multiple mouse buttons. One mouse button is ridiculous.
Does that mean if I go to someone's website without being explicitly authorized, I can be sued? Okay, clearly not. How about if I ping the web site? Iffy. What if my browser pings the site automatically for some diagnostic purpose? What if it's running echo, chargen, discard, or any of the other traditional diagnostic daemons? Surely they haven't authorized me to use them, but they offered them. I guess my question is like the unsecured WiFi =?= public WiFi one... at what point does opening an address or specific port to the public constitute authorization to at least try to connect to it?
It's not a function, it's a machine code instruction. This means you also can't override it by simply changing the CpuId function in some DLL. You'd have to trap the instruction itself.
Personally, I would rather picture Clippy being mangled as I use him to hotwire a car's ignition.
AUGH! First it was "Where do you want to go today?", now it's "Do you know where I can go?"... Next, it will be "Do you know where I will take you today?", and then who knows what. This is a cryptic, subconscious way for Microsoft to convince us that DRM and restrictions (like 8 versions of Vista, with 7 that suck) are good. You *will* be taken where they want. Resistance is futile, etc, etc...
Let's see...
Um, yeah. That's about it. Hardware donations happily accepted.
Yes and no. My mom's been known to have a tote bag, inside of which is her purse, inside which is a small case, inside of which is her phone.
Well that's just stupid. My mom does that and every time I call her, I have to call twice: once so she can dig the phone out of the bag just as it stops ringing, and again so she can actually answer it. If I'm lucky, as it's ringing the second time, my phone beeps at me, and she has called me back at the same time. It's ridiculous. Just put your phone in your pocket or a belt clip.
At this point, I'd never apply for the job in the first place. If this hits mainstream media, they're probably going to have a huge shortage of applicants very soon. (Unless they're weirdos who *want* RFID chips implanted in them.
<AOL>Me too!</gt>
Seriously, I freaking hate it when people use "gift" as a verb. What the hell is wrong with the verb give? It's the freaking root of the word "gift"!
Here, I did two (because there are at least 2 quite different routes):
phoenix tom # traceroute google.comtraceroute: Warning: google.com has multiple addresses; using 72.14.207.99
traceroute to 72.14.207.99 (72.14.207.99), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 squirrel (10.42.0.3) 1.375 ms 1.094 ms 1.063 ms
2 10.9.99.1 (10.9.99.1) 79.353 ms 83.219 ms 83.997 ms
3 at-1-2-0-1718.CORE-RTR1.BOS.verizon-gni.net (130.81.9.241) 78.404 ms 75.700 ms 72.539 ms
4 130.81.20.84 (130.81.20.84) 67.415 ms 63.912 ms 59.964 ms
5 so-6-0-0-0.PEER-RTR1.BOS.verizon-gni.net (130.81.17.169) 27.983 ms 33.004 ms 27.986 ms
6 so-9-1.car1.Boston1.Level3.net (4.79.0.33) 35.747 ms 27.691 ms 27.961 ms
7 ae-2-56.mp2.Boston1.Level3.net (4.68.100.161) 76.152 ms 63.684 ms ae-2-54.mp2.Boston1.Level3.net (4.68.100.97) 35.987 ms
8 ae-0-0.bbr2.NewYork1.Level3.net (64.159.1.42) 39.451 ms so-0-0-0.bbr1.NewYork1.Level3.net (64.159.4.182) 80.120 ms ae-0-0.bbr2.NewYork1.Level3.net (64.159.1.42) 35.657 ms
9 ae-11-53.car1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.68.97.84) 34.576 ms 35.671 ms ae-21-52.car1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.68.97.52) 36.666 ms
10 4.78.164.70 (4.78.164.70) 35.791 ms 39.789 ms 39.974 ms
11 72.14.236.219 (72.14.236.219) 56.772 ms 49.116 ms 48.352 ms
12 66.249.94.74 (66.249.94.74) 94.219 ms 80.020 ms 80.321 ms
13 66.249.94.92 (66.249.94.92) 48.350 ms 66.249.94.96 (66.249.94.96) 52.227 ms 49.391 ms
14 72.14.236.134 (72.14.236.134) 60.407 ms 55.273 ms 55.916 ms
15 72.14.207.99 (72.14.207.99) 50.010 ms 50.787 ms 55.452 ms
phoenix tom # traceroute google.com
traceroute: Warning: google.com has multiple addresses; using 64.233.187.99
traceroute to 64.233.187.99 (64.233.187.99), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 squirrel (10.42.0.3) 1.825 ms 1.362 ms 1.180 ms
2 10.9.99.1 (10.9.99.1) 83.544 ms 77.554 ms 72.417 ms
3 at-1-2-0-1719.CORE-RTR2.BOS.verizon-gni.net (130.81.9.245) 69.335 ms 74.807 ms 63.827 ms
4 so-7-0-0-0.CORE-RTR1.BOS.verizon-gni.net (130.81.18.186) 70.784 ms 69.190 ms 62.549 ms
5 130.81.20.84 (130.81.20.84) 61.461 ms 64.456 ms 66.874 ms
6 so-6-2-0-0.BB-RTR2.NY325.verizon-gni.net (130.81.12.121) 48.729 ms 47.240 ms 49.369 ms
7 so-7-0-0-0.PEER-RTR1.NY111.verizon-gni.net (130.81.17.131) 69.129 ms 75.273 ms 76.344 ms
8 so-6-0-0.pr2.lga1.us.above.net (64.125.13.33) 76.382 ms 73.561 ms 71.330 ms
9 so-5-0-0.cr2.lga1.us.above.net (64.125.27.138) 79.563 ms 79.947 ms 85.149 ms
10 so-1-0-0.mpr2.iad1.us.above.net (64.125.28.65) 146.020 ms 145.121 ms 142.770 ms
11 so-3-0-0.mpr2.iad5.us.above.net (64.125.28.14) 45.179 ms 50.721 ms 46.601 ms
12 216.200.151.110.available.above.net (216.200.151.110) 49.554 ms 37.912 ms 59.869 ms
13 216.239.46.248 (216.239.46.248) 58.487 ms 40.417 ms 41.803 ms
14 72.14.238.232 (72.14.238.232) 84.446 ms 82.150 ms 87.385 ms
15 72.14.238.97 (72.14.238.97) 62.033 ms 72.14.238.235 (72.14.238.235) 51.628 ms 72.14.238.233 (72.14.238.233) 94.620 ms
16 64.233.175.99 (64.233.175.99) 67.777 ms 63.810 ms 66.249.95.125 (66.249.95.125) 51.729 ms
17 72.14.236.15 (72.14.236.15) 82.722 ms 90.601 ms 91.623 ms
18 216.239.49.222 (216.239.49.222) 56.323 ms 57.346 ms 62.467 ms
19 64.233.187.99 (64.233.187.99) 59.591 ms 57.733 ms 57.993 ms
Oh, you're not the only one! ;-)
Personally I prefer to run compiles overnight while it's plugged in, but... to each his own. BTW, powermgr is great at minimizing the impact of compilation to your battery life. Just set PORTAGE_NICENESS to a positive value and then select a CPU governor that ignores nice time. Then compiles won't make your CPU run faster, but your own processes will.
The laptop-mode-tools script that powermgr calls (or that you use, without powermgr) can and should do this automatically.
I'd be glad to add features to do such things to powermgr; just tell me what package is required and the command to execute, and I'll add support for it. Personally, I only have an Asus laptop, so the Dell, IBM, Omnibook, and Toshiba features were mostly added by reading the man pages for the respective tools. Thus I would need a good description of how to activate a feature before I can implement it.
Once you know how, post it in the SF.net tracker, or, if you can't, email it to me at thomastuttle(at)users.sourceforge.net.
Thanks. ;-) The code is pretty good, given that it was my first attempt at a not-tiny, not-CGI project in Perl. Sorry about the linkage, but it saves me from having to update the link on the homepage (powermgr.sf.net) every time I put out a new release.
I'll take a look at the Gentoo-specific issues; if you could file a bug report on the tracker or, in lieu of that, send me an email at thomastuttle(at)users.sourceforge.net, I'll probably get to it sooner.
This is probably due to a timing issue where powermgr is still checking the system when you plug it back in the second time; I'll take a look at it. Please post bug reports on the SF.net tracker or, if you don't have a SF.net login, email them to thomastuttle(at)users.sourceforge.net. I'd be glad to try to fix any problems you have.
There's no particular emphasis on laptops; it's just that laptops are the main use for it. It would probably work just as well on a desktop, but it would be less useful, because its main "feature" is the ability to automatically select profiles. If you just want to set up a CPU governor in the kernel to keep your CPU cooler when idle, you don't need powermgr. Also, more laptops have proprietary (non-ACPI and non-cpufreq) systems with nonstandard driver interfaces, and powermgr allows you to use, for example, the Dell laptop extensions, in the same way you would use the regular ACPI features.
Never mind... the $18 is only a one-year promotional price, then it jumps to $36. And I got a similar deal with Verizon, it was something like $10 off first three months or something. Shorter and less, but mine's still cheaper in the long run. And it doesn't have a 2-year contract.
You mean from Verizon or from AT&T/SBC? Because if that's from AT&T I'll be pissed.